#they keep multiplying i may have a problem

[heartfulselkie]

When Marinette went to the beach early that morning, she only expected to find seashells. What she did not expect was to find a mermaid (merman? merperson? she doesn't know fish pronouns) washed up amongst the tidepools and tangled in fishing lines and nets.

With his tail fin injured, she couldn't in good conscience just toss him back out to sea. So it looks like she found a new use for that old fish tank her mum had.

There's few people that Marinette has found who would willing listen to her talk for hours about fashion designing, art, and the shells she collects for inspiration or accessory making. But for whatever reason, her new friend is always eager to listen to anything she has to say.

#marinette and her good half-fish friend who is very smitten with her #adrien absolutely adoring the tiny girl who was somehow able to carry him from the beach to her house #aahhhh i'm on the AU juice again #they keep multiplying i may have a problem #mermaid au #little mermaid au #sort of? #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #chat noir #love square #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanart #miraculous ladybug fanart #selkie draws

[ghelgheli]

Well in that case we can also argue that ''trans woman" fonctions as an umbrella gender characterized by a particular adversarial and oppositional relationship to patriarchy: transmisogyny produces trans womanhood, and afab trans women are certainly this.

''Trans woman'' is also an essentialist archetype that some trans women fail to met (e.g those born with a vulva, those who can bear children).

The social reality of the afab transfem can be similar to the one of (conventional) transfemininity if the afab person is perceived (and thus treated) as a transfem..so what about those people ? Aren't they functionally transfem ? Their lived material experience isn't transfem? However similarity can also arises from interesections between racialization, misogyny, or lesbianism, intersexuality, detransition etc, creating experiences that are functionally like or adjacent to trans womanhood. Some afabs can also be ''women by dint of being less than women'' and thus are transfems, this is not exclusive to amab transfems.

the crux of your problem is this sentence: "the social reality of the afab transfem can be similar to the one of (conventional) transfemininity if the afab person is perceived (and thus treated) as a trans fem"

this is the main justification I see being used for claims of transfemininity/trans womanhood/being tma by people who were cafab: people keep mistaking me for a tranny, and that makes me a tranny! this rests on a complete misunderstanding of the systemic nature of transmisogyny. being mistaken for a trans woman, even on the regular, does not put someone in the same totalizing relationship to hegemonic gender, for the simple reason that (as I have now said multiple times) the logic of transmisogyny operates thru birth assignment. the corrective violence of transmisogyny is applied specifically because betraying coercive assignment as male puts a person in a unique degenerate position as far as cisheteropatriarchy is concerned. someone who was cafab will always have their birth assignment as a shield against this, even if there are instances of mistaken identity where it cannot be used in time.

you may retort that sometimes the violence against someone who was cafab proceeds apace despite disclosure of this assignment—perhaps in the case of the cafab butch lesbian facing street violence (thinking of nearby versions of hannah gadsby's story in nannette), or the working class transmasc on T running up against discrimination at the workplace, or, famously, the case of woman athletes, generally Black and sometimes intersex as in the case of Caster Semenya, being banned from sports competitions (I imagine this is one of the examples you're alluding to when you mention intersections). but to equivocate this to transfemininity is itself violent erasure. you would be neglecting that in every case there is a difference between the person under discussion and someone against whom transmisogyny has set its whole machinery.

there are tma masc lesbians, there are working class transfems on T, there are Black trans women for whom participation in sport is yet more complicated. the realities of navigating the legal-medical-social apparatus of gender is multiplied in impossibility for all of them, because birth assignment is the charge laid by transmisogyny to condemn the trans woman. whatever intersection your "afab transfem" sits at, there will always be this difference between them and transfemininity. this is a difference that will be leveraged against the latter, not the former.

if you think you can reskin my argument as you have in this ask and maintain its fit to reality, then you understand neither misogyny nor transmisogyny. transmisogyny against the "afab transfem" is a mistake by the lights of hegemonic gender itself, to be amended (not necessarily into something harmless, but certainly into something different) upon the revelation of birth assignment. meanwhile the misogyny experienced by trans women (including closeted trans women, including the trans girl who does not even know why she is being treated thus!) does not happen by accident, but as part of the logic of (trans)misogyny itself, because trans women fail to be men despite their birth assignment and this demands punishment. there is not an escape-by-disclosure here. in other words, misogyny deliberately makes trans women women! there is no defense the trans woman can mount on the basis of birth assignment, because that is the very event against which her existence is measured.

this is not true of your imagined afab transfem, nor is any further punishment systemically levelled against the "afab transfem" because of their failing to meet the "essentialist archetype" of trans womanhood. on the contrary, the "afab transfem" remains asymmetrically empowered to use transmisogyny against the transfeminine. yes, cafab ppl are not exempt from violent transphobia, but this is not a violence predicated on the same gender-betrayal the transfeminine person embodies. the political distinction between these experiences remains.

a final point: you are correct that some cafabs can be "woman by dint of being less than woman" but I never claimed that this was a unique trait of transfemininity! in fact I made it clear that this is a common condition for many women (ableism, fatphobia, classism, etc. can all degender a woman). what is unique is the role the logic of transmisogyny plays in defining transfemininity, and the specific manner in which it underclasses the transfeminine subject—makes her the kind of person for whom only a certain, highly peripheralized form of existence is permissible.

if you are interested in describing the way the world is (hopefully with intent to change it) then this is not the way to go about that. any careful analysis of the power relations that cisheteropatriarchy uses to facilitate gender-classing in service of the division of labour will make this clear. you can argue whatever you want! you can also be wrong.

#ask answer #why cant i get fun asks instead of this #im answering these bc i think jt would be helpful to have like a library of resposnes dor the inevitable next time #but pls #if i wasnt so deprived of stimulation rn i would probably not be bothering yo answer #hopefully by the end of tomorrow my thumbs will haveba spacebarand moise to caress again

[viburnt]

Divorcing Izuku Midoriya Headcanons

I'm on a creative rush, and this may make zero sense because I'm tired lmao. Anyways, have some angst <3

Tagging the babes: @doumadono @shonen-brainrot @trickster-kat @angelshimaa (babe, you've missed some very angsty posts) @xhieru @mimisxs @dabislittlemouse

Content Warning: Divorce, emotional abuse and manipulation, mention of baby-trapping, alcohol.

• As I said in my last post, divorcing Izuku is a nightmare. Think about the most energy-draining and mental health deteriorating process, and multiply it for a minimum of 6 months. Izuku won't make things easy for you at all, trying to drag and prolong the whole ordeal just to keep you close. I've divided this set of headcanons by key moments/topics to keep some order. I hope you enjoy them, I'm pouring my heart on these (also pay attention to detail because I'm working on something hehe).

Denial and confusion: the first days after you serve him papers

• Izuku genuinely doesn't understand why you want to leave, refusing to accept the fact that you're not happy being by his side. He's given you all there is to give: a comfortable house, nice clothes, expensive cars, etc. So when you serve him papers, Izuku's first reaction is confusion followed by fear. In that head of his, he's made everything a good husband has to do! So why? Why would you not be happy?

• If you were smart enough and planned your movements with care, you should be able to go through your divorce without depending financially on Izuku or having to live in the same place. You'd have to deal with his incessant calls and texts, often having to block unknown numbers to avoid hearing his whines, but it'd be less difficult. If you weren't thoughtful about the situation and proceeded without the right steps, oh, you're in for a treat: there's nowhere you can go besides the house you shared with him, no place where you can be at peace. You're at Izuku's mercy, like it or not, but that's another story.

• In addition to his denial, Izuku starts to (unconsciously) guilt trip you. Phrases like "Sorry for not being enough," and "I know I'm very pathetic" become frequent. It pains your heart to hear those things because you know Izuku loves you, you are just not compatible at all. You try to let him see it's not about being enough, it's more about effort; with much patience, you set things clear to avoid any misunderstandings, but Izuku just doesn't get it.

• "Haven't I done this or that for you? Didn't I buy you all these things? Am I not enough?" "Izuku, I didn't ask you for any of this, all I wanted was my husband..." Conversations like this occur during this phase, and they can only be held through the phone (when he is sober and not yelling/hollering how much of a mistake a divorce would be). He tries to gauge sympathy from you, telling you that his job is important but that he loves you so much!

• He becomes an empty shell of the bright ray of sunshine the public knew. It goes unnoticed by many, but the people who work around him can tell. It is then when he starts telling others about his marital situation, and you end up seeing faces you've met once or twice during galas or hero events. You "accidentally" stumble across your husband's colleagues, like Ochako, who try to convince you to give him a second chance. "I- I know we don't know each other a lot but please, consider it. Izuku is a great guy a-and I'm sure you guys could fix any problem!" It is embarrassing for you because no one wants people to know their issues.

• What's so ironic about the moment when you serve him papers is that he receives them at his office, the very root of all the problems in your marriage. It was the place where he had spent anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine's... those four walls witnessed the beginning and the end of your relationship. Izuku has a mental breakdown when he finally reads the documents but, hey, he was still pro-hero Deku, right?

Negotiations and lawyers: The first weeks and months

• If having to deal with Izuku's colleagues trying to change your mind wasn't enough, be ready for your soon-to-be ex trying to negotiate. Midoriya suggests couple's therapy to talk this through, and for a split of second, it almost sounds like a good idea! But then you remember all those times when Izuku had promised you he'd be there for you and failed. It didn't seem plausible after that... Besides, all things considered, it'd be hard to find a therapist who could see your side of the story. Who would dare to tell someone as charming and popular as Izuku that he failed as a husband?

• Once therapy is off the table, Izuku brings up children. It may be considered a low blow, especially if one of your dreams was to form a family with him, so his offer felt cruel. "W-we can have kids! Wouldn't you want that? We can be a big family, with one- No, two babies!" "Ouch, it takes a divorce for you to even think about it, huh? That's uh, slightly concerning. Besides, a kid needs a father too... I'm not planning on being a single mom in this marriage" Now, Izuku strikes me as the kind that would try to . to stay. I'm sorry if it sounds terrible, but considering how sometimes he acts on impulse, he really could try it.

• Izuku also tries to be at home more often; he "cooks" (it's takeout disguised as home meals), brings you coffee to the bed, and calls you all kinds of sappy nicknames... It saddens you, why couldn't he care like that before? Of course, this point only applies if you still live with him during this whole process. If you don't, he starts frequenting the places where he guessed could find you: cafeterias, plazas, shops...

• Finding a lawyer for you was a hard task, especially because everyone sees you as a "dumb" woman who is trying to divorce Japan's number one hero. Not to mention they were very expensive, and Izuku was certainly not giving you money for that. You tell Izuku that mediations need to happen to progress with the divorce, but he never shows up to the meetings. There's always an excuse for that man! No matter how much you plea, he refuses to sign the paper. Izuku also becomes very mean towards you, outright berating you for not understanding him. It's gruesome to see him turn into such a monster during these months.

• As an additional point for this part, Izuku hires a private investigator to follow you around. He feels bad for thinking of it, but the idea that you could be seeing someone else while you're trying to divorce him eats him alive.

Last resort: Mediatic battle

• The media is very quick to pick up your marriage's fall down. Time after time you visited your lawyer's office for them to put two and two together, and Izuku takes that to his advantage. Sensationalist articles had already been happening, a lot of them being cruel and demeaning towards you. Titles like "Is she a cheater?" "No amount of success gives you the girl!" And "Pro-hero Deku will be looking for a new wife soon" started popping up. You have to take down any social platform to avoid being targeted.

• It is when Izuku gives a public declaration that things get worse. "I'm sorry, my wife is just not happy with me anymore. Please respect her wish! Don't harass her, I failed as a husband." It may seem like a hearty and sorrowful declaration from the outside, but Izuku picked word by word to gain sympathy and pressure you into changing your mind. People in the street call you "heartless", and the stress simply keeps growing for you.

• To put it in simple words, you were David against Goliath, except Goliath was a glorified person who had all the resources and support of the people. You were nothing but a tiny mouse squeaking to be set free of a relationship that was suffocating you.

The aftermath: Supposing you haven't given up and he signed the divorce papers

• If you somehow manage to divorce him after all these problems, congratulations. You survived 5% of the drama that awaits you! Now you won't be able to date someone without people snapping photos for entertainment news or judging you for leaving "such a great man". Izuku will still try to convince you to go back to him, playing his "sad lover" role in front of the cameras so well! He'll try to send expensive gifts and tell you to keep the house, he'll call you drunk in the middle of the night, and if you're not careful enough, he may try to gaslight you into thinking nothing wrong was happening in your marriage.

• One particular thing I must mention is that Izuku only signed the papers after you yelled at him at one of the legal mediations, hot embarrassment tears falling from your tired eyes as you begged him to let you go.

• Anyways, the list could go on, but those are the main points of divorcing Izuku :')

"Please, just sign the papers..." You said through the phone, your voice tired of pleading to someone who simply refused to hear you. "I will, I will! I'm just a little under the snow with work. Can you reschedule?" Izuku said, apologizing for not being there for you. Excusing himself for failing you, but refusing to let go. "You know how many articles I've seen with my face saying how much of bitch I am for visiting my lawyer's office?"

Izuku's silence was deafening, you could only hear him sigh slightly, perhaps feeling bad for putting you in such a position. "I don't want this divorce."

"But I do, so don't make things more difficult for me, please." He heard you say, biting his lip to hold back the tears. Izuku was glad you couldn't see him, sitting alone in his office with a half-empty bottle of wine you'd gifted him for his birthday. "Do you remember what day is today?" He asked.

"I don't know, Monday? I haven't slept lately." You answered unamused. "It's our anniversary... we married 5 years ago, on this very day." His words came out as a slow slur, his breath hitching as he crumbled through the phone. "I miss you a lot, please-"

"I'll see you on Wednesday, if you're not there I swear to God..."

...

"Mr. Midoriya?" Your lawyer called, her voice bringing your anxious husband back to reality. "Ah, sorry, it's me. Is... is she in there?" He asked, pointing at her office. She just looked at him with little sympathy and nodded. "On time, as always. Maybe you should avoid keeping her waiting, that's the least you could considering how many times we've had these conversations."

"There's no way I can fix this, is there?" Izuku asked as if the lawyer cared. "Wanna do something nice for her? Divorce her."

#my hero academia #izuku midoriya x reader #deku x reader #deku angst #izuku midoriya angst #divorced Au! Yeah I think Im gonna make a whole Au #I need a nap #Feedback is appreciated

[tomboy014]

Dun Dun Dunnn!!! Arkham Security Guard Danny's Epic Backstory! with Dick Grayson

I fell in love with the Arkham Guard AU by @xy-is-i and like most projects I work on, rather than starting where the story starts, I end up going backwards and delve into the backstory.  And I mean waaay into the backstory.

Because while the stories might start when the Bats run into Danny and Jazz working at Arkham Asylum isn’t where they first met.

Long, long ago, through shenanigans unknown, Robin and Phantom became friends, and honestly, they both really needed it. 

Dick Grayson, age 16, has been Robin for a while, but this is so early in the day that there just aren’t many teen heroes or sidekicks yet.  He’s basically pioneering the field of child heroes.

For Danny, 14, Sam and Tucker are great, but there are just some parts of superhero-ing that they just don’t get when you don’t have to hide a secret identity. 

Batman, for his part, does not approve of the friendship.  He’s already not a fan of metas in his city, but when the two of them get together, the chaos twin energy between Dick and Danny multiplies.  Worse, it brings about the pun-pocalypse, and there are only so many puns Bruce can take.  And then there’s the sibling discourse…

After all the stories Danny has told about his family, Dick is desperate to have a little sibling of his own, and the two repeatedly gang up on Batman to adopt another kid.  Their acting may be stilted, but the efforts are constant.

It never works.  Bruce doesn’t have empty nest syndrome yet, and tiny, homicidal Dick was already more than he could handle while he was trying to figure out how to adult, but he also can’t stand that he’s disappointing Dick.  Alfred isn’t helping either; he wants more grandkids.

And there’s no way in HELL that he’s adopting Phantom.

But for Robin and Phantom, they finally have someone they can talk to who gets it.  They can vent about their rogues, get help with homework, bitch about balancing their vigilantism with going to school, talk about whatever TV they’ve been watching, anything and everything.  It’s not uncommon to see them hanging off the Gotham gargoyles or grabbing a bite on top of the Nasty Burger.

There’s an unspoken rule between them that neither pries into the other’s personal life or secret identity, but as they get more comfortable with each other, little things slip out.  Then more.  Numbers are swapped, bits and pieces about their families come out. 

Later on, homes and secret hideouts are visited and they know each other’s first names.  It’s not a problem for Dick to go to the Fenton’s, but technically, Danny isn’t allowed in the Bat Cave or the Manor.  Those visits happen behind Batman’s back, and they were almost caught when they hid in the chandelier before Danny remembered he could turn them invisible. (Alfred encourages the friendship and bakes extra cookies once when he finds out Danny is over.) 

And eventually the relationship grows until they’re comfortable enough to swap full names.  No more secrets.

Dick likes going over to Danny’s place since it’s a chance to feel a lot more normal, even if they have to be very careful and either stay in civilian clothes in the shared areas or stay locked in Danny’s room if they’re in uniform.  Danny also goes out of his way to keep Dick from ever meeting his sister, Jazz (Danny knows he has a type).  It doesn’t stop them from swapping their numbers under the door.  (Jazz will unofficially be Dick’s therapist for years after this)

But being this close, Dick can also see just how stressed Danny is trying to maintain this lifestyle.  Doesn’t help either he has to listen to Danny’s parents go on and on about wanting to rip their own son apart, molecule by molecule.  Sure, Danny has a couple friends to help him, but he doesn’t have the same mentor or support system Dick has.  For a kid his age to be anything other than a sidekick is practically unheard of in this day and age.  Superheroes are still fairly few and far between, but Batman helped start a group called the Justice League a couple years ago with the idea that heroes could help each other.  Maybe there’s something there…

So, Dick starts the Teen Titan.  He had originally intended for Danny to join him as one of the founding members, but are you kidding?  Jump City is on the opposite side of the country!  He has school! and parents! (That’s the point, Danny. We’re trying to get you away from the parents that want to dissect you) He can’t just up and leave home and run halfway across the country!

So, Dick found the other iconic members and still joined the Titans, but Danny will always have an open invitation to join them and a room at the Tower, something Danny does occasionally take advantage of.  Jump City doesn’t spawn as many natural portals as Gotham, but he visits whenever he can and basically haunts the tower the entire month of December to get away from his family.

Still, the distance and growing up are hard on Dick and Danny, and they grow more distant over the years, but they’ll always have each other’s backs in an emergency.  Dick was there when Danny thought he was turning into a monster (it was just ghost puberty).  Danny stole the Spectre Speeder so they could scour the Ghost Zone after Jason died.  And Danny would eventually become godfather to Dick’s daughter, Mar’i. 

But things cooled down between them… at least until a panicked Danny called because his sister just took a job at Arkham…

Next>>

#dpxdc #dp x dc #arkham guard au #arkham guard backstory #danny phantom #dick grayson

[infraaa]

no , buna ziua or hello . Idk if the reqs are open or not but if they are may i request of a Longan Dragon smut oneshot with a bratty reader?(mate , smut oneshots of Longan are inexistent , i need more, i crave for more longan stuff)

『yeah I def agree w you babe but like… holy shit. are we gonna die or are we gonna d i e die die D I E . . .』

𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃

longan dragon x bratty!gn!reader

tw // bratty behavior, master dynamic, hair pulling, asphyxiation play, double penetration, oral with another partner, degredation, voyuerism, bondage, riding, dragon rut, MAJOR CNC/SOMNOPHILIA

baker's notes // BAD DRAGOOOOOOONNNNNN AHAHAHAHAH

NSFW UNDER THE CUT

“A-AaaAaaA-AAahh! L-L-Lonnngaaaan-n-n-n! T-Too’o muuuch!”

Guess what time it is! It’s spring time, which means all the animals across the globe get to repopulate and multiply like jackrabbits. Dragons are no exception. Longan’s ruts hit them like tidal waves— they’ve been around for so long that they stopped keeping track of when they start and stop, and when the next rut may come up. They wake up in their ivory silk bed, hot and sweaty… ugh, disgusting. They take a shower, try to clean themselves up, but it’s nothing to do all that. Because they have another problem on their hands. You.

See, you see their ruts come up and you find this as an opportunity to be as bratty as possible. You wanna try and help them get through this period, however the way you do it… oh honey, you gotta be careful.

You started wearing their clothes, their beautiful and deicate dresses, having them tailored to you kind of. Drinking out of their cups, parading out in the middle of the night while they oversaw the oceans below with their white silk robe on, with barely anything underneath, with your scent wafting into their already sensitive nose... like oh my god, they're about to tear their own goddamn ivory hair out.

Until one day...

One fucking day. Oh G O D S. You fucked up. You fucked up bad. Time to wake up. And oh you woke up aight.

Because when you woke up, you could feel something at your sex... prodding there, as well as rough yet diffused grunts of pleasure. You felt your lower body lift up and tilt to the side before your eyes focused in the morning light of your bedroom. When your eyes focused in, you could see two misty golden orbs in a black sea, looking down on you with primal intent, sighing with a clean glare laden on their brow. Two cocks swirled at your sex with urgency, wanting so bad to enter you... oh if they didn't have any kind of restraint left, which they really didn't at this point, they were pulling atoms together and using them, as thin as paper, as hair, to hold themselves back from literally plowing into you wwith inhuman speed, possibly ripping you in half from the wanton heat they were facing, the hellish need and want for your body, for you to please them, to hear your name from your wettened lips laced with their own... ugh! So arousing, the thoughts cloud their mind like a spell...

"Longan?" You called out softly in your sleepy voice. With hearing your voice finally something in them snapped. They quicky brought a hand to your throat, but without a squeeze, which even then left you gasping. "Shut your mouth." Longan spat huskily, almost leaving those last fibers behind. But what led you to this point? What led you to being in this predicament? It only took one night for them to finally say, "screw it," and bite the final thread of his patience clean off.

You were at Lotus's Paradise once, and since Lotus... clearly doesn't seem to give a shit, neither did you, and Lotus thought that it would be convenient to play captain save a hoe and decided to go down on you in their chambers, and Longan came back to get you, and as they and Hydrangea were cruising through the halls, they heard you moaning and crying out in pure pleasure. And sure enough, they walked in on you getting head by one of Longan's kind, and as Hydrangea ran off in embarassment, Longan sat at the doorway and watched you writhe as you sat on Lotus's sofa with your legs spread wide open. Holding onto Lotus's horns, you look up to see your partner staring at you, breathing deeply with intense bedroom eyes and heat in their cheeks. Of course, you wudened your eyes, not even thinking that they would arrive early. You saw them mouth out the words...

"Take their tongue you dirty slut."

You were suprised to see that Longan didn't even do anything to you or Lotus after that. However, they did do something to themselves. They kept themselves trapped in their bedchambers, away from you. They shouldn't have done what they did, but they really needed to let some of that tension go. One thing that Longan will refuse to do is masturbate. Not only is it unclean, but it makes them feel embarrassed and weak. Even witrh these feelings towards such an act, they could no longer take it. They couldn't get those moans, those lewd noises, the way you played with yourself and the way your back arched... it wouldn't leave their head, plaguing them like a parasite wrecking havoc on their brain. They stroked their hemipenes almost furiously, trying to be as quiet as possible. Their rut however made this exceptionally difficult as you walked towards the room tey were in.

And that's how you were now in this predicament with a surprisingly angry and horny Longan Dragon above you, prodding one of their cocks at your entrance as it begged to feel you at long last. But then they had a thought... they didn't want this to be pleasurable for you, for them to do all the work and plows your shit in... of course, they could still plow you, fill you up like a water balloon, but they wanted you to work for it. They bent down close to your ear, arching your back over in their arms as they held you to their cold chest.

"Here is what is going to happen," they started at the shell of your ear in an ominous whisper. Their claws dug at the skin of your back, making you squeal. "I am not going to forgive you any longer for your disobedience towards me. I have given you chance after chance to make up for your behavior, but you never took any of them. So, I am obligated as your partner to punish you properly. You will not backtalk me, you will not disobey me, you will not question me. You," they stopped for a second to lick at the skin of your neck, the sweet smell of your neck making them shudder all the way down to the claws. You moaned quietly at the feleing of their cold tongue touching your skin, leaving a cool trail of saliva in its wake. They continued when they started to pull at your hair, digging theur claws deeper into the skin of your upper back. "I am going to sit down, and I am going to place you on top of me, and I am going to fuck you hard... and fill you up with my cum. I do not want to hear any fucking crying, any complaining that it hurts, you are going to be my good pet," they roughly got off of you, dragging you along with them as they took to a sitting position, with you hovering above them as your wet sex started to pulse in excitement. This is exactly what you thought would happen. They brought a finger to your face and snapped it to regain your focus, "daddy's good little slut, and you are going to give me what is mine, you hear me?" You panted with a smirk, confident in the fact that since you knew that top meant control, you felt cocky in your position. "And what if I don't, huh?" They growled.

"Oh... oh you fucked up big time, little slut."

And then… SLAM! You screamed as you felt their hemipenes dig into you, holding onto your thigh with the other hand tracing down to your wrists to hold them together behind your back. Thrusting upward, making you bounce on top of them in blissful agony— looking into your now pleasure and pain filled eyes as you just couldn’t stop screaming and moaning, and all that. “Who’s screaming now huh? Who’s screaming now? I wanna hear that, matter of fact, I’ll make you scream louder than you’ve ever screamed you little bitch!” You felt all of your bratty reign come to a crushing halt, feeling the dragon under you power bottom their way through hell. A shaky hand of yours tried to escape their oh so tight hold, however, as thry forcefully made you bounce and move you suddenly realized you were indeded starrting to cry. You wanted to be punished by them, that was your whole motive behind this ensemble you've been putting out for the past couple days. Yet you could slowly feel your body give way to submission to Longan's allmighty power.

You already felt your climax coming up on you.

This soon?

"L-Longa-ah! I'm... I-ah!" A hand rushed up gto your throat and started to squeeze at it-- not too tight though, may the gods forbid they actually kill someone so weak as you so swiftly, especially during such a rough, intimate act? No, no...

"C-Cuuummm...!" You shouted through your gargled breath. They smiled, their fangs gleeming bright white in the darkness. They didn't even get to deny you because before they could, youj spilled all over his hemipenes desperately, almost like a supervolcano. That's when they took you and slammed you down on your back to finish up. Of course, with your crying and whimpering, they were going North Memphis on your ass.

"SHUT UP AND TAKE IT!"

And you did. Like you always did when they were in rut. But after they finished and left to go get a towel from the bathroom to clean the two of you up, you thought that this bratty behavior wasn't cut out anymore. The pain you felt was always astronomical, but always worth it. And it wasn't like they were done with you, oh no.

You have three days left to go.

#infrawrites #infradelivers #infra@212! #cookie run kingdom #crk x reader #cookie run #crob #x reader #cookie run overbreak #crob x reader #crk smut #tw smut #longan dragon cookie

[leximicham]

Friendship as a Force Multiplier

I wrote a preface (read: rant) about this but I want the methods below to stand on their own. Feel free to read it. Or not. I'm not a cop.

The below terms are meant to be ways that you can help others or ask for help from others with increasing productivity. These are execution skills as in they allow you to execute on tasks and get shit done. Skills; not crutches, not cheats or hacks, and not anything else which you might feel ashamed of. People want to help you and you probably want to help people get more done so let's build these skills together.

Task Activation

Sitting down with someone for 5-10 minutes to help one of you focus on a task long enough to build momentum or "flow state". Go to a designated workspace together, clear and otherwise prepare said workspace, pull out/open the tool of choice for this task, talk about the goals of the current big thing, start working for 5 minutes. Task Activation complete! The helper can go back to whatever they were doing. The tasker can either continue working if the activation has put them in flow state or they can go back to the drawing board because there may be unforeseen roadblocks or this may just have been the wrong day to do work or the wrong task to work on. Cost of this Task Activation? 5-10 minutes from 2 people and hanging out with a cool person. Cost of trying again if the first activation failed? The exact same.

Rubber Ducking

An intimate (/s) roleplay experience where one person plays the role of an expert trying to suss out a path through a complicated problem and the other person roleplays an inanimate object. Maybe the first player drops the mask and steps away to search for something on the internet because they need more expertise than they're ready to act out. Maybe the second player breaks character by asking helpful questions to set the first player back on track through their musings. Or maybe the forget that rubber ducks can't play Pokemon on their Switch while someone is talking at them. This is a safe space, there are no judgements if everyone's having a good time.

Body Doubling

Very similar to Rubber Ducking but with structure and tomato shaped egg timers. And less talking. Read up on the Pomodoro Technique if you're not familiar. One person (at least) gathers one other person (at least) to sit in a room with a timer and strict expectations about how long productivity periods and break periods last. I like 25 minutes of working and 10 minutes of break. Don't let productivity spill into breaks. Don't forget to keep planning your tasks and future working cycles. Don't shame anyone for playing Pokemon on their Switch during productivity cycles - rest can be productive, too. Avoid disturbing other people during productivity periods except with time checks, cries of victory, or reminders to not beat heads against walls or keyboards. Task Activation can lead into Body Doubling. Body Doubling can be paused for Rubber Ducking. All bodies involved should be breathing.

Paired Productivity

This is just Pair Programming but with a conjugation and more generalized activity term change. Two people enter (a prepared and organized workspace), they have a task or two which they've both agreed to work on, one has the tools to perform the task, the other has a device which can search the internet, they do work, two people leave. Tomato shaped egg timers are encouraged. Rubber Ducking may occur. One person attempts to do the task while discussing the steps, actions, and open questions with the other. The other person checks work, researches particularly difficult questions, and does not touch the tool for this task. Trading roles at predetermined times is fine. I recommend that the more experienced person give the less experienced person more time working with the tool. Take breaks if either the task or other person wears you out.

Task Dump

Giving someone a pen and paper and making them write out every worry, chore, deliverable, past due library book, and passion project idea they have until they start remembering missed homework assignments from the last school they graduated from. Alternatively: be the person who has a pen and paper thrust upon them. Getting Things Done (this is a book and paid coaching program but the link gives a good synopsis) teaches that the worst place to store information and to-dos is your brain. We forget things and we worry about forgetting things. We feel pressure when tasks are a cloud of associations and worries about missed deadline repercussions or would've, could've, should'ves for how our life might have been if we'd done this important task yesterday instead of playing Pokemon on our Switch. We must always forgive our past selves, accept our present selves, and be kind to our future selves. Once a task is on that list it's a future item and past us is off the hook. Having everything listed in front of us helps us figure out and accept the current state of the world. Determining next steps gives our future self the best chance of being proud of themself for accomplishing cool and important stuff. It's hard to say what to do with the big list of tasks from your brain once you have it. This isn't a planning or project management guide and I haven't written one (yet). It's up to you what you do with the list but I guarantee that you'll be in a healthier place when you can see everything on paper instead of listening to the tasks and worries buzz angrily around your head. Here's some suggestions to get you started:

Separate the hastily scrawled list into several lists based on themes:

work

hobbies

errands

passion projects

gifts for the wonderful friend helping you with this

Stack rank things based on a combination of urgency and importance:

Capture the bug which just landed on the corner of your desk?

High urgency (it's gonna fly away!)

Low importance (unless you eat bugs?)

Figuring out where to send humanity in the cosmos when our sun inevitably expands?

Very high importance (we need to live somewhere not inside the sun)

Very low urgency (we hope...)

Figuring out what you're going to eat for your next meal?

Medium-high importance (don't forget to eat!)

Medium-high urgency (you've forgotten to eat while reading this post, haven't you?)

Do this one!

My main suggestion is just to learn to do this Task Dump regularly. This is a tool which you can use in response to "oh no, my head is full of things to do and I don't like it!" You can cross things off the old list or add them to another system but at the end of the day writing things down helps. Keep your old lists around and rewrite them but skip things which are done or that you've decided you don't need to worry about anymore. Add new things. Observing and measuring your task load like this will eventually get you taking on more manageable loads and prioritizing things (with your Task Dump buddy) and feeling really accomplished.

Kind Interrupt

This is not a planned event. If you see someone you care about is hyper fixating on something but making no progress because they're just spinning their wheels and banging their head against a wall then there's actions you can take to help. Breaks are important so you want them to step away at least for a little bit. It's important to be careful not to force someone away from something that they're stuck on, though. You also want to avoid guilting them; they probably already know if they're running late or not making a lot of progress. Try replacements and simple choices: "Would you like to go for a walk or would you rather get a snack and something to drink with me?" Don't shy away from sharing your needs, though. If you need this person to do something else for you then don't shy away from that. Focus on the help, "Can you help me get ready to go?" or "Can I get your help with this task?" Helping people is stimulating and you shouldn't underestimate how much people in your life want to help you.

This list was originally 5 skills until my "15 minute blogpost" became 3 hours and my wives had to rescue me to work on other things.

That's it for now. Read this with someone who you want to unblock or who you know is willing to help unblock you. Become force multipliers together. Keep this in your back pocket for a bad executive function day. Steal it for your own blogpost or website but please give credit to the trans and ungovernable catgirl, Lexi Micham. Have a nice day!

#executive dysfunction #soft skills #productivityboost #productivity #adhd #audhd #A Civil Dawn #neurodivergent #career advice #Lexi Micham

[rendomski]

The Bad Batch: so many questions, so little time...

Only 3 episodes left, but the loose ends and problems keep multiplying 🤯

Rampart! We now have Rampart onboard, and, frankly, I'd be disappointed if he won't try to double-cross his involuntary allies.

Wolffe is still with the Empire. Any repercussions for letting Rex go?

Rex, Echo and the whole clone rebellion thing. It isn't going well, but Rex is still a far cry from a disappointed Rex in exile, as we meet him in “Rebels”.

Senators, conspiring with the former Separatists, does this scene with Riyo and Avi Singh lead anywhere?

Force sensitive kids, OMG!

What's wrong with Hemlock's hand? Is it related to Crosshair's problem? Does he gets an opportunity to use his gas once more?

I'm not even starting on the Bad Batch-centred issues. And potentially BB-centred, such as CX2 identity, Emerie and Nala Se's fates.

The only optimistic prognosis I see here is that we get three episodes dealing with the fate of Omega and her family (which may be not too optimistic…)

...and the rest of the issues get transferred to the new animated spin-off series. Fingers crossed! 🤞🏼

#the bad batch #tbb crosshair #tbb hunter #tbb tech #tbb wrecker #tbb omega #tbb rampart #the bad batch season 3 #the bad batch spoilers #tbb meta

[trans-girl-nausicaa]

On “An Anarchist Anti-Gun Manifesto.”

Preface:

I am not an Anarchist, I am a Marxist, however, I think you will find that my disagreements with this piece are mostly compatible with an Anarchist position. (And if not… well… I don’t care.)

Full text of the piece may be found here.

I will be examining excerpts, while skipping over parts of the manifesto that repeat itself or are just not relevant to the points the author is trying to make.

(Side note: I do not mean any ill-will towards the author and I have nothing against them personally. I simply think that this text has very bad ideas that I strongly disagree with.)

The text begins:

“Before I begin in earnest, let me be clear: this is not a call for pacifism.”

This is an important distinction. The author does not want pacifism, they simply want to lose the revolution.

“I believe in fighting back with anything and everything we can get our hands on, however, I have grown tired with the continued fetishization of guns in radical (specifically anarchist) spaces.”

Please keep in mind the phrase “fighting back with everything we can get our hands on,” because it is contradicted many times in the rest of the piece.

I find their assertion of “fetishization of guns in radical … spaces” weak. Does it exist? Maybe, but they provide no examples of such, nor any descriptions of what it might look like.

(I can provide an example of a type of gun fetishization by leftists. Many American leftists have an affinity for guns originally designed in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, manifesting, for example, in an irrational preference for AK models rather than the much more reasonable choice of an AR. But that is not touched on by this author and is a topic for another post entirely. Please do not buy a Makarov for self-defense purposes.)

Part I: “Illusions and Delusions”

They begin this section with a description of how Things Sure Are Getting Bad In America.

From the second paragraph:

“With each law passed, each drag story hour threatened, each captured display of violence on film, I see many with whom I find affinity echo some version a similar refrain:

‘This is why you need to buy a gun’

Every time I see this refrain, I pause and sit with the unease that rises from my guts into my throat and out my nose. I sit in the unease until a question formulates ‘What do you think a gun changes?’”

I’m going to legitimately answer their question.

A gun multiplies your capacity to do violence.

I don’t mean metaphorical violence or structural violence or figurative violence, I mean physical violence.

The oppressed peoples of America see that there is some kind of tide turning against us. And we are arming ourselves because not only is violence inevitable, it is already present.

I saw in the news how there was an armed standoff between the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club and right-wing ‘protesters’ at a drag show. Many of the EFJBGC members were armed with AR-15 rifles. It is indisputable that they were a lot more intimidating than if they were unarmed. Some of the ‘protesters’ were armed as well, but the armed EFJBGC members outnumbered the armed ‘protesters.’ At that stage, in that context, intimidation was clearly a desired outcome. Sometimes intimidation is a necessary weapon against your enemies. We are “fighting back with anything we can get our hands on,” right?

“I’ve been around guns my whole life. I learned how to shoot at a young age, first a shotgun, then a rifle, then a handgun. I learned how to clean and care for a gun.”

I will refrain from casting any aspersions as to the author’s skill with a firearm. The problem is not their familiarity or skill, rather their errors in judgement.

Next we come to a real declaration.

“In no subtle words, believing that gun ownership is a meaningful answer to the violence enacted on marginalized peoples is to reify the illusion that to possess a gun is to increase one’s proximity to “safety”, and that to possess more guns is to become even “safer”. Owning a gun will never make you safe, because there is no such thing as safety in this world for the marginalized, for the Black, the targeted nonwhite, for the poor, the visibly queer,”

And they go on with a list of marginalized demographics, but I wanted to stop it at “the visibly queer,” because I find that significant.

I think it is incorrect to tell someone at risk of being gay-bashed that they should not have a means of exerting more violent force in a fight.

I am visibly trans and have been harassed on the street by random aggressive people many times. I’m lucky to have escaped such encounters through various means but I eventually decided that I was done taking chances. If you don’t have a need for self-defense, that’s cool for you I guess, but my life experience has been very different. I carry a 9mm Glock loaded with hollow-points in a concealed holster. I train regularly.

I wasn’t “safe” in the first place.

The next point they make makes me really wonder who they think they are arguing with.

“If you wish to continue breathing, there is no gun you can possess to prevent the sheriffs from carrying out an eviction. There is no gun you can possess to turn your heat back on.”

Nobody thinks this. It’s an irrelevant thing to bring up. Moving on.

“If someone really, truly, wants you dead, no gun will keep you alive, unless you turn yourself into a machine of pure vigilance, sacrificing living for the hope of survival that can never be guaranteed.”

This is literally not true. If someone really, truly, wants you dead, and tries to kill you, and you shoot them until they stop moving, they’re gonna have a much harder time killing you.

It seems that the author here is taking the nihilist point of view where there is nothing you can do to give yourself better odds in violent altercations where the other person wants to kill you.

Regardless of political ideology I never tolerate nihilism.

In their next paragraph they are truly self-contradictory.

“If there is to be a path towards anything resembling “safety” it will not come from individually arming ourselves, even in large numbers. It will come from a generalized culture of antagonism towards both formal and informal institutions of power. It will come from a culture of spontaneous resistance, from insurrectional potential. Guns may be a part of some explicit actions within that culture; however, they are neither necessary nor sufficient for bringing it about and may (as I will touch on later) hinder its continued existence. The only chance we have at protecting each other is gaining ground in the social war of our time.”

Let’s put aside the “generalized culture of antagonism” as that is within the purview of social movements overall and is therefore beyond the scope of what I can write about here.

There is a contradiction between their assertion that we should not individually arm ourselves and their assertion that guns may be necessary for social change. Ideally you should not spontaneously take up arms at a flashpoint of social change without previous experience and training with firearms, and the best way to have experience and training with firearms is to already have firearms so you can actually train with them. Their idea of a “social war” that apparently does not include firearms is ludicrous and unimaginable in the United States of America. If there is to be an actual “social war” with genuine insurrectionary activity, the right-wing and capital-owning opposition to those insurrections will be shooting at you. ‘Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,’ as they say.

“Rather than taking an offensive position of articulating worthwhile actions and carrying them out, many revert to a defensive (even reactionary) positioning of arming themselves and simply waiting for the coming genocide, for the coming collapse. They may have other projects that they take part in but they are mostly ways to kill time. They don’t attempt to gain ground and so they don’t risk losing ground. Still, they are convinced of their own radicality because they armed themselves, they have primed themselves to defend the marginalized (potentially including themselves), the most radical thing one can do.”

What can I say other than ‘citation needed.’

Sure, if all you do is buy a gun and nothing else, then arguably you’re not a part of a revolutionary force. But that’s not what I see. I see people unionizing their workplaces, taking part in mutual aid projects, or, in fact, merely surviving.

What, in actual fact, is so bad about left-wing individuals increasing their capacity for self-defense?

The next paragraph is almost laughable coming from an Anarchist.

“We can’t shoot our way to liberation, not if liberation means the ability to determine for ourselves what a life worth living would be. A few shots may help, but they will never be the sufficient form of resistance against a world built upon the logic of concentrated power, of which guns are a primary mode of expression.”

Aren’t y’all supposed to be insurrectionists?!

Aren’t y’all supposed to desire the literal downfall of the State?!

Why are you struggling against your own means of fighting back against Power?

Or…

“…concentrated power, of which guns are a primary mode of expression.”

Perhaps the author believes that guns themselves are bad because they ARE a form of increasing one’s power.

This is a ridiculous point to take. If guns are bad because they increase an individual’s power, then you can logically proceed to the position that ALL forms of individual power are bad. Are we to conclude that individuals should not even learn how to fight hand-to-hand, because that skill and physical prowess is a form of individual power? How about physical fitness in the first place? How about owning a car? How about owning a home? Where does it stop?

I will provide a quote here that is better than anything in this manifesto.

In the words of Mao Zedong,

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Part II: “The Concentration of Power and the Reproduction of Daily Life”

“I think people acquire guns because of the fantasy of possessing hyper concentrated power. We live in a world of incredible alienation and disempowerment. We look outside and believe ourselves broadly incapable of affecting our surroundings. In this context, a machine that, with the push of a button, can irreparably alter our existence is easily fetishized.”

I understand what they are saying here, but it isn’t actually an argument against the necessity of the ownership of guns, so it’s irrelevant.

”These power fantasies inevitably blind the radical from recognizing the experimental space opened before them, and so these radicals actively repress the experimentation and insurrectionary potential of others in those spaces. I saw far too many such ‘radical’ policing forces in 2020 to ever trust a person who shows up to a riot carrying an AR.”

This is actually something referencing real life that I wish they would expand upon. They don’t really go into detail as to what “policing” they observed, so I’m left without an ability to meaningfully comment.

I myself was left with disillusionment in the wake of 2020. What I saw was a lack of organization that created power vacuums that were easily exploited by opportunists, whether that meant self-proclaimed ‘organizers’ or ‘security’ forces or just highly charismatic grifters. However I don’t see the problem as being guns. I see the problem as a lack of power structures. A highly organized group of people is empowered to resist bad actors. I have observed that masses of people with no plan and no organization are highly vulnerable and, in a sense, weak regardless of how large their numbers are. This is why huge masses of unequipped, disorganized protesters, even violent ones, can be cowed, kettled, and dispersed by much smaller numbers of well-equipped and well-organized police departments.

It is the organization of human effort that multiplies our efficiency and power.

I will provide another quote that is better than anything in this manifesto.

In the words of Ralph Chaplin,

“When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run, There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun; Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, But the union makes us strong.”

Part III: “Fetish as Smokescreen”

This part is interesting because, although I disagree with it, I have never seen this kind of argument before.

“Perhaps the consequence of the continued fetishizing and fantasizing that feels most pressing, is how it alters our relation to the arms manufacturers themselves. I rarely, if ever, see these manufacturers recognized as viable targets of direct action even at the height of anti-police mobilizations despite the fact that the only reason the police are able enact violence on the scale that they do is because these manufacturers supply them with near infinite arms.”

The interesting thing about this is that they are almost onto something here. Yes! It is true that the police get their power not only from their organization but also from their arms!

There is an entire military-industrial complex that arms American police and military forces! In fact, American manufacturers of CS gas see their products not only used on American protesters domestically, but also supply their gas canisters to the (essentially) American client state of Israel so that the IDF can continue to violently enforce a settler-colonial apartheid state.

However, it might be a misstep for the revolutionary-minded left to indiscriminately target arms manufacturers.

Rather, targeting arms manufacturers other than the ones that exclusively supply the american & international militaries seems like a bad idea.

As anti-imperialist action, it would certainly be a wonderful thing to stifle the American nation’s exports of violence and terror on the international community. (Especially if said revolutionaries were able to seize some such arms for themselves!)

However, I do not think that reducing the amount of arms able to be brought to the American civilian market is a wise move in 2023.

The American right-wing, American police, and American military are all three enemies of the American left-wing, and they are all better armed than us. Until we can raid factories and armories and seize military-grade arms for ourselves, we may take to heart this old quote…

“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Anyway, I shall finish up this section with another defeatist quote from the author.

“…we will never be able to match the police or military in the arena of arms procurement, and even if we could, the only way we’d be able to match them in an arms-focused conflict would be to turn ourselves into a military of our own with all the loss of autonomy and life that entails.

I refuse to admit defeat, and I refuse to fulfill some dutiful role within a misnamed revolutionary military. I desire life, I desire a life worth living.”

The author here declares that the left-wing should not form a revolutionary military in the case of a revolution.

I guess they hate winning.

Part IV: “Expropriate, Use, Destroy”

The author here flip-flops again and outlines a way in which the revolutionary left may ethically use guns.

“…guns may serve some purpose within specific actions and so it feels worthwhile to throw out a potential way of relating to them in the moments we deem them useful.

We expropriate (both individual armaments and the means by which to produce them) in order to break away from participating in the profiteering of the gun manufacturers while simultaneously dispossessing our enemies of their means to brutalize us.

We use what we have expropriated in the ways deemed worthwhile when we have deemed such actions necessary.

We destroy what we have expropriated to the best of our ability.

Most importantly, we destroy the means by which these arms are produced. So long as there exists a way to quickly mass produce arms, there will always be a timebomb waiting for the next police or military to emerge.”

This is a ridiculous proposition. They are outlining a post-revolutionary world where the dominant order (whether that is an Anarchist one or a Communist one) voluntarily disarms itself rather than consolidating and solidifying its power… leaving itself vulnerable to easily-concealed clandestine arms manufacturing!

What are you going to do, destroy every CNC machine? Every 3D printer?

At this moment, rebels in Myanmar are fighting against the military junta, and apparently a popular choice of firearm among the rebels is the FGC-9, a semi-automatic 9mm carbine that is made of both 3D-printed and simple metal parts.

The FGC-9 was specifically designed to be easy to manufacture, and as 3D-printing and other manufacturing methods become more advanced, surely people will produce even more designs for homemade guns.

Hell, the assassination of Shinzo Abe proves that even in a nation where personal firearms ownership is all but abolished, it is still possible for a determined individual to make a doohickey and exert an act of political power.

Anyway. Next comes a myopic and, frankly, liberal statement from the manifesto author.

“At its most simplistic, a gun is a machine designed with the specific purpose of killing. The majority of handguns and rifles produced today are designed with the specific intention of killing people. I refuse to accept the normalization, and fetishization, of such a machine within anarchist spaces.”

Wow! Guns are for killing people! Amazing! Nobody ever known that before! And you say killing is bad?! Truly groundbreaking stuff here!

Next comes a little bit of creative writing, I guess.

“While I’m not so naive as to believe there will be some idyllic future in which no one harms anyone else, I am certainly idealistic enough to believe a world without these machines is possible. If you disagree, fine, you can stand in defense of the gun factories, maybe even point one at me as I light the match.”

So they… envision a future where they will be gunned down for trying to destroy all gun factories? What is this amazingly nihilist imagination that can conjure something so divorced from material reality?

“Winning, to me, looks like the ashes of every precinct and prison mixing with the ashes of every factory, the ones that make guns included.”

Every factory? EVERY factory? At the risk of misinterpreting this piece… It seems that is person is not just against manufacturing guns, but rather, no industrial manufacturing whatsoever? So no trains, no pacemakers, no computers? Sounds like a pretty bad future to me. No thank you.

The piece ends with a few repetitions of their already established points.

I want to take this person seriously, and I want to empathize with them, but I just truly think these ideas are terrible.

At the end of the day, I think that individual capacity for self-defense for leftists and marginalized demographics is a good thing.

I also think that to win a revolution you are gonna want to form militias.

Of course, in the current tenor of America, forming leftist militias is prohibitively risky due to the power and hostility of the State.

I think that this will change in the future as the American empire seems to be decreasing in power. As its international influence wanes, it will increase its depredations on its residents, which will accelerate its own collapse into civil disorder.

I can’t predict how long this will take, of course. But a breakdown of civil society would include a lot of interpersonal violence, and perhaps even civil war.

#long post #an anarchist anti-gun manifesto

[sharky857]

Okay so, as the date of the official release approaches, I feel the need to say this to whoever might want to get Palia, be it PC or Switch, both disabled and able-bodied alike:

"Approach with caution".

Before I start, please keep in mind that all this is not the devs' fault. Rather, they are the ones constantly caught in a sort of crossfire: on one hand there's the needs of the community and player base, on the other hand they have to stick to the do & don't from the higher-ups within the company, all while trying to keep the game afloat.

That being said, as much as devs have been working on this, the game remains ridden with bugs.

One may say "well, the game is still beta whaddaya expect kek", which is not totally wrong. If not for the fact that the game is scheduled for an official release in two days (literally, the release date is December 14th, at the time of writing this), and those bugs are going the exact opposite direction of "decreasing". So much so that they keep on multiplying with each new patch, rendering the whole game more and more unstable.

Since the latest patch (0.175) has been released, the game has been suffering also from some form of memory leakage, in which RAM usage starts from a rather chill amount, only to gradually climb higher and higher the longer one stays in game and never settles back down, until reaching the point where everything freezes, before the game itself crashes. You don't even need to leave your own housing plot to see it happening.

Technical issues aside, Palia is marketed as a "cosy co-op MMO", yet the game still looks quite far from being "cosy" and "co-op". If anything, with more players joining, it has now become some kind of "competitive" game instead.

Some players would "call out" the rarest resources (from a mineable Palium node to the forageable Dari Cloves), others just come, pick and leave.

For context: the problem with resources in Palia is that, once they are picked, there's an implied time frame where other players will have to come and get said resource too, before it despawns for good for everyone in that single server, which is why it is considered "good etiquette" to call a resource out whenever it's spotted, and then wait for whoever answers that call to come over before picking it up/mining/chopping.

Problem is: the lack of this kind of communication is so widely frowned upon that some people can't wrap their head around the fact that players may have all sort of reasons for not calling something out, be it something personal (from social anxiety to being physically incapacitated to even see the chat, given the severe lack of dedicated options to tweak the chat / font size), technical (troubles to connect to the in game chat), or simply not having much time to wait for others to gather around, leading to those people to either turn hostile and/or leave passive-aggressive remarks over the chat towards those other players.

Players have been also organising "parties" to bake and cook together, in order to prepare big batches of food to later sell for quick "grofit". While the overall idea behind these parties is in line with a “cosy co-op”, they have a dark side: most of the times, players with all sort of sensory issues will inevitably struggle (example: someone needing for complete silence in order to hear the clues when chopping ingredients/rolling a dough) or end up feeling too overwhelmed to carry on whatever task.

In some cases the issues are acknowledged by the party members and they try to minimise the disrupting behaviours. In some instances the party host may have set everything up to cover most (if not all) the special needs of every single member of the party.

Only in the worst cases, if the person affected try to warn the others and/or ask them to momentarily stop with this or that disruptive behaviour, the other player(s) will just ignore the message and keep on doing whatever they're doing, in quite a worrisome display of no regards for (nor empathy towards) a disabled and/or ND person.

The affected player could try and report the “troll” ones, but there seems to be quite a chance of the support team to reply back with suggestions to block the reported player(s). Which would be neat, if blocking players wouldn’t mean simply forbidding them to send you invites and chat messages, but would be also expanded to the blocked part being rendered unable to join your same party.

Yeah, as in every other game where players can interact with one another, be it competitive or co-op, trolling and being a nuisance is yet another issue.

Not bad for a game that's marketed as "cosy". /sarcasm

Personally, so far I’ve been directly spared this experience, thanks to my being a socially anxious bean who very much prefers to play on my own over joining any kind of squad/team/party.

Moving back to the topic of accessibility, this option -as a whole- seems to be not even a second thought on S6's part. Probably not even a third nor a fourth. It feels more like an "end of the line" kind of thought.

Despite several players (myself included) have been sending lots of different feedback on this topic, at the moment there are still only some loose settings in place, but that's all.

Audio sliders don’t feel like they give enough options. Players can tweak the volume for: overall audio, dialogues, music and sound effects. There’s also a separated option to choose what kind of “mix profile” one may prefer, which is supposed to make some audio stand out slightly more than others.

The problem with this is that it needs additional sliders, mainly on the “sound effects” compartment. To some people affected by HOH and/or other auditory issues, it can be quite hard to hear some sound clues over the rest of the sound effects, be them from the environment or other players in the area. Alas, all these effects are under the single “sound effects” slider, with no way to -for example- completely mute the sound of a waterfall to better pinpoint the clue sound of the bobber while fishing.

In addition to this, there's no effective option yet on the graphics/animation side to try and minimise/avoid motion sickness either. Not to mention, no matter how low your graphics settings may be, some visual effects (like the sun light glistening over water surfaces at dawn and dusk) will remain on screen, with the legit risk of triggering seizures and/or migraines in the most sensitive players.

These latter could be triggered also by visual clues (like a just-tilled soil portion flashing red), which urged all players (both affected by these issues and not) to ask for an option in the settings menu to enable/disable such clues. Needless to say, so far this suggestion has been left unanswered.

For what concerns mobility-related issues, one thing that may be called an "accessibility tool" is the autorun option, which works fine as long as your character is, in fact, running. Or jumping off a cliff and activating the glider.

Autorun can be stopped by actions like pressing one of the directional keys (most notably WASD), mining nodes/chopping trees, talking to NPCs, or picking a loot up. For pretty much anything else, it will keep on being enabled, resulting in the "autorun" to become an "autoclimb" when reaching the side of any cliff.

This is where things get janky; the autoclimb direction is linked to the north - east - west - south directions on the compass. If one wanted to go up, they need to turn the camera until roughly aligning with the "south" direction, to go right/left the compass needs to be aligned with east/west, and to go down the compass has to be oriented towards north.

Might sound pretty simple, but there's a catch in all this: depending on which side you're climbing, turning/tilting the camera in the direction you need also means that you won't be able to see where you are going anymore, therefore you may not see where the cliff ends, resulting in your character accidentally jumping off the cliff and you, player, being in need to redo the whole climb from where you started. So, whereas an able-bodied may take ten seconds to climb up a cliff, a person with a physical condition might take twice or even thrice the time.

At least on the mobility side, S6 seemed to have taken the hint and acknowledged at least this kind of issues.

In time they added some small, competitive space (simply named "The Tower"); an obstacle course where players have to climb their way to the top by going through a series of totally airborne platforms, while being surrounded by some kind of sparkly, pinkish void.

There's no unique reward to participating in it (and even for reaching the end of that course), except for random treasure chests scattered across the whole “tower”. The devs had been clear about this new addition in the game: it was something experimental, and that, given the nature of that "tower", they wouldn't have implemented those mechanics to stuff related to the main quest line.

Players felt different amounts of relief, especially those with either mobility issues (such as arthritis) or suffering from vertigo induced by the lack of visual "anchor points".

Except...

S6 did, in fact, not take the hint. Devs eventually implemented those mechanics into one of the main quest lines: the Temple of Gales.

It looks like the new quest may have brought players together once again, as everyone seems to have similar opinions on that explorable area and the related quest(s). Although not in the cosy way expected/promoted by Singularity Six™.

It sucks balls.

Not only there are "tower-like" mechanics in place to go around, not only autorun can't really help you while you're exploring, because you constantly need to stop and look around to find various items (not to mention the need to time your gliding in order to catch the air drafts just right), but some quest hints/explanations are also kept very vague.

One of them literally and only says "look for evidence", without explaining what kind of "evidence" you should be looking for. Is it some scraps from a book? Fragments of something? Human remains? You may never know until you'll stumble across the first one by sheer coincidence (or until you go skim the walkthrough on the wiki first). All you know is that you need to find four.

Another quest instruction is only slightly less vague as it asks to "look for treasures". There are seven of those in total. All seven are totally different-looking items, so good luck finding them when you don't even know how they are supposed to look like, and there's not even a single waypoint to direct you to the general area where to look. :)

To make things worse, being the area considered an indoor space but with the perceived size of a whole Kilima village, there is no map available for an easier navigation/exploration, which may lead players to aimlessly go around in circle for quite a while.

All these factors combined (uncomfortable/inaccessible mobility mechanics + unclear instructions + lack of a map and indicators) can make that new temple and the related quest(s) an energy-draning experience for everyone, on top of causing unnecessary discomfort and/or straight up being a trigger to some people's conditions, causing players to rage-quit and/or forcing them to seek out help from someone else to complete those quests in their place.

In all this, players have been asking since quite a long time (probably already in the alpha stage) to have accessibility tools implemented, demands that have been growing in number as more and more players joined in.

This to say that this is not something new, and -despite all- so far there seems to have been quite a poor acknowledgement on S6's part.

After all this time, they added some subtitles to cutscenes (I saw them in the introduction cutscene for Subira, but I personally have no way to check if they are there also for older scenes, like the very first one that introduces your human character at the beginning of the game), and made the game compatible with controllers (most likely for the incoming release on Switch).

But this, and the few features mentioned towards the start of this wall of text, is all.

There's clearly room for improvement, even on the communication side between company and community.

Accessibility has been barely mentioned in the official notes from S6, leaving players to feel like they are unheard. I'm not expecting S6 to release full statements every single time they drop a patch note and game news. They could leave a brief announcement from time to time, so that the community may know that yes, their feedback and everything has been still acknowledged and that players may expect some updates in that regard in the future.

Some may say that a simple acknowledgement is not enough, that S6 needs to do something in this sense, but given the situation, an acknowledgement alone would be already a step ahead.

In the end, the lack of accessibility tools in game is only a part of the problem. The other part is this sort of “radio silence” from S6’s part.

In conclusion: if you want to get yourself Palia, by all means do so. This post is not meant to bash people wanting to try this game out because "PALIA BAD >:("

Palia as a game is good, even with its ups and downs, and it needs support to keep on thriving.

This post is only meant as a fair warning on the technical and accessibility side, so that people may have a general idea of what they may expect in regard of both.

#palia #palia game #palia open beta #sharky's random thought #long post #(hence the “read more” break)

[princess-of-the-corner]

Glad you found that AU idea fascinating! Its probably my most well developed conceptually even if the plot structure is a mess XD Also slight correction it should have been Six-Teen Heroes cos pun.

The team is: Dragon - Kagami Tiger - Juleka Snake - Luka Horse - Nino Bee - Chloe Fox - Lila

Marinette will eventually get the Mouse, but Mullo divided themselves into several thousand when escaping Scarlet Sovereign (Gabriel) and took awhile to both come back together & pick a user.

There's some noted shifts in some of the powers because of both the changed circumstances & adapted world building/story needs.

Horse can do solo teleports, not just portals. Mouse can duplicate itself or multiply other things. Tiger is more like manufacturing an explosion via chemical reaction. Dragon is mostly the same, but it can channel lesser attacks through the sword. Snake is literal, you only get 1 second chance not infinite, but you also get excellent premonition. Bee can 'subjugate' objects, essentially imbuing them with magic that lets Chloe command & direct them. Turtle can make its wearer vastly more durable rather than just shields & also create a wider variety of protections and traps. Fox is a bit iffy, I keep oscillating on either it being able to tap into people's minds to make mirages, or to super charge illusions and make them real.

Also users can utilize their powers several times (Barring Second Chance) if they do more small scale versions of them. But doing so reduces their overall energy pool, meaning they may not be able to do a full power version.

For example:

Bee can sting five enemies for one minute, or one enemy for five minutes, or command objects more easily than it can bind living foe, ETC.

Horse can single person teleport and depending of mix of distance can do this many times, but long distances or too many & they become unable to open a portal.

NOTES:

Some other factors I like for the AU:

The Kwmai while not malevolent do have their own morals, ideals or goals not totally aligned with Fu's. Though all want to free their family. This informs some of their choices.

Tomoe Tsurugi has the butterfly and is opposed to Gabriel but is not on the Heroes side, if anything she wants to take them over or take their Miraculous. This is also why Kagami is in Paris early.

Lila was picked cos she's good at spinning lies at the drop of a hat & Trixx is amused. But Trixx also primarily uses the truth to manipulate people & is trying to basically trick Lila into genuine heroism.

There's a much stronger focus on trying to reduce civilian causalities in this AU as there is no Miracle Cure available. So the team tends to be divided up into the main fighters & emergency evacuation/defense.

Scarlet Sovereign mostly uses what he calls Charm Constructs at first & later upgrades to "Shikigami". The former involve using a charm to transform a mundane objects into an automaton, while the latter is basically creating a quasi magic 'spirit' to fight for him.

Debating Audrey having the Peacock and doing her own thing with a fixed version, or otherwise being a problem too, but not sure.

One theme I want to explore is how secret identity and powers affects behavior.

Like Chloe as Queen Bee is much more responsible and respectable, but this does not bleed over into her civilian life for awhile. Or how Juleka feels so confident as Tigress she gives up on pursuing Rose as herself & tries to do so as a hero exclusively. Or how Nino is not above utilizing the Horse for more childish or selfish ends, but also sort of questions if power corrupts, ETC.

All of them have identity, self esteem, trauma or behavioral issues is what I am getting at XD

Oh dope!

[woodelf68]

LOKI 2.4

I don't see why they can't keep Dox in Holding forever; they had no problem pruning Lokis into the Void for forever. >.>

Dammit, Sylvie, it would have taken OB and Victor five seconds to sign each other's copies of the TVA Guidebook; could you not let them have their brief moment of fanboying joy?

OB's explanation of the Loom is very helpful here; it reminds me of the Doctor on Doctor Who explaining sciencey things to his companions on screen so that the kiddies (and adults, lol) at home could understand what was going on. (Okay, so the TVA as a TARDIS, discuss. Look at all those long corridors its got for running in!) I loved OB's "...the backlog of branches that was created when someone...*looks accusingly at Sylvie* ...killed He Who Remains and released all those branches and ruined my life." (Aw, come on, OB, you're out of the basement now! You're making friends and meeting admirers of your work!)

Loki claiming that the little figure in the model was clearly not him so why did he have to be the one to 'hoof it' and lob the throughput multiplier into the Loom? Well, Loki, you have very long legs and can run fast, also tradition has been established that your character is the one who gets sent to do the hard jobs for others; just be glad you're not being asked to steal Surtur's flame and doom Asgard this time around. (Of course, your decision to abscond with the Tesseract has already caused the TVA to erase the Asgard of your timeline, people and realm both, so...uh, never mind, pretend I never said anything.)

MOBIUS AND HIS PIE AGAIN. I SWEAR TO GOD THAT THE TVA LACES THE PIE WITH DRUGS TO KEEP ITS WORKERS DOCILE AND HAPPY WITH HAVING NO LIFE OUTSIDE OF WORK AND POSSIBLY ACTS AS A CONTINUAL DOSAGE OF SOMETHING THAT KEEPS THEM FROM REGAINING THEIR MEMORIES? MOBIUS CAN'T GO TOO LONG WITHOUT ANOTHER SLICE OF PIE BECAUSE HE'S EXPERIENCING THE WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS OF AN ADDICT. I was so happy to hear Sylvie call him out on his pie-seeking habits and his refusal to try to find out any information about the timeline he was pulled from. Like sure it might hurt to remember a family whom he'd lost, but I'd rather honour the memories of loved ones by remembering them than being too cowardly to do so.

I have to agree with the point I saw raised in another post of 'WHY do they have to fix the Loom? Surely all the multiple timelines managed to exist just fine on their own before it was created?' Also, hoo boy, did Loki's speech about how you can't free a people and then leave them to look after themselves remind anyone else of Asgard's justification of being the ruler of the Nine Realms? Keeping a military presence on those conquered worlds? AND NO, LOKI, YOU'RE NOT A GOD, YOUR DAD TOLD ME SO IN A BIT OF THE SACRED TIMELINE YOU DIDN'T GET TO EXPERIENCE. Although this time at the TVA is Loki's post-Thanos period when he was claiming the same thing in the Sacred Timeline, wanting to be a 'benevolent god'. So...that actually ties in.

Um -- do we all agree that Miss Minutes looked orgasmic watching everyone (except Brad) be crushed in the cube thingie?

(Was Loki pruning himself related back to the time slipping thing? I still don't really understand what the point of that was.)

OB: But if I reboot Miss Minutes, we'll lose the magic dampeners in the TVA!

Loki and Sylvie: THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF A PROBLEM!

Oh hell yeah, Bradley, prune that bitch! I HOPE YOU END UP IN THE VOID WITH A HUNGRY ALLIGATOR, RAVONNA.

Kudos to Timely for sensibly asking if it's safe before sticking his head inside some alien machinery and not just blindly following instructions.

LIGHT! BEAUTIFUL LIGHT IN THE TVA! I don't care what this means as long as I can properly see what's going on!

Oh. Oh shit. Spaghettification is what's going on, huh. *Salutes Victor Timely* May you get the afterlife you hoped for, sir, you died a noble death. Guys. Guys, stop staring into the blinding radioactive light; I'm sure that's not good for your eyes.

And...what a cliffhanger; it's like FINALLY all the pieces are falling into place and the story is getting to someplace exciting. That was a good episode; I hope it keeps up this pace next week and something good happens if the Loom is going pear-shaped. I gotta try to remember to watch this on Thursday for a change.

@delyth88 -- finally felt inspired to make a long reaction post! (And my stupid computer glitched about 2/3 of the way through and I had to rewatch what I'd already seen to remember what I had been commenting on! I blame the TVA.)

#loki series #loki season 2 #loki spoilers #loki #mcu #sylvie #OB #victor timely #um i didn't notice the episode title #loki 2.4 #brad wolfe #we do all agree that's a play on doctor who's bad wolf right? #i haven't seen anybody mention that but i thought it immediately in his first episode #mobius #sylvie being like 'i didn't want to end up in the pie place' #DO NOT RESIST THE PIE #LISTEN TO ITS SWEET LIMEY SIREN SONG #EAT MEEEE #i think the episode title should be the loom of doom #'loki odinson and the loom of doom' sounds like a good name for a junior tie-in novel

[mamajankyy]

IN TODAYS ADVENTURES OF SHARK BOY AND WARRIOR GIRL:

Summary: Attuma is ill and Okoye is there to aid him back to health.

Word count: 1.4k

Read here on ao3

Okoye’s loyalty to those she loves is immovable, impenetrable, and unwavering; in short, she doesn’t quit. A life devoted to battle and protecting shaped her into the impeccable warrior she is now. Stripping of title or stature would never change that. She had fought countless fights against countless foes that ranged in species and color. There was one fight that had her considering waving her white flag and rewriting everything she knew to be true about herself.

Caring for an ill man. A massive, blue, bullheaded, shark tooth-adorned man-child baby.

A lot of the traits he took on while ill were ones he possessed regularly, but it was as if they were magnified and multiplied ten times over. Clingy, touchy, cocky, smothering, and needy all in all a nuisance to Okoye, especially when she’s trying to be of assistance. She may think it, but she would never voice her feelings about sick Tuma.

A sewage problem and a forgetful Attuma did not make a good combination. The city Okoye lived in had backed-up pipes and everyone in the area was urged not to use tap water until further notice. Okoye made sure to inform Attuma of this so he’d use filtered water to refill his rebreathers when necessary. She even went so far as to leave some bottles out for him. Attuma did not heed her warnings and now he was suffering the consequences. A nasty stomach bug and an insane fever morphed him into a being she’d never expect from Attuma.

Now here they were in their very large bathroom. Attuma sprawled out in their massive spa-sized tub. It may as well have been an indoor pool, but Okoye felt the size was perfect for her Shark. She was sitting on the edge of the tub dabbing his forehead with a wet washcloth. Doing whatever to help quell his aches really.

“I do not get sick” He protested. It’d been three days of the same weightless declarations.

How Okoye had managed not to blow a fuse? She was unsure.

“Then explain the profuse sweating and how you struggle to keep something as meager as vegetable broth down. Hm?” Okoye retorted as she swatted his wandering hands to continue her task of drenching him in cooled water. She tilted his head upwards to wipe beads of, said sweat, before they dropped; and then kissed the newly dry spot.

“Perspiration is to be expected when one is in close contact with the sun, no?” Attuma’s face twisted slightly as he talked through another gut-twisting pain, trying his very best to convince her he was fine. “Come join me in K’iino, the water’s excellent” He smiled at her and moved his hand to rest on her knee, just below the hem of her dress. His thumbs kneaded her smooth skin, and since she hadn’t removed his hands yet, he tested his luck moving his ministrations further up north.

She hadn’t missed the flash of discomfort on his face, so she allowed his hands to wander up her dress for a few moments, just to see just how convincing he thought he really was. She plucked them away once they were dangerously close to the apex of her thighs.

Who did he think he was fooling?

Okoye kissed her teeth and stepped just out of his reach. “Had you used the head that faces the sky instead of the one that cowers beneath your loincloth you would not be in the tub looking like a sweaty plum.” Her voice was soft, almost sweet, but there was still that tinge of annoyance. She didn’t feel right snapping at him completely, especially when he was trying very hard to downplay his true feelings; but she still made sure to get her point across.

It was true, due to his ill state and constant perspiration he had taken on a purplish hue.

“It does not cower! My bearings are proud, as am I. Come here and I will make you proud as we-“His offer was cut short by another wave of stomach pain.

It was rare for the Talokanil to be struck ill. The herb that was welded into their DNA rendered them immune to many illnesses. Attuma’s insides were quite literally battling to expel all of the foreign bacteria that’d infiltrated his systems. As respected of a General as he was, he was sure that this was a battle he wouldn’t victor. This may as well have been his Endgame..no Thanos.

“Oh, my love” Okoye cooed as she resumed her spot beside him. She leaned over enough to rub his stomach in an attempt to soothe him. The close proximity allowed her to lay a few kisses along the side of his head and she did so. That slightly annoyed tone she had before was now reduced to a much more loving and syrupy one. She found herself switching between the two very often with Attuma, especially now.

The warrior was losing her battle as well. Knowing the illness and pain Attuma was experiencing was all new to him tugged at her heart voraciously. It was hard to see her affectionate brute in this state. What may have been a mere stomach virus to any surface dweller was doing a number on her beloved husband.

When she first noticed something was off with Attuma she practically dragged him to Shuri for testing. His symptoms weren’t severe due to his enhanced DNA, but lack of appetite was not something Okoye was going to let slide. Attuma thought it was silly but the thought of being an added stress to his love was bigger than his protesting. Shuri ran plenty of tests and once she found it was from the water the only aid she’d been able to give was the virus simply had to run its course. If the General wasn’t back to himself by the end of the week Shuri told them to come back to the lab.

Okoye tried to get Attuma to go back to Talokan until he felt better, she figured being out of the water didn’t make sense when he could be home with his healers. Of course, Attuma refused. Shuri planted the seed of Okoye taking care of him until he was better and a much more lewd image had taken root in his mind. He was thinking more along the lines of those sexy maid costumes M’Baku showed him once before. Those fantasies were quickly shelved once the stomach griping started.

True to her word, Okoye had been by his side without faltering. Though she nearly had to pull her spear on him just to get him to rest for more than 10 minutes, she took the task with stride. She made him light meals that wouldn’t upset his stomach too much, rubbed and massaged his stomach until he fell asleep in her arms, braided his hair so it wouldn’t be a tangled mess, and did whatever else she could think of to bring him any form of reprieve.

“K’iino… I’m sure I will be immediately healed if you just joined me. I will not turn my mind loose and get handsy. I promise” Okoye couldn’t help the snort that slipped due to Attuma returning the phrases she often used against him.

Her heart ached for him, and she found herself tossing her dress somewhere unknown and climbing into the water with him. She settled in behind him and he sunk so that his head rested on her chest. The position was awkward given the setting, but she was just thankful she’d gotten a big enough tub where they could both fit comfortably. Especially since she discovered Attuma liked to be the little spoon when he was sick.

Cuddling was always high on his list of Okoye related favorites. He loved laying on her chest and letting her heart’s rhythm play in his ears. He also loved being engulfed by her scent, which never failed to quiet any anxieties he may have. She was essential in his healing as well as his general well-being.

Okoye pressed a few kisses to his head before she began massaging his scalp. They stayed like that until Attuma convinced her he was okay to lay in their bed. She made quick work of cleaning the bathroom and discarding her soaked undergarments. When she finally entered their bedroom she found him curled up with one of her pillows in the center of their bed asleep. She cut on the humidifiers and climbed into bed. Once she was comfortable behind him, she draped her arm across his waist and began rubbing large circles until she joined him in a deep slumber.

Attuma be like.

#tumtum got the suds #sick bb tuma #Nurse!Okoye #attuma x okoye #attoye #okoye x attuma #attuma #okoye #attoye fanfic #black panther wakanda forever #attoye fic #okoye x attuma fanfiction #black panther okoye #attuma of talokan

[buckybarnesss]

Sending this on anon -

I think there is a latent amount of misogyny in the star wars fandom that people aren't ready to face lol.

Like there was so much hate for RebelCaptain and Bix x Cassian (MechanicThief? Bixian?) After andor, and we were called homophobic for 'not wanting to ship' the mlm ships, and I'm like???!! First of all multiplies exist, and second of all, complex, dramatic, well written ships also should exist!

And I'm now seeing the same pattern where it's encouraged to ship Din with the men, but not with the women

I think that a lot of fans really need to look within their consumption and see if they're really looking for representation, or for Ken dolls they can experiment with.

DinBo is so fascinating and I really can't wait to see how they develop

oh y'all want me to get spicy. i'm gonna put his under a read more.

i don't even think it's latent. the female characters receive an excessive amount of hatred or are pitted against each other. i've been in fandom spaces a long, long, long time so i know it's sadly nothing new but people have a hard time accepting that not all the misogyny comes from men.

there is no quarter for woman characters like jyn erso and bo-katan. they will never please. especially when they may have possible romantic relationships with the male leads.

i have thoughts on the shipping atmosphere for the mandalorian and it's not positive.

i am very much a ship and let ship person. i prefer to stay in my lane and enjoy what i enjoy. no harm no foul.

but i do find it -- shall we say interesting -- that bo-katan and din have a multiple episode arc where they develop a deeper understanding of each other overcoming their differences from when they first met but is met with the attitude of ew no cooties. it is fine to prefer a more sibling dynamic between the two but some have been really nasty about others shipping it romantically.

i didn't even really ship it at first but it's grown on me over the course of the season. they compliment each other and have a lot of protentional to explore.

it's one thing to not like a ship but i've seen a lot of language that i consider problematic and outright anti behavior of labeling something you don't like with dog whistles of incest, grooming, toxic and disgusting when it's in fact none of those things at all. just say you don't ship it and keep stepping.

like, the most popular din ship over the past two years has been dinluke which is a perfectly acceptable ship but in canon they've exchanged like a handful of words in one scene. it's fanon.

the armorer and bo-katan has become a popular ship which is again built on a few interactions.

but somehow din and bo are terrible, no good and gross.

we don't even have canon sexualities for these characters and headcanons are not canon. hell, i personally see din on the ace spectrum and bo makes sense to me as bi but that's my headcanon.

this is also not dean winchester being based of a bisexual character and fifteen years of evidence of subtext or stiles stilinski's bisexual baiting by jeff davis on teen wolf.

i get the desire for more lgbta+ representation in star wars but a heterosexual relationship existing is not your enemy and if you think it is than you are part of the problem.

#my blog #the mandalorian #dinbo #getting spicy today #shipping discourse

[nothingtherefornow]

How will Miraculous Balance Lila lack's of ressources and power compared to Gabriel against the Miraculous Team ?

While surfing on a Miraculous Ladybug Reddit, I found a fan suggesting that Miraculous season 6 may be forced to introduce new super villains that have nothing to do with Lila, because for what little we know, Lila is just no match for Team Miraculous on her own.

Even if her excellents talents as a chameleon and manipulator can allow Lila to create numerous situations to her advantage to trigger akumatizations, and to potentially sow discord among heroes ("divide and conquer" as they say), the existence of magical charms that can now purify akuma in an almost Utopian Paris (and thus filled with a lot more positive emotions than in a previous full of corruptions), and the fact that Ladybug and Cat Noir are now capable of using the cataclysm and the lucky charm to infinity without detransforming put Lila in a serious disavantageous situation.

In the world of Miraculous where magic and the existence of meta-humans/mutants is common place, to introduce new original super villains who would attack Paris and ally themselves with a Chrysalis offering to make them stronger by akumatizing them would indeed be a plausible solution in the future season 6.

The problem for Lila is that according to the latest news, she does not have the same wealth or the same resources as Gabriel. The latter had his secret garden where he regularly harvested numerous butterflies which later became his akuma, in order to never fall stranded and to be able to continue attacking the heroes every day and thus give them very little respite, but also to be able to launch attacks of the scale of the scarlet butterfly.

I am certain that an akuma purified by Ladybug then becomes unusable, and we do not yet know if it is enough for a butterfly miraculous wielder to detransform then retransform so that their cane is always automatically equipped with an akuma if the the latter had just been purified. However, a wielder of the butterfly miraculous acting for good does not seem to have to worry about the same problem, because we saw in the Paris special that Betterfly could use the same kamiko, which he keeps in his weapon, to kamikoze more than one person at a time in a short period of time. Especially since Betterfly's kamiko seems to be fast enough to avoid being purified if Betterfly were to free its allies from their power just before the kamikozed object get destroyed (and in any case Betterfly doesn't have to worry about that. since the Ladybug of his world has become his ally). And in order to be able to create a second kamikozed champion without linking it to the same kamiko as the first, simply lend the butterfly miraculous to an ally so that the latter is also entitled to their own kamiko to use.

However Betterfly also showed us why having only one magical butterfly supplied with his weapon was a big disadvantage compared to Gabriel's akuma garden : the fact that Ladybug was able to find Hesperia by tracking down her only kamiko , which should automatically return to its creator. Gabriel didn't have to worry about his akuma being used to track him, because no purified akuma has ever returned to him, and an unpurified akuma can multiply, or Gabrie himself can certainly break the connection ( in the episode Ladybug, we saw the scarlet akuma turn white again and therefore "purified" after Gabriel transformed).

We do not yet know if the butterfly miraculous will always provide Lila with a new akuma in her weapon each time the previous akuma is purified by Ladybug, or if like Gabriel Lila will be forced to regularly harvest butterflies to make akumas. Especially since with only one akuma at her disposal, Lila could possibly be hunted down, unless she detransforms just in time after each fight. But unless Lila joins forces with Tomoe Tsurugi and asks for her help in creating her own butterfly garden, I don't think Lila won't have the same luxury that Moth/Shadowmoth/Monarch had.

Another fan confirmed that this idea would indeed be the best direction to take.

Although I think Lila will learn to create megakuma very quickly, magical charms can still work against them by being fueled by positive emotions. And as I said above, in the new Paris, positive emotions are likely to be much more widespread than negative emotions in a Paris that is no longer under the reign of a corrupt mayor and his equally wealthy corrupted partners.

This I can only see 4 ways in which Lila/Chrysalis could gain the upper hand over Ladybug and Cat Noir and become a more dangerous threat than Gabriel :

Create an alliance with Tomoe Tsurugi or another supervillain we don't yet know about, and give him access to other supervillain allies that Lila could easily manipulate into becoming her pawns..

Unlock powerful new powers never before seen with the Miraculous Butterfly, until you reach a power, able to counter that of Ladybug's magical charms.

Succeed in stealing miraculous from her future school friends, and even then the task will be difficult because apart from the ladybug, the black cat, the rabbit and the peacock, the other miraculous have changed shape, which could prevent Lila from recognize most of the magical jewels and steal them (unless she manages to discover with her tricks who and who within the miraculous Team)

Reveal to all of Paris the truth about Gabriel Agreste = Papillon/Papillombre/Monarch, and the fact that Ladybug voluntarily hid this truth, with the aim of sowing doubt and discord throughout Paris and within the Miraculous team, thus giving Lila more means to act and turning certain heroes and citizens against Ladybug

Without that I don't see how Lila can become a credible threat to Ladybug and Cat Noir.

This could also explain why Lila mentioned looking forward to meet Marinette again while putting the butterfly brooch on her, yet without mentioning Ladybug (if we assume that Lila doesn't know that Ladybug = Marinette). Maybe this is because Lila should be intelligent enough to understand that the power alone of the butterfly miraculous is no longer sufficient against Ladybug, and Lila must therefore at the beginning have only intended to use the powers of the miraculous against Marinette to ruin her life (what more easy than akumatizing herself into Chameleon or Volpina)

However, let's find out what scared Lila at the end of Re-creation first when season 6 comes out, and figure if it will play an important role in her future role as a butterfly super villain or not

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug season 6 theory #ml season 6 speculation #lila rossi #ml cerise #ml chrysalis #ml hesperia #gabriel agreste #tomoe tsurugi #I made that post in french #so here is the english traduction #ml Betterfly

[futurebird]

"Everyone is beautiful? That's just something ugly people say."

PART I - Basic Social Skills PART II- Objective Beauty PART III - The Hate Trap

WHAT IS GOOD ADVICE When you are trying to improve yourself and understand yourself, when you are looking for answers to questions like "why don't I have more friends?" or "Why is romance so difficult?" it makes sense to look for advice from people who are more experienced and who might help you to understand where to best apply your energy. Good advice is effective advice: effective in the short term and in the long term. Good advice contains a few simple actionable things that you know you can do with a little effort. What about Bad Advice? Bad advice might just feel like its wasting your time, giving you nothing you can really *do* -- But the worst bad advice often sounds like good advice when your first read it. There are simple actions you feel like you can implement. It makes sense. It seems to address your problems-- but then this very worst kind of advice instead makes all of your problems worse and introduces new problems. Sadly some people who write advice for people who have questions about friendship, or romance, people who struggle with social situations, will write advice that's ... almost bad on purpose. The goal is to keep drawing you in and needing more of their advice. This is very common when it comes to advice on insecurity about ones appearance, friendships and romance. You may also encounter "advice" on these topics that ... doesn't really tell you anything and just says "feel good about yourself" this advice isn't actively harmful but it can be annoying and the lack of simple actions worth taking probably causes a lot of people to turn to the bad advice. That's what the title of this essay is about. "Everyone is beautiful? That's just something ugly people say." -- Everyone is beautiful is a nice wholesome idea, but its pretty useless to someone who is convinced that they are ugly and that this is a Big Problem. It's easy to become cynical and think there is nothing worthwhile at all in saying "everyone is beautiful" -- to lean into a shallow way of viewing yourself and others hoping that since you are "doing something" it will help. But in the long run? Your problems will only multiply. ARE YOU UGLY There are many reasons people think they are ugly:

Others have told them they are ugly - Even if the people who called you ugly are "correct" it's still an abusive thing to do to another human.

They compare themselves to remarkably beautiful people who are so good looking it's their job. Not looking like a model or actor is not "being ugly" to say so is hyperbolic and self pity. Most people, even some of the coolest people in the world who lead exciting lives, aren't as good looking as models. When you think "I'm so ugly." stop that thought in its tracks and replace it with a more truthful thought "I'm not so good looking that could be my one and only job. But, really I'm good enough to do the things that I want to do and meet the people I want to meet."

You have something that makes you stand out in your peer group: this could be if you are a different race than most of your peers, or if you are shorter or taller-- Even having red hair in a group of people who don't have red hair can make a person feel like they don't fit in. Even if you don't care much about fitting in on a conscious level-- this out of place feeling can work below the surface and make whatever makes you stand out a little feel much bigger than it really is. Also some of your peers may simply be rude or even abusive (see 1)

You have a distorted self image - this can be a hard one to deal with, and in very bad cases it can become a kind of mental illness. Think about someone you know who good looking and imagine how you'd feel if they said "I'm so ugly." You might want to correct them. You might feel like they are fishing for compliments. You might think they are just exaggerating. But imagine how sad it would be if they really believed this. Every time they'd look in a mirror they would see an ugly person. They would feel self conscious and try to hide perhaps. Now... is there a chance that you might be a little like that? If you looked at yourself from the outside? If this is still a struggle it might be good to try talking to a therapist. You can't keep going around thinking you are ugly when you aren't, it will get on people's nerves if they don't know you well and break their hearts if they do.

You really are just kinda ugly - It's impossible to write a way to test if this is really true or if one of the other items or a combination of the other items might be a better fit. But, it's true that some people have an appearance that other people aren't accustomed to, or they are very far from the average in some aspect of their appearance. And it really makes some things harder because people can be judgmental. If you really are "ugly" maybe the answer is to say "so what?" --So often what people really mean when they say "ugly" is different from what's considered normal. So if you really are ugly? So what? Aren't you still a person who wants to do the things that you care about? Meet people worth talking to? Find romance? (if you like the idea of romance.) There are certifiably ugly people who have lived amazing lives. If you decide to stop looking at your appearance as the only way that you can be likable or happy you can be one of them. And you don't have to say "everyone is beautiful" to make yourself feel better. Each time you find yourself thinking "I'm so ugly." -- stop that thought and think "so what?" instead.

#beauty #being ugly #feeling ugly #advice #life advice #objective beauty #self improvement

[eternal-armin]

susie save your love.

after getting into another fight with your girlfriend, you call eddie to pick you up. reader: masc-oriented. warnings: abusive girlfriend, argument ft. yelling and cursing, intoxication, angst with little comfort. i think a second part may be good but i'll see how this goes <3

your throat was hoarse from the yelling, only growing more irritated as you tried not to cry. everything felt so slow as you shoved through the crowd, eyes blurring, trying to ignore every pair of eyes staring you down. the alcohol in your system didn't help your reaction to yet another fucking argument.

you didn't care. more like you couldn't. you just stumbled your way to a phone, picked up the receiver, and- shaking hands and all- called the all too familiar number.

"i'm doin' something who is this," eddie asked in his typical short-tempered way.

"e- eddie?" you felt so weak. you sounded terrified, trying not to sob after a whole one goddamn word. you had to pause and gasp and force your mouth shut whenever you stuttered.

his voice immediately changed. it made you feel small.

"[y/n], what the hell did she do this time? where are you?"

"i-i'm- i'm at a party. the... the carver house." each word made it both easier and leagues harder to speak. you dreaded the thought of facing him, in complete and utter defeat, because you went back to nicole even after he told you so many times to leave her the hell behind.

"i know where that is. i know- i'll be there in a few. speeding tickets can go fuck themselves. don't talk to her, okay? not anymore tonight." shuffling was audible in the background.

"please- please be quick. please be quick."

you were so fucking pitiful.

"i'll be there before you fucking know it, dude. i swear to fffucking god, i will kill her if i see her." you had never heard such raw emotion in his voice before. even when eddie was your shoulder, your rock, he got angrier and angrier with each passing nicole incident. you couldn't blame him, it just hurt not knowing if he was mad at you or at her.

of course it was at you. you were a crybaby of a fucking man, if you deserved to be called that in the first place. you couldn't stand your ground and instead of facing your problems you drowned them in booze at shitty parties.

tonight your problems faced you anyway. good lord, their glares still bore into your skin like twisting knives. you were intoxicated and sensitive and nicole got all up in your shit about it. she yelled at you and insulted you for the millionth time and you stood there, frightened, like a wounded animal.

you didn't even ask her to stop anymore.

rapidfire honking snapped you out of your daze. with little care, you rubbed your eyes and wiped away the trails from your tears, stood up straight, and took a breath. you wanted nothing more than the world to swallow you up then and there so you wouldn't have to walk through that crowd again. so you would never make your problems worse by drinking again. so you would never see nicole again. so eddie would never have to see you like this or deal with you like this.

this was rock bottom. this was complete and total rock fucking bottom. and the world didn't devour you, so you had no choice but to show your rock bottom to the world.

you re-entered the crowd, keeping your eyes focused forward. each step felt like a long eternity of pressure and pain, multiplied by every beat of your heart. and even though you were at rock bottom, intoxicated and confused and disoriented to all hell, something about this resembled strength. not to you, never to you. but all you wanted was to lie down and never get back up- yet here you were, still managing to be brave enough to show the world the vulnerability you despised.

you didn't see nicole in the crowd. good fucking thing.

you went from shoving through a nauseating crowd to outside, in the crisp and cool air. never before had a breath ever felt quite so refreshing. even beyond your blurry vision, you could see eddie's truck. he leaned into the passenger seat to look at you through the rolled-down window. his expression was pretty indescribable.

if you wouldn't fall, you could've run to his truck and to the safety of him. but you settled for speed-walking, wasting no time getting in.

eddie began to drive while you fumbled with the seatbelt.

"what the hell did she do this time, [l/n]?" eddie white-knuckled the steering wheel, trying to keep himself contained. he was a ticking time bomb of emotion but that wouldn't help you right now.

"what she always fucking does an' i do what i always fucking do, i become a complete and total crybaby because i'm a pussy." your words slurred together, and this time you didn't stumble over your words. you didn't have the right to anymore. all you could do was angry-rant while heavy tears just kept falling.

"you aren't a pussy, you aren't a pussy! you're [y/n], you're my [y/n], regardless of the bullshit she tells ya!" with each passing word, eddie's anger became more clear to you, and who it was aimed at became less clear. "i swear to god, i'm gonna beat her ass. i don't care if i go to hell for it or whatever, i'm going to kill her."

"don't- don't kill her, eddie, please."

"why? you- y-you still fucking care about her, 's that what i'm hearing from you right now?"

"of course i don't, eddie! but it won't be worth it! you really wanna ruin your life because your dumbass friend doesn't know what a goddamn healthy relationship is."

now the hiccups began to set in. they hurt.

"you aren't a dumbass." through gritted teeth he sounded sincere, his voice softer for just a moment. "you're not a dumbass, you- you're incredible. you're incredible! you are fucking everything, you are the world, to so many people! just, please, [y/n], let this be the end. i can't stand seeing you like this, it- it hurts. it hurts, man." with a break of his voice, eddie's schpiel turned more quiet. he spared a glance at you, though it wasn't returned.

now in a more secluded area, eddie parked.

"i-i wanna promise that, ed, but i... i-i can't."

"then stop going to her for shit! talk to anyone else- talk to me, damnit! i'm always here for you, why don't you talk to me?!" eddie turned to face you, looking some strange mix between desperate, exasperated, and pissed off.

"i-i don' wanna lose you, eddie! i don't wanna go to you for something embarassing a-and have you never look at me the same!"

this time, his voice started out quiet. "i.. have looked at you the same way.. for four fucking years, [y/n]!"

"why are you mad at me?!"

"because you waste all your time and attention on her!" eddie forced an airy laugh from his throat. "of course i'm gonna be mad! all i want is for you to give your love to someone better- all i want is your love- and i've wanted it for four fucking years! all i want is you!" his usual eddie cadence was accompanied by a few voice cracks, each of which brought more evident surprise to your expression.

eddie shut his mouth, realization dawning in his eyes at what he just said. silence as thick as storm clouds rested on both of you. his strong gaze faltered and soon ended.

"sorry. sorry, i don't... i don't know, what that was."

"eddie.."

"no, it's really- not my choice to make, actually. it'll be fine. yeah."

"i-i wanna end those four years."

with wide eyes, displaying a hoard of emotion you could not decipher, he looked at you again. those emotions turned into an ache. yearning was more appropriate. and it looked familiar.

good god, you were a terrible fucking person.

"you're drunk, [y/n]."

"i'm not-"

"you're fucking- you're drunk, [y/n], okay? that's fine, it's fine. i can take you home." the last sentence he spoke was laced with voice cracks. to you, it sounded like he was about to cry. you didn't dare speak, but you reached out and grabbed his hand.

eddie knew he probably should've yanked his hand out of your grasp, but it was everything he'd ever wanted. so, instead, he interlocked your fingers, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

"can we... not go to my house," you asked.

"parents?"

"..mn."

probably another bad decision on his part. but eddie didn't want to see or hear about what your parents would do, seeing their son crying and drunk. not like they were the kindest people on the planet.

"sure. yeah, that... that's fine. i can get you set up on the, the couch," he mumbled half-heartedly, glancing at you a few times. glancing at your downcast eyes, the circles beneath them, the red twinge to your cheeks from crying for a little too long. and all of it was strangely beautiful to him. beautiful in a way a depressing painting inspires awe. a pretty catastrophe that he got to see. and maybe got to save.

"thank you for all of this, eddie," you mumbled. your throat was hoarse from the yelling. your voice was soft and scratchy, like fine sand paper.

"don't thank me for this. it's the least i can do, you're... you're my best friend."

it hurt to hear him like that.

#eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson st4 #eddie x reader #stranger things eddie #eddie munson #stranger things 4 #stranger things x gn reader #stranger things fic #stranger things x reader #stranger things #stranger things x male reader #stranger things x you #stranger things x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x male reader #eddie munson x reader