#sorry for inconsistent capitalization

[paleode-ology]

for the spotify wrapped asks - 6, 24, 35? :D

did u know on desktop Spotify shows you the numbers of the songs on your playlist. up until now I’ve literally just been counting on my phone. anyway.

6. About damn time by lizzo!! Listened to this album a LOT with my sister while driving her to work this summer

24. Boyfriend by dove cameron. So based. Nothing else to say.

35. Superstar by Lauryn Hill. One of my top albums of all times and for some reason one of my favorite albums to listen to when I travel? I had a few long airplane and bus rides this year and this was always my go-to

#asks #ode by ode #these were all excellent numbers also #sorry about the inconsistent capitalization I just let my phone do whatever it wants

[dani-says-stuff]

Two Skeptics And A Believer Walk Into A Haunted Room...

❥ Back to the Control Center

❥ I'm so so so sorry for the shitty and abrupt ending on this one, I just got bored and kiiinda ran out of ideas on where to take the last 20 or so minutes of the video... who knows I might make a pt. 2 and finish the video at some point if I can think of something to add

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Tommyinnit x fem!reader

Summary: Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke right? But, it just so happens to be a very accurate description of you, Tommy, and Jack entering the Ram Inn for your guest appearance on the Sam and Colby youtube channel

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: creepy stuff, hauntings, demons, language, probably an inaccurate spirit box session, inconsistent capitalization, shitty writing.. this is definately not one of my better ones

Dialogue Key:

Y/N

Tommy

Jack

Sam

Colby

James, the tour guide

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

The group of you began in a courtyard of the Ram Inn, Jack to your right and Tommy to your left while Sam and Colby stood before you.

Tom had originally just asked Jack to come with him for the video, assuming you'd want nothing to do with it after how annoyed you seemed during the entire 'uncle nasty' situation. He quickly realized his mistake when you followed him around the apartment for an hour begging him to ask Sam and Colby if you could come along. 

"And what about you?" Sam asked, eyes trained on you.

Jack had finished telling the story of his experience on stream and Tom declared his adamancy that ghosts aren't real, but you'd yet to speak. 

"Oh I believe 100%" you spoke with a smile, completely ignoring your boyfriend perched beside you staring at you as if you were insane, "I've always wanted to try something like this, I just couldn't justify spending all the money on equipment."

"Yeah" Sam drawled out scratching the back of his neck, "it does get a bit expensive." 

"Exactly!" you chirped, gesturing to the two older boys before you, "but since you already have it... now I get to do it free of charge!"

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

You quickly noticed, that despite his insistence that everything was fine, Tom was starting to get jumpier than normal inside the building.

Usually, whenever a camera is around, your boyfriend became a hyper-sugar-high-nighmare that would be bouncing off the walls and jumping all over the place. Now, however, it seemed he barely registered the camera being on at all.

Instead, he seemed dazed, taking special care to analyze every corner of the room and register every individual item placed in the general area. If you didn't know about the demons that were said to call this place their home, you'd say the scariest thing was the way Tom was acting. 

The guide soon gathered the group in the center of the room to begin the tour, "There's two main demons, One's an incubus and one's a succubus. John, who owned the building, he was attacked by them quite a lot."

You closed your eyes, lowering your head slightly in embarrassment for what was to come. You'd been dating Tom long enough to know exactly where his mind was at.

"So was he like... into demon..." 

You didn't expect that though. 

"Why would you ask that?" you hissed slapping his shoulder, before looking back to your guide, "was he though? I am kinda curious now."

Jack mumbled, shaking his head similar to that of a parent watching their kids doing something they shouldn't, "Children."

"No." James responded, drawing out his answer as if deliberating in his mind, "No, no-no."

Tommy looked down at you right as you looked up at him. The both of you stared at each other for all of two seconds before nodding in conclusion. 

"Yeah-"

"-he definitely did."

As the rest of the group continued talking over the specifics of the demons in the Inn, it took all of your strength to keep from laughing at your boyfriend.

"So like" Tommy cut off the guide, "what are the boundaries sexually? like I'm not trying to be immature... this is just like really freaking me out-"

"Tom!" you gasped through laughter, "it's a demon! Love, I dont think it has boundaries."

The rest of the group began laughing, everyone but Tommy. 

"Well what about my boundaries!" he complained hands splayed across his chest, only making you laugh harder "Don't laugh at me! I'm being serious!"

James, the tour guide entered the conversation, "No, is not no."

Toms's facial expression dropped, one hand going for your wrist while the other continued gesturing out before him as he spoke, "I- Well, mate that's not how that works!"

By now, you were practically on the floor with laughter, the only thing keeping you up was your arm raised high above you in Tommy's grip. 

"They're a demon, I don't think they care."

"Well, I care!"

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

"This room by far is the most... decorated?" you spoke, looking around at all the creepy items placed around the room. 

"Yeah, it's like theyre trying to make this place scary" Sam agreed, looking down at a dusty mirror desplaying the words 'help me' at the back wall of the room. 

Jack took the singular chair in the room, while the rest of the group stayed standing, listening as the tour continued. 

Well, continued for all of a few minutes when a candle fell from the table behind where Jack sat. 

You jumped, grabbing onto Tommy, "I didn't like-"

You were swiftly cut off by a girl's voice coming from the window, "Nope. I really didn't like that."

The group began freaking out, Sam moving closer to investigate the noise and Tommy tugging your arm behind him, shuffling in front of you. Creating as much space from that general area and you as he could. 

"Hello?" he shouted, one arm holding you behind him and the other holding the Minecraft sword before him, "Hello? Can you check the window?"

Everyone began deliberating what was going on, trying to figure out an explanation for what was going on. By now, you were burrowing yourself into Tom's side, one of his arms securely wrapped around you, swinging the sword before the both of you as he tried to get the group to go check outside. 

Sam tried to bring up the candle, but Tommy had his mind set on figuring out what was going on. The candle could wait, but if there were people waiting outside messing with you all, they could easily leave at any second. 

However, after checking around several times, it became obvious that whatever you heard wasn't outside the hotel.

It had to have been inside.

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

You all decided to cut the tour short and begin the investigation due to the amount of stuff you all seemed to be experiencing.

So, you all began the night in the witch's room with the spirit box.

"Is there anything here that wants to talk to us?"

"Please just say Hi or something" Tommy spoke bouncing anxiously on his feet, "I'm really just not having a good time-"

Ooh

Sam pointed down at the box, a smile growing on his face "Was that just a hello?"

Jack, on the other hand, wasnt as easily convinced, "Eh... it was a very faint something."

"Can you tell us a name? or who you might be?"

After a few moments of silence, Tommy and Jack made up an impromptu rap for the ghosts, and despite a few other unintelligible noises, nothing else seemed to happen in the room. 

However, before leaving the room, you set up the REM pod on the bed just in case. 

"I just remembered something" Sam spoke up when the REM pod began to go off in response to Jack, "The witch only likes respect..."

"Oh, thats right!" Colby shouted, "That's why we got the offerings-" 

You whipped around, facing the tall raven-haired man behind you, eyebrows raised high, "I'm sorry... the what?"

"Yeah! The witch will only talk to people if she wants to. because like, if you're being disrespectful or too stupid she's like 'I don't wanna talk'"

You turned back, clicking your tongue and shrugging with fake sympathy as you faced Tommy. "You hear that?" you sighed, resting a hand on his shoulder, "Looks like we're gonna have to kick you out of this investigation."

Tommy sputtered looking around, "Wha- Why?" 

Jack stepped forward, knowing where you were going with this, "Yeah mate," he added shaking his head sorrowfully, "You may have to wait outside for this one."

 You and Jack looked at each other with a smirk, 

"Ya know," you continued, "to keep you from acting-"

"-too stupid"

"-Too stupid" 

Tommy looked at the both of you, mouth agape. "Common now, that was just mean."

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

For the first Estes method run of the night, Tommy volunteered to go under as you all investigated the first floor. The rest of you now stood huddled around him as he sat in the rocking chair with the headphones on. 

"Is there anybody here with us? you were just making the REM pod go off earlier"  

Get Down.

"Were we being disrespectful upstairs?"

Me and You. 

"Is anyone upstairs?"

I need you.

You furrowed your brows at that. Both Sam and Colby brought up the succubus, but neither directly asked the question, so you decided you would. 

"Like the succubus? O-or Incubus I guess? I dunno one of the demons?"

silence.

"You said you needed something? What do you need?" you asked again, but still received no response. 

You laughed a little to yourself, "Welp I guess it doesn't like me then." your eyes widened, "Actually, uh, ghosts, please do not confirm or deny that statement... I think I'd rather you be silent on that one, I don't really want to know." 

The rest of the group, except for Tommy obviously, laughed a little under their breath at your words before continuing the investigation. 

"Is there something evil here? something that's keeping you here?"

Going on. 

"Something evil going on"

"That makes sense" you agreed, "It's the most haunted place in England right?" you asked looking between the two, "It has to have had something evil going on at some point"

"Yeah" Colby nodded, "this place has had "Evil" for around 5,000 years." 

"We hear there's demons here, is that true?"

Earth Under.

"Like... buried?" you asked.

Jack nodded at your words, adding another question for the two boys, "Yeah, because a lot of shit was like, dug up here as well, right-"

Tunnel to the left.

"oh my god," you breathed out, "Isn't that where they dug up that grave?"

"Oh yeah!" Sam exclaimed running over into the next room, "this is where they found the tunnel that used to be a grave, which would've been-"

"-to my left."

The three of you scurried back into the room where Tommy and Colby stayed to continue talking to the ghosts.

"Are you talking about the tunnel in the other room? where did that lead to?"

no response. 

Just as you were about to ask a question, Tom yelped, quickly grabbing the headphones and ripping them off due to a low, loud, and deep voice suddenly coming through the speakers. 

next under, was Jack. 

"What's your purpose here ghost? What do you want?"

The child

You and Tommy both began freaking out at that while Sam and Colby stood to the side somewhat confused. 

"Everyone used to call me the child!" he yelled, a vice-like grip on your arm as he spoke to the other two and the camera, "Everyone would call me the child!"

"Woah... whats even weirder" Sam explained, "was the bones they found underneath here were a child's."

"Well, uh, that's good" your voice shook slightly, "that means it might not be referring to you then." 

"Do- do you mean tunnel child or- or Tom child?" 

no answer.

"ya know," you spoke nervously, "I kinda wanted to try, but now I'm not too sure." 

Yes. 

"oh no." you laughed, "I-uh, I didn't like that at all."

"Are you sure you do not want to try?" Sam asked, laughter in his tone, "I think they want you to"

Yes.

"Well..." you drawled, "I don't really uh, I don't really know... we seem to be getting a lot here without me doing that.."

"We are going back to the witch's room next to give her an offering" Colby mentioned, "you could do it there if you'd like. We didn't get much activity up there."

"True" you trailed off, thinking it over, "Yeah sure, I'll do it there."

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Not too long later, you were now sat in a different chair up in the witch's room, getting ready for the Estes method after giving the witch her new Minecraft creeper and scrub-daddy offerings. 

"Nah" you spoke, waving Tom over near you, "You sit right there and give me your hand" you demanded pointing to the floorboards to your side. 

"Why?"

"Because I know how you are. No way I'm letting you float around this room to scare me and tap on my shoulders and shit- sit down."

And with that, Tommy sat on the floor, hand folded in yours as you put the headphones on and pulled down the blindfold. 

"Is anyone here with us?" 

Nothing.

"Elspeth, are you here with us?"

You jumped in your chair, not quite ready to hear anything come through the headphones.

Yes.

"Have you found us disrespectful?"

One.

"One of us was disrespectful?"

"Probably fucking Tom." Jack scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"AY! Why'd you say that!"

"Oh I don't know, you're the one that has been yelling at her!"

"Have not!" 

"you just were like two seconds-"

you squeezed Tom's hand, unknowingly cutting off Jack and Tommy's argument as you spoke,  "I don't know what it just said, but it sounded like laughing at the end."

Colby tilted his head, eyes furrowing, "laughing? why would she be laughing?"

'm not. 

"What do you mean you're not?" Tom pestered, "You just did so-"

Him. 

Toms's brow crinkled further, confusion settling into his expression.

"Him?" Sam asked, "Do you mean it's not Elspeth anymore?"

"Yeah, are we talking to someone else?" 

your head quirked to the side, confused at the noise coming through the headphones, "It's like a bell?" you spoke, "Yeah like I hear a bell ringing."

"Oh!" Sam yelled, "Like ding ding, that's right!"

"Maybe"

"Who are you then? who are we speaking to?"

Bad.

"You're bad? Or is something here bad?"

Evil. 

"What do you mean evil?"

The next. 

Colby turned to Sam, realization dancing in his eyes, "The bishop's room. Thats our next stop, known to be a center for the demon-"

You yelped, tearing off the headphones when loud, evil laughter flooded your ears. You squeezed Tom's hand, yanking his arm to get a semi-awkward positioned hug from the boy. 

"That sucked" you spoke, voice muffled by his sweatshirt. 

"What happened?" he asked you, eyes wide and gaze quickly moving to each of the older guys in the group, attempting to calm you the best he can while freaking out himself. 

"There was loud laughter." you explained, gesturing around our head, "it was like thousands of people all laughing all around my head."

Once again.... so very sorry for the shitty ending- I couldn't think of anything else to put...

#tommyinnit x reader #tommyinnit imagine #mcyt x reader #sam and colby imagine

[guttersnipexiv]

Sorry for Hazbin posting on my XIV tumblr, but I need to talk about Alastor in the finale

Initially I hadn't watched with subs, but I noticed on my second watch that "Altruist" seems to be intentionally capitalized.

I know Amazon has made grammatical errors in subs before, even on this show, but when I tell you that the subs throughout the show have been EXTREMELY thorough (to the point where they'll denote the tone of line delivery or music with descriptors for better accessibility), this seemed intentional.

So, I decided to test it by swapping the sub languages to see if we could parse whether or not that was the case.

Results were inconsistent

Then, I noticed the French version...

BLESSED????

This, paired with his ENG line of "once i figure out how to unclip my wings", which of course could just be metaphorical...but I'm thinking not.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel finale #hazbin hotel spoilers #alastor last name #hazbin hotel theory #hazbin theory #alastor hazbin hotel

[lukino94725764]

I haven't been able to advance almost anything lately, it's 1:30 pm, at 2 pm I have a service marketing mix presentation, yesterday I had another presentation on working capital, it went horrible, the teacher said that my nerves were eating me up I'm alive and I started saying inconsistencies after explaining the formula, I hope things go better for me.

meanwhile, sorry for the inactivity, here is a pip made in sai with the pc mouse

in fact there are two hehe

edit: I think I enjoyed it, at least I saved the group from being accused of plagiarism xD

#sp pip #pip pirrup #sp dip blind

[starlightingsss]

sparks fly / 2

wildest dreams. 3

kinda hating how i wrote the relationship between haymitch and reader ☹️

u guys i js realized but when im typing on mobile my capitalization is inconsistent n some paragraphs have capitalize first lettters and some dont 😭 sorry

129. she had waved and blown kisses at 129 people so far, making eye contact and reaching her hand into theirs. everything had gone by so fast, she was holding onto haymitch as they got off the train, holding onto his arm.

the crowds had gone wild once they saw, haymitch himself slightly opposed to the public display but unable to shake the woman off his arm.

she loved it, loved having everyones eyes on her. loved the attention, loved the fame. it took forever to get to the stylist cars - much to haymitch and her district partner's annoyance.

haymitch had been careful to make sure not to show any favoritism to the girl, made sure he didn't get attached. he wanted her to survive, and he didn't want to break the poor girls spirit, but still - he didn't think she could live, tributes don't usually care for beauty and it wouldn't get her allies. she would have to prove she was smart, or strong, or anything that might be considered valuable in the arena.

as she and her district partner boarded separate cars, he went onto his own car - one for mentors.

in that car, she was with 4 people. one woman with gold braided into her hair, contrasting against her dark skin, with bright pink makeup and a bright blue dress - weird contrasts but still stunning on her and her skintone. this was her stylist, allium everstar. she had seen the woman on tv many times, as she was always assigned to district 12. the other 3 looked quite bizarre, a woman with fairy wings instead of ears, a man wearing a crop top and ankle length dress with dyed body hair and purple skin, and another woman whos hair was insanely long; split into 2 pigtails wrapping around her ankles, her skin was paper white and she seemed to be drawn in black and white, except for the gigantic golden necklace wrapped around her neck.

she heard them whispering among themselves, "this one is different ... unique! look at those eyes!", the man excitedly squealed to his team members.

she heard other fragments of conversation, little "she looks so different from them.. she could be a capitol girl!", "can't wait to see her all styled up..", "she would be gorgeous if she was pink!"

she looked out the window, still seeing people lined at the streets and waving at her, until they turned into a parking garage.

they all exited the car with peacekeepers joining them and leading them down the elevator.

she was getting sent even more deeper underground - into a room where there were bright white lights.

the team had led her into an odd bathroom, settling her into a bathtub. they stripped her of her clothing, leaving her bare in the cold air of the room.

the head stylist, allium took in her figure, looking at her up and down. she wrote something down onto a little notepad before leaving the room.

she was settled into the tub by the other 3, still unsure of their names.

the women scrubbed her body as the man prepared what seemed to be dye? was he gonna make her purple like him...

"oh dear god! rhuba! abernathy said not to mess with her hair!" exclaimed the woman, in all black.

"we're not cutting it, we'll just make her a little bit blonde .. i'm thinking a split dye, it'll be absolutely stunning on her!" the man named rhuba exclaimed, "don't always have to be so closeminded, volta.."

"we're gonna get in trouble!" the woman with fairy wings instead of ears snapped, "he specifically told us not to touch her hair!"

"i-its fine? i don't mind if you dye it like that .. just d-dont cut it!" y/n said, interrupting their little argument.

"oh dear .. your mentor is gonna kill us." sighed rhuba. "plus people probably wont like it like that, its not popular in the capital at all!"

"she said we could do it!" the man practically squealed, "how exciting! most tributes are so against us dying their hair!"

the two women just tsked, as they rinsed her of the soap and dried her off, they wrapped her in a towel and led her over to a metal bed.

"dear i'm just gonna wax you .. not sure i'm gonna need to though, bare as a baby.." said rhuba, "well! at least we have a tribute who actually takes care of herself this year, not sure why i'd expect less from someone who looks like her.."

"her nails seem ok too ... some color wouldn't hurt tho!" said the little elf looking woman, with the fairy wings instead of ears. she was buffing down her nails, just evening them out a little bit because otherwise she didn't need anything done.

"alright, so its just the hair!" the man said, as he moved himself to be able to access the womans hair.

"alright .. come over here.." he told her, leading her over to a chair. she had nothing but a robe on, and her body had already been examined and picked at her prep team. "it'll be done in just a second! only takes a few seconds to bleach your hair .. can't believe it used to take forever before!", he smiled as he coated half her head in the thick liquid, "...hey how about we add some tinsel extensions?"

"extensions?" she said, a little confused on why she would need the,.

"not just any extensions, hon! tinsel ones, they're like little reflective strips, it'll be totally gorgeous under the spotlight and we can have them match your makeup to it in the parade!" he laughed this, as he pulled out the extensions anyway. he rolled her chair over to the sink as he leaned her head back, washing out the bleach - leaving her with a head of half blonde and half black hair, it suited her but her hairstyle in general suited her beautifully.

he pulled out some weird hairdryer thing that fit over her whole head, and instantly dried out her hair.

once her hair was dried, he started adding the tinsel into her hair.

after about an hour, it was done. she had little holographic streaks coming out of her scalp and honestly, it was gorgeous.

"my makeup.." she asked, "who's gonna do my makeup?"

"oh dear that'll be allium! she's really good at it .. i'm sure she'll do you well!" he said, as he spun her to face him. looking her in the eyes, examining her hair and face .. "really gorgeous.."

"thank you.. and my clothes are decided by allium too right?" she said, a little bit worried.

"yep! she basically does everything except hair, waxing and nails, but she still had control over what we do with you .. now she might be a little mad about your hair.." he laughed again, as he pinched a lock of it. "but i'm sure it'll work well with however she dresses you!" , he gave her a reassuring smile.

she smiled back, as he sent her off to allium, peacekeepers greeting her as she walked out of the room and escorting her to the elevator. they went up 16 floors, up to the 2nd floor. the peacekeepers dragged her up to a door with her name on it, "y/n l/n" and then her stylist's name under it.

she walked into the room, it was like a dressing room - the vanity illuminating the clutter of makeup products on it, a rhinestone bodysuit on a mannequin. it was beautiful but it didn't cover much, the neckline of the suit high and up to the throat but it was sleeveless, and had a heart cut out over her chest area that would show cleavage and little red rhinestones around that heart making it seem like it was a bleeding heart. the sides were cut out, showing even more skin, the cut-outs were all lined with lace, and there was a little very sheer cape and "skirt" meant to cover her a little, the cape wouldve gone as far as her wrists, and the skirt didnt even reach 1/4 of her thigh, barely covering anything.

"oh you saw it .. was gonna make it a suprise for you! didn't expect you to be done so fast.." allium gushes, as she came out from a back room. "the bodysuit is one of a kind, and you're going to need to be stitched into it - it's held together by pins right now but its fine, the jewels are all little pieces of obsidian, the red stuff is rubies, theres also some absolutely gorgeous shoes to go with them! this isn't what i had planned at the beginning but then when i saw you at the reaping ... oh god you were stunning! wasn't sure how i would be ok with myself if i covered you with coal, we're still gonna go for that kind of makeup look though, smudgy eyeliner, freckles and a blood red lip! it'll be stunning on you .. your hair... jesus he butchered it! but no worries, it matches up.. we'll just use a lot of highlighter to make you look like a diamond!"

"you know .. back in the day some people actually used coal as liner i think! we could try that but im not sure how it'd look .. better not to risk it. now i need your help to pick what shoes and jewelry we'll have for you! nothing on the neck of course, its already covered by the suit but we need some bracelets, earrings and maybe an anklet?" she seemed insanely excited as she just kept talking, "we'll cover you in diamonds .. you've got to love that! come come!", she continues gushing as she gestured the girl over to a table where jewelry was displayed.

"i was just stunned by you ... these are all real, and all very expensive. i think this one and this one are the best," she pointed at 2 bracelets, but not bracelets, more like something to go on the upper area of your arm with diamonds spilling down to your wrist. more like a makeshift sleeve?

"those are really nice! could i have a ring? the heart shaped diamond one!" y/n asked, her voice a little squeaky from excitement - she loved all things beauty, makeup, skincare, clothing.

"of course! was thinking about giving you pearls but then i remember that 12 was a mining district, not sure how you'd get pearls there!" she smiled, happy that her tribute was sharing her admiration for clothing and all things beauty.

"now! shoes, you pick .. i think you'd stun in something that'll make you taller and goes up higher on the thigh..!" she pulled the girls arm, taking her to the shoe collection ..".. how about these! you better pick quick .. we only have 2 hours left and i'm not sure that'll be long enough for you to get your hair styled and your makeup done.."

"those are really nice!" she smiled, as she looked at the thigh high boots with pointed tips and red bottoms, covered in black velvet - luxurious.

"alright alright! now we'll have your makeup done, then ill style your hair a little, and then you can get dressed and meet up with your mentor and district partner for the tribute parade!" she said this, her voice getting louder as she clapped her hands and a squad of people came out. seating herself into the chair in front of the mirror, they wet her hair, and started her makeup.

it took around an hour for makeup, excessive makeup that would only look good from a distance. stage makeup, and it was gorgeous.

the smudged out eyeliner drawn out to give a "kohl" look to the girls eyes, the dark red lips lined with even darker lip liner and sharp corners - making her lips seem curled in a smile, her eyes standing out. her eyes were captivating, her entire look was sultry, dominating and seductive at the time - all things that she wasn't. and that would've worked out for her, in the interviews and everything. a woman forced to appear strong in her parade, a woman with a sharp eye and luscious lips, a sultry and seductive woman. a maneater, something that she wasn't and she knew how to work across it, "oh god my stylist just did that to me .. i swear i'm not actually like that!" and little smiles, kisses and looks that would melt anyone. the innocence that wasn't yet stained, something she would have to work to show off, she wasn't what she was dressed to be and it felt like a costume to her. but still, she wore the costume well and just for the night.

as her stylist re-entered the room, she practically squealed when she saw the girl.

"oh dear! this is exactly how i imagined everything .. you stun me!" she managed out, as she examined her face.

"thank you.. i feel really pretty right now!" y/n proclaimed, unsure what exactly she should say.

"honey! you are really pretty!" she laughed, "well now it's time to give you back to your mentor and stuff.."

"he's probably gonna have a stroke when he sees me like this." the girl jokes back, haymitch was probably going to look like hes having a stroke when he first sees her, his jaw dropping a little and eyes widening in shock as he would took in the figure - a figure she wasn't used to "rocking" like this.

as she was lost in her thoughts, allium was pulling her around and eventually into the elevator.

"im so excited!" she squealed, this was her first year after all - and she got to style one of the more gorgeous women she had ever seen..!

the girl still lost in her own thoughts just had a dreamy smile on her face, imagining what haymitch might think of her.

as she entered the room, there was exactly 26 minutes until the tribute parade.

"someone finally decided to show up.." her district partner grumbled this while scowling, haymitch was reclined back into the luxurious sofa with a drink in his hand. he had cleaned up quite a bit, he was wearing a suit. he looked amazing and the girl was definitely staring.

"jesus theyre gonna have a field day with you." he slurred a little, he was drunk. he sat up, looking at her with his full attention. he took in the bodysuit, it hugged her curves well, showing a lot of skin, his eyes lingered where they shouldn't have for a while as he looked her up and down - slightly shocked by what she was wearing.

she just laughed at his words, blushing a little because honestly, she wanted to be on the couch snuggled up into him. she wasn't sure why but she was always quite drawn to the man, he was attractive , rough and a little messy - but still, he had a nice face and a nice body (for an alcoholic at least).

she sat down next to him, still not very comfortable as her stylist followed and sat down next to her district partner, his stylist standing behind haymitch.

"alright so .. you two need to try and get along.. just for the parade." haymitch said, a little grumpy. "but if you don't want to do that because the idea of being nice to each other disgusts you that much, then make it as obvious as possible .. you" he said, pointing at basil, "you need to figure out how to market yourself, make yourself look good and make them like you. and you, ehh sweetheart, you seem to have this whole 'make everyone fall in love with me' thing under your belt."

this led to a smile from her, as she nodded. her district partner seemed less than pleased, asking "why do we even have to make them like us anyway? shes not even that likeable.."

"you have to make them like you so you can get sponsors, sponsors are the difference between life and death in the arena- if you're starving, then a sponsors gift of food might saved your life .. and knowing you, you'll probably be starving if you survive that long. and, she" he said this, gesturing to you, "she is likeable because she is pretty, people are going to look at her before hearing what she says and they're gonna decide if they wanna keep her alive or not, she is desireable in terms of looks and looks can get you everywhere when it comes to sponsors."

"they're gonna hate her after they figure out what her personalities like.." he scowled as he thought about her, the simple thought causing his troll-like features to contort in displeasure. haymitch let out a sigh, seeing how those 2 couldn't get along.

the woman seemed offended at his words, and as she was about to say something not very kind about her partner, the intercom interrupted her.

"Tributes, the parade is taking place in exactly 10 minutes! Make sure you head to your chariots now." a shrill voice said from the speakers.

The group of them got up as they headed over to the chariots, she wasn't present for when they all rewatched the reapinga so she hadn't seen any of the tributes before.

The girl and guy from one were both beautiful, with the boy reminding her a little of cupid. They were covered in gold, matching their shiny blonde hair.

The pair from two were a little more average looking, with a younger girl and older guy, the girl looked as if she had been crying - not something expected from a career district.

From 3, they were both tall and slim, nothing extraordinary.

The pair from 4, with a boy that was obviously a kid - he couldn't have been older than 14.

She kept watching the other tributes, and she noticed how the girl from one would occasionally reach for the boys hand, holding it and smiling at the comparison. How she would look up at him with loving eyes, a look of longing and regret that was only visible to the trained eye. She noticed how the boy from 2 would comfort the girl from 2, patting her head sometimes. She saw how the girl from 4 was always looking back at the girl from 5, she noticed how the boy from 4 would scan the crowds with anxiety in his eyes. How the girl from 5 was also always looking at the girl from 4, love in their eyes for each other. She noticed how horrible the pairing for the career districts were - a pair of lovers, 2 kids, a woman entangled in a queer love affair that was bigger than she was, and the only actual "career" looking tribute was the boy, but still - he would comfort the girl from two. if anything, all the careers from one and two would group together, and the boy from 4 but the boy from 4 would be the one they left out a little more, the disposable one. The girl from 4 would probably ally with the one from 5, running away from the cornucopia to live out their dying moments in the arms of their love.

The pair from 10 seemed strong, 10 was the livestock district - butchers. They knew their way with a knife, and they probably knew how to kill. They would make powerful allies, the only reason they lacked victors was because of their lack of sponsors, they were a district that was greatly overlooked in the games.

She looked at the hands of each tribute, paying particular attention to those of 4 and 8, the districts where knots were useful, 4 using fishing knots and 8 being the one of textiles and fabrics. The pair from 8 almost definitely knew their way when it came to knitting / tying / sewing, the boy was 4 had callused hands - probably from fishing. She knew that those 4 people were to be looked out for as they would know how to manage and craft traps. The girl from 4 wouldn't be a problem unless she found her lover, she would be easy to pick off during her love crazed and very desperate search for her girlfriend. And the girl from 5, would be even easier once the girl from 4 was gone..

She was quickly snapped out of her thoughts when Haymitch snapped his fingers in her face, "sweetheart, parades gonna start in a minute or so."

"sorry , was js thinking about something" she apologized, not trying to upset the man. she climbed into the chariot, as she waved a goodbye to the group.

She stood in the chariot, Haymitch's words stuck to her, or not his words but more his tone. He always seemed a little irritated with her, unless she was serving him liquor, he didn't really acknowledge her other than that. He didn't go over plans or advice with her, he just asked her to refill his drinks. She felt like the was dumbing her down, but he wasn't like this before the games. When she first met him, he was sweet. He was drunk but he saved her, and was still kind with her. She didn't understand the reason for his overall dismissal of her, always talking to basil about actual stuff instead of her.

The chariots started as Snow finished his speech, she wasn't sure she had it in her to smile and wave like she did before but she did anyway. The capital seemed to love her, screaming her name. She was showered with roses as they threw them over the stands, she caught one and smelled it, lifting it into the air and blowing a kiss in the direction it came from, even louder cheering emerged from the stands. She kept a smile on her face for most of the parade, but honestly - she was glad it was over.

She met back up with her district partner, mentor, and their escort.

"So! How did we do?" she said, as she smiled, excited.

"Crowd went absolutely insane when you did what you did with the rose! You're a natural in the spotlight!" her escort gushes, a smile on her face as she admired the girl. "Oh and your outfit! It was stunning ... I'm not sure how anyone could keep their hands off you!"

The tribute smiled at her, still a little upset with the idea of the games.

Once they got back to the building where they were going to spend the night, her prep team made quick work of her outfit - giving her her old clothes back and leaving her to remove her makeup by herself.

She went up the elevator, following the instructions of Allium, to go up to the 14th floor because that's where she was staying.

She walked in and saw Haymitch and her district partner, both by the coffee table and obviously discussing plans about the games.

They both looked up at her when she walked in.

"What are you guys doing?" She said, walking closer to them, her voice pleasant.

"Just discussing strategies for the games," Haymitch said, "..could join us if you'd like."

"She'd probably prefer to go play with her makeup or try on dresses.." sneered Basil, he knew she took an interest to those things and he mocked her for it. Haymitch honestly wasn't much better about it though, just sighing and ignoring Basil's words as he continues to discuss the plans.

She was a little hurt, but just said "maybe later, havw to go take a shower right now.", as she put on a smile and walked away to her room.

She didn't have much trouble finding her room, as they were all labeled. It was a beautiful room, decked out in pink and gold, unsure if they made special arrangements just for her, she walked into the bathroom.

As she explored, she found a cleansing balm and a whipped cleanser, which she used to remove her makeup. After that, she found a hair mask, and some scissors. So naturally, she decided to cut her hair. She was unsure if it was because of her newly dyed hair color or because she was unhappy with how the dya went, but it didn't matter because she picked up the scissors and snipped off a chunk. As she realized what she had doen, and how it was a very big and noticeable chunk, she gave up and kept cutting. Eventually she ended up with a medium length haircut, that cut off at her breasts, opposing to where he hair used to be - at her hips, that admittedly did fit her newly dyed hair pretty well, as did it frame her face. She brushed out any of the hair she cut out and applied the hair mask, putting on a shower cap and laying on her bed. She found what she thought was a tv remote and turned on the tv, she didn't find many shows or movies - the media allowed in Panem was mostly government broadcasts and talk shows. She ended up not watching tv and instead decided to paint her nails and take a quick nap.

She slept peacefully for almost 30 minutes, as her hair mask marinated. Once she realized it had been 30 minutes, she removed the shower cap and slipped into the shower. Scrubbing at her body as she relinquished all the bad thoughts and feelings of the day, erasing the dirt and sweat that stained her pretty body. She decided to take her time, she would exfoliate and shave and everything, made sure to be perfect by the end of it. As she rinsed off her soapy body, she reached for the body scrub, applying a lather of the sandy feeling liquid to her legs. She scrubbed for a little, exfoliating her legs as she picked up the razor, coating her legs in shaving foam, she glided the razor down, removing any hair that might've grown since the last time she did this. She repeated this process on her whole body, as she rinsed herself off and felt truly clean.

She exited the shower, engulfing herself into a soft robe, she felt truly at peace with herself at the moment. She looked through the contents of the skincare drawer in the room, finding sufficient products. She grabbed a piece of ice from the mini fridge in her room, rubbing it over her face, once she finished with that, she decided on a skin tightening toner and some rose water, which she applied to her face and neck. Afterwards, she layered a moisturizer over it, before finally adding some snail mucin to lock in moisture - a weird ingredient but common capitol beauty trend.

She patted her face as she applied a hydrating eyecream, before grabbing a hairdryer and drying her hair. Once she was sufficiently happy with how damp it was, she applied some hair oil, then grabbed a gua shua and ran it along her face. Once she finished with that, she picked up the hair dryer once again, this time fully drying out her hair. She grabbed a lash serum, applying some onto her eyelashes, and picking up a pair of tweezers, as she plucked her eyebrows into the perfect shape. The woman was high maintenance, she wasn't going to lie, but she loved it. Her little beauty rituals made her happy, made her beautiful.

As her hair was dried and she was happy with how she looked, she went into the closet they provided for her, and she picked out a pair of pajamas.

She had grabbed a satin babydoll top, lined with lace, and a pair of lacy underpants, that she put satin shorts of the same color over.

She ran her hands through her hair, adding a little bit of volume before exiting her own room, to join Haymitch and her district partner at the table.

They were still at the table but this time, Basil seemed to be yelling at Haymitch for something, with Haymitch being a little too drunk to care.

She made her way closer to them before hearing what Basil was so upset about, "you're literally a drunk why would i take advice from you" and other things, she didn't really plan on interfering except for maybe glaring at Basil a little more often, thst was until he grabbed Haymitch's drink and splashed it into his face.

The woman slammed a quick punch into Basil's face, letting out a "what the hell are you doing?"

"are you really gonna defend him, huh? hes a drunk! hes literally sending kids into an arena ever year judt for them to die!" basil said, delirious and mad.

"everyone has their problems and everyone has their way to cope for it. don't blame him for something out of his control." she hissed, as she bent over Haymitch, to help him wipe some of the alcohol off of him.

"he can control it but he just keeps ln fucking drinking - i don't even know how you can try to defend him ! he's gonna be the reason we die soon!" basil snapped, still upset.

"alcohol is not addictive," she said, wiping haymitch's jaw, "but alcohol is numbing, alcohol makes people forget. alcohol lets people escape the pain of their modern lives, it takes a while for it to develop into an addiction but getting addicted to alcohol is not something someone does for fun, alcoholics are people who have something to forget, something to hide from, something that is hurting them just to remember. alcohol is an easy way out that still lets them live, still lets them function. i promise you , just because he's an alcoholic doesnt mean he doesnt care, and it doesnt mean he doesnt fucking try." the tone of her voice was sharp, unpleasant and spearing at the moment, something abnormal for her, "if he didn't care and he didn't want to try, if he didn't have some hope for us, us as in the tributes, he would be fucking dead. sending kids into a death arena is something no one could enjoy, but if he didn't have a little bit of hope - that one of us could win, he wouldnt be here today. he was a kid too when he went into his arena, he survived and it scarred him, what he did scarred him and snows punishments scarred him. he's not a bad man for wanting to escape the horrors of his past, and hes not a bad man for being drunk while hes supposed to be helping us because at least hes still here and at least hes still trying. so you need to shut the fuck up and realize that everyone has their own problems and to stop bitching at every minor inconvenience." her tone indicated the end of a conversation, as basil walked over to his room, unable to argue with the woman, the sympathetic woman who always seemed to look into a situation more than she had to.

she leaned back down to haymitch who was watching her with sharp eyes now, questioning eyes, her little outburst wasn't something he expected. the little observations she made, the little assumptions, and how she had seen through his facade things that shocked him. he realized she looked at him with wide eyes and sympathy because she figured he was trying, still trying his best after the dozens of kids he watched die.

and at that moment he knew, he knew what she was. a people watcher, a sympathizer, a woman who knew how to wear everyone else's shoes, a woman who took nothing to heart because she trusted that whoever was delivering it had something going on for them, someone who could see through everything and still never tried to hurt them with the information she had gathered as she observed them.

she rested into his arms and caressed his jawline, her own attempt to comfort the man. she was sweet and beautiful, insanely likeable, and insanely marketable.

#haymitch abernathy #haymitch abernathy x reader #haymitch is my man #my man my man my man #my mannn #i love him #my man is going through it #my man is so fine #haymitch x reader #thg haymitch #haymitch #yummers #i need him

[transmutationisms]

ok i apologise if this is a bad question because i don’t know anything about politics but i liked your bourgeois failpolitics post and would love it if you could expand further especially on how their ideological horse blinders lead them to justifying/reproducing what’s trapping them in the first place especially given how some of them, in theory, have “principles” & i guess how the show explores politics in general. again sorry if this is poorly formed i know nothing!!

hmm, not a bad question, but many directions to go in here.

first of all, none of them claims to be anti-capitalist ideologically. shiv wants to be a moral capitalist, kendall wants to be a coolguy capitalist, connor wants to be a virtuous capitalist (different from shiv's morality), and roman wouldn't identify with any ideological term but thinks capitalism is inescapable and omnipotent, and therefore not worth objecting to in any way. so even aside from their class interests, there's no ideological inconsistency between any of their political positions and the actions they take to preserve or strengthen waystar.

since shiv and connor are the ones with political principles, i think they're a good place to start.

shiv is a liberal, meaning she believes in individual liberty, private property, and equality under the law. her line "what if a good person ran waystar" is telling: she doesn't want to alter the fundamental structure of the economy or waystar, but she thinks someone with (her own) principles should be running the propaganda machine. she's being genuine when she talks about reform and wanting the company to be better, but this should not be mistaken for any kind of opposition to the economic structure.

connor self-identifies as a libertarian, so he's in the liberal tradition but with an increased emphasis on individual liberty. by this, he means private property rights, so his politics broadly oppose government intervention (regulation, social welfare policies, labour protections) except where the police / military state and the carceral apparatus are concerned (these are necessary to protect property). connor never had any real hope of inheriting waystar, but his politics are still broadly in support of it, insofar as it's a corporate interest and connor sees 'creating wealth' as a political virtue.

roman and kendall are simpler in this respect. as i've written before and many people have pointed out, kendall wants to kill dad and wants to be a 'good person,' but has no concrete sense of what that means and therefore no principled opposition to anything about waystar or its economic functioning. roman sees capitalism as totalising and inevitable, so it's not something he would ever bother taking a stance against, plus taking any kind of stance is lame anyway. fundamentally he wants daddy's love (kendall is motivated more by daddy's respect, which is why he needs to become a killer).

so the siblings' tendency to reproduce and reinforce their own oppression basically comes from the fact that none of them has the ideological or epistemological creativity to espouse any kind of anti-capitalist critique. there are nuances here (shiv places more value on the idea of market competition, like when she opposes the move to buy pierce in s2; connor sees flows of capital and flows of reproduction as part of the same political economy, hence his usury and onanism line), but at the end of the day they all accede to logan's economic worldview. in their minds, there's no reasonable or viable alternative. they have extremely limited understandings of political ideology, as evidenced by them all thinking that shiv's liberalism is, like, radically different from logan's. in many ways the intra-familial ideological disputes are a smokescreen distracting from the underlying economic convictions they all share.

as to the show's handling of politics in general: it's strange to me that more people don't point out that jesse armstrong has at least a passing familiarity with marx and has referenced him in discussing the show. the main narrative drive for the show is psychological, not ideological; nevertheless, it rests on a view of politics that basically builds off marx's base-superstructure distinction, with politics as an ideoological superstructure determined by the economic base. this doesn't mean people with the same class interest will have exactly the same ideology (obviously, the sibs don't; idt armstrong goes in for that type of crude determinism), but capitalism has a tendency to narrow the field of envisioned possibilities, hence the way that all four sibs fail to see any other economic arrangement as viable or even worth considering.

#in re: the last paragraph i obviously mean the presentation of Politics Proper #which is distinct from the way the show explores the internal functioning of liberal capitalism as articulated via the family #sorry this is kind of rambly it's hard to deal with 4 fully nuanced characters in any depth without like.... just going insanely long lol #tripping the light fantastic

[huntunderironskies]

hi sorry to bother ypu again but i wanted to ask How would werewolves that still keep their old religion syncretized them together ? Especially when in regards of judaism

Okay, uh, this got really long, wow. Hopefully that makes it clear you have absolutely no reason to feel like you're bothering me because I love this stuff.

I do really hesitate to answer for Judaism because pre-Nicene Christianity and mysticism (and to a much lesser extent Sufism) are my focus areas so I am not an authority at all, but I can try. Also I've specifically taken a class on theological philosophy done by a fairly authoritative figure in free will theology so I think about the relationship between people and god/s a lot which means I can kind of give a generalist answer there. I'm primarily familiar with monotheistic faiths and those are the faiths that are going to have to do some extra theological legwork to explain everything so I'll focus on that.

This is SUPER long so I'm going to put it below a cut, I'll also talk a little about my OCs to give some ways that I've had characters hold syncretic beliefs in case that inspires some ideas.

Content...warning....???: Lots and lots of existential matters, big thinks on salvation, theology talk, etc.

First things first: I am very biased since religious mysticism is one of my academic interests but I think mysticism and in particular ecstatic mysticism would square nicely with werewolf existence. Mysticism is much more personal and visceral than more traditional faith paths and the sense of uncomplicated joy that comes with ecstatic practices would be a really welcome break from the usual werewolf things. For more tame forms of mysticism, the sense of unity and peace would be nice too but it's easier to imagine a werewolf drifting towards the more active forms.

Onto actually talking about syncreticism. This is something that Christianity and also to some extent Islam* is concerned about, but it's very easy to justify other powerful beings that aren't God if you've been faced with seemingly undeniable reality that beings more powerful than humans exist. You do have to kind of grapple a lot with the idea as humanity being God's ultimate creation but if you're a werewolf you're sort of faced with that idea already, I'll have to return to that point briefly later. The methodology given to me that metaphysicists use to justify the qualities of being truly worthy of all worship, henceforth referred to as a capital-G God for simplicity's sake, are that this hypothetical God would have maximal qualities, meaning that God would have the greatest possible power in all attributes.

You might be more familiar with the term omnibenevolence, omniscience, etc. in this case but for whatever reason maximal qualities gets used more. I would imagine because it's more directly indicative, it gets you out of the mire of having to explain that, no, omnipotence does not mean that God can create a rock that he can't lift. Trying to define maximal attributes** does get you into some weird places outside of the "rock you can't lift" trope, I know one thing we talked about in my classes was with regards to how omniscience could be defined. The ultimate conclusion was "holding all possible knowledge" but "all possible knowledge" didn't include every possible thought because it would not be reasonable for God to have the same knowledge that you or I might of "I am [name]," as that would imply that God is you or I and also everyone else who has any self-awareness. This is perfectly fine if you're a pantheist (as with the very confusing love of my life, Anne Conway, who I would conduct necromancy on just to pick her brain) but less so for most traditional monotheistic faiths.

All of this is to say: a werewolf who wants to hold onto monotheistic faiths can justify it easily and not have it be totally logically inconsistent. It's not that Luna, the Firstborn, or Father Wolf are false gods, nor are they Gods, they're just very powerful beings. You don't have to and in fact shouldn't worship them, they don't have the necessary qualities that are deserving of worship. You can emulate them to some degree, you can acknowledge they helped create you, that's fine. But your God is the one who has earned your worship. You don't start bowing before the first Rank 5 spirit that crosses your path, do you? Just because something is powerful doesn't mean it's worthy of your love and devotion.

And, I mean, maybe there's kind of a point in there. Any werewolf who has ever talked to a Lune can tell you that Mother Moon is kind of unstable. There's also the issue that Father Wolf is, you know, dead, no matter how badly the Pure Tribes wish that wasn't the case, so you can't do a whole lot with that.

Monotheistic pantheism or religiously focused panpsychism*** (which isn't out of the question for Christians, at least, Alfred North Whitehead and Anne Conway were panpsychists while Baruch Spinoza was a Jewish panpsychist) also provides a pretty easy out there and even kind of has some grounding since panpsychism and animism are closely related. If you're going with a Conwayist (this is a word I have just made up as one of the five people who really like Anne Conway) interpretation, you could have fully sapient Rank 6 spirits be another sort of middle-nature conduit between werewolves and God. Spirits can grant the omnipotent powers that God has, making werewolves more like-God, but they lack the omnibenevolent qualities and remain imperfect and not-like-God. Again, not things you should emulate, but part of God's perfect plan.

...actually I think I'm onto something here, I might have to double back to work on this later and make a Lodge with this as their viewpoint.

So on the upside for people who want to hold onto their original faith path, the thing about a lot of religions is when that magic is effectively real, suddenly miracles get a lot easier to explain. Prophets could be otherwise ordinary humans inspired by God but they could also be supernatural beings. Or you just start having your own miracle-workers who are supernatural beings guided by God. The Storm Lords in one game I ran were very connected to the Catholic Church and had their own secret saints they venerated, some of whom were Storm Lords, but not all. Storm Lords are very Catholic in general in my opinion. Big focus on stoically enduring suffering and trying to attain a greatness you'll never be able to really achieve. That's neither here nor there though.

Under this paradigm, Gifts are basically little miracles you can perform. Yeah, they're kind of grim sometimes, but so are the ones in saint stories. I mean, you get things like people carrying their own decapitated heads. Acts of God don't need to be tame or gentle or clean. Werewolves would absolutely be the more blunt-force instrument of divine power in this sense and it's something that a werewolf who believes this would want to embrace.

I think it also kind of helps out werewolves to know how closely connected they are to humanity and that a huge chunk of sapient supernatural beings (I would personally not say that God-Machine angels, spirits, most goetia, honestly kind-of-sort-of the True Fae, etc have both free will and sapience as a philosopher might define it but we are REALLY getting out into the weeds there) are born as humans. Some of them might still think of themselves as human, just either cursed or blessed by God, which still leaves humanity as the ultimate creation of God as suggested by the Bible. This is really more a Christian concern than anything else, though, I'm pretty sure Imago Dei is almost exclusively Christian as a theological concept.

That said there's definitely room to go the Lancea et Sanctum route and become incredibly self-loathing and see yourself as fundamentally damned or undeserving of whatever reward humans might eventually get. Living a life of extreme violence when most monotheistic faiths are generally against excessive violence would be a problem. Most faiths account for righteous wars of some kind (some Christian denominations would not, you'd really struggle as a Quaker werewolf) and the issue comes more in the form of Death Rage being indiscriminate. Directing violence at those who've earned it is fine, but you can't always do that. It's really hard to pull yourself away from the idea of being uniquely evil in that regard.

There might be a tendency to skew towards the Flesh due to that. Death Rage is fundamentally a werewolf's spirit-side coming to the front. They're not really a person anymore, they're a person-shaped conduit for death because they're in part spirits of the hunt. I think it'd be easy for a monotheistic werewolf to see their spirit-side as the "evil" half of their being and for in particular Christian werewolves...possibly also Sikh werewolves since I know that rage is one of the Five Thieves.

I did do a paper on Sikhi practice (I would have gotten to visit one of the few gurdwara in my region in-person and didn't because of the pandemic and I am still super bitter about it,) so I can touch on that a tiny bit as well. Sikhi syncreticism for werewolves would probably focus a lot on trying to control and overcome Death Rage. I cannot imagine there being a lot of Blood Talons among Sikh werewolves and the ones that are there would really, really, REALLY lean in hard on the "learning to control your Rage" aspects of being a Blood Talon.

Quick note on another consideration. For Muslim werewolves or any other Muslim supernatural being, the idea that anyone could become a prophet after Muhammad would be a huge theological no-go. Less of a big deal in the other monotheistic faiths, though. But a cornerstone of Islam is that Muhammad is the final prophet. I think your average Muslim Cahalith could and would make a case they have supernatural insight, but it's not necessarily God telling them how to guide humanity. I know that by Sufi folklore a few wali were supposed to have incredible awareness of events going on around them (the story I'm thinking of is an anecdote of a wali whose name escapes me who saw a bird suddenly fall to the ground dead and knew this was a sign that a sultan had died) but these miracles were not supposed to make them speak for God. Point is, I cannot imagine a Muslim Cahalith ever thinking of themself as being part of a prophet class from my admittedly still limited understanding of Islam.

Oh, Muslim werewolves would also have a leg up in the sense that it's acknowledged in the Qu'ran that anyone can become a Muslim, even jinn...or werewolves, and they'll still attain salvation so long as they follow God faithfully. I think you would see more self-loathing amongst Christian werewolves than Muslim or Jewish or Sikh werewolves, in short.

Also, not an expert on Zoroastrianism other than having a vague awareness of its influence on the other monotheistic religions and knowing the fun factoid that sometimes Zoroastrians were counted among the People of the Book early on in Islam's history, but I think that Zoroastrian werewolves would have a unique niche here in being able to justify their beliefs. From my limited understanding you could potentially qualify the Firstborn as being ahura while a lot of nastier spirits and ESPECIALLY Wound-related phenomena as being Aka Manah. It feels like a huge missed opportunity that there wasn't a Zoroastrian Lodge or that the Lodge of the Savior didn't have at least some Zoroastrian presence at some point or another. In its defense, the concept of the Maeljin being corrupted versions of werewolf Renown didn't exist until 2e (and to be perfectly clear, is a fantastic idea that makes the Maeljin and Bale Hounds more focused around werewolf concerns.)

Bloodless hunts would be super appealing to monotheistic werewolves as well. Claiming territory from wicked people, tracking down lost knowledge, that kind of thing. You'd also have to work a lot harder to make sure you're killing someone who deserves it. If they're sapient. Which, again, things like Shards and spirits arguably aren't. You can logic yourself into the position that the reason that murder is bad is because it's inflicting pain on someone pretty easily, you don't have to take a commandment at purely face value. If you explore why God has forbidden something, that gives you a lot more loopholes to work with. Ideally you want to be consistent with your logic, but not everyone is. The one issue is the Hunt has to be proactive by definition, while the most cut and dry examples of justifiable violence in these traditions comes from self-defense.

To get into how I've had my characters deal with theological issues...my only two still-Christian werewolves are Philippe (pictured in my avatar) and Levi (I've posted art of him a few times.) I'll talk mostly about Levi since his personal theology is the most complex and gives an idea of how weird theology can become if you're a werewolf.

Levi is a member of the Lodge of the Savior and is actively convinced that the material world is Hell while the Shadow is just another circle or facet of that. A lot of this is because the Flesh seems to have a direct link to whatever is inside Wounds, and it's way, way too easy to rip open a hole there. He can also see the God-Machine (long story) which really isn't helping.

Like most Thebans he's committed himself to hunting Malejin, killing Bale Hounds, and closing Wounds. He doesn't think salvation is beyond reach, but the way he's reasoned the world being as bad as it is is because in his personal theology, well, God can't help you if you're in Hell.

Most of this is heavily influenced by a regional cult called the Church of the Night Angel, which he is technically a member of. They believe that all sapient monsters are gifted their miraculous powers by a servant of God they call the Night Angel (who gets syncretized with a lot of minor deities and also is sometimes, albeit rarely, identified as Vahishtael,) but those gifts have been corrupted by a being known as the First Lie, the Spire, the Adversary, and about a dozen other epithets into what they are now (translator's note: the First Lie is the God-Machine.) The God-Machine, being jealous of God's wonderful creations, stole humanity from Him and trapped them in Hell.

They still have the chance to choose good, it's just harder than it should be. As such the highest duty they have is to fight the servants of the First Lie. These are defined as demons (beings without free will created by the First Lie to serve It,) the Pretenders (natives of the material world who try to deceive others into following them over God or His servant who has come to free everyone from Hell, the Night Angel, but ultimately serve a greater purpose in the world) and the Fallen-of-Purpose. The Fallen-of-Purpose are the worst of all these. The Pretenders and demons can't help what they are, but the Fallen-of-Purpose are monsters who make the active choice to do what the First Lie wants them to do by submitting to the evil parts of their nature.

Oh, to be clear as an aside, when I say material world I mean everything in the Fallen World. This includes places like the Hedge, Shadow, and so on. Those are just a different kind of Hell.

Note that as a supernatural taxonomy, this is a really bad one due to how loosely defined the categories are especially when you get really trigger-happy around things that aren't "of the Night Angel" and the Angelaltrists tend to speak very authoritatively about other monsters in extremely simplistic ways. Their attempts to fight the God-Machine also end up with a lot of splash damage and they kill both capital-D Demons and Angels without discrimination (and yes, under their taxonomy, Angels are demons. Don't think too hard about it.) You would be very hard-pressed to find an Angelaltrist who would take a Demon at their word that they've broken free of the God-Machine because all of them consider anything of the God-Machine to be ontologically evil by the transitive property. Things that are of the God-Machine are not of God and not of the Night Angel. QED.

Malejin are pretty definitively demons under this theory, and I'd almost say Levi is more an Angelaltrist than a Hound of God even if he kind of takes aspects of both. As a Storm Lord he primarily focuses his efforts on people who are being Ridden by Wound-corrupted spirits and people Claimed by the Wounded spirits, and of course to close Wounds as a preventative measure. He doesn't have to deal with any real regret for killing Claimed either. The person is long dead and the spirit killed them. You're just destroying a shell.

It's a matter of figuring out if the spirit should be eliminated for good from there. If it's a Wounded spirit, you're just conducting an act of euthanasia. It's destroying a rabid animal, nothing more or less. Better it die fast than letting it live through the pain of falling to the Maeljin.

He sees Mother Moon as being just one aspect of the Night Angel and a representation of her fiercer aspects, while Winter Wolf is an early creation of the Night Angel who is especially powerful and has attained something close to living sainthood. That's why he hasn't died yet (read: why his Avatars are still wandering about.) He's strong enough he's chosen to continue living and fighting, rather than taking the offer of eternal repose in the Night Angel's paradise that all good monsters are offered. This just makes Winter Wolf even more of an ideal to live up to.

Philippe is still trying to deal with the whole monster thing. After a very delayed rite of passage (which involved switching Tribes from the Storm Lords to the Hunters in Darkness) he's sort of settled comfortably-ish into his new life with some trepidation. He largely sees the Firstborn as being more or less real, but not possessing maximal qualities worthy of worship. Black Wolf is the kind, gentle mother you can always talk to but she's not God-- she kind of takes the place of Mother Mary here, or just a really, REALLY powerful patron saint. And when I've written them, I've had the Hunters in Darkness be pretty guilty of putting Black Wolf above Mother Moon and Father Wolf, sometimes to the point of thinking she's now surpassed Father Wolf as a hunter even when he was at the height of his strength. So he doesn't really dwell on them very much. Father Wolf is dead and Black Wolf is alive. Mother Moon doesn't really call that often.

He definitely sees himself as not necessarily of humanity but not undeserving of salvation because the idea of not being able to be saved doesn't square with an omnibenevolent God. Was the blood sacrifice of Jesus meant for him too? Well, probably. He can make the active choice to follow Jesus. He's making every effort to do good in the world. If you're looking at this from a process theology standpoint, the Bible was written from the perspective of humans, so of course they're only thinking from a human perspective and not including beings of free will that aren't human. That doesn't mean that God can't love someone who isn't human and that God won't save someone who's made the free choice to follow Him.

He's very focused on killing Hosts, unsurprisingly. It's pretty easy to justify killing them, they set themselves up as false gods, aren't really whole beings anymore, and like, when you get down to it, you're only committing one-one-millionth of a murder so that's like, a venial sin at worst. But do you feel bad for every blade of grass you step on? Do you feel bad for taking an antibiotic to kill a disease? It is technically killing something. But you can't keep living if you don't walk, and there's more blades of grass out there than you can count. You'll die if you let an infection spread and then you'll take other people with you because you were too soft. God understands that.

Also it's Wilmington, so he's in a target-rich environment. The Uglathu are a huge problem there and the whole region has been in an ecological death spiral for decades in part because of them. Otherwise he'd have to worry about diversifying into things that are harder to justify more often. He does avoid hunting humans and werewolves, all that said, and thinks it's generally the wrong thing to do except in the most extreme cases like Bale Hounds or Slashers. Especially for human criminals, that gets more into the area of things that only God can judge for. It's not a werewolf's place to intervene.

Well. Maybe you can gently nudge the human authorities in the right direction. But even that makes him feel a little guilty. It doesn't feel natural.

Sorry if this doesn't get into legalistic concerns much at all, I'm more focused on the metaphysical aspects of religion so I can't speak a whole lot to that. Werewolves being able to eat spirits would probably cause a lot of concern over what spirits are halal or kosher and what methods of killing them would be acceptable, but I have no clue how to answer that. I like thinking about how it is possible for something to become infinitely more full of light but not jurisprudence.

*post-script here to say that I had one of my professors, who is an expert in pre-Nicene Christianity and someone I admire a lot, say that generally speaking it was Christian theologians who really kicked off obsessing over what the qualities of God might be in the sense of "when we say God's hand is in something, are we giving human attributes to God and therefore suggesting God is like humans and not divine?!" type stuff. Rabbis tended to be more chill. I'll admit I've kind of taken what he says at face value since he's read a lot more material from that time period than me and also Saint Augustine had a huge impact on theology and he's the most neurotic man who ever lived so I would believe it. Him and his pears.

** another post-script to say that under this paradigm the God-Machine doesn't qualify as a God, we see plenty of proof the God-Machine is arbitrary and eminently fallible. While Its knowledge is obviously very far-reaching, and It's clearly acting with goal-focused behavior, you would have an incredibly hard time arguing Its actions are anything approaching benevolent and most free will theologians would take the fact It uses beings without free will as Its primary servants as hard proof It cannot be good

***yet another post-script to say that panpsychism is herein defined as all things possessing some level of mind, and that material differentiation are either inconsequential or purely illusion, if memory serves Conway was more in the first realm while Spinoza was in the second-- this will seem familiar if you've got any level of familiarity with Buddhism and after asking a few experts there's some consensus that Spinoza at least had some awareness with Buddhist philosophy and was influenced by it. It's less clear with Conway because we know way less about her life, sadly, and that's why I'm learning necromancy.

#werewolf the forsaken #chronicles of darkness #oh god long post warning #sorry you have activated my special interest trap card #oc tag #levi #philippe #ALSO REALLY SORRY TO ATARAXICPHILOCALIST I AM STILL WORKING ON YOUR ASK #I'LL TRY TO HAVE IT DONE TONIGHT

[crows-talking-place]

Hi wanna hear my insane Gillion backstory theory? no? SORRY YOU'RE OUT OF LUCK HERE IT IS

Theory: Gillion wasn't the chosen one. Until he was.

ok so hear me out:

Before Gillion, there was the true chosen one. The Original. He was, like Gillion, under the care of exclusively the elders. Something happened while he was training, and it lead to his death. The Original would have been around 12 years old.

No one but the elders (and those directly adjacent) knew who the champion was, so when The Original died, they had to find somebody else to act as a replacement, else the Undersea discover that their precious Chosen One was dead. To avoid these actions coming to light, however, they realised whoever they chose must believe this lie as well, believe that they WERE the chosen one, so it would have to be someone young and impressionable: a child. But who?

We know that Finn left, and we also know that leaving the Undersea is very Not Allowed socially, and Finn as far as people go seemed to be a pretty known presence what with being a known author and scholar, so it is likely his absence was known by the citizens in the capital. Perhaps it was this which led to Gil being chosen by the elders, or perhaps it was something else. Nonetheless, Gillion was chosen, and was dropped into the role of Chosen One.

The elders have access to simulations of some kind for training. We know this. Due to the fact that sounds obnoxiously hard technologically and also how immersive they were when he re-experienced them in the pearl (remember that the simulations he entered were described as identical to those he was trained on, so it's not just a pearl hell thing), I believe these simulations were not purely physical, more a manipulation of Gillion's senses to make him believe things were there. (more eveidence: the ep where Gil trains Chip to use his fire magic by making him think he's being attached by bears and monsters etc), however if they had this ability it's not out of the question they had the ability to do more.

We've already seen people in riptide manipulate memory, it happened to Chip in Noctis. If this person could manipulate senses, manipulating memory wouldn't be out of the question. (I believe some of the memories from The Original were given to Gillion, perhaps to speed up his training. This unintentionally could have also given Gil certain memories of Finn, who according to canon timeline should have left before Gil was born, except in canon we ALSO know that Gillion remembers interacting with him. This fixes the plothole of both Finn not knowing Gillion as his grandchild, and Gillion having memories he shouldnt really have.

(The fact they have the same name could have been the elder's choice: we don't know how young Gillion was taken so they could have given him the same name The Original was known to have in Finn's flashback)

This also explains the reason that the Undersea was okay with the Chosen One being EXILED, despite the prophecy which stated that he needed to CHOOSE THEM or they'd DIE.

Because, Gillion was not the chosen one. He was a replacement. HOWEVER, this is no longer the case.

The prophecy has come to pass, and we all saw it happen.

Episode 82: Moonlight, Storm and Sea.

The pearl is struck by lightning, in the eye of the storm, and Gillion returns to this plane, a changed man. Reborn.

Sounds insane? thought so, im clearly reaching too much

Sike I have evidence for there being 2 Gillions im so right guys

This theory was inspired by a theory created very early into the show's lifespan called "Gillion is Lying" by BoilingHeart, in which two pieces of evidence were presented against Gillion being Finn's grandson (here), both being inconsistancies between the prequel one-shot and the main campaign.

Condi repied with something about taking Riptide as canon over the one-shots as they didn't know the direction the overarching story and characters would at the time, which I accepted, as it made a lot of sense.

However, this exchange was later linked to in a different post, which Grizzly saw and replied to (here)

He (Grizzly) then added to the inconsistency post with this cryptic-ass response:

Now this response surprised me, becasue this lends this inconsistency credibility. Like it's important.

This implies that BOTH the flashback (which would make Gillion in his thirties) and Gillion's riptide age are consistant. But, obviously, that was impossible. So I tried to think back. I then remembered the episode in which Gil was released in the Pearl, and thuse, this insanity was born.

Easy. Gillion wasn't the child in the flashback. The Gillion we know IS Finn's grandson, but is born of a child he was unaware of. The flashback Gillion is NOT Finn's grandson, but is a student (as far as he is aware: remember the Champion's identity is not public knowledge outside of the higher-ups) who has grown up around him, hence having memories of Finn when he was really small.

(sorry for this monster of a post it didnt want to get shorter)

(why cant i put this much effort into my school assignments)

#jrwi #jrwi riptide #jrwi gillion #gillion tidestrider #jrwi theory #jrwi spoilers #crow is talking #crow in fandom #crow has gone insane /j #this took FOREVER to type out lmao

[jasper-book-stash]

Okay...regarding Witchcraft For Everyone by Sam Wise...

Well, firstly, if you're the author...I'm sorry, you probably shouldn't look at this post, I'm not fond of this book.

This was a deeply frustrating book. I have so many margin-scribbled notes expressing my frustration as I read it.

The most frustrating parts for me was in the editing and formatting: The inconsistency in the capitalization, formatting, and spelling of chapter titles, paired with the lack of page numbers and a non-existent table of contents, drove me absolutely bonkers.

So many chapters have bold claims with nothing backing them up within the text, which could have been fixed by citations and sources to back them up. And the author does do this in some places - citing specific books or podcasts or people under specific chapters within the text itself.

There are claims that many witches do or don't do something with seemingly no realization that one's experiences aren't universal, along with bold claims in subjects that the author themself claims they know nothing about.

There are also several separate instances of the author putting essential oils into water (sometimes bath water) without proper dilution. And I'm not just biased because of my anti-essential oil stance! My coworker, who uses essential oils herself, backed me up on this being a bad move!

And can someone please, for the love of whatever, tell me how we came to this organization of chapters?

Honestly, this is a 5/10 book. It's not the worst beginner book I've read, but it's far from the first I'd recommend to a beginner.

I just...wish it was a little better.

#jasper post #books #authors #review #witchcraft for everyone #sam wise

[every-character-ever-poll]

It took me much longer than I wanted it to, and involved a lot of Googling on how to work spreadsheets. But I finally have a sheet with each posted character from this blog.

They are separated by week (odd numbered weeks in light gray boxes, even numbered weeks in a darker grey) and simply include characters and their media.

I spent a lot of time trying to edit it so that everything was capitalized, and then I realized I hated doing that much more than I would hate the inconsistency. I might go back over later and edit it, but for now everything is as written by the submitter. I apologize if there are duplicates, I think I got all of them but I might have missed some.

I'm going to add this to my FAQ page, as my pinned already has two links and it's getting a bit long and crowded.

I'm very sorry that it took this long to make this, hope this helps anyone looking to submit a character! All the unposted characters can be found on the regular (browser-crashing) spreadsheet.

#not a poll #mod post #mod seven #important

[professorspork]

the big 'Faunus worldbuilding in Newsbees' post

as requested by EVER SO MANY OF YOU (!!), I now embark upon a post to talk much more about the Shallow Sea Verses and about the Faunus culture and worldbuilding I did for Newsbees. I've talked about them a little bit before, and I'll try not to repeat myself too much there but there's gonna be some overlap.

I imagine when some of you asked me to say more about this, what you were hoping for was like a "here's all this great stuff I came up with for other traditions that I never got to use in the fic!" and that is--not what this post is, sorry. by virtue of the fact that this was, ultimately, a literary device very much devised to move this story forward, I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about in in ways that weren't plot-relevant. if you have prompts for, like, "how would they do/think about X" I'm delighted to give it a think, but it's not something I have just lying around.

instead I'm gonna talk about how it came about, why I did it, and what my priorities were

okay so I'm gonna take this in... I guess chronological order is the best way to make sense of it

from the outset of the fic's conception, I knew that I wanted it to be a reflection of my values. like. it's about unionizing a workforce, it's about socially-conscious community-building and class struggle and FUCK COPS. to disregard the minority oppression of the Faunus (which you'll note is something I always capitalize, for what I should think are now-obvious parallel reasons) in a world and a story like that just felt... not just insulting, but downright stupid. a missed opportunity. and I've always felt like this subject deserved much greater forethought and much better execution than canon provided, which I think can be described most charitably as "mostly serviceable" but is mealy-mouthed, inconsistent, and both-sidesy-whattaboutist at way too many points for me to feel like it merits any credit. like. if you're gonna do catgirl racism and intra-community disagreements over praxis, you gotta actually do catgirl racism and intra-community disagreements over praxis, you know?

(gee, I'm sure you're shocked Sienna is very much alive in Newsbees, wonder why that is)

ANYHOO

so that was thing one.

thing two is that this is perhaps the GREATEST ARGUMENT I HAVE for why I prefer writing everything in advance and then posting on a schedule, because I knew it was something I could then find my way into and then retcon back in, if needed, and that I therefore had the entire canvas available to paint on. and it's a good thing, too, because it saved my ass multiple times plot-wise and not just in this worldbuilding way.

to combine those two thoughts, the first time ANY of this actually came up in the drafting process was when I hit the Ilia scene in chapter 6. I knew what I wanted Blake to say to Ilia in that moment, which she absolutely couldn't say, which was: "I said the Mourner's Kaddish."

which: that's already a lot to unpack, so let's do that a bit! the first thing that drew me towards formulating my conception of Faunus culture around parallels to the diasporic Jewish experience is, of course, "write what you know." I'm not a racial or ethnic minority but I am Jewish, and so it was something I could use the 'draw from wellspring of personal knowledge and emotion' part of my brain for, rather than the 'radically and empathetically imagine the other' part of my brain. I've seen all sorts of fanon Faunus ideas where people drew on different and likely personal interpretations-- including things like the Faunus having their own language, Faunus interpolations of the Maiden myths and other Remnant lore having different values or being scaled more towards the God of Animals, Faunus having their own foods... if someone not-me had written this fic, this could have manifested in any number of ways. because the Faunus don't fit neatly into my (very American) notions of race, religion, or even X-men style "maybe we should regulate the people who have nukes for hands" minority/majority frameworks, I had the freedom to use the one that had the most personal meaning to me... and to deviate from that when it suited and felt appropriate. Neon's rightfully combative stance about Faunus mistreatment and how she reacts to it, for example, is far more aligned with the experiences of my friends and loved ones who are POC than it is anything I've personally gone through as a Jew.

so!

knowing, then, what my destination was (a Faunus cultural framework that would have specific death rites and rituals), I worked backwards from there. what makes a culture FEEL lived in is that people LIVE in it, that it relates to their everyday lives as well as its most significant moments-- what do we eat? how do we treat guests in our home? how do we handle life cycle events (birth/marriage/death)? without a country of origin, as the Faunus have none-- they made Menagerie, not the other way around-- and not wanting to go TOO explicitly religious by having there actually be some sort of dogmatic (har har DOG-matic) text about the God of Animals, I instead lit upon the idea of old poems whose metaphors have been transformed into material gifts. this felt intuitive to me probably largely because I'm Jewish (we're called the People of the Book for a reason lmao, we're all about interpretation and re-interpretation of text) but also, honestly, because the written word is WILDLY IMPORTANT in newsbees. they work at a newspaper! there's a reason the very last words of the story are Blake saying "for the record," which is a reporting pun. in hindsight, however, this is also sort of Sappho-y, which is also neat and, again, shows that ALL the ways I've experienced my own Otherness show up here.

having a text then gave me a scale of orthodoxy to work from, as in "very traditional people still recite these texts in a ceremonial way," but also a background radiation-level casual level of interaction, which is "yeah I leave shells at graves because that's what my parents taught me and I don't even really know why." this also means that all Faunus have the same sort of playbook to work from, regardless of where they're from geographically or what kind of Faunus they are.

once I had that in place, I immediately realized that whatever traditional Mourner's Verse there would be probably would feel kind of insulting re: what happened to the Amitolas, which is why I came up with the Traveler's Verse workaround. and the second I came up with that, I knew I could use it to connect Ghira and Kali back into the text at the end-- I'd been wanting to find a way to do that and hadn't come up with a method.

the first draft of that scene then promptly infodumped every thought I could possibly have about the Verses, immediately. @theseerasures teased me that it read like a Codex entry from Mass Effect, and she was 100% right-- and it totally interrupted the flow of the VERY EMOTIONAL scene with Ilia, which wouldn't do at all.

and that's where the 'writing it all before posting it' thing comes in. that infodumping then became the scene at Doc's in chapter 3. this also solved another problem I had, which was that in the VERY first draft chapters 3 and 4 were one very long chapter. I'd subsequently split them, which left chapter 3 quite short-- but at that point, the moment where Blake is upstairs getting her snack was only a brief explanatory paragraph. moving the Verses stuff back made the chapter a chapter, so it did a lot of heavy lifting for me. wanting the Verses to feel integrated, I also at that point went back and added the engraving on Tukson's door to the prologue, so that it would be seeded in from the start.

which is kind of to say that ALL WRITING IS CHEATING. we get to manipulate circumstances to best suit our needs! callbacks feel elegant and cerebral, but they're actually a very blunt and easy tool to use-- you get tons of mileage out of just establishing something and then bringing it up all the time. I'd already written the thing about Tukson being picky about book damage, and so I let that become a part of the Verses lore by saying it was a Faunus thing, and then doubled down on it with the "throwing the book at Ghira" anecdote.

as for what things mean what, the basic rule I gave for myself is that everything had to be common and easily-obtainable for a community often left impoverished and on the margins. that's why so many of them are food-based, because that's a very "even if we have nothing else, we have THIS" sort of thing. when coming up with the thing that would represent love, I lit upon honey BEFORE i realized "oh duh, lmao, bees" because... I'm an idiot, but luckily I figured it out after a bit. I was very enamored of the idea of it representing not just sweetness, but industry (as in "busy bees"), that love takes steady and determined work. the second I did think it up, the Velvet gag gift ("they're making fun of me") sprang to mind, though ironically it wasn't necessarily tied to the Mantle Bee yet, though that was also already a concept on the page.

probably the hardest thing to come up with was the NOT-honey gift for the epilogue (which ended up being nuts for growth), because I was like... is it a pen and paper for a first job? Is that too bougie? maybe a cute little desk succulent? but what would it represent?

and yeah, that's pretty much how I got there. it was a question of making something specific enough that it would feel authentic, but open-ended enough that I could make up whatever I wanted to suit the moment and have it all feel of a piece. from there, it was just about USING it-- keeping it in the back of my mind in Faunus-related scenes to see if there were ways I could weave it in somehow.

phew! okay I think that's pretty much everything. if anyone is so very enamored of the Verses that they'd like to use them for their own fics, you certainly have my permission to do so (with a link back to Newsbees for credit, please). I'm intrigued to see what you'd do with them! but also, like-- I love how multi-faceted and varied different interpretations of Faunus lore can be, and I'd love to see what y'all come up with for your own systems!

CONSIDER THE GAUNTLET THROWN. HAVE FUN OUT THERE.

<3

#newsbees au #fic what i wrote #rwby

[whump-card]

This Death That I Chose: Chapter 12

1922 words

CW: implied noncon, forced to listen, gun violence, bombings

First, Previous, Masterlist, Next

~~~

Tao woke suddenly, blinking up at the underside of a bed. The only thing he could think about was the pain in his leg. The kind of pain that made his brain go holy shit holy shit holy shit are we dying?

Until he remembered how it happened.

He rolled his eyes around. He lay on the lower of a pair of bunk beds, in a tiny cinderblock room with a toilet-sink combo in the back corner. The door was metal, with a small safety-glass window.

He pushed himself up on his elbows with a grunt, and took stock of his knee. It was covered by loose orange pants – he wore a shirt that matched – but when he reached down to feel it, it seemed to be immobilized by some sort of slim-fitting cast underneath that stretched from mid-thigh to mid-shin.

Exhausted by even that small amount of movement, Tao dropped back onto the threadbare pillow with a sigh. The bunk above him shifted.

“Tao? You awake?”

Vic dropped down from the upper bunk, and crouched at Tao’s side.

“Hey,” he said when he saw Tao’s open eyes, “How’re you feeling?”

Tao took a breath and turned his face away.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Vic,” he said slowly, “But fuck you.”

“Woah, what?” Vic laughed nervously.

“I know about you and Lark,” Tao hissed.

“…Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh!’” Tao looked back at Vic, suddenly filled with rage. “Why the fuck would you do that?!”

Vic sat back on his heels, the guilt clear on his face.

“He begged me to, Josh,” he said quietly, “I didn’t understand what… I just didn’t understand.”

Tao fumed in silence for a minute.

“If it weren’t for my leg,” he said eventually, “I’d kick your ass, right now.”

“Yeah, that – that’s fair,” Vic yielded.

“And now Lark is… fuck!” Tao pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to push away the visions of Lark, lying like a broken doll on the stone stage. But it wasn’t just Lark – it was all the rebels who had died that night. Tao’s friends, his comrades. And who knew how many more had fought to the death rather than be captured. The sense of loss threatened to overwhelm Tao, clawing at the inside of his chest and stealing his breath.

“I’m so sorry, Tao,” said Vic, his voice hollow with unshed tears, “I’m so sorry.”

Tao didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what would happen to them. He didn’t know what would happen to what once was the United States, now that the Commander was dead.

Somehow, he felt that it would be bad.

~~~

Marina was inconsolable when they reached the rendezvous point and Karlo and Tao weren’t there.

Faye had revealed a rare human side, and held her tightly as she screamed and cried.

They set up camp in the penultimate level of a parking garage, the only structure left of an otherwise leveled town. It gave them good visibility of the surrounding area, and a long radio reach.

They listened to coms chatter all night. The news that the Commander was dead was met with solemn silence – as was the announcement that a group of captured rebels were being taken to the Capital prison.

Marina started looking at maps.

In the weak light of early morning, Marina approached Becca.

“Is it possible to make bombs out of car batteries?”

Becca didn’t reply. But when Hannah said, “Oh hell yeah you can!” Becca didn’t exactly say no, either.

~~~

Being trapped in the prison cell was torture. Tao was provided no pain medication, so he sweated, and groaned, and writhed. The lights never turned off, so he slept in fits and starts, daydreams seeping into nightmares spilling into daydreams. The axe coming down. The deathmasks of his friends. A car in flames.

Food was delivered to them through a slot in the door at odd hours and in inconsistent portions, as if to keep them confused. Or perhaps, with the Commander gone, his systems were falling apart. Who knew.

It felt like days before their monotony was finally interrupted by the door flinging open with a bang, startling Tao and Vic out of their restless dozing.

General Gordon stood in the doorway, a wild smile on his face.

“Tao, right?”

Tao kept his mouth shut, watching the General warily, but Gordon shrugged.

“Don’t bother lying, Lark told us everything.”

“He’s alive?” gasped Tao, pushing himself upright.

“Of course he’s alive, why would I waste an ass like that?”

Tao gritted his teeth. “What do you want?”

Gordon’s eyes glinted above his smug grin.

“I want to make a trade.” He stepped further into the cell, and a soldier moved to take his place in the doorway. The soldier held a pair of crutches.

“You get these,” the General proposed, “As long as you listen very nicely, very politely, to this recording that I have.” He pulled a small device out of his pocket.

It would be nice to not need Vic’s help to use the toilet, Tao thought, but there was no way this was that simple.

Gordon didn’t wait for an answer, however. He continued on.

“Yes, Lark’s been a very good boy for us. After we patched him up, I decided the boys in the barracks deserved a treat. They’ve been so loyal. I stop by every once in a while, and Lark makes… just the prettiest noises.”

He hit a button on the recorder. Wordless, rhythmic, painful cries, high and plaintive, came through tinny and small from the recorder’s meager speaker.

Tao felt every muscle in his body tense. The pain in his leg pulsed as his heart rate picked up. Horror and rage flooded his system.

“What the fuck?” he hissed.

“Ah-ah-ah!” Gordon scolded him cheerfully, “You have to listen quietly if you want-”

“Fuck your crutches!” With nothing else at hand, Tao threw his pillow at the General. It hit him in the face, and when it fell harmlessly away he was no longer smiling.

“Fine.” He clicked the recording off, just as a voice was asking, “You like that, don’t you, you dirty-” “Have it your way.” Clearly pissed that his mind-games hadn’t gone according to plan, he turned on his heel to leave. But as he was passing through the doorway the whole building shook with an unholy, cacophonous crash. It sent Gordon stumbling, and reverberated through Tao’s bones.

“What the hell is that?” the General shouted over the continuing rumbles, then, seeing something off to the side exclaimed, “Oh shit!” He took off, slamming the cell door behind him.

Vic jumped down from the upper bunk and pressed his face to the little window in the door.

“Oh shit indeed!” he echoed the General, “Tao, you’re never going to believe this!” He grinned over his shoulder.

“What?” Tao demanded, his hopes rising.

“It’s the Watch, they blew the fucking wall open! And…” Vic took a step back and tried the door. It opened. “Yes!”

Tao, grunting with pain, heaved his injured leg off the bed to rest on the floor. “Come help me!”

“Hang on!” Vic ducked through the door out of sight for a moment before returning, bearing the crutches. “They left something behind!”

He helped Tao to his feet and situated the crutches under his arms. Outside their cell, the building continued to rumble and shouts echoed as orange-suited prisoners ran past their door. Tao followed Vic out of their cell into the chaos.

The prison block, Tao could now see, was a two-story structure of cells encircling an empty, open space in a U-shape. The side with no cells, to their left, was blown open, with clouds of dust yet to settle over scattered rubble. Through the hole in the wall was another chamber, but it obviously reach the exterior somewhere beyond that – the prisoners, who had all at this point realized this was their chance at freedom, were making a collective mad dash for the open wound in the building. Standing within the tide, but letting them through, was a group of Watchmen; kitted out with stolen and scavenged weapons and tactical gear, blacked out with spraypaint. One of them held two prison guards on their knees at gunpoint off the to side; looking around, Tao couldn’t see any other guards.

“Let’s go!” Vic started across the atrium towards the Watch, waving an arm, “Over here!”

“Wait!” Tao shouted, “Where did that rat-fuck General go? He knows where Lark is!”

Two of the Watchmen had spotted them and run over. It was Hannah with a rifle, and someone else with a pistol, who shouted, “Where’s Karlo!”

Tao did a double take. “Marina?!”

Indeed, it was Marina’s face peeking out from under an oversized helmet. Her angrily determined expression was a familiar comfort.

“Where’s Karlo? Is he here with you?” she demanded.

“No, but a man was just here…” Tao scanned the room, and almost dropped a crutch when he pointed, “There!” A face flashed in one of the cell door windows before ducking down. “He knows where Lark is!”

Hannah unslung an extra rifle from her shoulder and handed it to Vic. “Let’s get the bastard!”

They charged towards the cell where General Gordon was hiding, Tao taking a second to figure it out before finding he could swing himself along fairly fast on the crutches.

“How the hell’d you get here?” he asked as they moved.

“It’s fuckin’ wild out there, boss!” Hannah replied, “Everything’s falling apart now that the Commander’s dead, soldiers are abandoning the Capital or holing themselves up in barracks, Capital civilians are rioting, this prison was being run by a skeleton crew!” They reached the cell door. “Once we started blowing shit up, motherfuckers ran.”

Vic looked into the cell through the little window.

“There are more of us than there are of you!” he shouted, “Drop your weapons, now!” There was a pause, then he looked over his shoulder with a grin. “Fuckin’ cowards!” He flung open the door and lifted his rifle. Inside stood Gordon and the soldier who had been carrying the crutches, their arms raised and their pistols on the floor. Gordon’s face was a twist of fear attempting to hide behind rage.

“Kick ‘em to me!” Vic ordered, and they had no choice but to scuff their guns across the floor to the rebels. Hannah scooped them up, sticking one in her own belt and handing the other to Tao. Tao tucked it into his waistband, and stepped forward.

“You’re going to take us to Lark now,” he said, “You got that?”

Gordon was breathing hard, trying to sneer but failing as his chest heaved and his hands shook.

“Fine,” he hissed.

Vic gestured with his gun for the General to walk forward. Then he swung his weapon towards the soldier.

“Eh. We don’t need you.” He aimed down and shot the soldier in the foot.

“Vic!” someone shouted over the solder’s scream, “Geneva convention!”

Tao turned to see Becca and the rest of the Watch had joined them, along with the surviving captured rebels and what looked like a few new volunteers, in their orange prison uniforms.

Vic beamed at her. “Sue me later?”

“Quit fucking around!” Tao shouted, and turned on Gordon, “Take us to Lark, now!”

Gordon slowly walked forward, keeping his arms raised. He was doing less to hide his fear, now, and watched them all warily.

Becca stepped aside to let him through.

“Lead the way, fucker.”

~~~

First, Previous, Masterlist, Next

Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy, @pigeonwhumps, @whump-em, @morning-star-whump, @thecyrulik, @honeycollectswhump, @pumpkin-spice-whump

#whump #whump fic #whump writing #this death that i chose #cw implied noncon #cw forced to listen #cw gun violence #cw bombings

[dani-says-stuff]

Madison Seminary

❥ Back to the Control Center

❥ Nate Hardy Masterlist

-Do not fear, this will be a multi-part fic and I will end up finishing it at a different time, an explanation can be found in my reblogs here

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Nate Hardy x fem!medium(?) reader

Summary: Ahh yes, finally a haunting where the spirits don't hate women

Word Count: 852

Warnings: hauntings, language, inconsistent capitalization, my usual grammar warning, short

Dialogue Key:

Y/N

Nate

Sam

Colby

Steve

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

"Oh. Well that's fun." you joked walking through the door, "My favorite thing to see when entering a haunted area," you turned, watching as the boys filtered in behind you-Sam filming, "Is a shit ton of creepy-ass dolls." 

"No!" Sam exclaimed, walking over to film some of the dolls closer up, "you don't just walk in and there's this many dolls just staring in your direction"

Probably wasn't the best idea to kick off the night by making fun of some weird and possibly haunted dolls... but you only live once, right? 

After a thorough bullying session, the four of you went to do a quick walk around the building, some light exploring, if you will, before the night truly begins. 

Nate was in the front with Colby, followed by Sam who was filming, you walking slightly behind him at the end of the group.

"Isn't there supposed to be some strange occult shit in here too?" Nate called back, as he looked at all the walls, trying to find any of the alleged sigils. 

Sam stopped, moving to the side as he positioned the camera to look at the triangular thing he found on the floor. "What is that?"

You, however, weren't phased by the "sigil" he found and walked right on top of it. 

"What are you doing Y/N?!" he shouted, "That could mean anything-"

You pierced your lips, trying to hold back your laughter at your blonde friend, "It's a shuffleboard, Sam."

The blonde looked down one more time, tilting his head slightly as he did so. "Ooh, ok, yeah I see it now." 

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

"Guys, this building is actually insanely huge" Colby explained, during the initial information portion of the video, "it actually has 88 rooms in it and the haunting s are rumored to be started at the beginning of the 20th century, so it's been haunted for a very very long time."

"Legend has it," Nate joined in, "that there have been approximately 200 bodies found here. It's frequent for people to experience shadow visitations, they will get disoriented, dizzy, nauseous-"

"There are even reports of people getting like choked."

"Poltergeist activity, things getting moved around, getting pushed... this is not a good spirit place."

"And, they don't like men"

Your eyes widened as you looked between the three guys around you, "wait are you serious?"

They all nodded solemnly, mistakenly believing you to be worried on their behalf. 

At least until you fist-pumped and started cheering. 

"I'm sorry" you spoke despite the unapologetic grin on your face, "it's just, this is new to me" you explained gesturing to yourself, "usually in the place we go, the spirits all hate women"

Colby tilted his head to the side with a shrug, "Yeah, yeah that's true" 

"So" you spoke nonchalantly, raising your arms to grasp Sam and Colby's shoulders in faux sympathy, "how's it feel to be in my shoes" 

Sam laughed, shaking his head at you, "Honestly? Not a fan."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah... we might need to be more considerate in the future"

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

You truly began the investigation within the basement of the Seminary. It is believed that this was the area where a woman was buried under the floor.

In this area, an anomaly was detected beneath the floor as well as a cadaver dog hit about three feet away. However, when they looked into it and dug the hole, nothing was there. 

"Alright" Nate announced, stepping around the railings "I'm goin' in the hole."

"You're really going for it this video" Sam nodded from the corner, "Proud of you."

"Thanks, man" he deadpanned looking between the blonde and the raven-haired man controlling the camera, "Yeah, I'm stoked you guys brought me out to butt-fuck Ohio to be in a hole." 

You stood behind him on the other side of the railing, laughing softly as he jumped in. 

"I just want to point out" Steve spoke looking over the railing, "this is the second night in a row that we made Nate be a dead body."

"Wow!" Nate mocked, "I didn't even notice that dude."

"Wait, yeah!" you joined in, raising your voice and crunching up your face a little, "Can we talk about that for a second? It took me long enough to not be single... can we please stop killing my boyfriend" you whined stomping your foot for good measure. 

The boys laughed at your antics, all the while Nate leaned forward, grabbing onto the bars, "Can I have a good-bye kiss this time?" he pouted, "You know before I leave this earthly plane and die... again"  

You leaned forward and grabbed his cheeks looking straight into his eyes, "You're just pitiful, aren't you?"

"Please" he whined, dragging out the end of the word and keeping his pout. 

"You're ridiculous" you whispered before leaning down and pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

He smiled, pushing himself from the bars and plopping down in the hole, "Kay, thanks babe!" 

Colby 'Aw-ed' obnoxiously from behind the camera, whipping it back and forth between zooming in on Nate who now was crouched below the floor, and yourself as you leaned over the railing looking down at him. 

Sam just blinked owlishly, feigning annoyance for the video, "Ok, now that that's over, can we begin the investigation now?"

once again, don't worry, i will be making a pt. 2 for this fic

#nate hardy x reader #nate hardy imagine #sam and colby imagine

[endlessthedestiny]

for a long time now ive been thinking about the HS typing quirks and what would the quirks be for sandman characters, so im making this long ass post just to eliminate this from my system

disclaimer: english is not my first language (classic) and if you disagree or have a different headcanon pls share i want to hear (if some may seem ooc my deepest apologies)

Morpheus

Writes in italic.

Bold for emphasis. can also *rarely* use asterisks.

No emoticons, but probably used "*-*" in some conversation with Death.

Normal capitalization and punctuation. If mistype, corrects expressively (ex. "I meant afternoon, sorry.)

If comfortable, uses keyboard smash (ex. "Ahshsnsbj") to laugh.

Death

Doesn't capitalize the beginning of the phrase or utilizes final dot unless she wants to be taken seriously.

Sometimes use the emoticons ":)", ":(", "^_^" only with those she is intimate/trusts. Uses frequently with Delirium.

Emphasis is CAPITALIZED.

When mistypes corrects with *asterisk.

Avoids sending a wall of texts, preferring send small texts to form a big text.

Desire

Italic.

Not severe with capitalization or punctuation. only cares and uses it perfect if wants to be taken seriously.

If sending a big message (+3 lines) ends with a "~ <3", otherwise, only uses "~".

Syllables repetition only to annooooy, with ellipsis at the end. . .

Only emoticon used is ";)"

For emphasis, utilizes *asterisk*.

Also corrects mistypes with *asterisk, and sometimes adds a "oops" or similar at the end.

Despair

Capitalization In Every Word, but the punctuation is perfect.

Bold for the emphasis.

Uses ellipsis in the end of most phrases. . .

Also only send ellipsis if doesn't want to answer.

Rarely mistypes, but if do, doesn't correct.

Destiny

Again, italic.

Capitalization and punctuation perfect.

Doesn't mistype, and corrects the others faster than the person themselves.

Bold for emphasis.

But when angry and wants to be taken more seriously, uses exclamation marks at the end!

Sends empty messages if doesn't want to answer.

Answers in a unbelievable speed. Sometimes send multiple responses almost at once.

If wants to laugh (which RARELY occurs) sends "Ha, ha, haha."

Destruction

ALL CAPS. Inconsistent punctuation.

Double square brackets to [[EMPHASIS]].

Laughs with "OHOHOHO" and similar.

Sometimes uses ":DDD" by influence of Delirium.

When mistypes, very rarely corrects, and corrects expressively (ex. "I MEANT TOMORROW").

Delirium

wRiTES cApITaLiZiNg RAndOmly. punctuation.. it's complicated. she knows how to use question marks that's much I guess

She starts every phrase (when she remembers) with "@ - - >"

For emphasis, she alternates between ****ASTERISKS****, (((TRIPLE PARENTHESIS))), bold and FULL CAPS.

When more controlled, she capitalizes less (ex. "iTs Me."). But the more she is angry or ansious, the harder becomes to understand what she's saying (she replaces some letters with random symbols, keyboard smashes mid phrase etc).

She uses every type of emoticon possible. But her favorites apparently are ":D" and "@__@". Kaomojis are rarely used.

Sometimes Barnabas translates what she's saying. (Ex. Del: "@ - - > iM sOOOoOooy hApPPY!!!! ajahshshhshd". Barbanas: "She said I'm so happy.")

Laughs with keyboard smash, the longer the funnier.

When she mistypes, she doesn't correct. Also dislikes when someone excessively corrects her.

okay now some extras, I didn't think much about them so yea

Lucifer

When he mistypes, he corrects himself as fast as he can. But Destiny always corrects his mistypes first and faster which pisses him off. But Lucifer also corrects the people when they mistype to annoy or simply to correct.

Sometimes simply answers "A" or "K".

Also laughs with "Hah". Already laughed with ))) at some point.

Corinthian

He uses ";)" and "B)".

Begins the phrases with < less than and finishes with greater than >

Hob

When sending a long text, finishes with "~ H."

The one who said that Morpheus is the "*-*" emoticon, and insists in using it with him.

okay im tired, if anything I will edit this post or simply reblog with additions. also now im feeling guilty of tagging cori and hob but whatever

thank you if you read allat

#the sandman #ok let me tag them all #dream of the endless #death of the endless #desire of the endless #despair of the endless #destiny of the endless #destruction of the endless #delirium of the endless #lucifer morningstar #the corinthian #hob gadling

[dreadfutures]

Sorry but all the "fuck bioware" stuff is real e_e to me

being in the UC at this moment in time, with PI's not being able to afford postdoc raises and having to let people go. It's the UC's fault. It's not your advisor's. And your advisor should also not be upset at you. The UC not helping PIs and blaming the postdocs for demanding a living wage and being unionized--this is UC unionbusting.

Even advisors who are pro-union and want to pay their postdocs more are in this tough position and have to let people go. Unfortunately, at some point, we are owned by a larger corporation and that is where the buck falls.

AFAIK the leadership at bioware changed a lot over the last 5-10 years and has been pro union and pro worker. A lot of these decisions seem wildly inconsistent with that, doesn't it?

There are bad bosses everywhere, I hear the PI's who are falling for the union busting bullshit or they themselves are truly exploitative assholes. Assholes, yeah, but still: the problem is the UC.

Idk I mean we'll see right in a few years when all the exposes come out. And of course I think severed workers should sue and get their due absolutely even if it bankrupts the lil studio but. Idk I'd rather say fuck capitalism and fuck EA than just blanket fuck bioware. \o/

#blue vagueblogs #bioware #ea

[vergess]

Ok so you've made a lot of posts about AI art in the past. Tumblr's search function us atrocious so I'm sorry if you've already talked about what I'm about bring up. So what's your takeaway on the "pro-AI art while being anti-modern art" crowd? I feel like any criticism that can be made towards one also applies to the other. I may not agree with the reverse, the modern art good, AI art always bad crowd, but I can at least wrap my head around the logic. 1/2

Meanwhile, shouldn't someone insisting that AI is valid artist tool or medium also want to use an established, though controversial field of art as part of their defense? I have other thoughts too but I'm not going to stuff your askbox. Anyways, as someone who makes AI art, what are your feelings on AI art vs modern art? 2/2

I'm extremely fortunate to have never seen an example of someone who is anti modern art but pro AI art. Part of that is, I avoid conservatives almost religiously.

But, I've seen similar nonsense come up before, so I can guess as to what the issue is.

There's basically going to be 2 kinds of person who fall into this group. The first are hucksters, conmen, and general frauds. They don't believe AI art is real, except in the sense that it can make real money for them. Meanwhile, they can't as readily capitalize off modern artists.

But that's boring.

The second group are people who earnestly believe AI art is real art, and just as earnestly believe modern art isn't. And this group is going to be occupied primarily by people who want art to Look Pretty(TM), rather than to have some kind of technical, narrative or political statement.

Basically, these people have created for themselves a 100% self-consistent idea of "art" as "thing that makes me say oooh pretty." Which means the usual methods of pointing out ideological inconsistencies will bounce right off (moreso than usual). And they've usually done so from a deeply Christian perspective, so the obvious solution of "what about natural wonders" gets met with "God's Art."

For these people, my AI outputs wouldn't be art, because they're incoherent gibbering that don't make someone stop and say "hey that's pretty." Likewise, a photograph of a pipe labelled "this is not a pipe (it's a fucking picture you dipshit)" would not make them stop and go "ooh pretty" so it's "not art."

But because some AI outputs, usually those made using ethically dubious data collection, do make people stop and go "oooh pretty," those outputs are art.

Basically, they're using a totally different but internally consistent definition of "real art" from someone like you or me, whose definitions usually include the artist as well as the object.

#Asks #Answered asks #arsenicnog