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ambrosiagourmet · 2 months

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I've been thinking about Laios' succubus lately. Mulling it over a bit.

Because I've seen these pages brought up a fair bit, but almost entirely in the context of shipping (on all sides, really). And I really want to understand what they are doing for the story beyond that.

When I went back to reread the scene and section, a few things caught my interest: the way Laios responds to both forms of his succubus, the themes of the volume the chapter is found in, and the other events of the chapter itself.

So let's dive into those three things, and what I think they say about the succubus scene's purpose.

Laios is never fully frozen by the succubus

So. If you compare Marcille and Chilchuck's reactions...

to Laios':

There is a difference. Sure, the basics may look the same once it turns into Scylla Marcille, but even then, it functions differently.

Chilchuck and Marcille are completely frozen once they catch sight of their succubus. Izutsumi, as well, isn't able to look away, and completely freezes up once her 'mom' starts talking to her. As Chilchuck describes, "just looking at them makes you unable to move."

And yet, Scylla Marcille has to actively convince Laios to comply. He even looks away from her at one point!

Laios accepts this succubus, but he is never actually helpless to it in the same way. Taken in? Convinced? Sure, at least enough to let things happen that he probably should question more than he does. But magically compelled? Not really. Not the same way as everyone else is. So that's interesting. But let's move on for now.

2. Volume 9 is all about drive and desire

I don't often look at chapters within the context of the volume they are included in, but I think there's some really fun things to be found with that perspective in mind.

For one, volume 9 starts with an exploration of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

And ends with a question of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

It's also very concerned in general with questions of why people do what they do. Why they are in the dungeon, why they are with the people they are with, why they stay, what they fight for.

In addition to Laios, we see it with Marcille...

Izutsumi

Kabru

and Mithrun

Hell, we even get it for the demon!

It's certainly not the only volume concerned with desires and motives, but it is particularly focused on these ideas.

The succubus scene fits quite well into the ongoing question about desires, especially Laios' desires. It is even placed at an interesting spot within the volume. The volume is six chapters long, and the scene takes place at the start of the 4th chapter. It's almost smack-dab in the middle.

With all this in mind, it is interesting that, with both versions of the succubus Marcille, it's not totally clear which parts of her Laios is rejecting.

The first version of Marcille looks human, but Laios attacks when he identifies her as a monster. The second Marcille looks like a monster, but he seems to believe that she is the real (human)(ish) person that he knows. So is he rejecting the monster at first, and then accepting the person? Or is he rejecting humanity and only interested in the monstrous?

Something to consider as we look at the next point...

3. the rest of the chapter is a seduction, too

This is one of those things that might not be apparent on a first reading, but is crystal clear on a revisit. We see the succubus try and charm Laios over 7 pages, and then see the Winged Lion do the same thing for the next 19.

Much like the succubus, it offers the mingling of monsters and humans. Much like the succubus, it offers belonging.

(and this is the point where I absolutely must also link this post by fumifooms on the succubus, which has some great ideas on how the scene is informed by Laios' trauma and desire for acceptance!!!)

But, back to the point. The Winged Lion wants to feed on Laios just as much as the succubus did, and it uses similar strategies to try and make that happen. Though this chapter isn't really the turning point for the next Lord of the Dungeon (it is Marcille who will, eventually, become the Lion's next victim), it certainly behaves like it is.

Laios is convinced. The succubus gets its meal. By the end of the volume, the reader begins to understand how concerning his desires are. Together, it is all very good at building up that sense of dread and pending disaster, as we see exactly how and why Laios might just fall into the Lion's open arms and bring about the end of the world.

So that's the three things I noticed. But there's still something I want to touch on by looking at the way these observations overlap, and what they reveal, together.

As I said, by the end of the volume, you can feel the tension growing. Just as Kabru and Mithrun do, you look back for an answer to the questions that have been built, chapter by chapter: why is Laios here? Where will his loyalties fall? This chapter, and scene, seem to prove the inevitable truth: he will choose the monster, of course. He will choose the seductive, easy power of the Winged Lion.

But the details of what actually happens tell different story: one in which the Lion is wrong.

First, as a reminder - even in Scylla Marcille mode, the succubus never fully entrances Laios. It convinces him, but it doesn't have him completely under its thrall.

Similarly, in the dream, the Lion does convince Laios to embrace the world he is offering. But even within that dream, Laios continues to ask questions that will be vital to him later. It is because of those questions that Laios comes to a new understanding about Thistle.

And it's this realization that he cites later as part of his reason for refusing the Lion's offer.

He is thinking through things the entire time, just like he continues to question the succubus even after it turns into Scylla Marcille.

Laios also expresses an interesting reason for why he wants to see the future of this world. He's not just invested because it would mean people liking what he likes, or him getting to spend time with monsters. The thought that comes immediately before his acceptance is about what he wants for monsters and people.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this statement - "we're living beings that share the same world, but all we can do is keep killing each other" - can apply to the various humans races just as much as it does to humans and monsters. The thing he is thinking about here isn't just a matter of his personal daydreams. It's an idea that underpins every conflict in the story.

Laios caring about how people as well as monsters in this manner is something that the Lion gets wrong every time. Even at the end, he still frames Laios' desires entirely around hating people and loving monsters.

The Lion has heard him express an opinion about the future of the world! It happened right there in the dream, right in front of him! He just didn't take it seriously, and didn't view it through any lens other than "Laios likes monsters more".

He's convinced that he understands how to get to Laios. Maybe the Lion can't truly see everything, or maybe his vision into everyone's deepest desires has made it hard for him to realize how much choice still matters. That people can, and do, choose which desires to act on, and how to act on them.

Whatever the case, he's wrong about Laios, and the story shows us this over and over again.

After all, look at how the succubus interaction plays out:

A monster uses Marcille to appeal to Laios...

He realizes that something about the situation is wrong, and rejects her.

It changes strategies, and makes new offer: to turn him into a monster.

It also assures him that his friends are, or will be, taken care of.

He accepts. Or rather, allows the monster to have its way with him.

But Laios is not as helpless as he initially appears, and what the Lion thinks is a successful seduction also contains the seed of an idea that will allow Laios to later resist him.

We even get to see Izutsumi playing a similar role in both instances, as the one person fully able to take action in the face to the illusion.

The story lays out what is going happen, and then explicitly tells us that the demon and the succubus are thematically related.

The chapter performs a great sleight of hand here - everything about it seems to indicate that Laios is doomed give in to the option to have his deepest desires realized. But if you look closer, it also contains the evidence that he won't. There's a lot more going on for him.

Yes, he still falls for obvious tricks. He is still extremely into monsters, and he still doesn't feel like he fits in with other people. He may, deep down, crave to surrender to the monstrous - to let it absorb him. But he questions more than he seems to. He considers more than people realize. He cares so much more than anyone gives him credit for.

And I think this is part of why we see the succubus called back to so many times, especially with the wolf head addition to his Monster Form, which he specifically added due to his encounter with the Scylla Marcille.

This all stays with Laios. It doesn't just foreshadow the path of the story, it is fundamental to how and why he walks that path. It's not about him choosing monsters, and it's not about him choosing people. It's about how he considers both, and cares about both.

And it's about the forces that think they already know his answer. Mithrun and Kabru. The Winged Lion. The succubus.

It's about how they are wrong.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi spoilers #laios touden #winged lion #dunmeshi analysis

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jessiarts · 1 year

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[Shut off last version of this post to avoid possible continual spread of misinformation that was corrected by staff. Reposting clean with corrected info]

So I'm sure almost everyone knows about the porn bot problem by now, so here's a post detailing why it's a problem, and what we need to do about it.

First off, yes, always block the porn bots. Don't be mislead into thinking they're ok to keep around because they 'inflate your follower count.'

Firstly, no one cares about, nor can anyone even see, your follower count. Be free from the shackles that are the bullshit other socials told you was important. Don't let your ego be tied to a number. Having a lot of followers won't earn you any clout here.

Secondly, bots only follow blogs to try and legitimize their malware (and other dodgy) links. This post goes into more detail about that.

Now that that's out of the way, you'll need to know how to recognize a porn bot. This round the template seems to be:

A profile photo of a pretty lady or guy, usually in their underwear, with a similar header photo.

A bio with some combination of: [Age] // [Name] // [Location] // [Emoji] // [Top Bullshit% OnlyFans]

URL consisting of a name followed by a number (i.e: firstlast999)

Typically an empty blog, or if there is content, it's all dodgy links. Visible, but empty, Likes Tab, & occasionally a visible Following Tab.

You likely recognize the pattern.

So, what you want to do is, first, report the blog as spam On mobile it'll look like this:

On mobile you'll need to report spam first, and then go back to the menu again to block.

On desktop it will look like this, and unlike mobile, you'll be able to report spam and block in the same motion:

If I remember correctly,* be sure to "Report Spam", not "Report sexually explicit material" to feed the bots to the proper channels. Because the blog is empty, they haven't posted anything explicit that would violate TOS. However, staff can recognize a bot, and if you report the blog for spam (the actual problem) they'll take a look, more than likely find that the blog is posting or DMing dodgy links, and dispose of it.

And I think that's it. Here's wishing you all a happy and safe blogging experience!

[UPDATE: It was suggested on another post that the bots track your IP if you click on them to send more your way. However, someone from staff corrected and said this is incorrect. They also corrected the 'guilt by association' myth that bots following you can get your blog flagged by tumblr.

That said, that trail all led to another, easier, way to report/block the bots all from your Follower Tab instead of visiting each blog separately, unfortunately it only works on desktop:

(For newbies, click on the little person icon at the top right of your screen and scroll to find the Followers tab under the blog/sideblog you need to block a pornbot from.)

*I remember this information from a blog that used to be all about taking down the pornbots. Unfortunately I do not know if that blog is still active, nor can I remember the URL. If anyone knows what blog I'm referring to, and/or if they're still active, please feel free to tag them so others can follow them for more tips!

#psa #reblog to boost #reblog to spread the word #tumblr #bots #tips #newbie guide #helpful #useful stuff #tumblr user manual #tumblr tips #tumblr stuff #how to tumblr #tumblr how to #tumblr guidelines #long but important #pornbot invasion #pornbots

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sexybritishllama · 3 months

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strap in folks it's time for another neopets drama update

some background reading before we begin: back when neopets wanted to introduce customisation (i.e. dressing up your pet) in 2007, they decided to 'convert' all existing pet art to align with a rigid body structure, rather than all having unique poses. it was just not feasible to create new pieces of art for hundreds of different pet poses every single time they released a new clothing them

customisation had been highly requested up until this point. however, the conversion was NOT popular. in some cases, particularly for basic colours, the change wasn't huge, but in other cases.... uh....

you get the idea. the more expensive colours like plushie, faerie, grey, royal and darigan got the worst of it because they had the more unique poses pre-conversion, and therefore it was largely agreed that the change to the stiff 'samey', frankly kinda goofy converted look did not look great

most users did not get a choice in having their neopet converted and it was done automatically, but if you had one of these colours where the change was huge, you were given the choice of converting or retaining the old pose (but not having the option to customise your pet). those pets that retained the old, pre-conversion poses are therefore referred to as 'unconverted', or UC for short

once a pet is converted, there's no returning to UC. you also couldn't create UC pets anymore, making UCs a limited resource that would only increase in value with time, particularly as people abandon their pets, leave the site, get frozen, etc.

i could write an entire dissertation on the drama that UC pets have caused for the pet trading economy, the neopet account black market, and general retention of the userbase, but to sum it up, people REALLY want UC pets. they are the single most coveted status symbol on the site

we skip forward now to 2023

the neopets team are planning to introduce UC pets back to the site, so that people will be able to create their own UC pets again for the first time post-converstion (legally at least)

they drip feed bits of information over the year about what this will look like. the main points are

changing a pet to UC will be done via some kind of item bought with neocash, the premium currency on neopets that you need to spend real money to get

putting this item on your pet will give it the UC art style appearance

so. not much really known. but expected release is set for january 2024

yesterday, they hosted an AMA focusing on the new UC pet system and how this was going to work. noticeably absent is any explanation of how much this is actually going to cost and whether it is going to involve any kind of gatcha mechanic, so that's causing our first lot of concern

second lot of drama is that the new UCs aren't actually going to be COMPLETELY the same as the old art, as they're making some small changes for style consistency, see below (old on top, new below):

the biggest drama, however, comes from how they're dealing with the 'original' UC pets. ALL pets will be getting forcibly converted on the 23rd, with anyone who has a pet that is already an original UC immediately receiving the UC neocash item. there's mention of possibly some kind of trophy or badge recognition for particularly old pets, but it's vague, and generally seems like it won't be possible to distinguish between the original UCs and these new ones

the people who already have OCs are not happy about this

people are allegedly pounding their pets, cancelling their premium, and quitting the site in protest. the boards are flooded with people complaining about the changes and laughing at the downfall of the 'neo-elite' in equal measure

it's t-minus 5 days until the second great conversion goes live. let's all pray for our souls

#eloise talks #neopets #neotag #this isnt even going into peoples displeasure at the fact you dont even need to be the og colour to make it oc #i.e. from what we can gather you can have a red kacheek #apply this nc uc item #and then it can look like an uc faerie kacheek?#AND the drama over this now destroying the uc market and possibly requiring people to get gift boxes for trading #i can keep going

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ohhgingersnaps · 11 months

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I'm seeing some frustration over fandom creatives expressing anger or distress over people feeding their work into ChatGPT. I'm not responding to OP directly because I don't want to derail their post (their intent was to provide perspective on how these models actually work, and reduce undue panic, which is all coming from a good place!), but reassurances that the addition of our work will have a negligible impact on the model (which is true at this point) does kind of miss the point? Speaking for myself, my distress is less about the practical ramifications of feeding my fic into ChatGPT, and more about the principle of someone taking my work and deliberately adding it to the dataset.

Like, I fully realize that my work is a drop in the bucket of ChatGPT's several-billion-token training set! It will not make a demonstrable practical difference in the output of the model! That doesn't change the fact that I do not want my work to be part of the set of data that the ChatGPT devs use for training.

According to their FAQ, ChatGPT can and will use user input to train itself. The terms and conditions explicitly state that they save your chats to help train and improve their models. (You can opt-out, but sharing is the default.) So if you're feeding a fic into ChatGPT, unless you've explicitly opted out, you are handing it to the ChatGPT team and giving them permission to use it for training, whether or not that was your intent.

Now, will one fic make a demonstrable difference in the output of the model? No! But as the person who spent a year and a handful of months laboring over my fic, it makes a difference to me whether my fic, specifically, is being used in the dataset. If authors are allowed to have a problem with the ChatGPT devs for scraping millions of fics without permission, they're also allowed to have a problem with folks handing their individual fics over via the chat interface.

I do want to add that if you've done this to a fic, please don't take this as me being upset with you personally! Folks are still learning new information and puzzling out what "good" vs. "bad" use is, from an ethical standpoint. (Heck, my own perspective on this is deeply based on my own subjective feelings!) And we certainly shouldn't act like one person feeding a fic into ChatGPT has the same practical negative impact, on a broad societal scale, as a team using a web crawler to scrape five billion pieces of artwork for Stable Diffusion.

The point is that fundamentally, an ethical dataset should be obtained with the consent of those providing the data. Just because it's normalized for our data to be scraped without consent doesn't make it ethical, and this is why ChatGPT gives users the option to not share data— there is actually a standardized way (robots.txt) for website servers to set policies for how bots/crawlers can interact with them, for exactly this reason— and I think fandom artists and authors are well within their rights to express a desire for opting out to be the socially-respected default within the fandom community.

#maybe this is an ice cold take but i've been meaning to go off about datasets for a while so here we are i guess #i can respect what op's frustrations were and what they were trying to get at! but also i do not want my fic in chatgpt's dataset #regardless of whether it will make a practical difference #and again i don't think the people doing this are necessarily bad actors or having a huge negative social impact #chatgpt #chat gpt #ai #fandom #negative #(possibly! i'm trying not to be!! especially because this is very feelings-based and there are many things i am not considering)#the model may not demonstrably change because of your fic. but it does have your fic now and that does matter maybe idk

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asterlark · 5 months

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me and den @unloneliest were just talking about murderbot and ART's relationship and i want to discuss how they quite literally complete each other's sensory and emotional experience of the world!!

there's a few great posts on here such as this one about how murderbot uses drones to fully and properly experience the world around it (it also accesses security cameras/other systems for this same purpose). but i haven't seen anyone so far talk about how once MB stops working for the company and consequently doesn't have a hubsystem/secsystem to connect to anymore (which for its entire existence up to that point had been how it was used to interacting with its environment/doing its job), after it meets ART, ART starts to fill that gap.

ART gives MB access to more cameras, systems, and information archives than it would normally be able to connect with while MB is on its own outside of ART's... body(? lol), but also directly gives MB access to its own cameras, drones, archives, facilities, and processing space. additionally, so much of ART's function is dedicated to analysis, lateral thinking, and logical reasoning, and it not only uses those skills in service of reaching murderbot's goals, it teaches murderbot how to use those same skills. (ART might be a bit of an asshole about how it does this, but that doesn't negate just how much it does for murderbot for no reason other than it's bored/interested in MB as an individual.)

we all love goofing about how artificial condition can basically be boiled down to "two robots in a trench coat trying to get through a job interview" (which is entirely accurate tbh) but that's also such a great example of ART fulfilling the role of both murderbot's "hubsystem" and "secsystem", allowing it to fully experience its environment/ succeed in its goals. ART provides MB with crucial information, context, and constructive criticism, and uses its significant processing power to act as MB's backup and support system while they work together.

from ART's side of things, we get a very explicit explanation of how it needs the context of murderbot's emotional reactions to media in order to fully understand and experience the media as intended. it tried to watch media with its humans, and it didn't completely understand just by studying their reactions. but when it's in a feed connection with murderbot, who isn't human but has human neural tissue, ART is finally able to thoroughly process the emotional aspects of media (side note, once it actually understands the emotional stakes in a way that makes sense for it, it's so frightened by the possibility of the fictional ship/crew in worldhoppers being catastrophically injured or killed that it makes murderbot pause for a significant amount of time before it feels prepared to go on. like!! ART really fucking loves its crew, that is all).

looking at things further from ART's perspective: its relationship with murderbot is ostensibly the very first relationship it's been able to establish with not only someone outside of its crew, but also with any construct at all. while ART loves its crew very much (see previous point re: being so so scared for the fate of the fictional crew of worldhoppers), it never had a choice in forming relationships with them. it was quite literally programmed to build those relationships with its crew and students. ART loves its function, its job, and nearly all of the humans that spend time inside of it, but its relationship with murderbot is the first time it's able to choose to make a new friend. that new friend is also someone who, due to its partial machine intelligence, is able to understand and know ART on a whole other level of intimacy that humans simply aren't capable of. (that part goes for murderbot, too, obviously; ART is its first actual friend outside of the presaux team, and its first bot friend ever.)

and because murderbot is murderbot, and not a "nice/polite to ART most of the time" human, this is also one of the first times that ART gets real feedback from a friend about the ways that its actions impact others. after the whole situation in network effect, when the truth of the kidnapping comes to light and murderbot hides in the bathroom refusing to talk to ART (and admittedly ART doesn't handle this well lol) - ART is forced to confront that despite it making the only call it felt able to make in that horrifying situation, despite it thinking that that was the right call, its actions hurt murderbot, and several other humans were caught in the crossfire. what's most scary to ART in that moment is the idea that murderbot might never forgive it, might never want to talk to it again. it's already so attached to this friendship, so concerned with murderbot's wellbeing, that the thought of that friendship being over because of its own behavior is terrifying. (to me, this almost mirrors murderbot's complete emotional collapse when it thinks that ART has been killed. the other more overt mirror is ART fully intending on bombing the colony to get murderbot back.)

in den's words, they both increase the other's capacity to feel: ART by acting as a part of murderbot's sensory system, and murderbot by acting as a means by which ART can access emotion. they love one another so much they would do pretty much anything to keep each other safe/avenge each other, but what's more, they unequivocally make each other more whole.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot #asshole research transport #network effect #mine #idk what else to tag lol #BIG thanks to den unloneliest for helping so much with the drafting/editing of this!!!#we both were having some brain fog issues yesterday so we joked that with our combined forces we can make one (1) post lol #just like mb and ART fr!!!!#anyway im so fucking emotional over themmmmm #murderbot meta #the murderbot diaries meta

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qqueenofhades · 2 months

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What do you think of the movement to vote "uncommitted" in the primary? Personally I think it's a good idea as a protest vote, while not "allowing Trump to win" since it's, ya know, the primary. You're voting for "the Democrat you want to be the candidate for president" not who you actually want to be president. Most of the arguments I've seen against it seem to forget primaries exist...

Well, since you came to me and presumably do want my honest opinion on this topic, I'll share it with you. However, this will also be very blunt and candid, including some things which I haven't yet said in the 4+ months since the whole Israel/Hamas situation kicked off, and therefore also frustrated. This frustration should not be read as/taken as being directed at you personally, but since you're the conduit for this question, that's just something I want to highlight.

So. Why should you vote for Biden in the primary, and not "uncommitted" or whatever else?

First of all, what I desperately want to ask all these self-righteous VOTE UNCOMMITTED IN THE PRIMARY TO SEND BIDEN A MESSAGE types is: what exactly the fuck do you want this message to be, and what action do you expect Biden will take as a result? Is this actually based on an expectation of what he can/and or will actually do, or is it just a froth of misguided Online Leftist "rah rah this Bad Thing Happening Is All Biden's Fault," as we also notably went through when Roe was overturned by the Trump-stacked SCOTUS selected precisely for the purpose of overturning Roe? My god, the amount of bad "THIS IS BIDEN/THE DEMOCRATS' FAULT" posts that appeared, and are still circulating on the particularly idiotic corners of this site. Nothing could ever be Trump/the Republicans' fault in that case; it was the same old same old "DEMOCRATS DON'T CARE ENOUGH TO STOP THIS!!!" puerile fantasy. That's what we are getting now with Israel/Hamas. This isn't Hamas's fault for attacking Israel on October 7 (god forbid; the online left loves Hamas) and it isn't even the state of Israel and Netanyahu's fault for responding with full-scale genocide on Gaza. Or it is, somehow, but not so much that Biden personally couldn't magically reach in and stop it "if he really wanted to." I'm sick and fucking tired of this bullshit sixth-grade bad-faith disingenuous approach to playing Super Moral Social Justice Yahtzee and refusing to acknowledge the thousands of complex factors at play, especially when it involves blaming literally anyone other than Biden, personally (just like the Trump cultists, for whom "IT'S BIDEN'Z FAULT" is the beginning and end of their political theory, just like the Online Leftists). I'm sure this will get me called a genocide apologist by the Very Smart Moral Twitter Thinker types, but I don't think "Biden has failed to magically single-handedly solve this crisis, which stems from one of the most major and long-running issues in post-WWII and indeed pre-WWII world history, in four months" is actually a good reason to vote against him.

Likewise: withholding your vote might make more sense as a strategy if Biden was still only blindly supporting Israel and refusing to do anything to pressure them, which is demonstrably untrue. I know it's hard for some of these people to actually read the news and/or anything outside their ultra-curated Twitter feed, but it's been well-reported and well-documented that he is. If the US was directly involved in the bombing campaign on Gaza, sure, tell Biden that you will vote uncommitted to increase pressure on him to pull out. None of that is actually true, and the "information" about Biden's action in re: Gaza on both Twitter and Tumblr is basically just entirely malicious lies. So again: what message are you sending when you decide to be all precious and announce you're not voting for him? You don't want him to pressure Israel? You're willing to blow this up entirely and increase the media nonsense about BIDEN WEAK DEMOCRATS DIVIDED and give Trump an opening to exploit? You really want to announce to the Trump/Putin/Netanyahu axis of evil that their anti-Biden propaganda is working (since all three of them are working as hard as they fucking can to get Biden out of office, and as someone who opposes all three of them, I think this is a good idea to vote for Biden!) and they need to hammer harder on this wedge issue? Because that's all your oh-so-moral Uncommitted vote is doing. It's not a protest. It's not leverage. It is the withdrawing of leverage. If you want Biden in office so he can be pressured to listen to you and take action that you agree with, you will vote for him. Yes, in the primary. Yes, when it's not directly against Trump.

You want a ceasefire, you say? GREAT! WE ALL WANT A CEASEFIRE AND/OR ACTUAL PEACE AND RECOGNITION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE! That's in fact why you should be busting your fucking ass to make sure Biden gets re-elected, and to give him a strong show of support in the primary. Biden is the only candidate with a credible long-term (and like, baseline functional sane adult) plan for Gaza. Biden is the one who has been pressuring Netanyahu in every single contact to tone it down and stop acting like an insane murderous maniac and therefore torching any remains of sympathy for the attack Israel suffered in October. Biden is the one who has his entire diplomatic team working on high-level contacts with the Israeli government and the Hamas representatives via Qatar, while sufficiently threatening Iran to back down from frothing at the mouth to destroy Israel (once again, just like the rest of the antisemitic western left). Biden is the one who is pushing for this not to be World War III, and yet we get Baby's First Social Justice Activist screaming at him for being GENOCIDE JOE and blaming him personally for not, as I keep putting it, shapeshifting into Netanyahu's body and making this stop. "He should publicly call for a ceasefire!" Or, and this is just a suggestion, he should DO HIS FUCKING JOB and continue to work on serious problems that don't have instant socially media marketable catchphrases and won't come with instant gratification. Also, please tell me how you plan to get both Hamas and Israel to accept the same terms for a ceasefire, abide by it, and do exactly what Big Daddy Biden told them, because you, the dedicated anti-western anti-imperialist, think that's the best course of action?

Like. I mean. As vice president and now as president, Biden is actually one of the least foreign-intervention-happy leaders the US has ever had. He was originally against the Abbottabad raid to take out Osama bin Laden in 2011; he wound down the overseas drone assassination program (at which the Online Leftists screamed bloody murder at Obama, ignored in Trump, and then refused to give Biden any credit for ending) to almost nothing, he pulled the US out of Afghanistan, and even though he's been supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, he's also been extremely slow and cautious (in my opinion, too slow and cautious) at giving them all the military hardware they need, even before this latest blockade of aid in the House by Putin's favorite little bitch Mike Johnson. He has already presided over a historic shift in US policy toward Israel, in terms of conditioning the use of lethal aid, imposing reporting requirements, starting to criticize them publicly, and calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state and more humanitarian aid to get into Gaza. Yet in the Online Leftists' mind, because he is not personally out there Captain America-ing away the Israeli bombs and/or calling for Israel to be totally destroyed "from the river to the sea" as the Tumblr activists are fond of using no matter how often Jews ask them to stop, there is nothing he's actually doing! GENOCIDE JOE!!!!! Like, I thought the anti-western anti-American crowd thought all overseas American influence was evil (but all overseas Russian and/or Chinese influence is fine). When Biden actually doesn't recklessly intervene in foreign conflicts like Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Reagan/Bush 1/Bush 2/pretty much every American president in the latter half of the twentieth century, you'd think that would get him plaudits? NAH.

"Biden should stop selling Israel weapons without Congressional approval!" Okay, sure, he should. Which he did one time, and he also repeatedly promised to veto and/or not pass any only-Israel aid package that didn't also help Ukraine and Taiwan. He's also not beholden to the frothing antisemitic Online Leftists position that Israel should just lie down and let all of its citizens be killed and its state wiped from existence. Like. We also remember that Jewish voters exist in America, right? And that Jewish lives are something which are repeatedly and demonstrably under threat in the rest of the world, including from Hamas and the Houthis (who are genuinely terrible people and the western left's warm embrace of them as principled anti-Israel actors is all we need to know about their inherent brainrot and moral vacancy). We know that maybe going full masks-off antisemite (which Biden isn't going to do anyway, for any number of reasons) isn't the greatest plan and nothing to which you should be conditioning your vote? Likewise, please tell me how you plan to make Congress (especially the GOP-led clown car House) "do what Biden wants," since you're still beholden to that being the be-all-and-end-all of moral action? Or how you account for Congress at all, and not just think The President is An Almighty King?

Aside from all this, I am sick to my fucking back teeth of the Precious Moral Princesses (gender neutral) who have spent four years lying about everything Biden has done. We had the personally blaming him for Roe ending (he could unilaterally overturn SCOTUS if he really wanted!) We had the endless bashing about student debt, only to ignore him actually making the most major effort to forgive student debt in all the post-Reagan years. We have had a complete ignoring and/or distortion of his domestic policy accomplishments, which are some of the most momentous since FDR and LBJ. We have had an utter ignoring, revision, and downplaying of the damage Trump did in one term and how very much worse his second would be. We have had to endure "WELL YOU CAN'T ASK ME TO VOTE FOR BIDEN" at every single second for every single thing, because this is such a terrible onerous thing to ask them to lift one single fucking finger to give us some more time to come up with a better solution. And yet, as astutely pointed out by one of my anons yesterday, they utterly don't care whether the obvious outcome of this action is to help Trump get back into power. Apparently that's not a moral reach too far, but straining their delicate tender moral sensibilities to fucking do the goddamn bare minimum to help us out -- both in America and around the world -- no, no. We can't have that.

Like. These people allegedly want a ceasefire, and they want it to come about by asking literally nothing more of them then posting snide anti-Biden diatribes on social media. That's the extent of the effort they're willing to put in. They can't even trouble themselves to take the first step of voting for people who want to address this crisis in a constructive way. So yeah, I have a hard time believing this is anything deeply felt in regard to opposing genocide, and just wants what makes them look morally superior. Also: I don't care if your feelings are genuinely pure and strong and you obviously oppose what's happening in Gaza (we all do!) and want it to end. In that case, why the fuck aren't you throwing your support (yes! Even in the primary!) behind the one guy who's actually working to fix it and not just posting empty platitudes on Twitter? It likewise does not excuse you from the harmful consequences of your rhetoric and actions, if you decide that the best way to act on your deep-seated and genuine desire to stop the genocide is just to blindly bash Biden all day every day. Not voting for Biden in the primary does not excuse the fact that this election is against Trump and everything horrible that he represents, and that we are in this situation largely because the online left has learned literally fucking nothing from 2016 and is eager to do it all over again. Not voting for Biden in the primary does not give you a special Gold Star Moral Activist sticker announcing that you were too virtuous to engage in the process now, but if you're sufficiently placated, you maybe will do it in November. Miss me with that bullshit. I've spent eight years pleading with people to help us fix this mess, by -- yes! engaging with the flawed process that makes partial changes!!! -- and all I hear is that same fucking nonsense. That is a large part of why this response is so steamed.

Anyway. In short, I don't think voting "uncommitted" is a good idea, I think it only helps Trump in the short and long term, I think it protests nothing, I think it represents the same old tired anti-voting schlock that I have had more than fucking enough of, and I don't endorse it by any means. However, you will see that while I can strongly and unequivocally give you my opinion that it is a bad idea, I cannot actually reach through the screen, take control of your body, and force you to obey me one way or the other. So maybe, just maybe, Biden can't do the same with Netanyahu. Weird.

#everentropy #ask #politics for ts #vote and get off my lawn #israel hamas war

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roseykat · 8 months

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ROSEY’S KINKTOBER SPECIAL

GENERAL INFORMATION

Helloooo! I’m going to be running a Kinktober for the first time next month! I’m excited because I have a lot of ideas and whatnot so please find the list of dates, titles, and concepts below. As always with my content, I post R18 NSFW content so I advise anyone who is under the age of 18 to refrain from reading/engaging with my posts and future posts!

🌹OCT.1 - Car sex - Bang Chan

Same coin, different faces: Despite not being together with Chan anymore, you somehow end up in the back of his car...fogging up the windows.

🌹OCT.3 - Erotic Massage - Changbin

These hands were made for you: Changbin innocently asks if you can give him a massage but doesn't expect to become so horny and aroused by it.

🌹OCT.5 - BDSM - Felix

Marzipan, Cherries, and Whipped Cream: A BDSM scene that takes place between you and soft dom Felix.

🌹OCT.7 - Voyeurism - Jeongin

Weeding out the Weak: After almost two weeks of Jeongin not allowing you to touch yourself, greed finally makes you cave which only leads you to be caught by him in his bed trying to get yourself off. Despite pleading to Jeongin for him to fuck you, he finds a better solution of only giving you half of what you want.

🌹OCT.9 - Threesome - Minho + Jisung

Eat, sleep, play: This one shot looks into the dynamics of an established polyamourous relationship between you and Minsung, along with an account of what Jisung likes to call ‘play time’.

🌹OCT.11 - Aftercare - OT8 blurb version

Blanket of Safety: An OT8 blurb version of how each other members take care of you after intense and/or vanilla sex.

🌹OCT.13 - Squirting - Hyung Line Version

Come as you please Part 1: A blurb version of how each of the Hyung line members reacts to making you squirt.

🌹OCT.15 - Squirting - Maknae Line Version

Come as you please Part 2: A blurb version of how each of the Maknae line members reacts to making you squirt.

🌹OCT.17 - Freelance - Seungmin

Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You: Featuring Seungmin as your lecturer's student assistant whose personality is just as harsh as he fucks.

🌹OCT.19 - Hate fuck - Minho

Venom Biter: The end of a relationship between you and Minho turns as sour as it could ever get. A lovers to enemies trope.

🌹OCT.21 - Top/bottom dynamic - Jisung

Hell’s Baby: Jisung, who is not a jock but friends with many, comes across as a seemingly dominant person. It’s not until you shatter that facade of his, only to find out that he’s a switch, mainly leaning towards a bottom, wanting desperately to be put in his place.

POWER WEEK

🌹OCT.23 - Dry humping - Hyunjin

Like Throwing Petrol on a Fire: Hyunjin can't get neither his or your clothes off in time for him to fuck you. Unfortunately, he has to resort to and put up with another measure.

🌹OCT.24 - Phone sex - OT8 version

I can’t see you, but I can hear you: An OT8 blurb version of each of the members engaging in phone sex with the reader.

🌹OCT.25 - Threesome - Bang Chan + Felix

Some things are better left unknown: After suspecting your two roommates of potentially being in a relationship, there's more to just that when you discover one of them actually has a crush on you.

🌹OCT.26 - Sensory play - Jeongin

Table manners and Bible Studies: Jeongin, a churchgoer who is also a very sexual person, likes to immerse both you and himself in the realm of sensory play, among other things as well.

🌹OCT.27 - Brat Taming - Seungmin

If the collar fits: Seungmin can't stand brats. But he is more than willing to train one into submission no matter how hard it is for him.

🌹OCT.28 - Cuckolding - Bang Chan

Open Game: This one shot involves, you, Bang Chan, an invitation to an exclusive sex club, and a whole heap of memories that he’s never going to forget.

🌹OCT.31 - Halloween special

Yet to be decided…

I can’t wait to get into next month so stay tuned for updates or any changes!

Rose xxx

#stray kids smut #rosiewritesskz #skz smut #lee know smut #han jisung smut #hyunjin smut #bang chan smut #changbin smut #felix smut #i.n smut #seungmin smut

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nothorses · 11 months

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actually though I think we need to talk about the way that people will just believe shit.

you can say whatever the hell you want, and people will just take that at face value, and it doesn't actually matter how much that thing is disproven later; people will still believe it. once they hear it, that information- no matter how far from the truth- taints their view forever.

some stranger publishes an anon that says "[X] is a literal known child predator and it's unbelievable that so many people still reblog from them." the blogger has responded, "oh my god what the fuck?? i can't believe nobody told me sooner I feel so gross".

there is no proof, no link, no indication of where this information came from. you can't even verify that the blogger in question didn't send this to themselves.

but there are still a bunch of notes on it, it's linked in a callout somewhere, people are referencing the same exact claim in their own posts, and [X] is now getting a bunch of anon hate and comments/reblogs/whatever from people who genuinely believe this lie about them.

someone comes forward with irrevocable proof that not only is [X] not a child predator, but they were in fact a victim of it, and the original anon was sent by the blogger themselves, and that blogger made it up from nothing. maybe they're also a pathological liar. hell, they could even be doing the shit they accused [X] of themselves.

it doesn't matter.

everyone heard this lie about [X], and now they believe it. there are enough iterations of this original lie that it doesn't matter if it was disproven; what about all these other people who are saying it? you can't prove all of them wrong!

and internet discourse isn't the only place we see this: Trump fabricates shit all the time, and it doesn't matter if he has proof, or if anyone else has even said this before him. his followers accept it, and everyone who hears from them- directly or indirectly- accepts it as fact, too. maybe they say it's distorted, but they believe some other version of it, thinking they're being Reasonable and Neutral or whatever.

it's not just silly little tumblr fun facts and blue watermelon and purple-eyes-no-periods disease and shit. it's not even just feeding hate and violence toward the Bad Tranny of the Week.

we NEED to start seeing the connections here, and the ways people use this to manipulate us and harm others. and we need to start making sure that our actions aren't going to be regrettable if we end up being wrong.

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lucysarah-c · 2 months

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WE NEED AN ENTIRE STORY OF LEVI AS A BABY BOY DADDY! LIKE PLEASE ITS ACTUALLY TOO GOOD 🙏🙏🙏🙏😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏😭😭😭😭😭😭

You all have inspired me to write a one-shot, so I'll post it soon. Thank you so much!

But since I'm on it, I think I'll give you a few headcanons.

In my idea, Levi didn't have many children, and while sometimes my scenarios may change depending on the situation, mostly Levi's boy would be an only child. This wasn't Levi's original idea, and I'll explain why.

Leaving aside whether in the canon period of time there are real contraceptives or not, I 100% believe Levi is a highly meticulous guy. If he needs to pull out and count days in the old-fashioned way, he will. If he has to wear condoms every single time, he will. I believe Levi would try to make sure that if he ever has a child, it would be planned, as far as is humanly possible, of course. Sometimes contraceptives fail, etc.

In my mind, I believe Levi and Y/N decided or happened to have a kid around the time before the expedition to Wall Maria. There was about half a year when the scouts waited for the correct time to do the expedition to Wall Maria. Well, I believe she probably got pregnant around that time. I believe it was a mix between Levi transitioning a lot of emotions after Kenny's death, etc., and having more free time on his hands since they weren't doing expeditions while preparing for the mission… and well… let's say they decided to go handy, haha.

With that said… I think Levi would hardly admit it out loud, but he's one of those guys who always wanted to be parents, so they kinda said, "You know what? Fuck it, if it happens, it happens," and well, it happened almost immediately. Levi hears the news around two months later, and let me tell you, this man is all over the moon. He wants to be part of EVERYTHING. For me, Levi wants to prove that he is better than the men who failed his mother and also failed him. Levi wants to prove he can be a present father.

She goes to the doctor for just a check, he wants to be there. Better keep his man informed because he would ask a million questions. He's a first-time father, and she may sneeze, and he's all worried. Levi saw too many women die in childbirth or from difficult pregnancies in the underground. He's blessed with the chance of being a father, but also terrified. Levi feels that if he loses his love just because he "grew selfish" and asked for more (aka asked for a kid), he would feel horrible.

Anyways, back in the day, men waited outside during birth, and I believe they would try to kick Levi out of the room, and he would be like, "and who is going to stop me?" He wants to be there.

Now is when his baby boy comes into the picture. I believe, and God bless the mother, he was such a healthy CHUNKY boy. He was BIG. Those kinds of kids that look so healthy but at the same time, it's like "he literally sucked her dry, that baby took anything the mother has to offer."

Like, she's too tired after childbirth, and the nurses offer Levi feeding bottles with milk to keep the baby eating while the mother rests… and the baby is EATING to the point a doctor comes, pats Levi's arm playfully, and says, "Hope you've a good salary, Captain, because that kid is going to eat like a horse."

Perhaps these are the only few times that Levi is the most excited out of the two, she's tired from all the work, and Levi is over the moon. Ah, but don't you dare to touch his baby without washing your hands. If Levi could force you to take a bath in chlorine before even getting close to his baby, he would.

Aside from that, I think Levi's baby boy that I've named in my mind "Adrien" because Y/N thinks that naming her kids with A's to match the last name, especially since Ackerman's are finally able to not be in hiding.

In my mind, Adrien inherits Kenny's height. Yes, as you heard, KENNY'S HEIGHT. 190cm (6'3"). He's a big boy. I think it's funny that all the doctors check the baby and say, "haha, he's going to be tall!" and Levi is there looking at her like "… I don't like to admit I'm short as fuck, but if the kid isn't mine you can tell me," joking obviously, lmao.

"Levi, the kid is a photocopy of you."

Adrien is an extremely playful, happy, and hyperactive kid. He's so cheerful, and it makes Levi wish his mother was around so he could ask if he was such a cheerful kid too.

Chunky fat legs running down the halls as he doesn't even speak properly, but he already knows which office is daddy's office. He loves horses, he loves playing soldier, he loves being a daddy's boy.

This is when I mention that I believe Levi having a single child wasn't his original plan. I think he wished to give Adrien a sibling to make sure he won't be alone in life if anything ever happens to him as he was. But the whole rumbling happened, and after that, Levi was too busy trying to move him and his family outside of Paradise and after that settling down, taking care of Gabi and Falcon, that well time flew, and when everything was back to calmness, haha, well let's say that Levi had to admit that the train had left the station, and his energy to go back to change diapers had kinda withdrawn, lmao.

Finally, I think Adrien was a very hyperactive kid mainly because of the Ackerman genes. He has energy, he has strength, he has the abilities. He just has too much bottled up and doesn't know how to get tired. Levi is basically running around making sure the kid isn't jumping from the roof or climbing the kitchen cupboards. He probably ends up signing him up for a bunch of activities: baseball, self-defense classes, football, triathlon.

I have a bunch of other headcanons, so let me know if you want more!"

Tags!: @nube55 @justkon @notgoodforlife @nmlkys @humanitys-strongest-bamf @quillinhand @thoreeo @darkstarlight82 @i-literally-cant-with-this @angelofthorr @aomi04 @levisbrat25 @fxnnyackerman @secretmoneybearvoid @s0meb0dy-0nce-t0ld-me @trashblackrainbow @l3visthighs @hum4n-wr3ckag3 @hannieslovebot @feelingsandemotionsnotexplored @flxrartsstuff @starrylevi @rithty @mariaace @ackrmntea @emilyyyy-08 Wanna join my tag list? Here!

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bogleech · 2 years

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Less Famous But Super Weird Deep Sea Fish

I’m gonna write a post of cool animal facts just to Blaze later. Typical deep sea anglerfish and some others are pretty famous but I’m going to spend maybe even ten whole dollars to make an extra thousand people look at these other fish that I don’t think enough people know about. Sources included for all images, many with additional information wherever possible, but there’s still very little known about many of these animals!

GIGANTACTIS - common name ”whipnose seadevil” - the Schmidt ocean institute recently took this detailed photo from a deep sea ROV of a fish almost never observed live, but it sure does actually look dead. These anglerfish spend most of their time floating upside-down like this with their proboscis-like lure dangling below, and one guess is that they may send the lure down into the tunnels of burrowing worms or crustaceans. In some species, the lure can be over six times the length of the body. MORE FISH:

MONOGNATHUS - meaning “one jaw” - never observed alive and never given a common name (how about just monojaw?) this animal is closely related to the more famous “pelican eels” or “gulper eels,” but lacks the huge, expandable mouth. Instead, Monognathus has a strange skull with technically no upper jaw, just a gaping hole or in some species a bill-like protrusion. The thin, simplified lower jaws exist to swing prey into the single, venomous fang on the roof of the mouth.

THAUMATICHTHYS - common name “wolf trap anglerfish” - also going by the cute name “wunderfish,” the source of this illustration was a japanese marine bio site that unfortunately went down over a decade ago, and no live photographs have ever been taken. The “lure” (illicium) of an anglerfish is actually modified from the first ray of the dorsal fin, but this angler’s anatomy is so twisted that the same appendage protrudes from the roof of its huge, broad upper jaw, which folds in half like a hot dog bun to create an illuminated tunnel (figure 2 in the image) that snaps shuts like a Venus’ fly trap on very gullible prey. On this page is a fantastic x-ray scan of one specimen.

IPNOPS - common name “Grideye” - this fish has adorable and beautiful larvae found closer to the sea’s surface, with large and well developed eyes. As they mature, the eyes deteriorate until they’re gone altogether, replaced with a pair of reflective, luminous yellow pits on the top of the skull, looking like somebody scooped its brains out. These pits are lined with thousands of photosensitive cells that must allow the fish to “see” even the faintest traces of distant light, and especially the light emitted by other deep sea organisms.

STYLEPHORUS - common name “tube eye” or “threadtail” - incredibly rare close up photographs almost all come from Dante Fenolio, see HERE. This fish is so weird that it’s even in its own entire order, which is basically like if only one single beetle or one single frog was ever discovered on the whole planet. Its big, binocular-like eyes see in full detail as well as full color, which is quite unusual for deep sea creatures. It also has a very large mouth, technically, but a very tiny mouth opening, its jaws covered in a stretchy membrane with only one tiny, tubular hole. As it widens the jaws, it pulls water (and tiny prey) through the hole with powerful, precise force that disturbs little of the surrounding water; it’s a living vacuum cleaner with pinpoint sniper accuracy.

TYPHLONUS NASUS - common name “faceless cusk eel” - hauntingly weird video clip of this animal here. There are many species of deep sea cusk eel, and they have a few things in common with the more popular but unrelated “blobfish;” they tend to be soft, bulbous creatures adapted to float neutrally in the water until they really need to move, feeding on just about any small creature they bump into. This species is so named because its mouth and nostrils are on the underside of its fat, gelatinous head and its tiny eyes are invisible beneath many layers of tissue. Yeah I know what else some of you think it looks like so feel free to get that out of your system.

MALACOSTEUS - common name “stoplight loosejaw” or “rat trap fish” - photos from Descna, these are dead specimens but the “fleshless” jaw and “detached” head are both completely normal: this fish can swing its skull outward like an arm to grab prey, and the lack of any floor to the lower jaw allows it to lash out with more extreme speed. This is also one of the few deep sea fish to produce red light, from bright “searchlights” under its eyes. The red spectrum of sunlight doesn’t penetrate into the deep sea, so the color red is invisible to most of its inhabitants. The loosejaw’s red lights allow it to brightly illuminate its prey before striking, while the victim usually sees no light at all. A fantastic illustration here by abiogenesis on Deviantart.

If you ultimately liked getting a list of preposterous little creatures as a blazed post let me know and I will eventually maybe do others, especially if I just make the money back through my site and store (see profile)

#biology #animals #marine biology

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odinsblog · 10 months

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One About The Atmosphere: Want to change minds? Stop trying. Change the atmosphere instead.

Donald Trump in 2016 greets a screaming horde of ecstatic white christian nationalists

Minivan was a nice enough guy. He was easygoing; a happy guy with a frequently deployed smile. I don’t recall much anger from him, nor many strongly held opinions. I wouldn’t call him a philosophical type. No deep late night talks with Stove Minivan is my recollection.

This is the sort of dude I’d hang out with at a party, if there were a party we were both at, but not one with whom I’d maintain a relationship if we both graduated and then moved to different places—which I know for a fact, because that’s what happened. We drifted.

So then what happened is twelve years or so later I got on The Facebook, and Stove Minivan was there, too, and before long, we were friends again, he and I, and so were me and my other college friends, and them with him, and … look, you know the drill. It was The Facebook.

Minivan was no longer a pre-med student at a small northern liberal arts college. He was a doctor—a general care practitioner, if memory serves—in a smallish plains state town, very much like many other towns in the great plains or elsewhere in the country, I imagine.

Anyway, before long I noticed something about Minivan. Even though his feed was full of pictures of him and his lovely family, and he was smiling in them just the same as he always had in college, he was angry.

He was *enraged*

What was he angry about? The Demonrats.

Minivan was absolutely enraged about everything the Demonrats did. He also was out of his mind angry about Killary, and Obummer, the leaders of the Demonrats—or at least they were the front for the real leader of the Demonrats, who even back then I believe was George Soros.

What did the Demonrats do? Oh my heck, what *didn’t* they do? Mostly they hated America and American security and American economic strength, it seems. They engaged in corruption and bowed to foreign powers a lot. They shredded the dignity of the presidency, that’s for sure.

Minivan’s worldview wasn’t particularly coherent, if you want to know the truth.

I couldn’t help to notice that the Demonrats weren’t actually doing many of the things that Minivan thought they were doing.

And I noticed other things.

For example, I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the policies Minivan supported were directly *causing* the sorts problems that made Minivan so angry.

And I couldn’t help but notice that well-sourced information enraged him more than pretty much anything else.

There was a lot of linking to sites I’d never heard of, like Breitbart and Newsmax, and of course plenty of Fox News. There were a lot of memes. There were a lot of conspiracy theories (a big birther, was Minivan).

Some of his posts contained subtle bigotry. Most of the rest contained not-subtle bigotry. Several of them contained slogans and statements that were, very simply, neo Nazi and white supremacist memes and shibboleths.

There was a lot of commentary accompanying these posts from Minivan, who was saying shocking stuff for a small-town family doctor … the sorts of things that it seemed to me would make people not want to use this person as a doctor, or or sit next to that person on a bus.

I hadn’t heard of Alex Jones, yet, but Minivan sounded a lot like Alex Jones, word for word and beat for beat. He’d even start his posts like a right-wing radio host: Sorry folks, but you can’t even make stuff like this up—ironically, accompanying things that had been made up.

This was all pretty distressing to those of us who had known Minivan back in the day, before he had become so obsessed with Demonrats.

So, a lot of us, myself included, did exactly what The Facebook wants.

We engaged with him.

At the time my belief was, you defeated bad ideas with better ideas, by confronting the bad ideas directly with the better ideas. Debate was for changing minds. You presented your ideas, they presented theirs, you countered, they countered, eventually everybody saw the truth.

But the intention was that I’d change his mind, with facts presented logically, delivered calmly and patiently.

This was my belief.

What happened confounded me, but perhaps you can predict it.

Minivan escalated any correction, however calmly stated or bloodlessly presented, into scorched earth territory. He rejected all proofs by rejecting the source outright as irrevocably tainted by bias, or he’d spiral into non sequitur, spamming our feeds with more misinformation.

He would claim he never said things he had just said, even though the statements were still there for anybody to read, one comment earlier in the thread.

He’d claim that I said things I'd never said, as anyone foolish enough to read through our conversations could discover.

He demonstrated a complete dedication to his ignorance and anger, and a total disinterest in anything like observable truth that contradicted his grievance.

It was confounding and unfamiliar behavior to me, at the time.

At the time.

All of it was larded with grievance, a sense that people like him had never wronged anybody, and everybody else had done nothing but wrong people like him.

The bigotry and authoritarianism grew.

And all the time, on Facebook, he and his family kept smiling their perfect smiles.

I’ll admit that over time my interactions stopped being polite and bloodless, and I’m not particularly sorry for it. I told him some things about himself he seemed not to know, but which I thought really ought to be said.

I have a bit of a penchant for sarcasm, which you may have noticed.

I employed this skill, and you can feel how you want to about sarcasm, but I think it helped convey the correct posture to take toward someone who says the sorts of things Minivan was saying.

The correct posture being "you have proved yourself to be a person who should not be taken seriously, and your positions do not deserve even a modicum of respect."

I found this a more healthy message to convey about Minivan to anybody watching, and I still do.

Eventually he blocked me, and he was out of my life forever. It was the right choice, and I'm very glad he did that.

I’ve pondered the incident since, as it’s become more and more relevant to “the way things are.”

A few things had become clear over time.

Minivan was not somebody whose intentions could be trusted. He was not operating in good faith, and I believe he well knew it, because many of his favorite sources of information have written instruction books on how to engage with people in bad faith.

Minivan was not debating; he was using debate to inject his counterfactual beliefs into the discourse, which were designed to further marginalize already marginalized people while simultaneously cloaking himself in self-exonerating grievance.

More, he was exerting an active effort to not know things that could be easily known, and to demand to be convinced out of deliberate ignorance, not because he was interested in having his ideas challenged, but because he demanded a world in which he got to decide what was real.

Further still: Minivan *learned* from me. The effect of telling him he was using one or another logical fallacy was not to sharpen his reasoning, but to teach him about the existence of logical fallacies, which let him (incorrectly) accuse others of those same logical fallacies.

So Minivan was deploying the language of logic, in ways that betrayed a total lack of understanding about what those fallacies were, granted, but in ways that likely made him seem more knowledgeable and reasonable to a casual or sympathetic observer.

He learned to ape our phrases and arguments, in much the way he’d learned to ape the style of Alex Jones and all the various Breitbart and Newsmax contributors he used to inform himself.

And these days it occurs to me: I hear a lot about "groomers."

We were not changing him by engaging with him thoughtfully.

We certainly weren’t changing him by engaging with him in kind.

Rather: we were making him better at what he was doing, and we were validating his world view—to himself and others—as one that merited engagement.

And week after week on Facebook, Minivan kept smiling and smiling and getting angrier and angrier, at us and Obummer and all the other Demonrats and liberals and every member of every minority group who dared to fail to ceaselessly assure him that he was right about everything.

I don’t miss Minivan's black-hole-sun smile. I think of it as my first hint of MAGA: politically overrepresented, socially coddled people, often living outwardly happy privileged lives, while seething inwardly that other people might be getting anything, anything at all.

Indeed, soon enough, another figure would come on the scene, whose behavior matched that of Minivan almost exactly, a perfect avatar for this spirit of aggrieved bigotry and supremacy that seemed to be moving through my former friend.

And sure enough, as I saw, there were millions and millions of smiling seething people who loved him.

And that guy became president.

Nobody believed he would. And then he did.

Because Stove Minivan, it turns out, wasn’t some weird outlier.

He was part of a growing new normal, a group of people who had been offered a chance to immigrate from observable reality and enter a dark world of constant hostility, misinformation, and self-loving grievance.

It's an invitation they leapt at, to which they cling even now.

It's a constituency immune to proof, angered by equality, cheered by cruelty, who blame others for the foulness of the shallow puddle of reasoning within which they have demand to be seated, even though we can all see them fouling it themselves, every day.

And afterward, a huge number of those shocked by this development decided the proper reaction was to accommodate it, in the name of unity—a belief, it seems, grounded in the idea that what you choose to get along with isn’t as important as getting along no matter what.

I’ll finish with the question that all of Minivan’s former friends would eventually ask, whenever they gathered together long enough for the subject to arise.

"What the hell happened to Minivan?"

Here’s the answer, I think: nothing.

Nothing happened to Minivan. Nothing at all.

He was always that guy, and he always thought the things he thought.

What changed was that he was given a lot of language with which to express those ideas, and access to enough other people who thought that way too, that it created a critical mass of permission.

The permission allowed him to change his attitudes and actions, and created a lot of other people willing to accommodate and normalize his antisocial anti-reality behavior, rather than reject it out of hand.

In college you could be pretty conservative, honestly. It was a pretty conservative place. But you couldn't behave like Minivan later would.

You’d be understood to be a far-right extremist, and people would then treat you like a far-right extremist.

Which is what you'd be.

I think it just wasn't possible for Minivan to be what he later became, because the atmosphere wasn't conducive to the possibility.

But then the atmosphere changed.

If we want to change it back, it's worth thinking about how atmospheres change.

(source)

#politics #republicans #donald trump #overton window #stove minivan #authoritarianism #deplorables #trumpublicans #maga

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goodomens-hints · 9 months

Text

Episode 1 plot summary (+complete list of scenes) and more details about later episodes

SPOILER WARNING SPOILER GOOD OMEN SPOILERS BELOW i'll leave my inbox open in case anyone has specific questions about season 2 eps

Scene 1: star creation scene Crowley needs help building constellations so he calls out at a shooting star-shape that turns out to be Aziraphale, who materializes in front of him. He asks Aziraphale to hold up an open scroll with schematics for the galaxies. When Aziraphale does so, Crowley pokes the center of the scroll with his hand crank device and twists it, so that nebulae shoot out. Yes there is a scene where Crowley says "look at that, gorgeous" and Aziraphale gets flustered. They watch in awe until Aziraphale tells Crowley "you do know after 6,000 years it'll be gone right? I read about it in the Great Plan". Crowley gets upset and protests, questioning the almighty, how there should be a suggestion box where they can put suggestions, and Aziraphale advises him not to say such things. Crowley says it's not like asking questions gets you into trouble. They watch the galaxies bloom and Crowley veils Aziraphale with his wing as shooting stars fall toward them, similar to the Garden of Eden scene but in reverse. Scene 2 aziraphale goes to record shop Aziraphale gets a note in the bookshop that says there's a matter of great "ugrency" (misspelled). He visits Maggie in the record shop and she's crying because she can't pay rent, so she's prepared to move. Aziraphale says if she gives him the records he requested, that'll be equivalent to the rent she owes. Maggie asks how he can forgive her and he says "I'm all about forgiveness, actually" and leaves.

Scene 3: crowley talks to shax this is the one posted on youtube, though it's a lengthened scene that includes the beginning where a spy tries to talk to crowley on the bench and he redirects him to the guy feeding ducks. those are the guys crowley is yelling at later. there is also a part where shax implies that crowley owes her specific information? it's very vague but it's probably why she's giving him updates on hell. yup, crowley does say he hasn't seen aziraphale in a while but it's clearly a lie lol Scene 4: michael mentions book of life

in heaven, michael is arguing with someone on the phone about the book of life, i thought at first it was beelzebub on the other end but it's probably uriel

Scene 5: gabriel appears on earth maggie visits nina who remembers her coffee order (skinny latte). then they're distracted by the commotion outside wherein gabriel shows up naked carrying a box. aziraphale is listening to the records but gabriel knocks on the door of his bookshop. there's a huge crowd outside and the moment aziraphale opens the door, gabriel says "I know you! :D" and hugs him in front of everyone while still naked LOL. aziraphale gets really embarrassed and brings gabriel inside. the rest of the scene is the one on youtube where gabriel explains he doesn't remember who he is. Scene 6: muriel finds matchbox short scene where muriel finds the matchbox with Job's passage on the floor of Heaven. you can see a bit of this in the trailer

Scene 7: crowley throws mail and meets shax again Crowley is in a random street throwing the mail shax gave him into a garbage can. Suddenly shax calls and crowley picks up, snapping at her that she shouldn't call and appear suddenly at the same time. shax appears behind him and says "why not?" this is the pic where both shax and crowley are on the phone -- theyre actually talking to each other lmao. shax tells crowley there are rumors of gabriel being missing and crowley is happy. she leaves. Scene 8:

aziraphale is talking to gabriel and we get the whole trailer scene ("you know that feeling where...") but in the real ep aziraphale's reaction is SO ANIMATED, with him standing up and saying "No! definitely not! I have no idea!" LMAO it's so funny, he's so in denial. We hear FLIES when it cuts to gabriel btw so maybe beelzebub is spying? HOW SUSPICIOUS. At one point Gabriel says "I love you" out of nowhere to Aziraphale and Aziraphale says "I..." and Gabriel smiles, looking like he's expecting an i love you back but Aziraphale just says "hmm". People were laughing so hard at this.

Aziraphale calls crowley and asks to meet at the coffee shop. Crowley informs him that gabriel is missing.

Scene 9: short scene where michael and uriel argue because michael said now with gabriel gone, someone has to be in charge...

Scene 10: Maggie brings Nina a record but Nina doesn't have a record player. Nina reveals she has a partner (Lindsay) and Maggie gets disappointed and leaves. She bumps into Crowley and Aziraphale on the way out and tells Aziraphale "you're an angel" lmao.

Scene 11: Crowley is PISSED PISSED PISSED the whole time, in fact the whole ep he looks like he's about to explode. We get the coffee shop scene HOWEVER right before that Crowley asks Aziraphale "what's wrong?" and Aziraphale says "why do you think something's wrong?" all nervously and Crowley says "you only ever call for 3 reasons: one, you're bored, two, you accomplished something and want to brag about it, and three, something's wrong. And you're using your 'something's wrong' voice." YUP THIS IS THE NEW 'i know what you smell like!'. we then get the naked man convo and crowley realizes immediately that aziraphale is stressed and says "is it something i can help with?" and aziraphale nods and THEY IMMEDIATELY GET UP and go to the bookshop with a plate of eccle cakes lmao. once crowley sees gabriel he and aziraphale start fighting. crowley gets mad at aziraphale and tells him he didn't command gabriel to answer properly. He yells at gabriel "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE BOOKSHOP?!" and uses his hypnotism but gabriel just says "I'm dusting" and does the passive-aggressive feather duster motion. we get the "carved out for ourselves" convo .aziraphale says "fine, i would love for you to help, but if you won't, then feel free to leave". crowley says "i'm not helping" and storms off. he goes out into the street and says to himself "dont do anything rash... wait 10 seconds before doing anything..." but he's already emmitting smoke. We get a funny convo between nina and maggie who are watching crowley from the coffee shop. Nina's all "the man who drank six expressos! He's smoking!" and maggie says "well of course, he needs to calms down!" and nina says "no i mean actually smoking!" Crowley does the lightning thing (maggie thinks he was actually struck by lightning) and it ends up locking Maggie and Nina in the shop and killing their phones. Scene 12:

seroquel and muriel show michael and uriel the matchbox. It has "The Resurrectionist" on it. They are baffled that something material has made its way into heaven. We get the "Gabriel, I think he's gone to earth" line.

Scene 13:

Crowley's in his car and flies start buzzing. beelzebub appears in his car and teleports them both to hell using flies. This is the pic in the poster where beelz and crowley are sitting on chairs side by side. crowley is disgusted and spits some flies out lmao. beelzebub says he can come back and work for hell (and even get a promotion) if he finds gabriel, and that according to heaven, anyone involved in hiding gabriel will be erased from the book of life. crowley is teleported back to his car and begins panicking. Scene 14: nina and maggie bond while locked in the coffee shop. maggie doesn't drink wine and didn't party, nina opens up some wine and drinks it out of a teacup. she says her girlfriend makes her text if she's late by 10 minutes and that she must be freaking out right now. they see someone walking outside and try to ask her to help free them but she doesn't notice them.

Scene 15:

Crowley is mad in his car, speeding, doing the usual etc. Good Old-fashioned lover boy is playing!!!! Scene 16: Crowley arrives and Nina and Maggie catch his attention. They signal for help and he just goes "oh" and snaps his fingers, unlocking the coffee shop and bringing back the electricity. He walks off lmao. Nina and Maggie are weirded out, Nina groans because her phone is bombarded with texts from Lindsay asking where she is. Crowley enters and we get the "I'm back" scene. Aziraphale says he has to do the apology dance and Crowley is all "no way" at first but Aziraphale says "I had to do it in 1861, 1942..." and Crowley says fine and dances.

IT'S REALLY HILARIOUS. HE ENDS IT WITH A BALLERINA BOW LIKE THIS LMAO

So we get the "we need to hide him" convo and they decide to each use half a miracle so that their miracles wont be detected by heaven/hell. crowley will hide gabriel from heaven and aziraphale will hide gabriel from hell. they do the hand-holding thing (like in the pic). theyre not sure if it worked but crowley tests it by standing on a chair and poking at the space above gabriel LOL and there's a hint of a shield so he says it worked, and that he's sure heaven or hell didn't detect a thing. Gabriel is all "now i have two friends :D" and crowley says "We are not friends >:(" Scene 17: an alarm is blaring in heaven because CLEARLY they noticed the half miracle ahahahaha. michael, uriel and seraquel go to the globe and see purple smoke streaming out of the UK. they 'zoom in' and realize it's coming from aziraphale's bookshop.... (interesting that michael refers to aziraphale as a 'former angel' here)

End episode Soon I will summarize ep 2! Some hints for future eps too: -There's a big rain scene -There's an epic scene in the bookshop that took several weeks to film! (youve seen some hints in the trailer) -There are at least 3 jokes about aziraphale and crowley having sex that are scattered throughout the season LOL one of them is nina noticing crowley grumpy and saying "you look like mr. fell didn't let you top last night" and crowley's reaction is amazing. I'll say no more (for now)

#good omens spoiler #good omens spoilers #go2spoiler #go2spoilers

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munsonsreputation · 1 year

Text

Lavender Haze

eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: [4.6K]

warnings: no use of y/n, established relationship, cursing, protective reader, lovesick Eddie (he adores her so much), a tiny bit of violence and blood, fluff, suggestiveness towards end but no smut actually written.

summary: Eddie finds it surreal to think that someone could love him as much as you do, plus strangely attractive in the ways you protect him for the scrutiny of Hawkins. While he does the best to ignore the hate he gets, he never allows it to pass when it comes to you.

Eddie Munson. He had a big reputation that started long before you two had ever crossed paths. The weird freshman who started an innocent DnD club which somehow got twisted into a satanic worship conspiracy, followed by the fact that he was repeating senior year for the third (hopefully last) time, and recently cleared from murder after Jim Hopper had revealed the truth of the Upside Down and all those scary creatures.

You. A somewhat normal bystander that got caught up in it all. Taking defense of Eddie long before Hopper had even come out with the truth. You just had a feeling inside that Eddie would never do the things that the horrible town of Hawkins was alleging. That pulled you into a slight fascination of wanting to learn more about Eddie, the true Eddie Munson that no one really knew about.

Somehow, it just happened. The two of you were finally in the same room at the same time, hiding out as the surrounding town crumbled with the four gates, opening a portal into the unknown. You were petrified as the ash fell through the sky, yet even though he was just as afraid, he knew that with the information he learned, everything was going to be ok. That the girl with those superhuman powers would kill off this evil and the town would be ok once more.

So as you looked out that window frightened, he reached over, resting a hand on yours that gripped the sill tightly and whispered, “It’ll all be ok…do you trust me?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, when your eyes met his, you believed him with everything in your soul, “I trust you.”

The minute he had laid eyes on you, there was an overwhelming feeling of security and loyalty. Knowing that you, someone he had rarely known, let alone had a conversation with, was doing her part in defending him, even when you didn’t know the whole severity of the situation. It was as if he was sucked into this trance…a beautiful, surreal, immense daze.

He wanted to stay there with you. Throughout this great war and what he would hope would be the normal world after this. He needed to stay in this lavender haze.

“I’ve been under scrutiny,

You handle it beautifully,

All this shit is new to me…”

It had merely been two months since the gates finally closed, and Eddie was a freeman. He was on the brink of graduating, only needing to keep his grades up for a few more months before he would be able to walk the stage, along with his girl, who would also be graduating this year. But it wasn’t all easy.

There were days where he would still be bombarded with the townspeople who believed that Eddie was at fault, it didn’t help that Hawkins Post remained publishing front-page articles that scrutinized the young boy and pursued to feed into the lies that weren’t true at all.

You and he were walking through town, hoping to visit Mrs. Byers at the general store to pick up some things for the trailer, when the two had stumbled upon the print that was stacked in the vending box.

“The Truth Behind Hawkins’ Cult Leader” it read with a photo of your beloved boy.

Though Eddie had gotten accustomed to the headlines that would probably follow him everywhere for the rest of his life, it still stung. It was the fact that people were still trying to spread this negative narrative about him when he was already proven guilty that hurt. Knowing that not only he had to put up with it, but his girlfriend as well.

But you, you had ways of dealing with it, getting rid of the problem.

You could feel the aura change when you two walked past the newspaper stand…anguish took over Eddie and he got quieter for the rest of the walk. Staying hushed as you two entered the general store and only saying a quick hello to Joyce before you guys picked up some things. But you had been plotting ever since you two stumbled across those stupid articles.

“Babe, do you have any more cigs on you?” You asked sweetly, stopping a few blocks before Hawkins Post.

Eddie rummaged with his one free hand in his pockets, the other balancing a bag of the items you two had just bought. He pulled the box out, letting you pluck one out for yourself as you grinned, “Lighter?”

“You don’t usually smoke.” Eddie commented, watching as you began walking ahead of him, leaving him behind.

You tucked the cig between your lips, muttering out a reply as he finally caught up, “I know…I just needed an excuse.”

He furrowed his brows, watching as you flicked the lighter poorly, not igniting any flames on purpose, “Excuse? For what?”

“This.” You smirked, tossing it to your left hand, successfully sparking the light as you walked past the newspaper stand, letting your hand linger there a tad bit longer in order to set the first few bits of paper aflame.

The smell of the burning paper lingered in the air as you and Eddie continued walking on your way, him looking back every so often as the fire got bigger, little by little, all the stupid articles turning into ash in seconds.

“You do realize that you just committed arson, right?” Eddie huffed out with a stunned chuckle, watching as you casually shrugged your shoulders, lighting the cigarette in your mouth and taking a drag.

“So? They’re committing defamation, so what’s the difference? It’s their karma.” You justified, holding the burning bud for him to take between his lips, which he did.

It was hot how you’d do anything for him without hesitation. Almost scary, too, but he knew that you did it all because you loved him.

“I have a feeling I’m going to be bailing you out of jail if you keep this up.” He joked lightly, opening the passenger door to let you in.

You took a seat, pulling the cigarette back out from his mouth, allowing him to blow out the smoke. Your thumb grazed over his bottom lip, kissing him tenderly, tasting the nicotine and heat that you enjoyed only from him before pulling away, “They haven’t replaced their security cameras since the gates opened, they won’t know.”

“You’re killer, you know that?” He smirked, kissing you again with the more ferocity, making you giggle against him.

You pushed him away somewhat, holding the cig back to him, “C’mon rockstar, we’ve got a trailer that needs cleaning.”

A few more weeks of school left and you and Eddie were on top of the world, pushing through the last bits of high school before the two of you would be leaving this town. It was a miracle, to Eddie at least, that he had gotten accepted into a community college down in Indianapolis and you’d received a partial scholarship to a university. For the first time, Eddie had felt like he had some direction in life…a purpose that was out there for him.

But yet despite how everything was working out for you and him. There was always another huddle waiting after the other.

Eddie stood stiffly under the lights of the gym, somehow being baited into coming into this godforsaken territory and now his living nightmare times a hundred was happening all over again. More than half of the school’s population were standing on the bleachers, loudly chanting Eddie’s name like some sort of cult, which he found quite ironic, but they were cursing him.

“Murderer!”

“Freak!”

“Trailer Trash Killer!”

They were the exact same words that were written across newspapers and heckled towards him in the hallways during passing, but to be here taking it all in at once with nowhere for him to run…it was terrifying.

“C’mon man,” Eddie sighed, attempting to turn around and get out of here without the situation escalating.

“No, you’re staying right here.”

He was pushed by the shoulders by some jock, forcing himself deeper into the gym almost dead center. Eddie could’ve easily punched the dude, giving him a simple way out, but with weeks before graduation, he couldn’t risk getting suspended and not being allowed to walk the stage just because of some stupid bullies.

“I find it dizzying,

They’re bringing up my history,

But you aren’t even listening.”

You were walking to next period when you heard your name being called from behind you, Max and Lucas.

“Wait! Wait up!” He heaved, crouching down to take a breath as you stopped and they got closer.

You raised your brows, checking the time on Eddie’s watch you had thrown on this morning. Usually the two would ask for rides home so you assumed they just had the time wrong or expected you to skip class in order to drive them to the mall or the arcade, “It’s only twelve…don’t you two have class?”

“Yeah, but that’s not important right now.” Max answered swiftly, capturing your wrist in an attempt to drag you to where madness was ensuing.

However, you pulled back, “My class is the other way.”

“No, you don’t get it. Come. On.” She replied through clenched teeth, drawing you along as you tried to stay back, but ultimately getting pulled in their direction with the help of Lucas.

“What is going on?!” you whispered, shouted, not wanting to cause a scene in the empty hallways and have a teacher scold you for this bizarre behavior.

Max shot Lucas a look, and he groaned, darting back as they continued to guide you towards the gym, “Eddie is in a lot of trouble. Some jocks were talking during lunch and they planned a full on mob in the gym in order to embarrass Eddie and—“

The second your boyfriend’s name exited the teen’s mouth, you yanked your arms from their grips, propelling yourself forward as you ran through the halls with desperation, “Get Principal Higgins!” You managed through deep breaths as Max and Lucas shouted an “Ok” going back in the opposite direction.

As you approached the gym, the shouts got heavier, and you couldn’t even imagine the chaos that was happening inside. You threw caution to the wind, overlooking all the things that could possibly go wrong as you shoved the door open.

“Eddie!” you yelled. All eyes turned to you as their shouts stopped.

“Oh, look, who decided to join us? The satanists’ little slut.”

You paid no mind to the insignificant comments, brushing past a couple of morons before making your way to your boyfriend who stood with his shoulders slack and head hung low until he heard your voice.

“You ok?” You murmured, taking his hand as he nodded, giving you a small smile, despite the glares that were shooting toward the two of you. He stood up straighter, having found the safety within you, “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

He squeezed your hand as you and him were about to leave, finding peace in the fact that you didn't care about what was being shouted out at you and him. But the screams only came back to life and to make matters worse, you had been closed in with a few people blocking the exit doors.

“Let us pass, Christopher.” You declared firmly, recognizing the boy from your American Literature class.

He shook his head, with a sinister smirk placed on his face, “Can’t do that…you and your little boy toy are in here to pay for your sins.”

“The only sin in this room is all of you low lives that your parents have to deal with. Now, move.” You seethed harshly, watching his face fall with irritation.

Eddie let out a small chuckle at your jab. He had always known you for your feisty attitude, one of the main traits that made him fall for you, but recently due to the series of events that concurred, your smart remarks had been flowing freely off your tongue, especially when it came to defending him.

“Keep your bitch in line.” Christopher fired at Eddie, who scowled, drawing you behind him for protection.

“Don’t talk to her like that.” Eddie’s finger was practically centimeters from the boy’s face, your hand wrapped around his opposite arm in order to draw him back if needed.

Christopher just snorted, as did the rest of the students. “Or what? Gonna kill me like you did Chrissy and Jason?”

Your boyfriend’s body tensed up under your touch, as his heart thud loudly in his chest. He hated the fact that even if he was cleared of all accusations, there were still people who would constantly bring it up. It was a hell he could never escape.

“You better watch out, sweet thing,”

Christopher’s hand bravely reached out, trying to touch your cheek as you turned away, completely hiding behind Eddie as he slapped his arm away. Maybe Eddie would brush off the fact that people were harassing him, but he’d be damned if anyone spoke ill about you or even tried to lay a threatening hand on you.

Your boyfriend gave the dumbass jock a warning look followed by a hostile, “Watch yourself.”

“Or what?” Christoper repeated, but this time regrettably as Eddie had lost his self-control, sending his fist towards the boy’s cheek as you and the rest of the students gasped aloud.

Eddie seemed to have finally fathomed what he did, feeling the burn off his knuckles while Christopher grumbled, clutching the swelling part of his face with anger bubbling.

“Come on let’s—“

As you unveiled yourself from Eddie’s back, putting yourself between your boyfriend and Christoper, you didn’t anticipate the whack in the center of your face as you fell back into Eddie’s chest with your hands immediately fastening over your throbbing nose.

“Holy shit!”

Max and Lucas had stumbled in on the right time, with Principal Higgins by their side, when it all happened. The only thing he saw was the punch Christopher had landed on your face.

“Shit! Baby, are you ok?” Eddie turned you around trying to see the damage that had been done but just by pinpointing the blood against your fingers, his rage was stewing over.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Eddie planted you into Max’s arms as she approached, giving him ample time to launch Christopher with all his might until he landed at the feet of Principal Higgins who put his arm out, attempting to stop Eddie from further damage as if he was the one in the wrong.

“Mr. Munson, act wisely.” the authority figure said sternly as Eddie scoffed, gesturing back to you as Max and Lucas did their best to help stop the bleeding coming from your nose as you wailed faintly.

“He just hit my girlfriend—“

“You hit me first!”

Christopher roared, rising up from the ground, followed by the clamors that came from the other students backing his argument up. Eddie was defeated, he did hit him first and because of that, his girlfriend was hurt and now he probably wouldn’t be graduating because of some stupid—

“They’re all lying.” You cried out tears loud enough for Higgins to hear as he walked over to you.

Your eyes clouded with salt, conveyed to Eddie to go on with your story calmly as you glanced shortly at him when he raised his brows and offered questioning hands, “They all tricked me into coming here just to ambush me with their cruel words—“

“She’s lying!” Christoper interjected madly as everybody else did the same, but you simply poked your chin out to the bleachers, as Principal Higgins did the same, seeing the signs that read cruel words towards Eddie, then you continued your version of the story.

You winced, a bit over dramatically as you pulled your bloodied hand away from your nose, exposing it to everyone as Higgins frowned and Eddie rushed back over to you. “Principal Higgins, why would I lie about this? Eddie, thankfully, found me and when we tried to leave, Christopher blocked us in and then he hit me! You saw it happen!”

“What kind of man puts his hand on a woman?” Lucas hissed sharply, shaking his head with his arms across his chest as Christopher clenched his teeth angrily.

“A coward.” Max scoffed, holding the same look as her boyfriend as they stared down at Higgins and Christopher.

“Principal Higgins, they’re all lying! It just…I didn’t mean to….I wasn’t aiming for her!”

Principal Higgins whirled around, rocking his head as Christopher finally caught onto his revelation, “That’s sufficient evidence if you ask me.” You sniffled, leaning into Eddie who wrapped his arms around you, keeping a firm hand over the top of the ones resting on your face.

“Christopher Pierce, I’ll be seeing you in my office—matter a fact all of you! No one leaves this gym except these four.”

Eddie mumbled out a quiet “thanks” through the protests of shouts and whines as he guided you to the exit with Max and Lucas following closely. Finally, when you were out in the clear, the two younger teens squealed as Eddie tended to you brushing your tears away and inspecting the damage.

“Holy shit, you just flipped the table on them, big time!”

“Yeah, well, they deserve it for being such assholes—ouch!” You yelped, flinching away from Eddie’s touch as he poked at your nose lightly, trying to see if it was broken or not.

He gave you an apologetic smile, reaching to the back of his jeans to untie the black bandana then instructing you to hold it to your nose, “s’not crooked, but still could be broken.”

You whimpered, feeling your head begin to throb from the overwhelming amount of pain that was radiation off the center of your face. Eddie wrapped one of his arms across your back and the other lightly over your shoulder before placing back at the other two, “Mind catching a ride from Steve or Nance today? Gonna take this one to the ER to make sure everything is ok.”

“No! No hospital!” You argued, attempting to escape Eddie’s cages, but his grip still remained as Max and Lucas nodded, giving you a hopeful smile as they wished you both good luck and they walked the other way.

“Eds…babe, please, I swear that I’m fine.” You pleaded, watching as Eddie maneuvered the both of you sideways as he used his shoulder to push the doors open, leading you to the parking lot where his van was conveniently parked just a few stalls down.

He shook his head with a faint, “no” as he removed his hand from your shoulders, just so he could get ahold of his car keys, quickly unlocking the passenger door and gently hoisting you up in his arms so he could carefully place you in the seat.

“Don’t give me those eyes, sweet girl, it’s not gonna work, right now.” Eddie chuckled, lightly glancing up as you pouted and pushed your brows together with soft angelic eyes.

Usually, this type of treatment would get Eddie to say yes to anything you wanted, but right now it was serious and your health depended on him not falling for your little tricks and games that he loved to play.

You groaned when you realized it wouldn’t work, sulking deep into the seat while Eddie reached around to click the seatbelt into place. He leaned up, kissing your cheek softly as he blindlessly reached for the glove-box, finding the pack of baby wipes that were usually used for clean ups when the two of you decided to have some van fun…but thankfully today its purpose would be much more useful. You watched through your wet lashes. He plucked a few out, motioning for you to move the bandana away so he could wipe the blood from your face, then your fingers.

“Did the bleeding stop?” You sought, lifting your chin when he nudged it to get a better look inside your nostrils and he shrugged his shoulders with uncertainty.

“There’s still a bit dripping down. Hopefully the doctors can get it to stop.” He patted your thigh, gathering the bloodied wipes and stuffing them into the passenger door storage to throw away later.

You placed the bandana back over your nose, this time just underneath to catch any remaining blood. Eddie had finally shut your door, jogging over to the driver’s side and quickly starting it up, turning to face you so that he could brush his fingers over your cheek, leaning forward, “Thanks for that…and I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“Don’t, it’s not your fault, I should be saying “thank you” considering the fact that you punched him for me.” you encouraged him, caressing his wrist with your free hand while you put on a brave smile seeing him crack a small grin, “No one talks badly about my man and gets away with it.”

There was a slight scratch to your voice that tickled a part of Eddie’s brain in the best way because it always seemed to creep in when you got protective of him. It was like your body sending a signal that you had to do everything in your power to avenge all the things that happened to Eddie. Though he never asked you to do it, and would never ask of such a favor, it melted his heart and kept him up at night just thinking about how lucky he was. Someone that always saw the best in him and refused to let anyone take that away.

He beamed, leaning in to connect your lips, not caring that at any moment a big fat glob of blood could pool between the both of you, “Even when your man is gonna take you to the hospital?”

You giggled through the coursing pain, pushing his chest jokingly so that he could back away, “Yeah, because apparently he loves me so much he doesn’t want me to die of a broken nose.”

“I don’t think you can die from a broken nose, babe.” He raised his brows at you, stifling a laugh from your apparent annoyance.

You rolled your eyes, flipping him off as he snickered, finally putting on his seat belt and changing gears, “Shut up and drive, Munson!”

“Talk your talk and go viral

I just need this love spiral

Get it off your chest

Get it off my desk”

“Mass Suspension at Hawkins High! New Record!”

Eddie slapped down the school paper onto your desk where you were mindlessly flipping through a month old magazine before you finally picked up what was now the talk of the town. You shrieked hard when you saw a picture of all the students lined up against the office wall as they waited for Higgins to see them individually.

“Did Nancy really get away with this?” You spun around in your chair to face Eddie, who chucked, nodding his head and resting his hands on his hips.

It had been a few days since the incident and you’d been at home resting from thankfully just a small fracture that didn’t require any surgery. Just wearing a splint, icing the area, and taking your prescription medicine twice a day to alleviate the pain.

“Feeling better?” He asked, running a delicate finger over the brace on your nose, making you laugh, slapping his hand away.

“I am…just a few more days and I can take this stupid thing off.” You sighed, getting up and walking over to your mirror to gauge how you looked today.

There was still a bit of bruising around the center of your face and around your cheeks from the impact of the blow. However, the icing seemed to dull the color down from bright purple to a greenish yellow hue in a matter of days. Eddie plunked himself on your rolling chair, scooting towards you until his knees met the back of yours, prompting you to settle into his lap.

“You look beautiful.” He declared, pecking at your lips pleasantly while you shook your head against his.

“I look absolutely ridiculous.” You claimed, only making Eddie kiss you harder as he shook his head now.

When he finally pulled away, he turned your shoulder back to the mirror, steering you to watch the two of you in the reflection. “My girls’ a total badass and now she has the splint to prove it.”

He poked your side, causing you to jolt forward with a surprised laugh. “You know I’m not a fighter, I’m more of a lover.”

“You’ve got to be joking, right?” Eddie ordered with an unamused face as you nodded seriously, “Baby! You literally set fire to a newspaper stand and made up a whole story to save my ass!”

“Love makes you do crazy things! What can I say?”

You shrugged your shoulders as if committing such extreme acts of love was totally normal, but it was one of the reasons why Eddie adored you so much. Sure, he probably would never need to commit arson for you, like ever, but if the opportunity arose and your reputation and life depended on it, he would. There wasn’t anything in this world that Eddie Munson wouldn’t do for you, and he was waiting on the day that he could do the same…possibly for better matters, of course.

“If you stare too hard, the mirror might crack, Mr. Conceited.” You joked snapping him out of his thoughts, while nuzzling your face into the crock of his neck as you wrapped your arms securely around it.

He pressed into you harder, turning his head to meet your lips once. twice. three more times before resting his forehead on yours, peering deeply into your eyes, “I love you, you know that?”

The question was pointless. He knew that you knew that he loved you very much. With his whole entire being and every bone in his body.

“I love you so much that sometimes I feel like I can’t even describe it.” He added, brushing his nose against yours softly as you giggles fluttered from your mouth like butterflies kissing his skin when he felt your breath on him.

Eddie moved his hands to your hips, gripping them with intensity as he planted his feet securely against the ground and stood the two of you back up. Your arms around his neck never moved, as this time you tiptoed to catch his lips once more before he spun you, shuffling backwards until the small of your back came to a hard stop.

“Get it off your chest,” You whispered, finally pulling away to catch a breath while your fingers kept busy, trailing their way down his neck, to the hem of his shirt, until your warm hands slid underneath the material, feeling his heartbeat against your fingertips, “…and get it off my desk.”

Your boyfriend wasted no time, roughly dragging his hand over your desk where the paper flew and pens landed against the floorboards, until there was nothing on it but you and the both of your bare skin stuck to one another like glue that bound the sweetest souls together in matrimony.

This haze was permanent. Something that the two of you could never escape, because no matter the disruptors and smooth talking hucksters that would try to come between you and Eddie, your love was ever glowing and all-encompassing in ways that no one could replicate. It didn’t matter the circumstances under which you and Eddie had met and fallen in love during what could and should have been the end of the world. You two were both damned if you did and damned if you didn’t. There was no other choice but to fall.

Fall into this bliss while you protected your peace. Keep your love and the genuine stuff private, but never hide it. And against all odds, live a life without a care in the world for the people who try to blow it out.

This love was burning brightly through the lavender haze you two danced in for eternity.

A/N: I've been working on this for a while, trying to get the story to flow with the lyrics so I hope I was able to do this justice. Again, all credits to the lovely, Taylor Swift for writing this song that perfectly describes what I think Eddie and his partners' relationship would be like in terms of facing scrutiny from the town after all the madness. Let me know what you think! Reblogs, comments, and likes are greatly appreciated!

#MunsonsReputation #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson #eddie munson imagine #eddie stranger things #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader fluff #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x you #stranger things fic #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things imagine #taylor swift x stranger things

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