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fox-bright · 23 days

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In Response to the H5N1 Ask:

I'm not answering the ask with your name on it, because I think you came off poorly, and I'm not in the habit of pointing my followers at people when I feel this angry at them. But having had some fresh chocolate chip cookies, some cat snuggles, some sifu-husband hugs, some delightful kindly asks from people who are prepared to behave like equals today and no shortage of groupchat “Would you look at the fucking cojones on THIS one?!” mockery, I now feel settled enough to take this line by line.

So let’s do it.

Hello. I am someone who works alongside people in ornithology. Hi! I work alongside a master of IT and frequently work arm-in-arm with medical doctors. What does that make me? I’m not a sysadmin and you’d better not trust me to install an arterial stent.

Your bird flu post was linked to me and I would like to privately share some reassurance about H1N1 as well as some problems I have with your post.

My post was about H5N1. H1N1 is the swine flu.

Bird flu has been studied for years and indeed is very lethal to humans, but it does not have the same viral characteristics as a mammal-originating virus like COVID does. This is not a useful statement. Bird flu has been studied for decades—over a century, in fact, as the 1918 flu was an avian influenza. You know, the one that killed tens of millions of people, to the point that it derailed a world war? Personally, I have been paying attention to and reading research papers about H5N1 since 2015, and giving my very close attention to it for the last five years.

Since the SARS outbreak, vaccines and treatments for these rare case of direct bird-to-human flu transmission have been developed and have been poised to be deployed immediately should direct bird-to-human transmission ever occur. Let’s be clear: bird-to-human transmission is occurring too frequently. More than eight hundred times in the last twenty years, and more and more rapidly in recent years, and again, more than half of those were lethal. That tends to be from exposure to wild animals hunted for food, or exposure to home-raised animals who get sick from wild animals. Bird-to-human transmission is not yet occurring frequently in the States, where our food is generally factory-produced and hunting is less common, but it is occurring with increasing regularity outside of the US. No vaccine will be useful to a person who is already infected (useless!); currently the treatment for infected people is antivirals and supportive care, alongside strict quarantine. Current H5N1 vaccines may or may not be very effective against any human-to-human variant, as it may have mutated to evade them. We do not have enough H5N1 vaccine doses to go around, and the ones we do will be concentrated first on the military and medical personnel.

The reason monitoring agencies and professionals are on “high alert” for these bird-to-cow-to-human incidents is because they are taking it seriously on a more theoretical level essential to their profession. Why are you so smugly, confidently incorrect? “We have never seen this scale of infections in mammals, and in such diversity of mammals. We have now seen more than 40 species of mammals infected during the last outbreaks, which is unprecedented.”

In this case, the people and cows who contracted H1N1 did not die. It’s literally been days since the human contracted it from the cows, and we do not yet know that he’s the only one. We are NOT in a position to say “okay, so things are peachy!” We also do not know how many cows have it (we’re up to what, fifteen farms now?) and we do not know how rapidly it’s evolving in those massive groups of mammals.

My first concern about your post is its lack of linked to sources and the framing of it as an advice post. The New York Times has an article available on this issue as well as the Audubon Society and various wildlife agencies. Some of these articles are a year or two old, This is the point where I started getting really pissed at you. You demand I provide citations, but you provide none. You suggest I go to the fucking New York Times to read outdated articles? So you haven’t read anything more recent, or from anywhere more reliable, and thus you don’t imagine that I have, either? Arrogance.

but that is because this strain is a very slow-moving development ABSOLUTELY not the case. It is mutating rapidly, over and over and over again. You demanded sources, so I expect you to read those, but if you’ve only got time for one, pick the last of them.

with no immediate signs of consequences for humans outside of people working directly with cattle getting sick— and these humans have neither transmitted the virus to others or suffered anything worse than pink eye from it. So since it hasn’t happened, we don’t need to worry about it happening, hmm? Are you familiar with the term “gain-of-function research?” It’s when an organism is changed, in a lab, to make it more powerful, more infectious, more virulent, something along those lines. When you put a disease into tens of thousands of animals, you’re performing a natural gain of function experiment, as it has tens of thousands of chances to mutate. The “Spanish flu” pandemic, which actually was first noted in a Kansas army base, was almost certainly the result of an avian flu infecting pigs. Pigs are really similar to us, in terms of receptors; what makes them sick is much more likely to make us sick; when this hits pigs-to-pig transmission, it’s time to batten down the hatches. Cows aren’t nearly as similar, but they’re still mammals, so they bring it a lot closer to us; and when you can get unaltered H5N1 from bodily fluids, guess what? Meat and milk are disease vectors. And we don’t actually know that pasteurization of milk inactivates the virus. As I said in my previous post, now is the time to prepare, and to be wary.

This strain is lethal and highly viral between birds and will likely remain this way for a very long time.

This strain has been rapidly, monstrously lethal to MANY animals. Sometimes in huge numbers. You may remember the mink farm where it mutated to spread mink-to-mink (those are mammals), or the sea lions (which I will point out to you are also mammals), where it spread sea lion-to-sea lion and rapidly killed them by the thousands. It’s killing polar bears. It’s killing other predators. It’s killing all manner of US mammals singly and in multiples. However, the mammal-killing mutations don’t stop it from still killing birds.

My final concern— Spring is coming and that means horny birds are about to start hitting windows. Wildlife rehabbers are currently updating the public’s general info on what to do with stunned birds— they often do not recover if left on their own to fly away after a window strike and concerned citizens need to take these birds to a rehabber immediately if found. If people read your post, they will likely conclude that bird-to-human crossover is likely and be afraid to touch a downed bird that needs emergency medical care. I want to be absolutely, painfully clear to any non-doofus reading this right now: I have loved birds since infancy. I grew up with a smalltime conservationist; I have spent no small amount of my photographic hours on birds. I have saved wild birds—poisoned by farmers, wingshot by rednecks, window-struck, sick, attacked by feral cats, orphaned by agricultural machinery--long enough to get them to rehabbers on many occasions, and I have on three occasions assisted with that rehab, including keeping very odd hours to feed nestlings with a dropper. I have assisted with ecological rehabilitation and rewilding programs to provide them with territory; I have written my politicians and donated to wildlife efforts. So know that this is not coming from a place of not respecting or loving the wildlife. This is not “framed as” or “presented as” advice, this is absolutely the advice I would give you face to face, in absolute conviction. This year? If you see a fallen bird? You WALK THE FUCK AWAY. H5N1 gives birds seizures, disorientation, clumsiness and gasping. Or, sometimes, it is completely asymptomatic, and a perfectly healthy-seeming bird could still give you the disease. You can not tell if that bird hit the window because it’s horny and stupid and you forgot to put the stickers up, or because it’s in the grip of a disease that could kill you if the creature breathes too closely to you.

Given all of this, I ask that you please delete your original bird flu post before it has the chance to scare a lot of people and potentially hinder them from helping birds. Yeah, that's not going to be happening.

If you’d like to repost it, please add linked sources and resources for those concerned about avian flu. As previously mentioned, the New York Times has an article with the latest developments on monitoring this virus. Fuck you and your ignorant superciliousness sideways. You do not walk into my fucking Asks with this bullshit like you know ANYTHING when you plainly haven’t read jack shit about the situation as it’s evolving on the ground.

Bird flu is indeed very scary but not nearly in the same league as Covid or even the seasonal flu for most people. You’re absolutely right, in absolutely the wrong direction. If-when this goes human-to-human, it will rapidly outstrip covid’s dangerousness to a shocking degree. Today, it is not dangerous to anyone who leaves birds the fuck alone, but that’s today, and we need to prepare for the potential of tomorrow.

I hope this information helps and please excuse my stiff language. I suspect I sound really angry and condescending when I haven’t had much sleep. Yeah, you came off as a total jackwagon. “This information,” you say, as if you brought ANYTHING with you but attitude.

Sorry if that’s the case, but I didn’t want anything picking up steam before sharing this with you! Please educate yourself more adequately before you attempt again to correct someone. I have myself in the past been raring to go with a correction, checked to make sure that I had my phrasing right, and been caught flatfooted by new information. It’s better to feel that embarrassing moment of “oh, shit,” and realign your understanding silently, than to go in without doing any of the work and waste someone else’s time having to educate you.

If you reply to this in any way that is even slightly confrontational, I'm just going to block you. You aren't worth my time--you weren't worth this time! I have things I am supposed to be doing!--and I genuinely hope you do better in the future.

#I have shit to DO!

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wmarximoff · 2 years

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skeleton in the closet | w. maximoff

|spooktober collection|

summary: life married to Wanda Maximoff is as simple as it gets, and everything is as it should be. but old skeletons in the closet comes to light in your hometown, where the two of you lived during your teenage years, when the body of Pietro Maximoff, Wanda's twin brother, is found after nearly twenty years of being missing.

warnings (18+): dark!reader, dark!Wanda, explicit description of stabbing, explicit description of blood, explicit description of dead body, manipulation, explicit description of physical violence, allusions to homophobia.

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 8k

A/N: and we're finally on spooktober, guys! seriously, i'm really excited for the fics to come this month. so, to get a sense of what our vibe's gonna be like from now on, i think this story is a good starting point (but remember that if dark things aren't exactly your cup of tea, you don't need to read this)

|main masterlist| |spooktober masterlist|

༺ᱬ༻

The autumnal chills made the lapels of your coat rustle against your chest. The transition to the cold climate began to gradually slip through the daily life, and the dark nights came to establish their veil into the beautiful celestial vault dazzles. Leaves taking on earthy tones fell from the trees like sand spilled over desert dunes. The birds returned south in flocks. It was October, as so many others had been and so many more would be. Soon it would be time to pick pumpkins and try to find god knows where a cloak for Billy's sorcerer costume.

As you unlocked the hardwood door dyed a deep pearly white color, entering your small family capsule, cloistered in the depths of a quiet neighborhood, turning with your right wrist clockwise twice at a broken one hundred and eighty degree angle, you found your nose greeted by an enticing aroma of food fresh from the oven, which in response had your stomach churning like a wild buffalo inside your abdomen.

The long rainy morning and the even lengthier gray afternoon had worn you down as a member of the working class, it’s true – your spine leaning against the hard back of the swivel chair, blinking slowly with your bright, demanding eyes, intent on your own words, wondering about your work displayed on the thin monitor sprinkled in its frame by notes on small yellow pieces of paper. Acting as if the internet and blogging hadn't incited an unrestrained crash in your job market.

That typical office job worthy of a big-city journalist's career (articles, write articles for the Daily Bugle, thank J. Jonah Jameson so the mustachioed bastard gives you a raise) that at the end of the day goes back to their residential neighborhood that didn't feel like it should exist in the bowels of New York, to sit in a leather armchair and open a cold beer with a hard click. But at that time of year, beer could well be switched for a steaming mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows and cinnamon swimming in the thickly sweetened brew.

You, however, still within your archetypal office journalist, only craved for a few silent minutes in your wife's arms in search of some comfort in your soul, because your marriage was not bankrupt as your profession made it seem as it was. Wanda still loved you as much as she had almost two decades ago, and you could only breathe if your wife gave you permission to do so. Everything seemed to be as it always should be.

You then hung your keys right next to the door, rotating both your shoulders out of the dark linen coat Wanda had told you once made you look like a stern, sexy college professor, playing with the authority worthy of a title you didn't really hold; it was your wife who did it, after all, and she allowed you to steal that coat tucked on her hanger because she said it looked better on you anyway – even though you only knew that something frugally possessive about Wanda liked to see you in her clothes, exhaling the soft floral effluvia of her perfume as if to mark her territory on your body.

Your breath still gave indications of warm, full-bodied coffee, a trace of that busy afternoon that needed some sort of stimulant—a drink from a plastic cup with your name written on the side in black marker pen; this one that, earlier that day, had been placed next to a framed picture of your family on your desk, next to a “Best Mom Ever” mug in bold letters with a handful of colored pens inside just to your left, close to your elbow.

With placid strides deferred to the wooden floor, imbued with an unpretentiousness when within the walls of your own house, you then set off with your wife's coat folded over the length of your right forearm raised to the height of your ribs, pressed against the length of your abdomen, hanging there as if to emulate the pose of a waiter in a suit at a fancy restaurant.

Upon entering the living room, however, seated on a light cream fabric sofa, you were faced with only the tops of two small heads that lavished thick locks of dark brown hair – a pair of little boys glazed over in artificial colors, your twin sons born ten years and eleven months ago.

They didn't agree on much with each other very often, from time to time fighting over toys as the ontology of having a sibling demands, but they were always close to each other's shoulders at the end of the day, just like they did inside the womb they shared for a whole nine months. A few feet in front of you, a thin television, securely screwed to the wall, flashed some action cartoon you were not very familiar with.

And you smiled with quiet lips and walked to the back of the sofa, where you lowered your spine and, without a word, placed a warm kiss on top of each of the two vanilla-scented chestnut-colored heads, receiving in response a series of dull whining – the protestor of the day, however, as it had always been, was Tommy and not Billy.

“Well, hello to you too, little dude.”

“Mom!” grumbled the little boy with eyes the same color as yours, in a slurred tone that actually sounded annoyed, craning his neck as if you'd stuck gum in his hair, “C’mon, I'm too old for this!”

"Oh, I'm sorry Tom, I almost forgot you're a big boy now that you're ten. My mistake, really,” you crooned in an air of laughter before smiling at the grumpy young boy, who squinted his eyes at you and frowned with his sparse dark brows.

“I am! I don't need to be treated like a baby all the time anymore!”

“‘Course you are, kid, I didn't say anything to the contrary. You're practically an adult now, what the heck.”

He had a fine chin and a gently upturned nose speckled with freckles like the stars spaced across the night sky. However, as boyish he was, his temper was just so solemnly contrary to his affable teddy bear with a bow tie appearance, an explosive den of undisputed bravery. Your gaze then decided to settle on the figure of Billy, always so much more serene and courteous when opposed to his energetic brother, who was offered a smart smile on your part, narrowing your eyes and raising both of your eyebrows towards him.

“And what about you, bud,” you questioned him without bothering to betray the mockery in your tone, “Are you too old to get a kiss on the head from your mom too?”

“I'm not,” he winked, scrunching a flash of skin over his little nose in a totally, genetically Wanda way, “I like it when you kiss me on the head, mom.”

“See, Tommy,” you turned your chin towards the other twin's freckles, “Billy is ten too and he still likes to get a kiss on the head. It doesn't hurt to like it, you know. You can be tough and still like your mom, just for a change.”

The other boy, in an embarrassed guinea pig squeak, traced the path between your face and Billy's before nurturing his twisted lips into a silly little pout; the stubborn Maximoff gene played out so much more in Tommy than it did in his brother, who hadn't gotten much more from your wife's family tree than the firm, sharp bone structure of his cheekbones and his soon to be smooth jawbone.

“Fine,” Thomas grumbled crookedly in a quick desistance, “You can still kiss me mom, geez.”

“Fine,” you said then, “Because I wasn't going to stop doing it anyway,” and Billy chuckled softly as it was that you turned your face to deposit a new, quick, wet little kiss on Tommy's rosy cheek, smacking your lips against his soft skin.

“Don't think you'll get rid of my kisses anytime soon, mister.”

Leaving the living room then with an impish smile well warped in the commission of your lips, you were directed by the smell of roast chicken that had covered the house like a sheet of flavors, and with slow steps, you let yourself walk across the matte floor in toward the kitchen, to the sacred source of the aroma of fresh-baked food.

You passed a spacious hallway with pale walls, whose faces, interspersed with casual, well-appointed furniture, held photographs of pivotal moments for that family of four (everyone sporting delightful, pearly-beautiful smiles with spasms of hearty glee, say cheese Tommy, look over here Billy, no Y/n, you can't take a picture grimacing for our Christmas card, a break for a round of lively laughter, stop it, Y/n!).

Wanda cherished them with all her heart, as for while she herself was just a lonely child, the walls of the house she lived in were all foreboding and empty, like an excruciating scream in a dark room.

There were no ugly itchy Christmas sweaters or big, fed up Thanksgiving dinners in the family album of Erik Lehnsherr, a high-profile political figure in a well-buttoned jacket and an golden watch screwed to his firm wrist, and Magda Maximoff, a dreary housewife soaked in wine and draped in expensive pearls, a couple married for sheer convenience — no pictures of their own set of twin children, none of the gritty boy or even the always so quiet little girl unwrapping some of their birthday presents by the fireplace, toys bought carelessly with unimportant cash deducted from an unlimited credit card.

But already in the life of an adult, married woman, a mother, that household you two formed together was like a being of its own, as alive as it could be.

A being of pipe bones, brick skin and a happy family heart, who breathed through impromptu Saturday breakfasts and old movie nights snuggled on the couch surrounded by buttered popcorn and cups of iced cinnamon apple tea. The kind of home that is familiar without any hesitation. A generally imposing house, but not enough to be challenging.

So, as you entered the airy white-walled kitchen, an cozy countenance expressed itself through the soberly relaxed muscles of your face, and you couldn't help but evoke a tender smile at what you saw before you – after all it was her, it would always be her.

Wanda had her back to you, her long fire-flaming hair falling over her porcelain shoulders and halfway up her spine like a high forest fire, ready to incinerate you too. It gave off a lovely scent of wild strawberries interspersed with glossy locks that you were fond of sticking your nose in and sniffing that eclectic scent every night before bed.

“Yes, I…I understand. I do, I swear I do.”

It wasn't until the sound of her low voice, in a watery tone that pretends she's not about to burst into tears, that you realized that Wanda's phone was being pressed against the shell of her right ear, a distant green gaze scrutinizing the wet dark of the sink drain. A curious brow of yours rose to your forehead as she faced the raw words in an uncharacteristically Wanda tone, afforded with her deck of cards congruent with dreary answers fitting only in very unfortunate situations.

“I'll try to get there as soon as possible. I'll– I'll talk to Y/n. We'll be there early in the morning. Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow,” Wanda turned on her heel, shimmering with emerald eyes at you, who was caught in her sight like a deer in the bright headlights of a car on the dark road – she frowned, her rosy lips curled intemperately.

Ah, there you are, Wanda said with her eyes in a dull green like the slime that grows on a tiny rock in front of a profuse lake. Something happened and I need you here with me.

“No, I– I know this is a priority,” she sighed a breath of warm air, deflating her chest from under a fresh-blood-colored cashmere cardigan, “I know. I do. I'll be there as soon as possible, father. Don't worry.”

Silence engulfed all four walls of the kitchen as the call then came to an end, though neither of the two parties has properly bid farewell to the other. It was an emergency, your startled senses heightened. Erik would never call if it wasn't an emergency.

A tremor along the length of your spine from the back of your neck alerted you that something was wrong. Saliva choked in Wanda's throat, and she lowered her smartphone to then laid it facedown against the stone kitchen island. She looked at you. You looked at her.

The blood flowing through your veins cooled down at the incognito facet that expressed itself through the dull face of your so gorgeous wife, who had her brown eyebrows curled in a calliginous way and an opaque veil clouding her jade-colored gaze, gauging pale shades of awestruck green to her hollow irises – terror climbing the length of your esophagus, her hands fluttering through the auburn length of her long hair before initiating the fidget act with her own pale fingertips, the two of you sharing a brooding pose, which exhaled a scent of anguish through the kitchen environment.

“Wanda,” there was an exchange of apprehensive looks between you and her, “Wanda, honey, what's wrong? What’s going on? Did... did something happen...? Erik... is your father all right?”

“Y/n...”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out and so Wanda tried to collapse her peach lips again, to swallow the lump tied to her vocal cords. One look was enough for you to know that in Wanda's chest was an atrocious disease known as dread.

And your first instinct in the face of your wife's frightened figure was to slash through the kitchen like lightning, to shelter her haggard body against your own welcoming torso when her muscles chose to disassemble, like an ancient millenary structure that comes to the ground. It was like catching a rag doll in a free fall.

“Hey, hey, it's alright, sweetheart,” you whispered against her red hair, “Alright, alright, I'm here. I’m here with you, Wanda,” and then, a long kiss was bestowed on the pale skin of her right temple, near the last strand of a dark eyebrow.

“Y/n, they found it,” she sobbed in a whimpering murmur against the warm skin of your neck, her hands crawling like a pair of spiders up the fabric on the back of your blouse, “T-they, they found it...”

“They found what, Wanda?” you asked her mutely against her earlobe, “Who found what, baby? What’s going on?”

“A hiker in the woods,” your wife mussed in a thread of a pleading voice, “The police, they… they found Pietro's body... they found him... they found him...”

There was something eerie about Wanda's choked speech – something ominous, not of this world. And something in you flickered – your jawbone knocked, your sharp gaze blazing a stubborn roar of hopeless fear as your stomach dropped. Pietro, of course. Pietro’s body.

Pietro Maximoff, the prodigy athlete, the golden boy on the football team, the apple of his father's eye. The better twin. The missing twin, now earning the title of the twin found underground, the dead twin, the murdered twin.

The glow that always, always so unjustly overshadowed Wanda's charms. The boy this bitter couple had planned to have, the only child they could brag about, while Wanda had slipped out of the womb clinging to Pietro's neck, a particularly uninvited outsider to Erik who never stopped being more than that; more than the thing who came clinging to the boy he wanted to have, a nasty bonus.

Both your palms were sweaty against the back of her cardigan when you held Wanda tighter, the soft clothing leaving a feeling as rough as sandpaper against the tips of your so cautious fingers. You had to be there for her. You had to pull yourself together at that moment. Even if that shouldn't happen. Even if that's not how things were supposed to be.

“I–it's gonna be okay,” your voice no longer sounded like your own, it curled in an irresolute tone, your throat wavering in haste – and you masticated at your lower lip, your heart thudding against your ribcage in distress and the shrillest sensation of fear.

“It's gonna be okay, honey. It's gonna be okay. I’m here. Everything's gonna be okay.”

You kissed her strawberry head cork, your lips dry and your back sweating inside your thick blouse. Your skin turned cold against the warm of Wanda's hot tears. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not seventeen years later. Within that profuse forest, deep in the woods that surrounded the small town frame, no one should ever find anything in that unfathomable grave that you covered with pounds of soft earth when you were just eighteen years old.

ᗢ

“Why do we have to visit grandpa anyways?” whimpered Tommy, in that typical slurred intonation of a tantrum child who is frustrated at being annoyed, “It's not even Christmas yet!”

You were speechless for a few seconds, cluttering with the crimped bone of your jaw, holding up a tightly folded red shirt that you intended to stuff into Billy's blue backpack, through the open zipper like a hungry mouth for changes of clean clothes, so he could get dressed for the weekend.

It was a second taken to think of a wide range of explanations that there was no elucidation to be said in a way that a childish cognition could fully digest, understanding all the nuances carried in its broad meanings.

A second passed, almost taking up the shape of full minutes, until you turned your gaze towards the scowling little boy that was Tommy, who, with an observant ember sparking through the intrinsic color of his clever, harmless irises, stared at you in expectant anticipation for the resolution of his sly doubt.

He, after all, was your son, one of them. A boy to whom you owed explanations of the greatest mysteries that made up the universe just because a few years ago you and Wanda both wanted him to exist.

“Well, honey, you see, it's...” but the words, the correct ones, didn't come out of your mouth, which was left open like a big black hole lacking light, “It's... it's very important to your mama that we're going there tomorrow, Tommy. She needs it.”

“But why?” as his brother lulled him, however, it was Billy's turn to express the doubts that were hovering in his little head, who was in charge of the mission of folding a handful of pants and shirts.

“Yeah mom, why?” claimed Tommy one more time.

“Grandpa's house is weird,” Billy sustained, “It’s so big and smells like a dentist's office and old people. I don't like it there.”

“Well,” you made an unnatural sound that was a mockery of laughter, like a low battery toy, “Your grandpa is old, isn't he…? Don't ever tell him I said that.”

It was the extremes of the moderate hour of eight-thirty at night when you, with your twin children dressed in pajamas at your heels, found yourself in the softness of the boys' shared room – because they, always so united as in a only entity, would never be able to fall asleep in separate rooms, alone and dispersed in two dark corners, which was why there were then two empty guest rooms gathering dust within your house.

Clothed in their cotton pajamas strewn with tiny prints of colorful dinosaurs (red, green and blue too), the pair of little boys were by your side while you took care to pack their bags, willingly volunteering to do so when in front of Wanda's swollen, exhausted eyes, who had retreated to the master bedroom after a lifeless dinner that had surely troubled the two children's spirits.

Two pairs of little eyes then flickered towards your damp face. Just two curious children (your curious children) looking for an answer to their question before Wanda's only relative of whom they had empirical knowledge, the only one alive and yet so far away, whom they had not seen for a certain period of time, but that had sent them new toys the month before this one, on their birthday. You came out on a lame sigh, the coming headache brushing hot on a hard muscle at the back of your neck.

“Look, guys, I'm gonna be honest with you,” you uttered, tucking your knees into your comfy cotton sweatpants to sit on the edge of Billy's bed, putting the folded shirt aside.

“I know it can be a little… um, uncomfortable… to go to grandpa's house sometimes. Trust me, I... I really do. But we need to go there because... well, something serious has happened, and that's why grandpa needs mama there. You guys remember what I told you about mama's brother, right? Her twin brother, just like you two are.”

“Uncle P?” Tommy took the lead in the round of questions, taking a comfortable seat right next to your right elbow, “He left when you and mama were in high school. She said he’s far away from here. That makes her sad sometimes.”

“Yes, he… he's gone,” you bowed your head in a mechanical, hard motion, the words rancid against the face of your tongue, “Your uncle was… he was indeed far away from here, you know? But it turns out... that he was found recently. The cops found him, but… it wasn't in a good way, boys.”

“What happened to him, mom?”

Billy's eyes pointed upward towards your gloomy face, as a complement to his doubt; the little dark brow furrowed in demand for a congruent resolution to his brooding inquiry. You turned your chin at an angle towards your left collarbone to answer him.

“Well, Bill, your uncle, he…” there was a pause on your part, a long silence held in your throat, “He's not alive anymore, kid. Do you understand what that means? He... he's not coming back. Pietro will never come back.”

The boys looked at each other and, with a rehearsed action, cast a sorrowful glare on you – a look that didn't quite understand the real implications of what you'd said to them, but did it well enough to get the idea that it was something bad, something sad enough to mobilize the adults who always seemed to be in control of everything. To make mama cry even when she was the one who nursed them on blue days, brushing the tears away from their cheeks with her thumbs.

“And mama,” Billy said in a tiny voice, so befitting his sad little eyes, “Is she sad?”

“She is,” you cordially splayed your left hand on the small expanse of his knee, where your fingers began a series of affable, unconscious caresses.

“She's very sad, Bill. So we need to do this for her. We need to stand by her side in this moment of sadness and take good care of her when she needs us to. Because now she has to say goodbye to him. For real this time. And goodbyes are big, sad feelings that are very difficult to deal with, even if it's someone as strong as mama. Even more a goodbye like that. Can you do this for her, boys? She’ll be so much happier if you guys do this for her.”

“We can,” Tommy stated, ever so sure of his own words, “We can do this for mama.”

“Yes,” Billy supported his brother, “We gonna do it, mom.”

“Right,” you smiled small, just lifting the corner of your lips, “Thanks, guys, really. This will mean a lot to her. Now come here, come here,” when you offered each boy an arm, the two soon tried to snuggle against your chest, their ears brushing against both of your collarbones.

“It's gonna be okay, did you hear me? We'll get through this. We’ll get through this as a family, as we always do.”

At least, that's what you hoped would happen. As if everything wasn't absolutely out of control. As if you weren't an asshole for lying to your own kids.

ᗢ

Had flown across the sky only a few sluggish minutes since the dawn of the opaque day, enveloping the longitudinal expanses of the outskirts of Westview, then, in a vague aura of homely appearance – thus offering, to the parochial naked eye, a shifting nuance between pastel shades of salmon colors that were soon taken over by the autumnal gray of the heavy clouds, which served as the prelude to a frosty October morning (the first signs of a coming cold temperature already settling, like a disease, through the crooked bowels of the ominous city). Wanda made sure Billy and Tommy were dressed up in thick coats in the backseat.

The sun was clumsy in the midst of the gloomy sky, like a silvery child hiding behind its mother's skirt, and at the foundation of the sky's vault, a long magenta band of sun spread to the horizon, hoisting towards the day, even though it was a particularly gloomy morning.

You had just left New York State behind, and so the reddish-hued family car found itself wandering through the conglomeration of roads that made up New Jersey, just a handful of miles from the nondescript town of Westview.

“Are we there yet? I’m hungry,” asked Tommy from the backseat, his voice coming over your shoulder.

“We're almost there, baby,” Wanda replied in a slightly dry voice, her gaze always looking straight ahead, at the road that unfolded in front of the fender of the car, “Just hang in there a little longer, okay?”

“Okay…”

You looked at her sideways for half a second of bottled oxygen in your throat. Your right hand then wandered over the derailleur that stood between the two seats at the front of the car, to give a cordial squeeze on your wife's left thigh, which was tucked into dark jeans. In grim silence, Wanda held your fingers extensions between her palms – her wedding band felt cool against your skin.

Out of the corner of your sharp eye, your left hand screwed into the outline of the steering wheel, you captured the smudged image of a rudimentary green-painted board made from logs; population 3,892, “WELCOME TO WESTVIEW – HOME: IS WHERE YOU MAKE IT”. You once spray-painted that sign because you were a stupid teenager who had a stupid idea. Nobody ever knew that you did it.

Little Westview was still the same as before, always so classic and timeless. But there was something there, like an ominous specter lurking around corners and behind the fogged up windows, that had made your heart crumple inside your anxious chest and your body curl up like a tortoise does in its shell, unconsciously going further into the faux leather seat.

It was as if every component structure of the city looked into the moving car, as if everything there knew what you had done. How guilty you were; your sin leaking from your pores, bristling your veins.

As the concrete and pylons of the gray, wet asphalt citadel burst before your eyes, magically trapped in an eternal vortex of the sixties, with its empty houses and dismal colonial-style shops surrounded by leafy trees of essence green taking on shades of orange, damp and dark, and its old-fashioned cinema that in its facade of red and blue in bright neon, announced the rerun of a horror movie in black and white.

The Halloween decorations began to appear more and more as the vehicle approached the center of town – a wicked witch in a purple dress flying on top of a broom, a bedsheet made into a ghost with two open holes for the eyes and one for the mouth, a handful of pumpkins with carved pointy teeth.

You clenched your jaw, a streak of sunlight barely crossing your forearm raised to brush a strand of hair out of your eye. It didn't take more than minutes for you to park your car in front of Wanda's old childhood home – the town was tiny, and the house stood triumphantly wider and larger than the other residences.

The cream-colored little house just around the corner caught your eye like a beacon in the dark, however; before your parents moved out of the country after you finished college, this is where you had lived with your family – the window of your old room always facing the street outside.

It was about a ten-minute drive straight down Ellis Avenue (Tommy already fidgeting to get out of the car, Billy saying he was sleepy, Wanda holding back so she wouldn't explode, you just wishing you'd get there soon). Still so early in the morning, the figure of Erik Lehnsherr, once the mayor of Westview, could already be found on his front porch – gray-striped jacket and cropped white hair, bordering on the pearly tone of old age. You turned off the car ignition.

“It's gonna be okay, Wands,” was a whisper on your part into a pair of dark green eyes that weren't quite staring at you, “I'm here with you. I’ll always be here for you, honey.”

“I know,” she sighed back, before taking her right hand to the doorknob and then opening the car door, “I know, baby. Thank you.”

Erik tucked both of his hands into the pockets of his linen pants, piercing eyes burning into your silhouette beneath a pair of bushy dark brows as you helped Billy to get out of the vehicle through the left door that opened like a long red wing towards the street. Sapphire irises, the grandfather of your children.

Clean, wealthy and downright cruel. A frown stripped away from his thin dead lips, which made him looked like a comic book villain – a puff of cocky unpleasantness. Bitter aroma of pompous whiskey on the lapels of his jacket. Your wife crossed the sidewalk, that green, well-trimmed lawn that carpeted the entrance to the house, and approached her own father with her head down.

“Good morning, father,” Wanda greeted him then in a tiny voice, a grim air leaking from her mouth, and she had been bringing Tommy's hand along with hers. With Billy you followed after them, stopping behind her right shoulder encircled by her dark coat.

“Wanda,” said the man in a scolding tone, always so sharp, which prompted a jolt of muscle memory from your wife, who shivered like a shy bunny inside her coat, “Boys.”

“H-hello, grandpa,” Billy tried first, his grip pressing hard against your hand that he held.

“Hi, grandpa,” came Tommy's voice then, though Erik's blue gaze wasn't aimed at the boy; but it did towards you. You swallowed the saliva behind your tongue in a long, sullen blink.

“G-good morning, Mr. Lehnsherr,” you whispered in a strained voice, performing a vaguely welcoming act, “How are you, sir?”

A second of icy silence pierced the front porch of the house, your coat rustling over your body. You brought Billy closer to your hip, his temple pressing against your ribcage in an attempt to warm the boy in front of the zephyrs that traversed the porch of the house stained in icy white paint. A car passed on the street. A dog started barking. The older man just turned his back on you, without offering you any syllables at all.

“Come in,” said Erik then, in a tone that in no way emulated a host, already walking his body back inside the open door, ever so used to giving orders and not receiving them, “It's cold out here.”

It took you a long time to find any answers to the inhospitalities uttered by the father of your beloved redhaired wife. Wanda realized that there had been more than one (or even two) attempts on your part to speak out over the course of a few long, drawn-out seconds. Your eyes then migrated to the troubled look of the silent woman standing beside you, who nodded in agreement with the slightest movement of her head. Silently, always behind Wanda, you only entered the residence after your wife did.

ᗢ

The hallways of Westview High School were still the same ones you remembered in your memory, seeming preserved in time since the last time you set foot on that comfortable linoleum floor, in a teenage memory cloistered within the walls of your own cranium.

But you were an adult now, a self-assured, stable woman with a solid career and an established family. You wouldn't allow a pompous boy who exuded arrogance, that same troglodyte who always bumped his strong shoulder against yours, to trouble your spirits again.

The gym’s basketball court (a rectangular floor with baskets at each end) had been willingly granted by Monica Rambeau, the then-current principal of the school, always so efficient as she did since she was a young girl, to play a crucial role in the location where Pietro Maximoff’s memorial would be held – as in a ritual religious, a cult of an numinous god, as if one were about to light a candle and sacrifice a chicken on an altar to bring him back to the realm of the living beings.

He was still there, more alive now than dead than he had ever been before. It was like your own augur spirit slithering behind your shoulders, a past always ready to haunt you, to rip your soul out of your eyes if need be. Little by little, the small town seemed inclined to accept the unpalatable fact that the golden boy had indeed died, even though almost two decades had passed and the youth of today didn't even care about the name of the late teenage athlete who studied with their parents so many years ago.

It was easy to bring back the time that had been spent there, and everything you had ever experienced in that environment – the tin lockers were still bluish and you still remembered your own combination of numbers off the top of your head (turn to the side once, turn to the other twice, then turn to the other three times and the door magically opens, but needs a slam to open it fully).

Wanda had memorized that combination when you two started dating only to sneak there cute little notes in between classes.

Near a small stage set up in front of the sloping seats of the polished wooden bleachers, with a platform at its center as in a presidential campaign, was a huge glossy photograph of a young Pietro smiling sideways, forever preserved at that stage in his life, a broken chuckle at the corner of his fifties Hollywood heartthrob's lips, a cheap performance by a small-town James Dean, just another naughty bad boy.

It was, that photograph, taken just before he disappeared, because the boy had dyed his brown hair a platinum blonde just a month before he disappeared for good. The sight of him there depressed you to the extreme, even though the tight lump in the nerve endings of your stomach further pointed to the bitter taste of fear rising in your gut; it had been a while since that boy had stopped bothering you altogether, and bringing that guilt-ridden nervousness back was not doing your health any good.

You'd abandoned your demons and didn't want to worry about them, even though Pietro's sapphire-colored irises looked like two security cameras following you around the room, his lips seeming to twitch in horror-movie words only you could hear: I'll tell them, Y/n. I'll tell them all what you did to me. The autumn air felt heavyweight and dense when enclosed in such a spacious environment, and an icy thread was rising in your throat.

Groups swarmed the walls of the gym like a flock of flies, former classmates of yours, faces dizzyingly familiar, the entire battalion of retired teachers who used to hang out with you in your everyday life at that school, and half a dozen other of Erik's stuck-up acquaintances al dresses in wealthy coats so similar to his own. You shook a few hands and offered some unsympathetic smiles – always the same questions and always the same answers, after all, you were now part of the victim's family.

“Yes, yeah, I married Wanda”, “Yeah, his twin sister”, “Wanda is sad but we're doing our best to make it okay”, “No, I wasn't that close to him back then”, “He was a great guy, wasn't he?”. No, he wasn't.

Citizens in their late forties, all expressing sad faces, as if they were rehearsing for a play; the main role would win whoever convinced everybody that they were sadder than the others at the death of a boy that everyone pretended to like at the time because his father was the mayor. You watched it all so secluded, so far away, that play worthy of social etiquette to tragedy unfolding right under your eyelashes, while Wanda was with Erik and more people talking on the platform. Black always looked good on her.

You kept your eyes on the twin boys circling near the coffee table, a donut dusted with an icing sugar crust to each, just to keep their childish palates entertained, avoiding Pietro's gaze in that photo, preferring to pounce like a cat and sneaking between people's ankles, letting yourself fall into abandon, as long as you didn't see anyone and no one else could see you either.

“Man, that's really sad,” a voice had said over your right shoulder, and Darcy Lewis, a former classmate of you, always with long dark hair and round glasses, came to meet you carrying a disposable cup of warm coffee in her right hand.

She was always full of ghastly puns and some occasional movie reference exchanged between the times you paired up in sophomore chemistry class.

“Yeah, it's really sad,” you muttered in an artificial tone, “It's sad as fuck.”

“I mean, I always thought that the guy was a fucking idiot. He was an asshole, everybody knew he was an asshole,” she continued, just after taking a long swig from the steaming cup of coffee that she held at her jaw height.

“At the time I was even glad he was gone, I'm not gonna do like these hypocritical suckers here and pretend that I liked him because I truly didn’t. But I don't know, after all this time... he was just a kid, you know?”

The walls of your stomach clenched and ached in an icy brush. He was just a boy, really. In the end, he was just a boy. Something you discarded for the earth to digest and take away, but which in a run of bad luck, just came back to haunt you so many years later.

“I just… I thought he had run off with some girl when he realized he had no chance of getting into college or whatever. He looked like the kind of guy who would try his hand at life in L.A and then come back home old and crying. But damn, being actually murdered? What the fuck. That’s sick.”

She used a tone of indignant surprise to accentuate the last word you couldn't quite digest in your stomach, acrimony bile and distressing dread climbing up the muscles of your slimy mucus-covered throat. Nothing in you was intent on looking at the woman in the thick coat standing beside you, but your gaze even less yearned for Pietro's piercing irises.

“Just… this isn't one of those TV shows that always has a small-town mystery or some shit like that. This is real life, man. These things are not supposed to happen around here.”

You took a deep breath, forcing yourself to swallow a gulp of icy air. Crossing the crowd, next to her big-handed father in expensive pants, Wanda's earnest gaze sought you out. And you didn't notice something opaque distorting the green of her irises, as far away as she was from you. But your former classmate noticed the exchange of glances with your wife, and another sip of coffee came for her to speak again.

“Damn, sorry,” Darcy mussed then, “You married his sister, didn't you? Shit, I completely forgot about that, Y/n. I'm sorry. I know this must be a difficult time for your family. For you, even.”

“It’s okay,” you shrugged into your own coat, “He and I weren't very close in high school, anyway,” and then, you finally looked at her, “But I know it’s just sad that he’s gone. I’m trying to keep it together for Wanda and our boys, but… it’s tough. Everything in this situation just sucks.”

“Right?” she scrutinized at you with her piercing, pale blue eyes under her glasses frame, looking at you with pity in her gaze, as if you weren’t just a guilty liar.

“He was an asshole, sure, but he... he was just a kid. I realize this now that I’ve grown up. It’s not fair, man, it’s not fair to him that it was like this. I wonder how scared he was at the end. Nobody… nobody deserves to die like this.”

It was like the last shovel of dirt in your own coffin. It was too much, just being there was too much for you. Your stomach dropped as you vomited a sweaty smile out of your lips. So you accepted, you just did – a pompous boy who exuded airs of arrogance still troubled your spirit, after all.

Because what you had done to him (your hands stained with still-warm blood and wet earth, your skin itching against the dewy tall grass in the middle of the night, the smell of iron and musky trees in the air) had scarred your carcass for the rest of your life. The latent guiltiness would never let your bones rest again in your life.

ᗢ

You hugged your thick coat made of black fabric to your body, even though you didn't feel the autumn chill at all. But you only knew that you had done it so that you could hide from the morbid eyes of the trees in the cemetery. The atmosphere of that place was horrible. The white headstone was beautiful, and that was just despondent. There was something sadistic about the fact that a funeral was such a beautiful thing – even more so when you were the reason that corpse lost its heartbeat.

Everything in a cemetery was miserable, of course, the stench of human putrefaction was intrinsic in the still life of that sacred ground; just a bunch of dead people and memories buried to the bottom, but the fact that this tombstone was so expensive and so exceedingly beautiful was the most distressing part of it all.

It meant that Erik wanted to give the best treatment to this thing that would be a memorial to his beloved son even in death. Your cloudy irises descended to that cluster of flowers placed on top of the closed casket of dark varnished wood, whose interior held only a handful of bones worn down by exposure to time and the animals of the forest. They were burying a bag of bones because of you.

Amidst a sea of bowed heads, hazy faces tucked into dark garments, all with shoulders pressed together like a wall founded in mourning, the deceased's father was the one who spoke the parting words, while Wanda stood beside you, each of you holding the hand of one of the twin boys the two of you had had. When she noticed the stress simmering up inside you, almost leaking out of your mouth, your brow furrowed, a hand of hers soon tried to reach for your fingers.

“Pietro was a good boy,” the heartbroken father had said then, “He really was. And someday he would be a great man, I know he would. I... I'm glad my beloved Magda isn't here to witness this. She wouldn't deserve to see our boy like that. See what they did to him.”

You thought you were going to throw up as memories began to pour through the blood coursing through your pallid veins, a den of unsettling affliction teasing you into a frenzy of unease. Between bushes and rocks, into the beech woods of the forest, swallowed up by the enormities of the shadows of the scrupulous pines, placed in wide profligate rows, you set out carrying those bones that were still wrapped in a capsule of flesh, veins, muscles and sinews.

The twigs on the forest floor twisted the flesh at her ankles and calves, but the vibrating epinephrine in your veins inhibited the burning sensation of a handful of tiny cuts slashing open in your skin. But still, you groaned in pain. But the pain you felt had not come from the abrasions and fissures denoted here or there in your epidermis – it had been the broken heart, which had begun to weaken you, chilling your bones and viscera.

Flowing reality flooded your bronchial tubes; there was fear emanating from the tears dispersed down the length of your face. Fear of losing your beloved Wanda Maximoff. Wanda, your support, your muse, your martyrdom, your passion. Lyrical, but somewhat tragic, like a Homeric tale. A famine that was supplied to you; an abstruse epic romance born of the core of two girls devoid of a primordial love. What would you do without her, and what wouldn't you do for her? Heaven and hell weren't extreme thresholds that would keep you from searching for the girl you were dating.

You dug a grave, the deepest of them, a hell hole. You dropped Pietro's inert body into that eternal darkness. And then you threw dirt on him until you couldn't see his platinum hair anymore. Your yelps echoing off trees, rocks, and tall grass. The sky was overcast and the weather tasted of blood and bitterness. And when you let go of the shovel you turned back to the young Wanda standing right behind you, her eyes empty, her clothes still smeared with the blood that spurted from her own twin's jugular.

“It's gonna be okay, baby,” you reassured her, your girlfriend, your future wife, the future mother of your kids, “It's gonna be okay, Wands. I'm here with you. No one will know. They’ll never know.”

“Promise me, Y/n?” she hummed through the trees, a shy, measured voice. Dark hair curled with streaks of heavy blood starting to clot at the ends. Your dirt-smeared right thumb stroked the sharp of her cheekbone.

“I promise, Wanda. I'll always protect you, okay? No one will ever know what you did, honey. Never.”

“I love you, Y/n," she confessed, eyes shining in a sparkle that shouldn't have been there, “I want you to be by my side my whole life. I want you to keep this secret with me. Just you and me. We'll be together forever, and no one will ever know what we did.”

“No one will ever know,” you huffed back, leaning in to kiss her in front of her brother's makeshift grave.

No one would ever know that Pietro came home one night when Erik was out and found you and Wanda exchanging some teenage kisses on the kitchen counter – her sitting there, you standing between her legs, your finger going south, almost touching what hadn't been touched yet.

Or how he looked a lot like a rabid animal when he knocked you to the ground, making you hit the back of your head with a hard thud. As on the floor, slumped like a rag doll, you turned your hips dorsally so that you were facing your attacker – your own legs unusable once he had sat on them with his full weight. The boy's stiff hands bound your wrists just above your head, his hot breath brushing your hairline, just to the top of your forehead.

His psychotic dim face was thin and rampant, shades of blue flickering across his homicidal irises, his animalistic mouth hooded by strands of an oncoming dark beard that would someday show on his firm chin. And then masculine fingers, experienced, strong from gripping heavy basketballs every day, pressed against the throbbing muscle in your throat.

“You,” Pietro yawned, but, on the whole, didn't seem to be full of his mental faculties to the point that he could speak without being haunted by occasional tantrums of shaking, “You’re fucking my sister?! You fucking weirdo! I’ll fucking kill you!”

You squinted your eyes, your vision slowly dimming as your brain was deprived of oxygen. And then a cavernous growl resounded through the gray walls of the amorphous kitchen, followed by a heavy thud. You opened your eyes. With both his legs tangled up in your own, Pietro was slumped to the left, oozing from an open wound in his neck, a pool of warm blood that only grew. Like a mouse, he agonized over rambling words, before being lulled by the coldness of death.

His strong chin was soaked in the thick reddish blood seeping out of his nostrils, out of his mouth, and out of that gaping gash in the skin, from within an artery, thick and dark, almost the color of wine. Blood that trickled down the boy's viripotent chin, then dripped in a sinuous red line across your puffy face beneath him. The collar of your shirt was soaked in the color of tomato sauce.

The sound of metal hitting the floor reached your ears. Wanda dropped the knife she had stuck inside her twin brother's neck. She fell to her knees, bare by the little black dress she wore. And, pushing Pietro's body off you, you just crawled up to her like a bloody animal after a violent slaughter. And you held her against your body. You just held her.

“Y/n,” she whispered under her breath, “Y/n... I... I'm... I'm scared, Y/n... I'm scared...”

Blood all over the kitchen floor, showing and where it shouldn't be – on the sleeves of your shirt and in Wanda's long dark hair, “No one will know,” you uttered against the shell of her ear, “Don't worry, honey, no one will ever know. I won't lose you, Wanda. No one will ever tear us apart.”

You might have thought differently in the years that followed if you had seen the smile she hid against your collarbone. If you only knew how much she disliked having her ankle chained to Pietro's glory even though she always passed for the sweet passive twin (after all, what kid would even want to be second choice?). If you only knew she hadn't just forgotten that her brother was coming home earlier that night.

If you only knew that years later, when you were finally there giving a dignified funeral for the body you two buried together, Wanda smiled the same way she did that night. After all, you were her wife now. You were the mother of her children. And you were the keeper of the biggest secret in her life, the only person who knew about the skeleton in her closet. It wouldn't make any difference to get rid of Pietro if she got you for life.

“I love you, I love you so, so much,” Wanda whispered in your ear then, that night when you slept in her father's guestroom, “And I'll never lose you, Y/n. Never. Thanks for making sure of that for me, baby.”

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autumnbrambleagain · 2 months

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edit: rant edited to reflect how Snoot Game treats gender identity b/c i hadn't really done more than look at a few convos about it

I'm GBH, Goodbye Volcano High got like, the worst fucking shake

Disclaimer, I haven't played it (there is a very special irony in this that i'll get into in a bit), but I've watched people on youtube play it, and I think it's. Fine? It's fine. But everything surrounding this game, everything that happened to and around it, it's fucking wild. I've never seen a game get such a poor serve-up on the tennis court before.

It gets put up on the big console premier along huge AAA budget games. That's rough. A small intimate-scale VN about the end of the world as a metaphor for growing up and leaving highschool and changing and also a non-metaphor for the world ending as itself a metaphor for the new generation entering into what feels like an absolutely hopeless, pointless future (spoilers: the future is pretty fucking dire (the present is already fucking bad))?

Those are some rough themes! That isn't doomchief and master slayer punching guys! And not to denigrate doomchief! These are some ROUGH themes and the trust that those themes will be handled WELL isn't something you want to give out so readily! Those are themes that are easy to fuck up! Fair! But still. Oof!

To have your relatively small scale game put up as a launch title alongside mass-consumption AAA games. Ouch.

I'll admit: the art style was pretty rough, it's really rough on first look. I made fun of it too.

Then it comes out the MC is enby, that it deals with queer themes, and 4chan-esque folk go nuts over it. Snoot Game comes out which, apparently, seemingly, actually not bad! A lot more ironic but with serious themes handled, apparently earnestly, and it's overall... good!? Even some critical accounts suggest it isn't, at least, bad? Whichever: it comes out faster than GVH does, so it now has a parody-competitor dealing with the same themes, but not just as a JOKE but actually putting effort into it too. Like. That's the thing. Snoot Game DEALS with strong themes of growing up, of becoming a person, it DEALS with the themes GVH is saying it will deal with... and it uses the characters to do it too.

And it does it, by some accounts, WELL.

Ouch!

Granted Snoot Game is from 4chan and apparently I'm now reading one of the themes is Fang accepting they're a woman and they were just being enby to try and be different, and while it seems like it DOES handle it very seriously, and like, the game seems to penalize you for being shitty about their gender, and like, detransitioning IS a thing! I don't want to give TOO much trust to a 4chan-derived game either. I'm literally enby, but I also wasn't always enby, but like. Having a game where the message of "you were only trans because you were pressured into being different", it's, ehhhhhhhh not great no!

TBH without going through Snoot Game I can't really speak about it but Snoot Game overall isn't the main point, the main point is:

Some people are already now primed with associations and expectations, you already have a doppleganger as your competitor. OUCH.

So like.

Pretty rough.

And while Snoot Game, from the compressed summaries of it I've seen, seems to actually have honest heart and love in it in its final form, a lot of people just seem to be along for the hate-ride against GVH at this point because "eww the alphabet rainbow furries."

And then the writer has to step down because they found out she's into child por--wait, it was just 3d animations? That someone else made? That she was watching and criticizing as part of an article on how dumb video game porn is?

Oh. See, there's a difference between "the author is an active pedophile" and "the author watched a Harry Potter porn animation to write an article on the concept of video game porn," but in our modern era there's really never a distinction. Drawing something bad is the same as doing it in real life. Looking at it at all is the same as doing it in real life. If you see a woman's ankle on the street, make sure to head immediately to confession or God will judge you for the rape you have committed in your heart.

We live in such a media-literacy dead-end zone that people are calling the original Lolita book child porn. We live in such a media-literacy dead-end timeline that people are saying the only media that should be permitted to exist is happy comfort fluff where nothing bad ever happens because if you make bad things happen in fiction it means you're an evil villain :3 i'm not an evil villain, though, i don't watch bad media!

So of course it's fine to ruin careers because that's not EVIL. I didn't look at the BAD media so I CAN'T be evil. So you know, we have this modern purity pandemic of people thinking they're heroes for getting people to kill themselves because they drew or wrote "the wrong kind of thing" and are therefore EVIL and we're in a post-DnD world the cultural well got poisoned by DnD's secular take on evangelical protestantism's absolute morality of saved-vs-nonsaved. You're Lawful Good, you know you're Lawful Good. Whatever you to do Chaotic Evil people? That's fine. You can do whatever you want to them. You're Good.

Anyway, then it gets delayed to remove all her influence from the game, because at this point, even admitting you know what sex is online seems to be enough to ruin anything you touch tbh. Humanity's doing great, btw.

Like I can find twitter posts of her apologizing for "hurting people" by having seen harry potter porn. Your species is insane, just btb.

GVH finally comes out quietly and everyone's so fucking. MAD at this game. Hardcore 4chan whateverfolk hate it because there's queers and highschoolers. Other people dislike it because Snoot Game already came out and now GVH feels like fanfiction of THAT to them. They already met these characters, enjoyed them written like they were in Snoot Game, so how they come off in GVH feels worse. And you know, sure! That's a rough fucking shake when a fanfiction comes out before your actual release and it's good! For others it's tainted because a ""sex perver"" had worked on it. For others the art style and that it premiered alongside big name AAA games as a launch title was enough to slot it firmly in the derision zone. For some, because the queer community cannot NOT devour its own tail, it's doing queerness wRONG (Fang's parents MISGENDER and DEADNAME them!!! you can't put that in a game that deals with gender as a theme!!!!)

And then you have people who don't care about ANY of that, who are upset that everyone dies in the end and "your choices didn't matter", despite your choices affecting your relationships with the other characters. Granted? Sure! More actual endings beyond the end-of-the-world concert would be great! But comparing it to Mass Effect 3 where NOTHING mattered because the Reapers destroy everything and you pick one option at the end and their implied consequences before like 4 different changes to the ending came out to retcon "oh yeah everyone in the galaxy is stranded, everyone probably dies anyway, you accomplished nothing everyone's still dead" ? ?

The world's ending. That's the point. It's what you do with the time left that seems to be the point? Yeah? No? I'm not saying it HIT that theme well, and I'm not saying it actually failed at it either. I honestly think it did FINE. The criticism i keep seeing is "everyone died so nothing mattered." Buddy. Buddy. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. Please do not let that convince you that nothing you ever did mattered.

Among all that it came out buggy, apparently, and the music minigame isn't like. Super. Good. Doesn't matter too much if you do well or not. Not greatly designed? So you know. The game also has just general internal problems too mechanically, so people without a dog in the race just don't enjoy playing it? Like, the art style was all on the creators, like, it's... it's not GREAT I'll be real! It's really weird. It's humans in those latex dolphin masks the memes weren't off base even i was laughing at it and groaning at yet another piece of media whose theme was "leaving highschool is like the world ending"

but like.

GVH isn't like. I dont' think this is some great amazing the best game ever. The art style's grown on me but in the way where you learn to ignore how it looks. But like, I see people complaining it's too whiny--wait, the characters aren't depressed ENOUGH about the world ending--honestly, honestly,

I think I like it? I haven't played it but I've watched it and I think I like it. I'm not like, this is probably the last day in a while I'll ever even think about the game, it isn't going to stick with me for years and years, it didnt' make a big impact on me--but I liked it well enough???

At this point, my default assumption at this point is if someone strongly openly firmly dislikes this game it's not at all for any good reasons--or rather, that it's not on the value of the game in-and-of-itself. This poor game was saddled with all this WEIGHT on top of it. Can you even dig it clear of this external context and examine the game itself for what it is anymore?

I'm writing all these words and like. I haven't PLAYED it i've just watched other people play it. I'm not even BIG into the game it's like... it's okay!

But oh my god I cannot get over what a fucking. BAD serve-up the game had leading to its release and just beyond. Oof. Ouch. God. That's real rough, buddy. I have never seen something get this POOR a serve. What an absolute rough, ravage, unfair birth for a thing into the world!

I think if the game congealed out of the aether (and maybe with a more... better art direction?) it'd be fondly remembered in small quantities?

Instead it's just... the actual game itself is just BURIED under all this mess.

It's fucking fascinating to me, honestly. It's far more fascinating what happened to this game than the game itself at this point, and that, too, isn't very fair to the poor game. I, too, am here not to talk about the game, to care about the game, to have anything to say about the game. I am PART of this problem I'm talking about. Instead of addressing the game I'm talking about the context that was built around it.

I'm here because I remembered the drama, looked into all the drama, then went to watch the game and, after seeing ALL of that, EVERYthing I read through to get to the game itself, actually seeing the game was just... like... for this? All of that, for this?

Huh.

#long #autumn says things #autumn rambles

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sciencestyled · 6 months

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Fang-tastic Revelations: Unveiling the Universe with a Vampire’s Charm

Hey there, fellow nocturnal knowledge seekers! We're here to spill some seriously spooky cosmic beans about a topic that's darker than your favorite goth band's wardrobe. Picture this: an article so cool it could only be narrated by the prince of darkness himself, Dracula. Yeah, you read that right! 🦇

So, let’s sink our teeth into this, shall we? Imagine cruising through the cosmos on a moonless night, unraveling mysteries that are more elusive than a ghost at a daytime pool party. That's what this article is all about – it's a moonlit escapade into the heart of dark matter! It's like your favorite horror movie met a science documentary, and they had a brainy, blood-curdling baby.

We’re talking about a subject so enigmatic, it makes your crush's mixed signals seem straightforward. Dark matter is not your usual stroll in the park (or in our case, the graveyard). It’s like trying to catch a whisper in the wind or pinning down the shadow of a swiftly flying bat – practically impossible, but oh so thrilling!

And who better to guide us through this eerie expedition than our favorite Transylvanian count, Dracula? He's swapping his usual bloodlust for knowledge-thirst and taking us under his wing (pun totally intended) through the cosmic unknown. This isn't just about twinkling stars and galaxies; it's about the invisible forces that hold our universe together – like a cosmic glue that prefers to stay in the dark. Spooky, right?

But here’s the twist – even Dracula’s keen vampire senses can't see this stuff. It’s that stealthy! We're venturing into the shadowy corners and hidden chambers of space where dark matter lurks, unseen yet unmistakable, like a vampire in his cloak. It's all about the unseen forces and ghostly phenomena that shape the cosmos, much like how a good horror story shapes your nightmares.

This article isn't just a bunch of fancy space talk; it's a wild ride through the galaxies with a vampire as our tour guide. Forget about stargazing – we’re shadow-hunting. We're diving (oops, not that word!) into the mysteries of dark matter and its gravitational gymnastics, all narrated by the one and only Dracula. It’s science, but with fangs and a cape.

So, if you're ready to explore the darker side of the universe, where the unseen is king and every discovery is a step closer to unraveling cosmic secrets, this is your ticket to the show. Don your blackest cloak, grab your telescope, and join us on this chilling, thrilling, absolutely un-killable journey through the night sky!

Remember, in the world of dark matter, the night is always young, and the mysteries are as endless as Dracula's lifespan. Let's venture into this shadowy soiree of science and see what lurks in the cosmic corners where even the stars dare not shine! 🌌🧛‍♂️✨

#dark matter #science #physics #dracula #science education

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chernobog13 · 10 months

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I watched the first episode of Ultraman Blazar last night.

It was an unusual first episode for an Ultra series, but overall I liked it. Very happy that it is not another "New Generation" series, especially since the last two were re-treads of Tiga and Dyna.

Very much got a Nexus vibe off this episode, but not as dark and gritty as that series. Part of that might be Blazar's mostly grey and silver color scheme, which is evocative of Nexus, who also had red and blue costumes.

You can tell that the production team was also trying to emulate the style of Shin Ultraman (2022) and Shin Kamen Rider (2023), albeit on a much smaller scale.

I like the fact that Blazar's human counterpart, Captain Hiruma Gento, is actually in charge of the kaiju attack squad. That changes things up a bit, as he will have to work extra hard to mask his absences when joining with Blazar from the rest of his crew.

Gento is also an older, more mature protagonist than is usual for an Ultra series, which is a nice call back to the original Showa series. I know this a franchise aimed at kids, but I am sooooooooooo tired of the whiney kids with no idea about personal grooming that we've had a near-steady parade of as stars of the shows.

As for Blazar himself, he's a bit...different than previous Ultras.

For one thing, he WILL. NOT. STOP. GRUNTING! It is non-freakin'-stop. And it's not regular grunting that you hear from other Ultras as they fight kaiju; it's as if the actor is speaking some crazy, made-up language.

This was seriously distracting during the fight with Bazanga, the space kaiju du jour. I certainly hope that it doesn't continue for the rest of the season.

Something even more disconcerting were Blazar's antics during the battle. At one point he was doing rapid high-knee jumps like he was a little kid having a tantrum. That was disconcerting, to say the least.

I do like Blazar's main attack weapon, which is a spear made of energy that he summons. It was a little silly that he tossed it a Bazanga (I have to stop myself from typing Ba-Zinga), but it worked so I guess that's all that matters.

I tried to stay away from most promotional material before watching the episode, as I don't want to know everything about the characters and premise before hand. If the show does its job properly, that information will be conveyed through the story. A show/film shouldn't rely on supplemental material in other media for the audience to understand what's going on.

That said, I did read some articles and posts today that gave me some supplemental info.

On this Earth, humanity has been battling kaiju since 1966, which I think is a nice touch. Apparently, they've succeeded at doing so without the assistance of an Ultraman; at least until now.

Ultraman Blazar is not from M78. He is, instead, from M421, a blazar (Wikipedia: "an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a relativistic jet (a jet composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light) directed very nearly towards an observer. ") far, far away.

And, Blazar is reportedly a "more primitive" type of Ultraman, whatever that means. It might serve to explain his wild antics and why he was grunting/babbling the whole time. I haven't investigated this further because I want to see how this is explained in the show.

So now I guess I'll just wait until next Friday night to see how things progress.

#Ultraman Blazar #Hiruma Gento #tokusatsu #Tsuburaya Productions #Japanese superheroes

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threebooksoneplot · 2 months

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Hey, do you want an even wilder fun fact about the original structure/ending of new moon? Apparently the Volturi weren't originally in it at all!!!!

No word about what happened instead, but smeyer said in her 2009 Oprah interview that in the very first draft it was "all in bella's head," but when she talked to her mom about it, she recommended more action at the end, so she put the Volturi in. (Talk about no tension or ticking clock.)

sources: here's a youtube video of it, this question's at 3:11, and an article summarizing the interview

also, love the podcast so much, so glad you continued into a second season!! (i still haven't recovered from the homophobia section of dark noon, lol)

omgggg more SMEYER WRITING PROCESS LORE!! I (G) love getting glimpses into her twisted mind, especially when they come with receipts. I think I've abandoned all pretense of not being a "put her under a microscope" stephenie meyer scholar at this point. thank you thank youuu

and oof, just imagining us trying to find things to enjoy about NM without even a hint of volturi present...we'd be sitting in a chair having our own months-long Possibility.mp3 moment.

for anyone else curious, the article link above doesn't appear to be working, but I tracked down what I think is the same one!

also I'd forgotten smeyer's mom's name is "candy" thank you for reminding me of that crucial detail 💀

(didn't she put that name in The Host? I swear she did)

—G

listen you have no idea how hard it is to keep from nearly pissing my pants every time I read g's dark noon excerpts. this is literally me:

no but seriously thanks for dropping these incredible receipts on us. in the tiktok age where people constantly share things like "did you KNOW that twilight isnt even a ROMANCE 😱" and it's just a regurgitated headcanon with like 35493 likes, it's so fun to see you stroll up and be like "okay get a load of THiS actual twilight fun fact" with your works cited and everything. bravo friend, i'm delighted rn

but real talk its kind of wild to see how hard it is to track down fandom info from even 15 years ago, so to have y'all keeping tabs and spreading the tea like this isn't just delightful for us (and everyone else who gets to read this now) but you're doing PHENOMENAL fandom archiving my friend!!!! thank you!!!

—shannon

#asks #the-most-pathetic-edge-marquis #new moon #stephenie meyer #the volturi #and yeah candy is DEFINITELY a name from the host and I never realize that she used it until just NOW—shannon

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nelfs · 10 days

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not to sound snooty but poor syntax and sentence structure turns me off of reading anything (intended to come off professionally or formally) SO quickly. i cant take your essay seriously if you're dropping sentences like "Lots of problems were in the way and it made it hard. Late papers, missing the deadlines, and someone sick was all part of the issues we had" and I see stuff that sounds like that in SOOOO many published works. its kind of wild. isnt it someones job to make sure an article DOESN'T read that way??

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talesfortold · 9 months

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Making this it's own post for visibility

original post and reblog are from here: https://www.tumblr.com/triviallytrue/725385642996105216/gender-segregation-at-high-level-chess-is-wild

on the comment about the game being so extremely male dominated at the master level, its also very clear that women don’t get a lot of support on an institutional scale.

lichess released an article a couple days ago in which they rescinded their support of the US Chess Federation (USCF) and the Saint Louis Chess Club (STLCC) going forward following the mishandling of multiple sexual misconduct allegations. Both the USCF and the STLCC are organizations that hold a lot of sway inside the US and internationally.

two chess masters accused of sexual misconduct, and two examples of the lack of support women have within the highest levels of professional chess. it took Jen Shahade, a WGM, years to even get USCF to seriously investigate her claims.

the article also says that ALL FOUR women on the US Chess Accessibility and Special Circumstances Committee resigned in order to shed light and raise awareness about the incidents. the USCF, STLCC, and even FIDE (the international authority on chess) need to step up to the plate to keep women safe. this is a problem that seriously needs more visibility and advocacy. a solution is long overdue.

a lot of people on tumblr may not care about chess, but i hope you do care about this. the article only covers the stories of people who came forward, but there is doubtless many others who suffer in silence. PLEASE give the article a read and spread the word.

#chess #women #feminism #patriarchy

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29kmagic · 8 months

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I played a game with Elliot! 🎮

One day, I came across a menfess that talked about how we see our partner in several aspects. Here's the clear picture about it:

Found it intriguing, I immediately asked Elliot to do it together! It turned out that he loves it to do this kind of game too! 🥰❤️ long story short, we created our own individual boards and the results are CUTE!

From my POV...

I seriously can't unsee him as a white ferret. That's the reason I chose ferret as the right animal that represents him well. Probably because he's been using Hyujin as his character since we first met.

Library, of course because he's a bookworm. And it must be designed in vintage cause Elliot is a sucker for vintage, heheh.

Lily, for his redolence.

Nick Wilde from Zootopia because he's just as cunning as him, sometimes can be funny too. 🤨

Winter because there's something in him that feels piercingly cold, just like winter. Yet the winter's beautiful view is still worth enjoying.

Writing, because... I guess everyone knows?!

Ice cream, for I see ice as a cream (yes, he's the ice. remember what I've said earlier about something between him and winter?) BUT despite that, I know his liking for ice cream and anything sweets in particular.

Navy blue, deep blue. Idk it just suits him most.

And the last one, COFFEE, for he's a caffeine addict. I've tried to warn him about the bad effects of consuming it, though. But he didn't listen (!!!!)

From his POV...

First, siamese cat. Elliot said that this creature is similar to me for its cuteness and annoyance. Like... HOW?! But after all, I'm proud to be likened by this cat, though. It is indeed CUTE and this breed is my favorite.. mew.

Second, working space. I forgot why'd he give me that...

Tulip! He once said that if I were a flower, I'd be tulip. He chose it for its pretty looks and expensiveness. Aku yang disamain sama tulip: 🥰💗😍🤑💘❤️‍🔥

Fred Weasley. I was confused seeing him on the board and kept finding the similarities between Fred and me.. but then Elliot told me: it's because Fred is funny as fuck, a caring person even though he doesn't look like one, lowkey smart, pretty, and could make him happy just like me– am I??? 🤣

According to Elliot, my presence is like autumn, as it is often described as a seaseon where it feels chilly and breezy, yet the cold isn't overly piercing on the skin. Still can make one feel comfy and features a beautiful scenery as well!

Hobbies: reading. He sees me as a person who enjoys reading, whether it's book, poem, articles, anything. Heh. Oddly enough. Besides that, it's also because of his love to books. Still remembered he states, "Buku = kesukaanku, kamu = kesukaanku." Anjay banget kata gua teh.

I FORGOT... THE REASON WHY... he gave me waffles and beige... can't find it anywhere too. But fortunately it aligns with my likings, as I have beige as my favorite color! :9

COFFEE! Again I'm likened to his favorite. He has a strong caffeine addiction, and I share the same addiction with caffeine.

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backlogbooks · 10 months

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Also, and this is less important, but i’ve been reading horror seriously for about 6 years, and reading it off and on since I was a kid, and I still hesitate to jump fully into horror analysis like I did today and yesterday, because there’s been so much written about horror over its lifetime and there are a lot of people more well versed than me

so the “I just got into horror five minutes ago and i’ve decided to write a full article (in which i criticize all horror fans who disagree with me)” is such a wild mindset. how do you get there. i was *this* close to having a references list for my tumblr posts

#mary emma talks #cozy horror discourse

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bleuhisteria · 11 months

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Phantom Melody Chapter 3

(Y/N) managed to make her way back to her apartment, feeling refreshed after taking a quick shower to clear her mind. She carefully bandaged her swollen cheek, ensuring it was properly treated.

As she passed by her bed on her way to the closet, her phone, which rested on top of the sheets, began to ring. Curious about the caller ID displaying "Endeavor," she picked up the phone and answered.

"This is (Y/N)," she said, wondering why Endeavor was calling her.

"(Y/N), we'll resume training tomorrow. My morning schedule is filled, so I'm calling to inform you that our training will be in the afternoon," Endeavor explained over the phone.

(Y/N) hummed in agreement. "Yeah, okay. Couldn't you have sent a text instead?" she chuckled, teasing him about his choice of communication.

Endeavor sighed, realizing that his attempt to be courteous didn't quite meet (Y/N)'s expectations. "It was urgent," he replied, feeling a twinge of guilt for not being more straightforward.

(Y/N) laughed, not taking his words too seriously. "I'll be at the shooting range nearby. Just come by when you get there," she stated as she picked out her pajamas, preparing to relax for the evening.

As the night before her training with Endeavor approached, (Y/N) found herself restless, tossing and turning in bed. She couldn't shake off the excitement and nervousness that came with training with one of the top pro heroes in the city.

Trying to distract herself, she opened her laptop and checked the news, only to find that the latest and most popular piece of news was a picture of her and Hawks taken by the crowd during the bus incident, then the next showing him lifting her up in his arms and flying away.

"This is what I was worried about," she muttered, a worried grin on her face. She wasn't concerned about herself but rather for the hero and the attention he might receive because of their interaction.

Setting her laptop aside for a moment, (Y/N) got up and headed to the kitchen. She needed a drink to sip on while she read through the article that had been written about her and the pro hero.

Meanwhile, at Hawks' agency, the atmosphere buzzed with excitement and chatter. The picture of Hawks carrying (Y/N) had quickly circulated among the staff, causing a mix of amusement and curiosity.

Hawks, unaware of the commotion, was engrossed in his work, going through paperwork and preparing for his upcoming missions. However, every now and then, he couldn't help but steal a glance at his phone, hoping to receive a mysterious message or call from someone claiming to be 'Miss maybe'.

Hawks found himself the subject of playful teasing from his fellow agency members about the viral picture. They couldn't resist making sly comments and exchanging knowing winks, clearly hinting at the potential romantic connection between Hawks and the mystery woman. He would join in their laughter, responding with witty comebacks that seemed like jokes on the surface, but carried a subtle undertone of signaling them to tone down the speculation about the encounter. It was all in good fun, but Hawks preferred to keep his personal life private, especially when it involved someone as intriguing as the so called 'Maybe hero'.

Back in her apartment, (Y/N) immersed herself in the article that discussed the mysterious woman Hawks had flown off with. Speculations about her identity and her relationship with the hero filled the comments section, with some expressing disappointment that she might already be involved with Hawks. She couldn't help but chuckle at the assumptions, realizing how the public's imagination can run wild with just a single picture.

Closing her laptop, (Y/N) stood up from her bed and slid open the door to her balcony, stepping out into the cool night air. Leaning against the stone railing, she gazed out at the sprawling city illuminated by its vibrant lights. It was a sight she now got to appreciate every day since leaving the music industry, a decision that had brought her newfound freedom and joy.

Lost in her thoughts, (Y/N) began to hum a melody, the tune she had never quite finished composing. The soothing sound brought her a sense of solace, even though she still hadn't figured out what to do with it.

As the chill of the night settled into her skin, she reluctantly retreated back inside, closing the balcony door and drawing the curtains. Nestling herself into the soft blankets, (Y/N) found comfort in their warmth as she drifted off to sleep.

That morning, (Y/N) awoke and rolled out of bed with a loud thud, causing her to groan in pain as she held her head. After a moment, she managed to get up from the floor and brushed herself off.

Checking her phone, she noticed a missed call from Emily. Curious, she opened the message and saw it in all caps, expressing concern about (Y/N) not returning with the cake after closing the night before. (Y/N) smiled apologetically and quickly typed a message back, explaining that something unexpected had come up, and she would fill Emily in on the details later.

With that sorted, (Y/N) got ready for the day ahead. Knowing she had training with Endeavor, she chose a comfortable outfit consisting of a hooded jacket and a mask. She didn't want to attract any unnecessary attention, especially after the recent incident with Hawks that had sparked gossip and speculation about their relationship.

She made her way out of the apartment, locking her door before leaving the building and heading to the shooting range.

The shooting range was an airsoft facility, which disappointed her slightly as she had hoped for a range with real guns, the facility was next door but it would hinder with her quirk training. Nevertheless, she decided to make the most of it and enjoy herself. She picked up a couple of airsoft snipers and pistols, testing her skills and having fun with the simulation.

However, as she immersed herself in the shooting range, she couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching her. Turning around, she spotted a man leaning against the wall, observing her with keen interest.

He had the appearance of a stereotypical Western cowboy, and his face was obscured by an old-school tan gas mask resembling a horse's muzzle. Silver ear-defenders were wired to the sides of the mask, completing his unique look.

Her eyes sparkled with recognition as she met his gaze. She immediately realized that it was Mr. Snipe, a pro hero known for his exceptional marksmanship. Intrigued, she walked over to him, and he met her halfway, offering a greeting.

"Mr. Snipe," she greeted him, a mixture of excitement and curiosity in her voice. She couldn't help but wonder why a pro hero like him was at an airsoft range when he had the opportunity to use real guns in the adjacent facility.

"I've seen you here from time to time," he remarked, his voice muffled by the gas mask. "You're really good with that pistol. Might I ask why you're using airsoft instead of going next door where real guns are used?"

A playful smile tugged at her lips as she replied, "I could ask the same thing. But the reason is that airsoft bullets carry the same weight as the bullets produced by my quirk. It helps me simulate and fine-tune my aim without causing any actual damage." She explained, her eyes gleaming with a hint of mischief.

Snipe nodded, seemingly intrigued by her response. "That's a clever way to train," he commented, his voice filled with admiration. "Why don't I show you a thing or two?" he suggested, his tone brimming with confidence.

"Please!" (Y/N) responded almost instantly, her excitement evident in her voice and the sparkle in her eyes.

The hero proposed moving to the adjacent facilities where real guns were used. Eager to learn from one of the best gun heroes, she eagerly nodded in agreement. She returned the airsoft guns to the counter and followed Snipe to the real shooting range, her heart racing with anticipation.

"Where did you first learn to handle guns?" Snipe inquired as they walked through the hall, his curiosity evident in his tone.

"Due to circumstances, I decided to join the military for a couple of years," (Y/N) replied, her gaze fixed ahead, memories resurfacing.

"Circumstances?" Snipe wondered aloud, sensing there was more to her story. However, he quickly decided to respect her privacy and moved on from the topic. "For how long?" he asked, shifting the conversation.

"Two years," (Y/N) chuckled, realizing he was curious about the circumstances. "Circumstances being that I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps," she stated calmly, a flicker of longing in her eyes.

"I see..." Snipe responded, his voice filled with sympathy, understanding the weight of her words and the significance of her decision.

As they continued their walk, they engaged in light conversation, discussing their experiences and sharing stories of their respective journeys as heroes. (Y/N) appreciated Snipe's genuine interest and the connection they were forming. It was refreshing to find someone who understood her passion and respected her skills.

As they entered the new range, the sound of gunshots filled the air. The atmosphere was different, more intense and exhilarating. (Y/N) couldn't help but feel a surge of adrenaline as she observed the expert marksmen honing their skills with precision.

They borrowed their guns at the front and headed to their lane, (Y/N) planted her feet on the ground, ready to show her level of skill to the pro hero for him to figure out which areas she could refine.

Afterwards he would point out the things she needed to fix. For the next few hours, they practiced side by side, engaging in friendly competitions and challenging each other to hit difficult targets. (Y/N) marveled at Snipe's incredible skill and dedication.

Taking a break after the training session, (Y/N) had made significant progress, her aim and control noticeably improved. She couldn't thank Snipe enough for his guidance and mentorship.

As they prepared to leave the shooting range, Snipe turned to her with a smile. "You have a natural talent, (Y/N). Keep honing your skills, and I have no doubt you'll become an exceptional marksman."

Grateful for his words of encouragement, she nodded earnestly. "Thank you, Mr. Snipe. Your guidance means the world to me."

The two went back to training.

Time passed by and the afternoon came, the sound of the shooting range was interrupted by the entrance of Endeavor, the Flame Hero himself. He called out (Y/N)'s name, his gruff voice demanding attention. He nodded curtly to Snipe, acknowledging the presence of the fellow hero who had been training his student.

Now, as Endeavor stood in the doorway, his fiery gaze fixed upon (Y/N), she felt a surge of anticipation. The training with Snipe had invigorated her, and she was eager to demonstrate her progress to her mentor, the Number 2 hero as of today.

With a determined smile, (Y/N) turned towards Endeavor, ready to continue her training under his watchful eye. The encounter with Snipe had served as a valuable prelude, igniting her determination to become the best hero she could be.

She thanked the pro hero but not before him asking for her contact as he wanted to keep an eye on her growth, he hinted at the possibility of having her as a student.

(Y/N) left with Endeavor, waving at Snipe as they exited the facility.

"What's with the mask?" Endeavor asked, his brow furrowed.

(Y/N) put her hood up. "Didn't you see the news?" she asked.

He pulled her hood back off her head, causing her to yelp in surprise. "Keep the mask. You still look ridiculous," he grumbled.

"Hey!" She protested, pulling the hood back up.

"If you don't want people to define you simply as someone who Hawks was involved with, then give them a different image to hold on to," Endeavor advised. "Show them instead that you're my student."

(Y/N)'s eyes sparkled, and she let out a chuckle. "You sounded very encouraging and inspirational just now," she said as she removed her hood.

"Aren't I always?" Endeavor replied gruffly, still not quite understanding her humor.

(Y/N) laughed, holding back her amusement. "Sure, sure," she said playfully while pulling down her mask.

Chapter 3 End.

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cina-full-moon-xanadium · 1 year

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Your Tiga reblog reminds me of this article that details it's production history, it's good stuff: ultrablogdx(.)wordpress(.)com/2020/05/16/ultraman-tiga-production-history

Sorry for leaving this ask in my inbox for like a millennia, I usually never do that; but at the time I was having trouble finding time to set aside to read it and then after that you know how it is with ADHD and tasks that you've scheduled to do at some point, y'know? REALLY sorry about that but I have now read through it, and... wow that is a fascinating and harrowing read for just how wild the production was. For as much as I love stories with as clear a vision as Kuuga and ZO and Ultraman, I can also seriously appreciate things that were, like, a miracle that happened practically by accident. But boy this is a surprise to read.

Like... I think just because of their heavy similarities I tend to think of Tiga in the same vein as Kuuga and that's led me to elevating it further beyond its reality; it definitely did not have quite as much of a force behind it as Kuuga, and most shockingly that I'm now finding out it wasn't as much of a hit with kids?? It's something that was clearly such a success and such an influential show with a lot of fresh ideas going into it, but maybe not the clandestine vision I had thought of it as...

So much here is just fascinating. Evil Tiga being a rejected Neos design, a lot of Tiga in general being rejected Neos concepts; a new CEO thrust into an unfamiliar position which simultaneously meant he was inexperienced in how exactly to steer his ship but also granted a lot of creative freedom to his employees, said creative freedom being wildly out of sync at times... it all sounds a mess, but it also contributes to much of what I like about Tiga; how it is such a fantastic 'modern' Ultraman show because it isn't afraid to go into the wildly different directions the original Ultraman did! It is a show where despite a very specific backstory of ancient Earth having giants of light fighting back the darkness, you can just do shit like a giant samurai or mecha dinosaurs or vampires or weird halloween witch episodes or whatever! It all sounds like it should be a disaster but it all just works and it contributes to Tiga being one of the greatest examples of what Ultraman truly excels at.

A fair bit of this is like a wake-up call in the forms of rocks being pelted at my face to the reality of what one of my favourite Tokusatsu shows truly is, but at the same time so much of it makes me appreciate Ultraman Tiga even more for everything it went through and everything that went into it... thank you for bringing this to me even if I took so long to respond to it, it was a great read :)

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nukenai · 1 year

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Hey I saw your tags about the BLM and mustangs thing. Could you share more of what you mean by that being propaganda? I'm not asking you to wrote a whole article or anything, just if you have a couple of sources or something I'd like to check it out and make sure I'm not falling for that same nonsense myself when I try to support wild horses

I would actually be really happy to write a whole article LOL. I get really wordy about this subject because it's something so close to me, so I'm SORRY in advance for how long this wound up being.

Unfortunately, I don't have much in the ways of like… hard sources to link or anything with scientific data regarding rescues not being truthful. The Mustang Heritage Foundation is a group that works with the BLM and focuses on placement of horses into homes, so I suggest at the very least checking them out. The BLM also has been making frequent posts about their operations and whatnot on their active facebook pages. Unfortunately every post they make is flooded by insane people calling them murderers and liars, which I'm sure the social media admin just loves.

THIS GOT EXTREMELY LONG SO I'M PUTTING IT UNDER A READ MORE SORRY

The tl;dr is that a LOT of those "high profile" rescues, especially ones that focus on mustangs, are lying to you. When they use extremely over-emotional language like calling the roundups "brutal", talking about wild horses having "families"... they're lying and being emotionally manipulative. They pretend that overpopulation is not a problem, when plenty of people who live by the range will attest to the opposite. Also, it's pretty clear with common sense that overpopulation is going to be an issue with a non-native animal that has basically no natural predators. They preach "letting nature take its course", but that means letting animals starve and die of dehydration. They talk about fossil records, how ancient horses millions of years ago lived in north america... so that makes the modern, domestic horse a "native species". That's just not true.

The big thing they try to talk about is how these horses are "traumatized" by roundups and so many don't adapt to captivity. This is just... not at all true. I really truly believed in all this nonsense, that horses had a concept of "family"... Horses are very social animals that form tight bonds... but they also get over it when separated from their friends and family, because they are animals and can form new bonds. For example. I have 2 horses - an APHA paint and a mustang! My paint mare had a foal when she was around 5. She's 21 now. She does not give a shit that she is no longer with her baby. My mustang was rounded up when she was a yearling. She's now 14. She is not traumatized by helicopters. She had a lot of issues when I got her, but it had to do entirely with being locked in a stall for 5 years with no real care. Not the roundup or her treatment by the BLM. For the record, I have vet paperwork from her for several years - all while she was in holding pens! So she was getting consistent vet care while she was in holding.

Another big thing is the very weird demonization of the BLM! These rescues and "advocacy" groups will seriously say that people who work for the BLM are evil and love abusing animals. That they love hurting horses and chasing them gives them a rush. This is insane movie logic. The BLM is just a government agency, and the people working there are just PEOPLE. Every person I've spoken to who works for the BLM has been kind, patient, and helpful. I found out my mare was sold to me untitled, and once I got ahold of someone, I had everything settled within 24 hours. These people WANT the horses to be helped and they WANT them to be in good homes.

At the barn where I board my horses, another boarder went and got 2 mustangs from the closest corral to us (which is not very close, lol). She told me the people there were all extremely friendly, and excited to see people showing up for adoptions. They cared about the horses and even knew some of their personalities. The horses in those corrals were extremely friendly and used to people from being fed and cared for. Both of the mustangs she brought home required almost no gentling because they knew humans were good.

Once I joined communities for people who have actually adopted and worked with mustangs, I realized how much I had been lied to. Once I saw people doing the REAL work - the TIP trainers putting work into these horses and getting them homes - I was so embarrassed that I let wool be put over my eyes so much.

Mustangs are really cool and they're my favorite "breed" of horse (they're not really technically a breed lol). But some of these rescues use the drama we've all seen in Horse Movies to insinuate that they're somehow something Different, something Very Special, so special that they deserve to run free forever, and it's a shame to "break" them and ride them, or whatever. That's absurd. They're horses just like every other horse. Every horse is an individual. Of course it's true that some mustangs won't adapt to captivity. Hell, some DOMESTIC-born horses don't like being ridden or worked with. But that all comes down to the individual animal, not some kind of magical inner spirit they have.

I also really need to point out the racism. There's a lot of bizarre fetishization of Native American cultures by the largely white base of these horse rescues and "advocacy" groups. I see a LOT of it. And you know what else there is? COMPARISONS TO THE FUCKING HOLOCAUST. Again it's mostly white women in these groups (and I say this as a whole White Woman myself!!), and I am constantly seeing them calling horse roundups "GENOCIDE" and saying "it's just like the holocaust". It's disgusting mania and I don't see that being brought up a lot when people talk about the propaganda from rescues. That was honestly the final breaking point for me leaving every one of my mustang "advocacy" groups and staying solely in the groups for people who actually own or are interested in owning mustangs. I don't think anyone in any of those old groups I was in ever actually adopted a mustang. They just reposted other peoples' photos all day.

And here's just some anecdotal stuff. Skydog Sanctuary is the most heinous in my opinion because of things I know they've done. They (I know other rescues do this too, but I know most about them) bid on the horses on the internet auctions if they have "family" of those horses at their rescues, or if they're "famous" mustangs that were well known in the wild. I'm talking, they'll bid up the price of some 2 year old filly into the tens of thousands, because they have her "FATHER" on the sanctuary and they want to "REUNITE" them. The young horses are the ones who get the most interest, because they're young and tend to adapt better to training, etc. I think this year Skydog talked about how they're finally going after the older or injured horses. In my opinion, that's what they should've been doing in the first place. Get the horses that might not do well in captivity. The ones that need special care and deserve sanctuary placement. To me, it's borderline cruel to buy a 2 year old just to turn her out on 4000 acres or whatever and let her "be wild" forever. That horse would've absolutely wound up in an amazing home, but their ego made them go after her because they wanted to "reunite her with her father"... wtf. I would put money on my own horse not recognizing her own baby if I brought them together. Stallions do not care. The reason this story was an issue is that an experienced trainer was trying to get that filly for a client, because she fit everything the client requested, but she wound up in a battle with the rescue who was sending her nasty emails accusing her of "breaking up a family". It's nuts.

Are there issues with the BLM's management? Of course there are. It's a government agency, and I haven't met a single person who actually thinks they're perfect. But they face CONSTANT opposition in the courts from these "advocacy" groups that waste their time and money with lawsuits and rallying people against them. My view is that even if the horses aren't starving NOW, they WILL if we just let them be. Horses are domesticated animals that humans created through thousands of years of selective breeding. It's like dogs. Just leaving domesticated (but feral) dogs to roam wild in the woods would be considered cruelty! I think some horses deserve to stay wild, absolutely, but there's so goddamn many of them, they're not remotely at risk of going "extinct".

And at the end of it, I think the fact that thousands of mustangs have been adopted into loving homes and have adjusted completely fine, is proof enough that they are not some special wild animal. Horses and people are linked through thousands of years of history. It is not cruel to tame a mustang.

I know this was pretty ranty, I'm sorry! If you have any more specific questions I'll be happy to answer them because I'm sure there's some points I've missed. This is all just off the top of my head...

My biggest warning to people who are interested in animal advocacy and rescues for any kind of animal: Please be extremely wary of any rescues that use really overly emotional language. If their posts are extremely dramatic, like they're writing a drama book, and they talk about "seeing the deep pain in an animal's eyes from the trauma of helicopter roundups and missing their families"... RUN. This is a rescue that is trying to manipulate you and take your money, and they are not being truthful with you.

Unfortunately, if you listen to the rescues, they will only ever say that everything the BLM says is a lie, and the Mustang Heritage Foundation is right up there with them, lying and being evil. I don't want to sit here and say all these rescues are horrible evil liars or monsters. I'm simply saying they're manipulative because they have an end goal, which is getting donations. And people are easily swayed, especially when it comes to animals. Just note how different the language is when you read something about the horses from the BLM or the MHF, vs a place like Skydog Sanctuary.

This issue is unfortunately really divided and really heated, and it can be difficult to find any real information that won't be clouded by your own personal biases, so I can really only encourage you to do your own research and come to your own conclusion.

I guess, as a hard source, I'm speaking as someone who entirely believed in all of that "be forever wild, the mustangs are special animals and the BLM is so evil for hurting them", until I got my own mustang. And even for a while after that, I thought, "wow. she must be so traumatized and deeply wounded". ...but then I had her for a while. And I realized, oh.

She's... a horse.

An amazing horse, for sure. My heart horse, definitely!

But she's a horse. Not a fairy tale, or a dramatized facebook post talking of "family" and "trauma". She is a horse, and a very happy one at that. Despite the fact that she lives inside a fence.

#this post is borderline nonsensical rambling but #i hope i made some kind of point #i'm sure much smarter and more articulate people have made better posts about this than me...#i'm overly wordy and can't keep it brief lmfao

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