#it's set in real history so you don't have to worry about learning a bunch of lore

[howtofightwrite]

I'm writing a setting bible for a future campaign I'm running for NaNoWriMo, so at the "toss everything at the wall and see what sticks", but kinda running out of fumes for ideas. It's located in an island with magical resources, and there's a barrier in the sea around it that let things in, but prevent anything from going out from the island.

As part of the brainstorming process, I'm putting in firearms (at best early cartridge tech), mechas, and skyships in a fantasy vague-renaissance time period.

As this is an island where the rest of the world would often dump their exiles in, I'm kinda wondering how the societies in the island that were once a colonization project would developed, or how the presence of the aforementioned tech would shake things up in the arms race, or what factors do I have to consider in these sort of things?

So, this is a bunch of different questions, and I'm going to peel a few out in no particular order.

When you're running out of ideas, especially when you're working on a setting bible, usually means you're not reading enough (or, not consuming enough media in general.) For this kind of work, it's often enough to skim through a large volume of material. You're not looking for the entire story, you're just looking for component pieces you can grab and reassemble into new forms.

Setting bibles (at least in my personal experience) tend to expand far beyond anything that will be included in the final work, and can include a lot of incomplete concepts that you might want to flesh out somewhere down the line, but won't be relevant for what you're currently working on.

As for the specific question you're asking, “what should you consider?” Ironically, with situations like this, looking at real world history can be incredibly informative. Yeah, there were no steampunk mechas stomping around Australia back when Britain was dumping their convicts there, but it's a much easier process of going from looking at real history and then asking, “but, what if mechas?”

Similarly, looking at prison micro-culture in the real world, and the sociology associated with that, could give you some serious insights into how this stuff would develop in your world. I'm not saying you need to read something like A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, but even Solzhenitsyn would be  a pretty good point of reference to start working out what live in that prison colony might look like. The major warning here is that prison sociology tends to be extremely difficult and depressing material. Depending on your outlook on human nature, and how emotionally resilient you are, this might not be a topic you really want to study in depth.

I realize this might not be extremely helpful, but the old standard advice holds true: Read everything. It doesn't matter if it's fiction, non-fiction, myth, science. Hell, it doesn't even need to be reading, if you're getting interesting ideas out of movies, TV, or video games, ideas are still ideas.

Something that can be worth remembering, when you're poking around looking for ideas, don't worry about replicating the idea, pay attention to the first impression of that idea which caught your interest and build off of that. For example, if you start studying Australian history, and you come across The Great Emu War of 1932, the image that creates in your head before you dig in and learn the (utterly deranged) details is an entirely valid inspiration to take for your work. The historical details may also help you flesh out that inspiration, or in studying the details you may latch onto an even better way to make it your own.

Also, on a creative front, it's entirely valid to sit back, take a minute, disengage, and only return after you've come up with an idea you're happy with. This isn't a race to get an idea first, it is a case where taking the time, and coming back with the right solution, is the superior approach.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get early access to new posts, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

#starke answers #writing advice #how to fight write #writing reference #writing tips #world building

[thesilverlady]

Omg you ship book rhaegon and lucemond before the show? One of the rare few (sorry i just saw your prev ask while browsing those two tags). Because of that i would love to know your thoughts seeing these two ships pop off because of the show (especially lucemond since its top 3 popular ship in hotd fandom). What does it feel like seeing these crack ship before in your head to suddenly gain sm popularity now? Also i really want to know the difference between the book ships and the show ships and why the book ship attracted you initially? Thanks in advance if you ever answer!

hi! no need to apologize 🥰 Yeah I shipped both of these pre-show and it was definitely an experience. There were 0 lucemond fics and only 2 rhaegon ones to which I still have them bookmarked out of nostalgia 🙈

about the first question: my thoughts upon seeing these two ships pop off are kinda contradictory. For rhaegon, I'm glad people see the potential but due to hotd portrayal lots of the fics are smut (which I have no problem with ofc but I generally prefer plot fics) or some characterizations are entirely based on the show (like Aegon being an airhead and only a toy with 0 ambition /Rhaenyra being manipulative and always in control etc) So i leave a kudo for support and hope I'll find what I'm looking for later.

With lucemond I have a better luck because the community is much bigger, and there's so much variety to choose from. I'm very satisfied with them rising to top 3, and I hope they stay there.

So I'd say overall a mixed of bittersweet and smugness. Trust me, if I had a coin for the amount of times I've been called delulu for shipping these ships pre-show I'd be rich by now. There's also a certain amount of validation that comes with finally being able to actually speak about these pairs without worrying too much that a mob will start throwing you tomatoes. And all fanarts are absolutely a treat. 😊

in regards of the differences between book ships vs the show ships, keep in mind i don't speak for the entire rhaegon/lucemond community and I know a big bunch will even disagree with this:

for lucemond, I admit the show did more for them in certain aspects. Like growing up together, certain camera angle choices etc The big difference is again the characterization - which the show ignores a lot. Basically what hotd does is change traits but keep the results the same. So for example, Aemond in the show is supposed to be this calm/in control guy who is into philosophy and history and is more "suitable" to be king compared to his elder brother, but then you have his canon actions (insulting/challenging/chasing an envoy) coming up and that hardly makes sense. In f&b the antagonism is built more properly and you can see why the characters do what they do.

for rhaegon, we didn't even have any scene of the two together (a crime truly) but lots of people find the actors attractive and others love the people-from-opposite-side that goes on with team black/green. So I'd say show rhaegon is mostly vibes while in the book i found things to grab onto.

In f&b we already get seeds to plant the idea from the moment Aegon is born. Otto constantly brought up the succession order so many times he was fired because of it.

Then there's the entire post-daemyra drama when Rhaneyra is still looking for a husband and Alicent kept suggesting for Aegon to be betrothed to Rhaenyra. We learn from that paragraph that "the two half-siblings had never gotten on well" which let's be for real, already sets for an interesting drama if the marriage was to happen.

We also have Aegon's first refusal of the throne before Cole added preasure. “My sister is the heir, not me. What sort of brother steals his sister’s birthright?” I've seen some people (usually antis) believing that perhaps he never said this and the Septon lied to make him look good. Well, I say that's bs because I always believe the truth in f&b is somewhere in between so this moment definitely happened and given how we knew the two didn't even get along in childhood, I find it a very interesting development.

And of course I can't forget Rhaenyra's iconic death - which is by Aegon's dragon and I can delude myself into getting some crimes of passion ™ vibes

As for lucemond, I don't really have anything deep to say. 😅. The fight that costed Aemond his eye + the quote "Prince Lucerys might have been able to outfly his pursuer, [...] but the day was as black as Prince Aemond’s heart" were kinda enough for me to go 👀 oh he truly hates him..... You see, the fight that made Aemond lose his eye was kinda more brutal; he had 3 kids to deal with, not 5. And they were all so young in comparison. Jace was 6, Luke 5 and Joffrey 3 while Aemond was 10. He was able to beat them all until Lucerys slashed him across the face and I imagine he took such a huge hit on his pride because of it.

When they all have the family dinner years later we're told that "Aemond had become a dangerous swordsman [...] but remained a wild and willful child, hot-tempered and unforgiving." So I thought those scenes + lucerys death kinda serve the obsessed trope™ which I'm very into

I hope my reply was intelligible ♥ it's 3 am as I'm writing this so I imagine i may have not explained some stuff properly. Either way let me know and thank you for the ask.

#lucemond #rhaegon #f&b meta #anti hotd #ask reply

[error404vnotfound]

omg V you are a math major??? that's so cool! it's going to sound like really needy on my end right now but I literally found people who study math so interesting because I have a love-hate relationship with math so on the one hand I'm like "damn i wish I had been better in math" and on the other I'm like "why would I do that to myself?"

anyway if you want to could you like explain to me more about your subjects and the major perhaps? like what do you study (I mean math duh but like)

also history of math sounds like something I would love ng

l@ink-fireplace-coffee

HI !!!!!!

don't worry at all about this really. also being bad at math in high school it totally understandable (it is rarely taught well because there's no fucking time to get into what makes math cool so you just get methods and formulas for the engineering girlies to be able to use when they go to college) (also it's never to late to learn more math !!!! and you can decide to learn the cooler math (or just become familiar with them) there's a bunch of YouTube channels that make math fun to learn about)

also the "why would i do this to myself" SO TRUE. we ask ourselves this question constantly (the answer most of the time is that we all liked multiple degrees in different fields and ended up choosing math because???? it's what sounded most exciting to us????) (more insane things to think and say i know)

i love talking about this cursed degree don't worry :]

(cut because it got very long)

so. math is a big ass field with many branches. you also got pure mathematics and applied mathematics, and we get to study it all (help us)

there's calculus, algebra, geometry and statistics and probability as the "main" branches. we also take some coding classes (in C. for some reason) (because of course we do) (it's like instead of using a calculator we are using an abacus)

first year is basically so we get a good base for everything we are gonna be doing later on (like most stem degrees, only they learn all the math they'll their first year while we are stuck not being able to do stuff we learnt in high school because it hasn't been proved to us yet) (we get introduced to probability, do calculus both differential and integral in one variable and learn linear algebra) (we also had one physics class for some reason)

we take a class on mathematical language and reasoning too (learn ways to prove stuff, logic reasoning and tools that will be used in other languages) (we also learn how to build the different sets of numbers that was pretty cool). then after this class we also take arithmetics which is very cool and also a pain in the ass

from here on every semester builds on top of what we learnt the previous one. we go from calculus in one variable to two variables, then there's complex analysis, etc. algebra splits into pure algebra (groups and rings and very technical stuff that's very important but very dense) and geometry (linear and projective) and topology, then there's differential geometry and so on. we go more in depth into probability and statistics too

then there's also the standalone classes we take. there's numerical methods (which is why we had to learn to code. they are ways to approximate things irl because nothing is exact), then we have history of mathematics my beloved, graphs (very cool subject), and mathematical models and dynamical systems (heavily applying calculus to real life. think the covid prediction models that was this)

we also get a bunch of optatives to go more in depth if we want to, and we can also take some physics, economics or tech classes to get a minor in them

for some subjects this is very cool because the field is beautifully build. you start small or with what you want to do and things just fall into place (linear algebra, geometry, topology). then there's calculus (we hate calculus in this household). solving problems is fun but by god who came up with all this bullshit I just wanna talk (it's just unnecessarily convoluted imo)

as for how each subject is structured it's all the same: definitions, properties, lemas, propositions, and theorems (and their proofs). then the teacher shows us how to apply the theory to some problems and we usually have a laboratory to show we understood it

we basically learn the Why and How of it all :]

and yeah that's basically it. idk if I answered your questions but you can always ask!!!

:]

#ask:null #i love this degree i really do #sometimes it's ridiculous what we have to learn and do but i love it

[fhylie]

Another post about my 5ED&D game.

I'm doing this kind of scattershot since that's the way my brain works. Reasonably I should post some stuff about the world or the main city that most of the game has taken place in. So, let's talk about that aspect of the present setting.

Because it's D&D and you're contriving a bunch of things so that there can be wizards and clerics and the like in a pseudo-medieval setting, I decided to draw on some known sources. Many of the naming schemes I decided to use language groups from southern Europe (primarily Basque and Occitan for the predominant human group in the area, with others using Portuguese, Spanish, Lombard, Corsican, and Italian). I certainly wanted to draw on a Mediterranean feel for the place.

A major thing to understand is that the planet the campaign takes place on is tidally locked to its star, with a small amount of "wobble" that approximates seasons, but causing both the 'bright' and 'dark' sides of the planets to be inhospitable under normal circumstances. Most sentient races live in the wide(-ish) habitable band between these extremes, and have developed different strategies and beliefs to deal with the resulting eternal day or night.

The beginning of the campaign (most of it actually) has taken place in a mostly human city called Sanctuary, established on the continent of Thet about 1500 years ago during a time when humanity was fleeing some of the consequences of their own actions in learning and implementing magic. Basically, the "find out" after the "fuck around" part included a set of two planet-wide catastrophes that are somewhat lumped together due to an effective dark age of record-keeping in their wake, but these will have to be another post on their own.

Sanctuary is a fantasy megalopolis of interconnected cities and boroughs, a few million people sprawled out along the south coast of the continent. As you might understand, that's an unreasonable amount of people for a medieval-esque city, and I wanted it to be unmanageable and an enormous bureaucratic and logistical struggle for its ruling class to handle, forcing them by necessity to lean hard on the use of magic to address or reinforce fundamental issues.

(Don't worry; I remembered that people need to eat food. There are wide areas of farmland to the north and east of the city, but even that has to be propped up by government soil fertility programs.)

The borders of the city-nation are threefold: first, a long, semi-encircling curtain wall miles and miles in length around the non-coastal perimeter of the city (but not outlying villages or farmland), perhaps uselessly, since in most directions Sanctuary doesn't have a real major threat that walls would be useful against; second, an arcane construct called the Fence, administered by the College in a widescale effort to keep the Mist at bay (though astute observers might note that using magic to keep magic at bay is silly); and third, outlying military fortifications, naval patrols, and magical scrying which are all designed to function autonomously from the other borders and report only to the city's Crown Council.

Speaking of this, the city government is a massive tangle of layers of bureacracy ruled by a semi-effective noble class whose power base tends to be their grip over important aspects of the city (various aspects military, magic, finance, infrastructure, etc), without any one family necessarily having full control over any of these aspects. There's no king, because of, well, past mistakes and treaties, and instead the city-nation is ruled by a body loosely resembling noble electors of the Holy Roman Empire in our history. The highest body, the Crown Council, is made up of seven electors, generally from noble families, representing the Castle (military), the Road (making the entire place run), the Vault (banks and finance), the Guard (intentionally separated from the military), the Craftsman (currently Craftswoman, but representing the industrial base), and the Book (representing mages and magical forces and defenses).

These are by no means the only powers in the area, of course. There's organized crime in the form of the Attendant, a gang of blackmailers and drug pushers, there's the Gallery of the Percipient, an underground library/cult who see the gathering of knowledge as above morality, the Leriva family, a smuggler group ruled by two dragonborn twins that really lean into the serpent vibes, the Horseman's Weight, a group of thugs attempting takeover of one of the city districts, and their rivals, the Honest Men, who on the surface say they really would just prefer the Guard roll back in and take care of things, but low-key prefer to handle things their own way with vigilante justice.

The mages of Sanctuary's College Arcane have as many or more factions as the noble scions that tend to fill the College's rolls. Wizardry and its application are expensive, and the coveted title of a Magister conferred by the College's approval of some form of reproducible or valuable work that the city can use. Weather magic, new kinds of potions, advances in warding, or sometimes just a convenient excuse to award a title by political appointment as long as there's at least some excuse for their competency. The environment itself results in a somewhat cutthroat press of noble scions, merchants' progeny looking for social advancement, and sponsored students engaged in a subtle dance for position, prestige, and perhaps most importantly, funding.

Sanctuary's culture in general is mildly supremacist and xenophobic, holding pure humans above what they term as demi-humans (you know, all the other races), but not expansionist, due to their fear of the outside world and the ways magic and the Mist might affect them. In fact, it's only in the past few decades that non-humans have enjoyed full rights as citizens rather than being an established underclass, and some bigotry and distrust still remains. This is not to say that the players wanted to roleplay racists, and in fact, I'm careful to portray this sort of thing as overtly evil and destructive, because it is. You gotta have bad guys, man.

Exterior to all this are, well, the exterior political influences on the city. Sanctuary's main peer nations are Arra, an island nation ruled by theocracy and a divine sage-king that has recently started to reach out and colonize nearby coastal land on the continent; the Fanno Empire, a declining nation of elves (in the high/wood elf sense) trying to reclaim its past glory as explorers and philosophers, but thrashing in belligerent and sometime violent outreach or outright exiling portions of their population based on internecine religious struggle; Am Allanar, a different nation of elves and fey (these elves being eladrin mechanically) who prefer to remain isolationist except where their ironclad bargains with powerful beings of the Feywild compel them to protect what they see as their borders; Leda, a collection of dragonborn nation-states ruled by immortal dragon-kings, who passively watch what they see as the inevitable decline of younger kingdoms; and the Yeherit, a militant theocracy insisting on the perfect harmony of their ancient philosophical system that just happens to be highly stratified and offer very minimal freedoms to its underclasses, though materially its citizens are safe, sheltered, and well-fed. All of these except for Arra and Am Allanar occupy other smaller or larger continents or island chains, and so ships and magical travel or remote contact become important to conduct political relations.

These lists are by no means exhaustive, but they are the major ones that have come up in the campaign, with one notable exception that I'll have to address in a later post: the aberration-dominated nation of Citlali, the main adversarial political structure of the campaign.

#dungeons & dragons #what lies beneath

[topherfoxtrot]

Thunderbolts: The hulk's personal protection team

Hey, here's the second episode of my fanon thunderbolts. Since last episode Emil Blonsky escaped from his imprisonment. He's probably going after the Hulk, right? John, Ava, Yelena, Justin and the mysterious Contessa Valentina attend to a presentation Bruce Banner is giving at MIT to find out. This one is more comedy leaned. It wasn't a conscious choice, it just sort of happened. But I'm glag it did. If you enjoy your read please like, share or comment something :D

Valentina hated those heels but something inside of her made she wear them anyways, even on grass. She was going first and foremost. Justin Hammer was right behind her jumping in excitement and giving a lot of useless yet interesting facts about MIT lore and culture. The rest of the thunderbolts were there too. John was wearing a cap and a 5 o'clock beard. Ava was wearing a huge gray sweater as she usually did. Yelena was rocking a leather jacket. For all purposes they did look like a group of college students.

"This place is huge!" Ava looked around, "I wish I went to college."

"What would you do?" John asked.

"I don't know. Anything except quantum physics I guess!" Ava laughed.

"I knew a quantum physics guy once." Justin thought out loud.

"Yeah you knew everyone." Yelena rolled her eyes, "You told that already. We been knew."

"Hey, no need to be so harsh. Your new equipment is my property and I can reclaim them at any time, remember?"

"Oh yeah I haven't used the tasers yet. Wanna help me out with that?" Yelena smirked.

"Behave, children." Valentina intervened, "We want doctor Banner to have a good first impression about us. Specially after the Blosnky incident." She side eyed Ava.

The campus was packed with people of all ages and all around the country and possibly the whole world too. There have been a lot of workshops and seminars the whole week, but today's main event was special: Bruce Banner was gonna give a presentation on the applications of biochemistry in robotics. Apparently the robot dogs running around campus were testing an engine that doesn't need gasoline or electric energy to work.

"I've seen those dogs before." John was reading an informative folder, "I don't think building them to never sleep is a good idea."

"I have a history of dangerous applications of robotics and I agree." Justin cleaned his glasses. The microfiber cloth had his name on it. "It can get out of hand rather quickly!"

"Now that I think about it Bruce Banner also has a history of dangerous applications of robotics." Yelena pointed out, "Y'all remember Ultron?"

"Mistakes are learning opportunities. I mean, not for them I guess." Valentina sighted, "Trust me those super idiots are always making mistakes and they never learn!" She said that last part in a loud whisper.

The presentation was supposed to happen at 4pm so they got there one hour earlier as the Contessa wanted. Doctor Banner was in the auditorium already. His big hands were setting the projector and his eyes were studying the obnoxiously small papers scattered across the table. As usual, the heels Valentina was wearing announced her presence.

"Doctor Banner." She greeted him formally.

"Hello." He analyzed her quickly, "How can I help you..? And you?" He looked at the thunderbolts arriving with the Contessa.

"Well, you see." Valentina took off her sunglasses, "It might actually be the other way around. We are the ones who are here to help."

"Oh." Bruce changed his posture to pay full attention at the lady.

"We are the thunderbolts and we are here to protect you Doctor Banner."

"Protect... me?" Bruce tried to sound polite.

"We have privileged information that confirms you might be in danger, man!" Justin put himself in front of Valentina, "We don't want to scare you or anything but the Abomination scaped his imprisonment!"

Bruce's eyes opened wide suddenly. It's been fifteen years since he saw Emil Blonsky. And as time passed by he caught himself thinking about the man less and less. Now however this distant memory became an immediate danger.

"Should I cancel the..?"

"No, of course not Doctor Banner!" Valentina waved her hand as if the whole situation was nothing but a little annoyance, "You can carry on with your presentation. The Thunderbolts are here to protect you. Also, my name is Valentina Allegra de La Fontiane, Contessa Valentina de La Fontiane. It's a lot to remember I know but don't worry, I'm hard to forget."

"Okay. The.. hm, thunderbolts." He looked at the weird bunch, "Hey aren't you the new Captain America?" He asked.

John looked down and then looked to the roof real quick, "I'm not Captain America anymore." He said between his teeth.

"Yeah there's a new new Captain America now." Valentina rolled her eyes, "But that's not important now, is it? We'll just sit here and wait for the presentation to be over. How about that?"

Bruce didn't trust the team quite yet, but he trusted himself to be his own protection so it was no big deal. Still, as the thunderbolts took their sits at the end of the room, Bruce grabbed his cellphone to check if Emil was really out. There was nothing on the news or on twitter which meant that either Valentina was lying or the government was hiding this information really well. Both options were equally plausible in Bruce's eyes so he decided to roll with it.

***

When the presentation started the lights went out. Yelena, Ava, John, Justin and Valentina were sitting on the last set of chairs. At some point Valentina got up to get a phonecall. John whispered to not disturb the presentation:

"So...who is she?"

"What do you mean?" Justin asked, also quietly.

"This... Contessa. I don't know. Her." He pointed at the exit door she just left through.

"Haven't you read the card?" Ava asked.

"What card? You mean the blank card? The one with nothing written on it?"

"It was written with invisible ink." Yelena clarified.

"Invisible ink?" John couldn't believe his own words.

"John that's the oldest trick in the book." Justin seemed interested in the presentation, "Espionage 101."

"I was black ops...!" John sounded offended. Someone shushed them so they stayed in silence for a while. Ava felt bad for John though.

"It doesn't matter if you read it or not." She whispered, "It's not like there was any key information there. It was just her name and this weird lightning symbol."

"The thunderbolts!" Justin whispered back.

"So.. us?" John asked.

"That's what it seems." Yelena looked around with no sign of the Contessa, "But who are we?"

"Didn't she explain anything to you guys?" Justin asked.

"No! Did she explain anything to you?"

"I mean, no."

"What?" Ava asked a little louder than intended.

"She just said she would sponsor my projects so I was immediately on board." Justin justified himself, "I just assumed you were more into her deal than I was."

"I can't believe I fell for another pyramid scheme." Ava sighted

"Another?" John asked.

Someone shushed them again, more aggressively this time.

"Excuse me who do you think you are to shush me??" Justin whispered as loud as he could.

"Hammer, sit down!" Yelena ordered.

"Not, let's see what this fella has to say!" Justin grabbed his cellphone to use as a flashlight, but that was not necessary because the lights turned on out of sudden. The robot dogs entered the room as part of the presentation and everyone clapped and cheered at them. Justin sat down again and straighten his blazer aggressively.

The robot dogs did some flips and silly dances. Their "skin" was transparent so it was possible to see all fluids and engines working inside. Everyone was having a good time except Justin, John and Yelena. Something about the dogs and the claps made John unsettled. Yelena felt the same. They looked at each other looking for some guidance. That's when the shots were fired.

A few people from the crowd got up wearing balaclava masks and wielding machine guns. The robot dogs positioned themselves, one on each side of every seat row. The chemicals inside them started to bubble in a menacing way. A man from the first seat now in balaclava got closer to Hulk with a shotgun aimed at his head.

"Hello everyone!" The man screamed, "We are only here for the money. If everyone cooperates, no one gets hurt."

The criminals started to walk around the room with huge bags stealing rings, watches, wallets and all sorts of jewelry.

"There's twelve of them." Yelena whispered.

"How much you can take?" John analyzed the room with her.

"Without getting shot? A few. But the dogs seem to be time bombs."

"Yeah there's too many people here. We have to think this through!" Ava stated.

"Oh my god is that Ant-Man??" Justin screamed pointing at Ava's feet.

"What? Where?" Ava got up on a jump. The men started shooting at her but she phased around the bullets out of reflex. That was just the distraction Justin needed to run into the exit door Valentina went through minutes ago.

"Fucking Hammer!" Yelena grunted before jumping to the ground. A nearby dog jumped to attack her but she quickly applied a jiujitsu move that made the dog fly above her. The fluids inside the robot started to shine in a weird way. John jumped across the seats and kicked the robot to the roof where it exploded. The roof suffered some damage but no enough to fall. No one got hurt. Except the dog whose metallic remains fell onto the ground.

John landed beside Yelena to check on her. Ava made herself invisible and visible again more times than the nearest criminal could comprehend. When Ava reached him she grabbed him by the back and used him as a human shield. Her hand phased into his neck in a lethal threat.

"Nobody shoots no one and no bloody dog explodes!" She demanded.

Everyone in the auditorium hold their breath together. Bruce seemed to be having fun. Yelena and John remained on the ground watching everything in anticipation. Ava had declared a temporary negotiating time, but for how long?

Suddenly breaking the absolute silence the auditorium was emerged in music started to come out of the speakers on the wall. Even the criminals looked around confused to the sound of "U can't touch this". When MC Hammer sang the iconic 'Hammer time!' the exit door exploded and among the smoke Justin Hammer emerged with a shield, three tasers, a shotgun and bunch of flash grenades. He took his right hand to the sky to show his car keys in triumph.

"He went out to get our stuff from the car trunk." John said in denial.

"Fucking Hammer!" Yelena screamed again (with a smile this time) before running to his direction. John came right after.

The criminals started shooting at Justin, who jumped to the ground scattering everything he brought with him. Ava let go of her human shield and disappeared. Yelena grabbed her tasers and John grabbed his shield. They both got up ready for action. The criminals started shooting and John instinctively projected the shield in front of them while Yelena got closer to him.

"Hey, it even looks like we rehearsed it!" Yelena said, smiling.

John also gave her a smile. Without realizing it he offered his arm for a forearm pump like he used to do with an old friend. Yelena forearm pumped him and jumped back into action. John smiled even brighter.

What happens next is just incredible. John's shield ricochet's throughout the whole auditorium at his will. Ava phases through and disarms everyone fast. Even with no powers Yelena runs around quickly dodging bullets and immobilizing the criminals. Justin cheered for them just alright. But he also turned off the robot dogs and used some of the flash grenades when necessary.

At the end of the showdown all the criminals were gathered at the podium. Bruce scrubbed his hands with a pride smile as if he did something at all. The gesture clarified that the threat was indeed neutralized so all the people in the crowd got up and started clapping at them. Justin waved his hands with a bright smile.

"Come on guys, it's the least we could do."

"What is happening?" Ava grabbed her arms is a slight self hug.

"Don't you see?" Hulk whispered to her, "You're the heroes!"

The sentence made John move his shoulders awkwardly. We are the heroes!, He whispered to himself. Yelena giggled because she totally heard that. She grabbed one of John's hands and one of Ava's hands and curved to the crowd as if they were actors in a play. Ava and John looked at each other and decided to bound as well. The cheers went louder.

The Contessa finally came back. She looked worried.

"What the fuck is going on?"

"We are the heroes, Val!" Justin winked at her before grabbing John's shield and bound as well.

#john walker #john walker positive post #thunderbolts #ava starr #yelena belova #justin Hammer #valentina allegra de fontaine #bruce banner #FoxtrotFanfic

[numinous-queer]

I’m in my late twenties and I’m only now coming into terms with the fact that I’m trans masculine. I’ve been a longtime follower of yours under different tumblr names, but seeing you thrive has always made me happy. Thank you.

son, you're in a very exciting time in your life.

You've been given a gift that not many cis people get - the opportunity to build yourself from the ground-up in a very thoughtful and intentional way. It may feel like this "gift" is a particularly rank shit sandwich some days, and like it's an insult to refer to something that makes your life so difficult in positive terms. But I've learned that sometimes you have to repeatedly choose to reframe something and reintegrate it into yourself.

You're going to be doing a lot of that - revisiting old memories and ways of being and seeing them with more clarity and self-understanding. Don't worry if everything doesn't resolve itself into a coherent narrative immediately! Like a teen who's throwing paint at the walls to see what sticks, there's some frenzied pressure to figure yourself out immediately and project a very polished camera-ready version of yourself right away. You don’t need to know who you are from day 1. It is normal and okay to try on different versions of ourselves! This is particularly fraught for trans people, who may feel a pressure to broadcast to all our family and friends how extremely OK and SUPER CHILL this big new fact about us is. It often feels like we are skipping a bunch of steps, life markers from childhood that it’s harmless to indulge in. One fun way to "test out" new names for ourselves is to recreate kid experiences like writing your name in big bubble letters on the sidewalk with chalk or looking at fun keychains with your name... chasing any experience that gives you a sense of joy. Gender euphoria is real, and you need to orient yourself towards whatever gives you a sense of peace and wholeness. Yes, some of transitioning is setting down those things that no longer serve us, but it is good to remember to move forward as well.

Take heart that you come from a long line of strength, from Alan Hart to Jack Bee Garland to Willmer "Little Ax" Broadnax to Billy Tipton to Charley Parkhurst to Lou Sullivan. Our knowledge is historied and long; let their momentum carry you forward. I highly recommend bell hooks’s work, The Will To Change, which was powerful for me in considering my relationship to masculinity. I was also very impacted by The Nearest Exist May Be Behind You by Bear Bergman. Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg is also a classic for a reason. If you are looking for a day-to-day experiential discussion of HRT, Max Valerio’s Testosterone Files are invaluable. I’ve also been excited to read the second edition of Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green. You have this opportunity to be intentional in your gender and your way of interacting with the world. Use it to be a good human being!

#I'm your dad now #them's the breaks kid #eat your vegetables and be kind to others and use this opportunity to grow as a person #take this time to take stock in yourself and live intentionally #please always imagine me hooting and hollering in your ear in loud support #my ask box is always open #<3 #trans #queer #gender

[tabloidtoc]

National Examiner, April 12

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Mark Harmon quitting NCIS

Page 2: Stars Who Rock Around the Clock -- they believe in the healing power of crystals -- Naomi Campbell, Shirley MacLaine, Adele, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Uma Thurman

Page 3: Debra Messing, Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson, Megan Fox, Katy Perry, Gisele Bundchen

Page 4: Eddie Murphy's roles and costumes

Page 6: George Clooney is turning 60 in May, and he says being an older dad to toddlers has its benefits -- his son isn't ever going to feel competitive with him and he'll be gumming his bread by the time he'd feel competitive with him, jokes the Oscar-winning actor, whose twins Ella and Alexander turn 4 in June -- George is well aware that growing up with two highly accomplished parents (his wife Amal Clooney is a successful human rights lawyer) can put a lot of pressure on a kid and that's why the couple is already guiding Ella and Alexander with strong values and kind hearts because George says it's their job to make sure that they care about people and that they challenge people in power and look out for people who don't have power and those are the things he was raised with -- the known prankster is also passing the practical joke tradition down to the next generation and he taught Alexander to take a piece of banana, chew it up and then spit it into a napkin, then stand next to him mom, pretend to blow his nose into it and look down until Mama looks at it, then eat it

Page 7: Partridge Family star Shirley Jones turned 87, and she's brimming over with gratitude for her wonderful life that's been chock-full of extraordinary experiences -- she says you have to have a good time and enjoy life to the fullest and before you know it you'll be 87 -- Shirley has three sons (her stepson David Cassidy died in 2017) and 13 grandchildren

Page 8: Take your etiquette test for tea with Queen Elizabeth

Page 9: Brain foods that may help prevent dementia

* Study says new drug slows Alzheimer's

Page 10: Jennifer Garner recently opened up about her real feelings on her body -- she's 48 and single and has three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck: daughters Violet and Seraphina and son Samuel -- in a recent interview, she admitted that her body has changed a lot since having three kids and she doesn't mind one little bit, even though she was hurt when a friend hinted she may be expecting again, saying there are some women whose bodies just, no matter how many babies they have, they bounce right back to that slim-hipped, no stomach and she has so many girlfriends who have that physique and she's so happy for them, but she's not one of them and she can work really hard and she can be really fit and she will still look like a woman who's had three babies and she always will

Page 11: 6 stomach symptoms you should never ignore -- catch problems before the become deadly

Page 12: After more than two decades, James Brolin says he's discovered the way to keep his marriage to Barbra Streisand going strong: negotiation -- it's taken two marriages and 22 years for him to figure it out and he and his wife have gotten so close being locked down together -- his mother was the sweetest person so he never really learned to negotiate with women but now he knows if you sit down and talk about a situation, you can work it out

Page 14: Dear Tony, America's Top Psychic Healer -- don't make snap judgments; you may lose the perfect mate -- Tony predicts a very hot summer coming and a lot more street crime

Page 15: Folks getting their COVID-19 vaccinations at the Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts got a shocking treat: a mini-concert from world-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma -- while waiting out his 15-minute observation period, the musician sat down to play a socially distant symphony for his fellow inoculees

Page 16: Duchess Kate is never seen without a purse, but what exactly does she keep inside it? There's quite a history between royal women and their handbags: Princess Diana used her clutch bag to cover her cleavage from prying photographers, Queen Elizabeth moves her handbag from one arm to the other to signal to her staff when she's bored of chatting with someone, and Kate carries her bag in her left hand so she can keep her right hand free to greet and shake hands with guests and she holds her bag in front of her when shaking hands might be awkward -- according to royal protocol pre-pandemic, Kate must extend her hand first for another person to shake hands with her, so if she prefers to just smile instead of touching other folks, she uses her clutch to do that -- author Marcia Moody who wrote Kate: A Biography, says the duchess always carries four must-have items: in her small clutch, she carries a compact mirror, a handkerchief, blotting paper and lip balm and every now and then, if she's going to attend a tennis match, for example, Kate will carry a pair of sunglasses -- unlike Queen Elizabeth, whose purses come from a company called Launer, the duchess favors different brands, but mostly a company called Mulberry -- nowadays with three small children, the mom gravitates toward midsize bags with handles because she's got to take more items with her like a handy bunch of tissues, good for wiping little noses and faces, and also takes her camera along

Page 18: William Shatner confesses that when he starred in Star Trek during the mid-60s, he had no idea it would become a worldwide phenomenon still popular today -- Shatner, who turned 90 in March, says it's unimaginable and it's all beyond anybody's imagination or ability to repeat and the greatest thing about being the captain of the Enterprise for three years was his relationship with the cast and the roles were written so well

Page 19: Brandy is a one-in-a million cat because those are the odds she'd ever be found again after she went missing 15 years ago -- when Charles got the phone call from a California animal shelter that his missing pet has been found, he could scarcely believe his ears and the Los Angeles man was skeptical and thought it must be a mistake but he had made sure the two-month-old kitten had a microchip and sure enough, the malnourished stray they found was his Brandy -- Charles did break down and cry because he thought about all of the years he lost from her and when he picked her up, she started to purr and it was very emotional

Page 20: Mark Harmon finally lured wife Pam Dawber out of retirement to star alongside him on NCIS, but the pairing will be short-lived because he's leaving the show after 18 hit seasons -- the 69-year-old star is finally fed up with the backbreaking hours, endless rehearsals, and feuds with cast and crew, and plans to ride off into the sunset with Pam and retire to the couple's Montana Ranch -- Mark's contract is up after season 18, and he's agonized over whether to sign a new one and he's being offered the moon and the stars to come back for a few more seasons, but he says his heart just isn't in it and Mark has faced problems on the set over the past few years and he feels his age, he just doesn't need the aggravation anymore -- NCIS recently teased a possible departure of his character Leroy Gibbs when the special agent commander was suspended for assaulting and nearly killing a suspect but despite that, Harmon insists Gibbs not be killed off so he can leave the door open for a possible return

Page 22: Legendary actor Michael Caine just turned 88 and he's still going strong, starring in an upcoming comedy Best Sellers and says he knows he's old but he doesn't feel old, not in his head, where it matters

Page 24: They say money doesn't buy happiness, but what do people spend their money on that can buy happiness? You don't need millions of dollars to afford the things that happy people buy to stay that way and studies show that anything over $75,000 a year in income is gravy, which means yachts, jewels, second homes and art collections are not at all required -- the best thing to drop your cash on is experiences and doing is better than having and in other words, an object you own will never give you the consistent pleasure of an experience that creates good memories that live on forever -- also the best experiences are the ones that involve other people like having a picnic with family, going rafting with pals, or even just walking and talking with an exercise buddy

Page 25: Freshen Your Fridge -- make a clean start with this 5-step plan

Page 26: Tony's Mystic World -- may the force be with you -- the life force can be drained out of you by fear or worry

Page 28: Sensational Snaps From Around the World -- photo contest captures amazing sights

Page 31: When to trash it -- the useful lifespan of refrigerated food

Page 32: It's been 40 years since Marilu Henner starred on the hit sitcom Taxi, but the great memories and wonderful co-stars are always on her mind because she's still pals with them -- they always stayed in touch with each other and never lost touch and do a Taxi Zoom every two months and they're all very current with each other and they have a text chain as well and they're in contact every week -- Marilu is close with cast members Tony Danza, Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Carol Kane

Page 33: Garth Brooks is overjoyed wife Trisha Yearwood has finally bounced back from her bout with COVID-19 -- she seems to be 100 percent, according to Garth, and at the end there during fatigue she got real impatient, really kind of mean and sassy and he thought well, she's back to herself -- after announcing in February that Trisha had the coronavirus and Garth said he had tested negative

Page 40: The grass is always greener when you use these simple gardening tips

* Avoid cat-astrophe -- the right way to add a stray

Page 42: 10 things you never knew about Glenn Close -- the wildly successful actress turned 74 in March

Page 44: Eyes on the Stars -- Sylvester Stallone and wife Jennifer Flavin leave a Florida hotel (picture), Jane Seymour is still looking on the bright side even as the world continues to weather the pandemic, one year after the death of Kenny Rogers his family thanked fans as they honored his life, Sharon Stone is dishing dirt about her Hollywood past in her recently released memoir like one moviemaker who told her to have sex with a male co-star to improve their on-screen chemistry, 28-year-old twins Lady Amelia and Lady Eliza Spencer who are the nieces of Princess Diana recently stepped out in South Africa as bridesmaids for fellow high society girl Leila Osato, director Christopher Columbus pooh-poohed internet rumors about the existence of an NC-17 cut of Mrs. Doubtfire but he did confirm there's an unreleased R-rated version

Page 45: Good Morning America co-host Cecilia Vega mugs it up for the camera on the morning show (picture), Gretta Monahan gets out of a car (picture), longtime GMA veteran Robin Roberts displays her ever-present sunny side on the set (picture), the Hollywood Hills home of Johnny Depp recently had some uninvited guests when a man was spotted loitering by the property's pool but ran off after being confronted by a neighbor and not much later Johnny's security team called police about another unwanted visitor who had taken a shower and helped himself to the actor's booze, Elsa Pataky has been married to Chris Hemsworth for 10 years and says patience and communication and understanding are what help their relationship be successful

Page 46: A Texas man has helped thousands of people by donating his blood platelets a staggering 962 times over the past 37 years

Page 47: Celebrity Weddings Gone Wrong -- Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden, Nicky Hilton and James Rothschild, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, Jessica Simpson and Eric Johnson, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar, Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley

#tabloid #grain of salt #tabloid toc #tabloidtoc #mark harmon #pam dawber #ncis #leroy gibbs #leroy jethro gibbs #kate middleton #duchess kate #princess kate #duchess catherine #catherine duchess of cambridge #james brolin #barbra streisand #crystals #eddie murphy #george clooney #shirley jones #partridge family #the partridge family #queen elizabeth #princess diana #jennifer garner #stomach problems #tony leggett #yo-yo ma #yo yo ma #william shatner

[avelera]

hi! im sorry if this sounds stupid, but im supposed to start uni this year, and im reallyyy nervous about it. coming across so many talented authors such as you really makes me feel incredibly stupid in comparison, and i feel like im going to set my own self back. i work really hard to improve my writing by practising and reading a lot, but i know it's never enough. there's so much out there i haven't experienced yet and i want to include but i just don't know how to express it. please help :((

Hey Anon! First of all, I'm really touched by your kind words about my work, thank you so much! And it’s not stupid at all, my dude, no one is born writing we all gotta practice at it. And don’t feel stupid either! Not knowing something is just the process of recognizing that you’re learning and growing, it’s not a bad thing! Every writer, even the most famous in history, struggled with no being able to express themselves, you are joining a GRAND tradition!

Second of all, HOOOO BOY do I understand the anxieties you’re facing right now about uni, so please forgive me for rambling but I've got SO MANY FEELINGS about what to do as a writer going to uni/college.

Uni/college can be a really hard time for writers. While I was at college in the US, I think I went almost three whole years without writing a single word that wasn’t for a class. The writing workshops I took there absolutely crippled my self-confidence, to the point where I really don’t recommend any budding authors take a college creative writing class unless they’ve already got a BUNCH of stories under their belt, and only take the class if they’re not afraid an individual student or teacher will have that one comment that breaks their desire to write or the teacher is already a mentor that they trust, or because they firmly understand that in the real world you're never going to have someone who was forced to read your story for an assignment, so the kind of apathy and dislike you’ll get for your work in a class is extremely atypical and seems almost designed to kill a new writers motivation when they’ve barely even started to write….

ANYWAY, personal rant out of the way, lemme see if I can put together some thoughts that will help you out, and don’t be afraid to follow up with another Ask if I missed something or you want me to expand on something!

Full disclosure, I’m 32 now and I’ve been writing for 20 years (with the aforementioned huge, multi-year gaps in there where I wrote almost NOTHING) and I’ve had a lot of privilege when it comes to my ability to write and freedom to do so.

If you're like me, writing is going to be hard in uni, don’t get me wrong, some people thrive as writers there, but I’m going to speak to my own experience. You’re going to have a lot of reading and writing you have to do for school and that can potentially drain your creative reserves. Be kind to yourself when that happens. The writing will come back. Maybe set aside time to do a 15 minute writing exercise once in a while if you’re feeling down on yourself, but don’t worry if writing isn’t something that happens every day!

Your note expressed anxiety about there being so much out there you haven’t experienced, but uni is great for broadening your horizons! You’re at the beginning of your road as a writer, not the end of it! Course selection is different for everyone and I don’t know your priorities. That said, if you have a chance for an elective, I recommend picking something that broadens your horizons instead of something you’d usually take. Engineering can help with sci-fi (and everything!), history can help with fantasy (and EVERYTHING), heck, accounting could give you ideas for a financial thriller, every course out there will give you new ideas AND even if you don’t have time to take a course for credit, some professors will let you sit in on the lectures for classes you're interested in but don’t have the time/energy/credits to take officially. I got very lucky my senior year and was allowed to sit in on a class on WWII with a world-renowned scholar on the subject just by asking nicely. Didn’t have to do the homework or pay extra or anything, and it gave me so many ideas for stories and fics!

Again, I actually DON’T recommend taking fiction writing courses unless you have a specific professor you have a good relationship with and want to work with or it otherwise comes highly recommended. In my opinion, it's better to broaden your horizons with a wide variety of ideas and courses over “specializing” in writing. To add to that, here’s some totally unsolicited career advice, I’d also say look into courses that build to a career that won’t suck your soul out. Having a career you don't hate, that gives you freedom to write (with time and/or money) and diverse experience to pull ideas from will be a huge boon to your writing career if it’s something you have any interest in pursuing professionally or as a hobby long-term.

Dropping the uni subject for a second and focusing on writing, one of the things I wished someone had told me sooner is that you don’t need someone else to teach you how to write. Sure, it can be really helpful at some point, but waiting until someone can tell you how to write lost me three good years at least. Again, I don't recommend taking creative writing classes in college because they can be debilitating to self esteem if administered wrong. So just keep writing and you’ll be fine! Maybe do a 15 minute exercise if it’s been a while since you wrote for fun and you're feeling down on yourself. But more importantly, be gentle with yourself if you can't get around to writing every day.

- Don’t WAIT to write the story that you’re passionate about right now. Write it now. Sure, future you might be a “better” writer, but future you might have just taken that cool WWII history class and wants to write a WWII vampire story, not about the thing you’re excited for right now. Don’t burden future you with the thing you’re excited about today, let future you write their own thing. Every story you write is going to have flaws, and is going to look awful to you at some point, but eventually you WILL be able to look back on it and see the good as well as the bad, and more importantly, see how you’ve grown and it will be an amazing feeling! But you can't get there if you stop writing entirely or give up on what you're working on.

Uuuh, other than that...just stay at it! This is a numbers game at the end of the day. Writing a bunch is the best way to progress, protect the spark of your motivation like your LIFE depends on it. If someone or something is making you want to give up writing, get that thing out of your life (to the best of your ability)! My philosophy is that the ONLY thing early writers should be worrying about is writing as MUCH as possible. All the editing and advice and “do this, don’t do that” ALL that stuff is meant for so much later in the process. If any advice makes you want to write less, ignore it! If you write 100 stories, or 10 novels, or whatever, the last one WILL be better than the first one, it’s just the super cool thing about working on something! You just have to stay at it! 

#writing advice #writing #maggie rambles #MAGGIE RAMBLES A LOT I AM SO SORRY #Anonymous

[ganymedesclock]

ok so i just saw a post that was like "keith never defends himself". like all the times lance insults him he never bristles up enough for it to turn into a fight, and when Allura is pissed about the "half galra" thing he just... accepts it. I don't think there's anywhere in canon where he actually gets upset for himself? like even when BoM!shiro called him selfish he seemed more apologetic than anything. i really want to hear your input on this, bc your character analysis is incredible,

So this is... picking at two actually unrelated threads.

The first thread: You’re right in that Keith clearly invests less in the rivalry than Lance does. This has nothing to do with Keith sticking up for himself, and it has a lot more to do with after the third episode, they are pretty much ambivalent to each other. Their “arguments”, both ways, become kind of lighthearted and ridiculous, not things to get offended about. Because in the first episode? We do see them nearly come to blows. Because at that point Lance is bitter and he’s taking shots at Keith that really hurt. Later on in the show that hurt isn’t there so neither is the vehemence of the response.

But in general, Keith isn’t passive towards Lance. The Paper Airplane comment in s1e9, s2e5′s “very far away.” We even see Keith instigate several times: s1e6 “Hey Lance, I got your Lion back,” and then claiming his radio isn’t working, s3e3′s “I’m glad we’re all making fun of Lance.”

Keith gives just as good as he gets. The thing is, again outside of the first two episodes it turns much more to playful rivalry. And even in those first few episodes, with the fall exercise in s1e2 both Keith and Lance pile into the ground because they both were escalating it. Also, arguably the first dispensed sass between the two of them was Keith to Lance. “We could toss off some non-essential weight.”

Keith is totally sassy! It takes him a little to open up to people enough to be willing to do that, but in s2e9 he cracks a joke at Hunk that Hunk points out. The thing is, he doesn’t care too much about the rivalry because he’s not particularly mad at Lance most of the time, and he never was. This was highlighted in the first scene with them together- you have Lance, hackles up, addressing his Rival, while Keith is sort of trying to recall who this person is and why Lance is so mad at him. Especially early on, you can see several times Keith just looks confusedly towards Lance, sees an irritated expression, and gets mad himself. So they bounce off each other as kind of a:

Keith “what the heck is your problem?”Lance “what the heck is YOUR problem?”

where both of them kinda feel like the other person started it. And as they get to know each other better, they learn what to, and what not to, take personally, and pretty much none of it is actually personal because they don’t hate each other.

You can see this pretty clearly at work in s3e3, for example- Lance gripes at Keith when he feels like Keith isn’t listening to him, but when Keith, super distraught, pretty much actively crawls back to Lance talking about how Lance was totally right and he got everyone in trouble- Lance clearly doesn’t exploit that, or even consider doing so- he sets his own ego aside, doesn’t mince words (”yeah, you kind of did”) but focuses on, in effect, reassurance- the issue is fixable, they can make this work and take responsibility and Lance is there to help him. And the only reason Lance was so angry in the first place was that he felt like Keith was putting the whole team in danger, which, he had a point.

Keith opens up these vulnerabilities to Lance because he can trust Lance with them. And Lance returns the favor- consider s3e6 and the “leave the math to Pidge” conversation. Again, Keith doesn’t mince words, but emphasizes proactive motion- that it’s okay, Lance can stay with Red, they’ll figure something out that doesn’t call for inordinate sacrifice from anyone. 

They’re “rivals” but they’re rivals who trust each other enough to actually genuinely let their guard down and say “here’s what I’m worried and scared about” and trust the other person isn’t going to mount it on their wall like a trophy because getting one up on each other was never a high priority and it’s certainly not higher than the other person’s wellbeing as a friend.

Keith doesn’t defend himself from Lance because Lance isn’t attacking. They have their back and forth but it’s harmless and they both react to it like it’s harmless. It might seem like Lance has a ‘bigger’ response because Lance generally is much more surface about his emotions than Keith is.

The second thread here: as you say, Keith specifically doesn’t defend himself against Allura’s rejection, and hologram Shiro’s rejection. I phrased that in a specific way because here’s the unifying thread there.

Keith is, to a traumatic degree, terrified of feeling abandoned by people. He laid this out very explicitly in his vlog: a large amount of his psychology was shaped by that first perceived abandonment- feeling like he was rejected by his mother. Later traumas- the loss of his father, likely rejections by other people in the foster system (official bio states he lost his parents at a young age, but doesn’t have any adopted family we know of which would suggest he shuffled around multiple places before leaving the system on his eighteenth birthday)- just sort of added fuel to that fire.

The reason why Keith folds up into a little ball and turns uncharacteristically passive in the face of perceived rejection from people he cares about (especially Shiro who is still a very high value friend to him) is that he is functionally, and quite literally, being triggered. His history and trauma tell him this is all his fault, that there’s a fundamental flaw in who he is, he’s a bad person and unlovable and everyone hates him.

Which isn’t true, not at all- but frankly? The way Keith engages with the whole galra revelation and Allura’s response, the way Keith sees this, it plays directly into his cognitive biases. His attempt at connecting with Acxa in the Weblum boils down to he’s trying to convince himself that maybe there’s a scrap of good to the galra that’s not just limited to the few rebels who’ve rejected their nature.

Keith is looking at his own heritage through a flawed eye here- so he doesn’t defend himself against Allura’s feelings, that she herself admits aren’t reasonable, that she still cares about Keith, that she’s hurt because she feels like he hid this from her and her own prior trauma is lending a huge amount of heat to it.

Because to Keith? Wholesale rejecting him for being a galra is perfectly reasonable. He’s got enough internalized issues he can’t really relate to the Blade because he’s a lot more scared he’s the other kind of galra they’ve encountered. The part of his brain that says “nobody likes you because something’s fundamentally wrong with you, all of these other people get along just fine,” just found something that seems to support that conclusion. “You’re related to the murderous space conquerors” is a hell of a lot louder in his mind than “the galra as a people are more complicated, we just met a bunch of rebels attacking them, even that mysterious person that robbed you saved your life and was not very Victory Or Death about it.”

The trial of Marmora was even more direct- it’s not showing us a real situation, it’s showing us Keith’s nightmare. That Shiro, too, will reject him, over some kind of perceived inherent nature (“You’re just being selfish like always”? not anything remotely approaching Shiro’s actual feelings or the reality of the situation) and leave, and Keith will end up alone and it’ll be his fault.

This is his worst fear, paired with ‘greatest hope’- that hurt, scared, and exhausted, he wants to see his only long-term friend pre-Voltron come tell him things are going to be okay.

Which, incidentally, it’s the hope, not the fear, that we see the real Shiro living up to. While it’s cut off by the awakening of the blade and Keith clearing the trial, Shiro would sooner fight his way past a huge organization like the Blade, alone, towing an injured Keith, than force Keith to give up the weapon to appease him. His decision, in that instant is, “I’m taking Keith, he’s taking his knife, and we’re leaving.”

But look at that picture- look at how Keith isn’t looking at Shiro. There’s a cognitive disconnect for Keith about how much other people mean to him.

In s1e4, we do see Keith trying to fight a perceived rejection- he’s the one who digs his heels in and yells at Pidge for trying to leave.

He aggressively avoids, in his logic, any implication of “please don’t do this, I care about you, I don’t want to lose you.” He tries to put everything in the most objective language he can put it in, but it’s pretty clear with how incredibly upset he is, this is not just about defending the universe.

Keith is both terrified of losing people and has an internalized attitude that he’s not good enough to make others want to stay around him. And this is something he’s processing, slowly, but out of the characters, this specter of perceived unworthiness is Keith’s demon- it’s what’s keeping him from the truth of who and what he is that is arguably his birthright as the Red Paladin, whose virtues are instinct, passion, and personal clarity.

In part, Keith has been deprived accurate mirrors to know himself- s1e10′s purple hand incident and the appearances of other half-galra we’ve seen tell us that Keith has seemingly been denied his own real appearance, as well as any contact with the galra half of his heritage. He has powers he doesn’t understand or even really realize they’re there, because no one has been around to recognize these qualities in him. He has had supports- Shiro and the other paladins- but all of them are, until outside intervention, just as stumped as he is.

But another part is- Keith is hiding from these revelations because he’s terrified of the idea of becoming- or having been all along- something unacceptable to other people. Something fated to be alone. Because again, deprived of people he can relate to and the context that makes everything about him make perfect sense? He’s mis-diagnosed himself hard as an inherently unlovable person and while that’s something he can fight in many situations, certain issues and scenarios seem to feed that fire and when it does, Keith tends to just give up.

So yeah- Keith doesn’t tend to defend himself when he feels like someone is rejecting him, and it’s a particular flavor of learned helplessness and cognitive biases.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Keith #readmore #Anonymous

[helloandwelcometomariasblog]

Review #69: Love in the Moonlight

I was going to write about this drama after I finished the last episode, but I'm halfway through and I just can't contain myself anymore.

This drama is such a joke. I'm honestly laughing incredulously here. Well, I'm up to the part where Yoonsung goes to fetch Raon with a bunch of guards behind him to - in his own words to his dad - "test the depth of his feelings for her". What a joke. You know and I know and he knows and we all damn know that he's too soft hearted to hurt anyone. And the writer is expecting us to believe that he would hurt Raon? The girl he's in love with? The girl he would go against his long-term friend and family for? The only girl he's ever liked even after frequenting a hundred kisaengs? Yeah, right.

That is this writer's biggest downfall. They're just too much of a softie. I'm pretty sure this writer fell in love with their own characters, so much to the point where they're too mushy-hearted to do anything bad to them. This happens multiple times throughout the drama, I can't even count. Nothing bad EVER happens to the characters. Well, let me rephrase that. Nothing bad EVER lasts for long with these characters - because the writer just can't bear to see them suffer for long!

Think about it. EACH damn time Raon and Young have to go through a tearful and heart-wrenching separation, they just get back together in the next episode or even earlier. The writer can't pull through with their own storytelling. The separation of the two main characters is always presented in this intensely tear-jerking fashion as though it's the hardest thing they have to go through, but in less than an hour there the prince is AGAIN, and all I can do is sit here and cry out in frustration because there are no stakes! How are we as the audience supposed to be sad and emotionally invested and feel like their love is a life and death situation when it just really ISN'T?

The examples go on and on. Think about the time Byeongyeon sacrificed himself for Raon and the prince. (Don't worry, Raon's unbearable passivity is coming up in another huge post of its own.) I actually liked that scene. I mean, yeah I love Byeongyeon as a character (more than Raon for sure) but his death meant something. It was an incredibly meaningful moment. You could see how much love he had for the prince and the entire scene was done pretty well, including the dialogue. And then what happens? HE DOESN'T DIE. Like, really? Okay, so he got shot by several arrows (and one of them definitely hits very close to his vital organs) and gets slashed by a sword and he still LIVES? So a hundred other people who gets slashed just once in the drama all die but this dude LIVES? Oh please. I swear, the moment I saw him lying down getting taken care of I wanted to smash the wall. That's not how it works! When you do that, you totally destroy the meaningful scene that you initially set up. If he comes back to life so easily, what was his death for? What meaning does it hold now? Ultimately, it tells the audience that nothing really is at stake, and that all of the "important" characters will come out unscathed. Nothing bad will ever happen to them. And what does this do? It destroys every ounce of tension in the drama. Nobody in the audience is going to ever feel that the situation in the drama is a life and death situation. Because it isn't.

That's really bad writing. One of the first things I learned in my screenwriting class was that you gotta put your main character through hell and you gotta have zero sympathy. You have to keep making bad things happen to them. The moment you become a softie, the tension just goes splat. It's really got to feel like a life and death situation and the stakes have to feel REAL. At the moment, the drama does none of that.

That's why I had to stop watching and rant when Yoonsung (of course) takes out his sword and slays the guards. Of course. I wasn't expecting anything else anyways. Who in the world would even think Yoonsung would do something other than protect Raon? Well, for a second I guess I was kind of hopeful - but only for a second, because the drama of course ruined it as quickly as possible. The drama never lets things simmer and turn bad. The writer is too weak-hearted for that. They probably can't bear to see any of their characters suffer for long. So of course Yoonsung would take out his sword but of course it wouldn't be to harm Raon. Of course he would stop at the SLIGHTEST squeak from Raon and start slaying all of his guards lol. I was trying really hard from not typing lol but I really can't help it. It's just too incredulous.

If only the writer would pull through with their threats. If only they would actually let things go bad. Then the tension would rise and rise and the rubber band would be pulled and pulled tight until all that's left to do is for it to snap and all hell breaks loose, which is when you reach the story climax before the happy happy ending. Other dramas do this really well. Especially when they make the main couple break up for reasons outside their control. You really gotta milk that situation. But this drama just can't do that and has never done it. It's supposed to do that the most right now, when there are only so many episodes left until the end. However, the drama DOESN'T do that when it most needs to. I'm so frustrated.

Don't get me started on how much I hate Raon. Well, more like, how much I hate the way Raon is written by the writer. Raon used to be a great character in the beginning. But the moment she falls in love with the prince - well, let's say "falls in love" but where's the evidence that she even loves him? I could write ten pages on how much Raon doesn't love the prince and how passive and wide-eyed she is while the prince actually loves her and ACTS it out ALL the time. Okay, let's have a pause here, and I'll go watch the rest of the episode (well, try to) before going on another huge rant.

If you're going to do a sageuk, do it like 100 Days My Prince or don't do it at all. Or even like Scarlet Heart. At least the stakes there were huge. So many people actually died and the main girl was ACTUALLY tortured. The biggest advantage of sageuks (compared to modern dramas) are the fact that the situations can get really life-and-death. This drama didn't use any of that strong point. What a waste.

Okay. I just came back from watching the rest of Yoonsung's sudden attack on the guards and wow. I was not expecting HIM to die. After all that ranting I did up top about how the drama doesn't pull through and doesn't kill any of their important characters, this is kind of a huge blow. But I have to say, I don't understand why he had to die. When Byeongyeon sacrificed himself, it made all the sense in the world - with his sacrifice, he was able to save Raon, her dad, and even the prince. But didn't Yoonsung lead the guards to Raon himself? He then attacked the bunch of guards himself. Then you see Raon actually try to do something FINALLY but it might have been better if she hadn't done anything this time, cause he clearly got stabbed trying to save her. I guess I just wish his death was worth more than this. I really liked him as a character and I still feel like the drama did him dirty. He could have died a more meaningful death. Not like this.

Now everything is being wrapped up and I honestly feel like there was no real climax in this drama. Maybe it's coming up. Let's see. But from the look of things everything is being wrapped up like a pretty gift box with no imperfections. Have I also mentioned just how much I hate the fade out transitions in this drama? I honestly hate it. It feels like a cop out each time. It feels like a lazy cop out instead of following through with the action that is presented at the time.

As the drama wraps up, I gotta say that I've grown to really love the second female lead. I started off disliking her (just cause I liked the main couple too much back then) and thinking she was just a plot device but she's shown a lot of character throughout the time she was in the drama. SHE is the one who truly loved the prince and actually acted it out each time. And just as I say this, here we go again - the writer lets her off easy, making the king erase her princess-to-be history and ultimately making her sacrifice useless and bland. Sigh. Just LET people sacrifice and be selfless and just let the audience see and feel the deep worth in that! Why you gotta keep taking that away from us?!

I have finally finished the entire drama. I loved Young as a character and I love Park Bogum as the actor who acted him out. Young was BY FAR the best character in the drama, followed by Byeongyeon. Raon was annoying until the very end and even seeing her smile was annoying me. All I could think of was the fact that she was lifeless and had no personality and didn't even properly love the prince and even despite all that she was standing in front of him receiving his love. The prince deserves better.

#review

[thetwoplayergays]

Prompt: Jeremy kissed/made out with Brooke and Chloe when he was squiped and now Michael is embarrassed because he hasn't kissed anyone yet. And so he looks "how to kiss" in wikihow, doesn't delete the history and Jeremy finds out. (The part of searching it in wikihow it's meh, I just want Jeremy to find out and be like "dude, you don't have to worry. I'm sure you kiss alright) and then they kiss. Ahhhh, I'd love you even more if you do it.

Sorry it took so long (._.) Here you go;; Thank you for the prompt!

“Hey dude can you grab me a soda while you’re up and moving?” Yelled Jeremy from across the room, too lazy to move from his fixed position on the beanbag. 

“Since when was I your maid?” Michael joked, tossing his best friend an ice cold soda nonetheless. “I’ll be right back, don’t play without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jeremy muttered in response whilst taking a small sip of his drink. The two boys had just spent the last few hours clearing floors off of a DLC of Apocalypse of the Dammed Michael had managed to find in the old retro game shop down the street. Within half a day the boys had almost gotten through the whole game but given their poor diet of mountain dew and chips the two often had to pause for bathroom breaks and refills, slowing their overall progress down.

Jeremy set down his drink and looked up at the ceiling in contemplation. It had been a month or so since the Squip incident and everything had virtually settled down. Jeremy had gained a bunch of new friends from the experience, despite how traumatic it had been. This included Christine, a girl on whom Jeremy had lusted for years. The two had tried to date, they really did, but it was soon apparent that despite how well they got along together, they only saw each other as close friends. When Jeremy had told Michael that night, his friend assumed the worst, instantly offering to come over with a horde of junk food and movies to distract him. Surprisingly for both boys, Jeremy felt great. He assured Michael that nothing was wrong and that he was the happiest he had been in a while, and strangely, he didn’t miss the slight change in Michael’s tone of voice, almost as if he was smiling sweetly over the phone. 

Jeremy didn’t miss the soft blush on his best friend’s cheeks whenever he complimented him.

And Jeremy certainly didn’t miss his sinking face whenever he talked about his time with Brooke or Chloe, despite how much he hated to think about it. 

As the weeks went on, Jeremy payed close attention to his friend. He had never really asked about Michael’s love life before, mainly because of his assumption that Michael didn’t have one. It slowly occurred to him how he had never even asked if Michael was straight. After Rich had so openly revealed his new-found sexuality, Jeremy began to ponder his own. He was attracted to females, there was no doubt about that, but what if he-

“Dude do you need a refill?” Michael’s voice interrupted, cutting Jeremy off from his train of thought. He looked over at the bowl in front of him which was indeed empty. 

“That would be appreciated,” he bounced back. Turning his attention to the TV screen he remembered that they had been stuck on a particular level for quite some time. It was definitely a tricky one, it required a lot of thinking - something that neither boys possessed at 1am. Remembering that Michael was upstairs getting food, Jeremy looked over at the computer that had been moved from upstairs into the basement for convenience purposes. He knew Michael hated looking up how to win a level but it was late and the boys really wanted to finish this game tonight while they were still into it. 

‘A quite peek won’t hurt’ Jeremy convinced himself as he slowly got up and shifted his way to the computer. Heaving himself onto the chair, he swivelled the mouse to awake the screen, he knew Michael normally just left it on. The browser pooped up suddenly, making Jeremy squint at the sudden change in light. As his eyes began to readjust, he processed the website in front of him. Before he could open a tab to search for what he wanted, the title of the page sank in:

‘How to kiss: Wikihow’  

Jeremy stared at it for a couple more seconds before convincing himself that this was something Michael must have accidentally clicked on while scrolling through facebook or something like that. He clicked the back arrow key to try to return to the social media but instead a google search was opened:

‘how do u kiss?’

He blinked in disbelief, clicking again. Another search came up:

‘can u learn how to kiss?’

He clicked again:

‘teenage kissing help’

And again:

‘how do u kiss a boy?’

‘how do u kiss straight boys?’

‘i think i want to kiss a boy’

‘how to know u have a crush’

‘do i have a crush?’

‘i think im crushing on my straight best friend’

The last one made Jeremy stop frantically clicking and instead choosing to read the search over and over again. There was no denying this was Michael, his best friend never used proper grammar when typing - it used to drive Jeremy insane. He stared at the last search for god knows how long with a million questions flying through his brain. Jeremy didn’t know why, but he started to giggle. The more he read the sentence, the funnier it got. 

“What’s so funny?” 

The voice snapped Jeremy right out of his hysterical laughter. He turned to see his best friend smiling, holding a bowl of freshly popped popcorn. 

“Care to share?” He asked again, a small chuckle escaping his lips. 

Jeremy didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt the urge to stand up. Leaving the opened tabs behind, he walked across the room before stopping right in front of Michael. His hands seemed to move on their own as he brought them up to meet his best friend’s cheeks and before either boy could process what was happening Jeremy was kissing Michael. 

It was different to when he kissed Chloe or Brooke. Back then it was forced and Jeremy only did it because he ‘needed’ to. It was rough and not enjoyable. But here, with Michael, it was sweet and quick. Jeremy could have stayed there for hours if Michael hadn’t dropped the bowl of popcorn in surprise, causing the sticky food to spill all over the floor. Jeremy broke the kiss after the bowl hit his foot, making him jump around in pain as Michael stood there still trying to process what was happening. He eventually realised that his best friend was in pain and rushed to get an ice pack.

“I’m not straight Michael.” Said Jeremy, breaking the awkward silence between the two. They had returned to the beanbags to let Jeremy sit down and heal his throbbing toe which was going numb from the coolness of the ice pack. 

Michael looked from his fixed gaze on the open computer browser which he had noticed just after the two boys settled. 

“But you-” He began before Jeremy cut him off.

“I’ve never really thought about it much, especially with my crush on Christine the thought was rarely brought to my attention,” Jeremy paused to sneak a peek at Michael, who was staring at him with his big chocolate eyes. Jeremy couldn’t help but laugh. 

“What?”

“I can’t believe you actually looked up how to kiss someone”,” Jeremy sniggered, provoking a huff from Michael. 

“How else was I meant to learn, I couldn’t exactly ask you,” he complained. “Sorry, I should have talk to you about it sooner. I just- back when you were still with the Squip and dating Brooke. I felt… embarrassed ok? I thought that maybe now that you’ve had experience with others you would think that I’m a complete dork who isn’t worth hanging around with.”

Michael paused for a moment, locking eyes with Jeremy. He opened his mouth to continue but was cut off with another kiss. This time, both parties were ready and it lasted a little bit longer than their first. When the two broke apart, the two paused and just stared at each other, contempt with their presence. 

“So,” Michael said. “Are you going to clean up that crushed popcorn over there or are you going to teach how to kiss properly like a real boyfriend should do?”

“Boyfriend…” Jeremy muttered, inching closer to Michael in the process. “I think I like the sound of that.”

#bmc #Be More Chill #be more chill musical #writings #boyf riends #protect the boi