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lastchancestardomm · 1 month

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Weirdos

League Of Villains x Child!Reader

Word Count - 1.7K

Warnings: References to past child abuse. One mild swear word. Found Family League Of Villains. OC-insert. Italics.

Status - Not Beta Read

A/N: Enjoy... *vaguely gestures* ...this. I've fallen back into an obsession, and this is the only way I cope. Asami Gumi, our protagonist, had a mom who fucking killed her dad (but shh that's sensitive). I love the League so much, and I've been rooting for them since they were introduced, so I thought I might publish this after getting back into My Hero. Anyway, some kind of snippet is coming up so watch for that ig.

Just as she stepped into the base, all eyes snapped to her. Their silence was exactly what Asami expected, and she wanted nothing more than to disappear. She tried tilting the baseball cap upon her head down, so that they couldn't see her face, as she meekly placed the plastic bag on the table.

"Sorry I'm so late, here's the– the food. I'm going to go wash–"

A heavy hand came down onto her white mop of hair and she gulped, tears already welling in her eyes.

A grave voice. "What happened to your face?"

Dabi's voice lowering a whole octave is the scariest thing in the world. Asami was left defenseless, silently begging him not to hit her. Because if he hit her, she will cry.

She hiccuped. "N-nothing..."

"That's also not the jacket you left with earlier! Don't you lie to us." Twice adds from across the room. She's not a liar; why would she lie?

Asami hadn't been staying here for too long, and she didn't believe they cared about her other than when she would go get their food.

"Asami," Kurogiri crosses his arms over his chest with a stern look. "Take the jacket and the hat off. Now."

She can't refuse them when they're all piercing her with their murderous gazes like that. They've been nice enough to keep her here, but they're still villains. Still bad people. She couldn't say they didn't scare her in the slightest. Asami was deathly afraid of what they might do when they see what happened to her.

She slowly, and quite carefully, removed the jacket first. Please don't hit me. The action revealed a few scabbed-over cuts and some bruises on her arms, and the small, circular burn scars on the top of her hands. Those were old. Those weren't important.

When met with silence, she took off the cap too; scrunching her eyes shut and preparing for the worst. More tears came to her eyes yet didn't fall.

"What. Happened?"

Asami flinched at Dabi's harsh question. She avoided his eyes, hands fidgeting idly. No! Don't hit me!

"Answer me, kid."

She picked at a scratch on her palm. "I– I got caught in a– in an attack with Heroes. I got a bit–"

"A bit what!?" Twice slams his hand down on the table as Asa jolts. "Your face has a giant sore! What had hit you?"

"Or who?" Dabi questions, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Asami backs away, defensive about the whole situation. You're gonna hit me, aren't you? "It– it wasn't on purpose! Something... uh– hit the ground and went flying at me–"

"You could've gotten hurt worse than that!" Dabi booms at her, stepping closer. "Why didn't you block it in time? Or at least get out of the way?"

She felt herself getting smaller and smaller by the second. Don't yell. It's bad. "I was running, and I heard someone screaming behind me and I wasn't– wasn't paying attention."

"Aw, Dabi, you don't have to be so harsh," Toga prances up behind Asami, and gingerly wraps her arms around Asa's quivering shoulders. "You're being scary again, tone it down a notch." Yeah. Scary.

"Yeah, stupid. You're going to OP on the yelling. No one wants to hear your mouth," Shigaraki pipes up, seemingly unbothered by the whole ordeal and instead choosing to focus all his attention on his handheld console.

Dabi whirls to face him. "What'd you say, Vaseline? How about you say that with your chest?"

Shigaraki stands up angrily, yet minding the console he held, "I wonder what burnt chicken ashes tastes like–"

Shut up! I said you're scary when you yell! Shut up!–

"Enough, you two!" Kurogiri booms out, "There are more important matters than your pointless bickering."

"Yeah! Our poor birdy Asa got hurt," Toga coos, rubbing over the purple-pink mark on Asami's face. She winces when Toga's fingers brush over the sore spot, yet Asami can't bring herself to push her away. She's too afraid of what the consequences might be. "Daww... that's gonna leave a huge bruise for weeks." As if it wasn't already bruising.

"I'm gonna destroy whichever Hero who caused it," Dabi turns back to her. "Who was it? Was it Endeavor? Best Jeanist? Mirko? One of them U.A kids??"

"I– I don't know. I didn't see them clearly," she squeaks. He's really going to kill her now.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T SEE THEM?!" Blue embers spark from his palms.

NO! DON'T HIT ME! PLEASE!

Asami recoils, scarred hands flying up to protect her face. Although, she stumbled back onto Toga, who catches her with a tiny hum of empathy. For a second, it seemed Dabi's rigid expression softened.

"Hey, hey, take it down a few notches," Twice wraps an arm around Dabi's shoulder. "No need to be so abrasive."

"I'm s-sorry I got hurt, I– I'll try to be more careful next time," All the tears that had built up behind her eyes dribbled down her face. She's mortified. She doesn't want to know what happens if they see her crying.

"Aw, look what you did," Twice exasperatedly motions towards Asami's bowed head. "This is what happens when you're such a tsundere– hiding your feelings all the time."

"Come here, Asami," Kurogiri motions to the empty barstool next to Shigaraki. "Let me take care of your wounds."

"But," she blinks back to clear her vision, "I deserved it, didn't I?" Shouldn't I be in trouble? Why didn't you hit me yet?

"Oh shut up, stop being an emo," Toga pushes Asa towards the chair.

She ends up seated at the bar, finally realizing that her ears and non-injured parts of her face were hot with embarrassment. She continues constricting herself inwards, uncomfortable with her surroundings. Not to mention how perplexed she is.

Shigaraki spares Asami a sideways glance, before mashing his buttons nonchalantly. "That's one hell of a bruise, you're gonna look worse than me for a while."

She can't tell from his tone if he's insulting her, trying to make a joke, or failing miserably at an action of comfort. But someone's tone usually always flew over her head.

Kurogiri places a first aid kit on the counter. "I'll do your face first," he pulls out a few cotton swabs and some kind of disinfectant solution. "It may burn," he gently warns.

Twice leans his arm on the other side of her, "What's with that face, Asami? You look worried."

She paused for a moment, looking down at her feet. You guys are going to hit me. But you haven't yet. I'm scared you'll hit me when I'm not looking and make me cry.

"I'm waiting for you guys to do something to me."

The entire room freezes, sent into stunned silence. The air gets tense, sending her into another heart-racing mini panic. You're gonna hit me now! Don't hit me! I'm sorry!

Twice is the first to interrupt the silence. Even the soft hand he places on Asa's shoulder causes her to jump. "I don't know how things were before you met us, or if that's the kind of impression we give," he shoots a look at Dabi, who simply crosses his arms and looks away, "But that's not how we do things. It was an honest mistake. How could you have known that would happen? We're just worried about something bad happening to you."

So you won't hit me? I don't trust that. People always hit me.

She hesitantly looks up. "You– you guys– you won't?–" Asami starts quivering again, getting nervous. She can't believe them. Her mom told her that, too, but still hit her. She should just shut up.

"We promise. No one is allowed to hurt you under our protection." Kurogiri comforts, swirling a cotton swab in the disinfectant.

She perked up at his words. She still was a tad reticent, but spoke. "You mean, I'm not just some kid you have running around doing your chores? I- I'm not annoying?"

"You make it sounds like you're a stray cat or something," Shigaraki comments. "Though, you are usually quiet, and do require a moderate amount of attention..."

"Of course you're not just 'some kid', silly! You're one of us!" Toga's sweater-pawed hands envelop Asami's torso in a hug. "Dabi's just being a meanie because he doesn't know how to show affection. He should still really apologize though,"

"Yeah, Dabi!" Twice adds with a flourish. "Come and apologize to my poor child!" He grabs Asa's head and forcefully pushes it into his hard chest.

Dabi sighs heavily, like a child forced to apologize; rubbing the back of his neck as the two look at him expectantly. "I shouldn't've yelled at you, kid. I didn't know you'd be scared like that."

Toga quirks her brow smugly at him, and Dabi groans. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," It's weird being smothered by a group of housemates who might as well be strangers, isn't it? But somehow, it blooms some warmth into Asami's chest. Silently, a few more unshed tears fall down her face, but no one is worried. She's not worried.

"Alright, you get the first bite of grub," Twice eagerly opens up the bags of food and rips open one of the containers, pulling out some disposable chopsticks to feed Asami.

Kurogiri gently blots at her face with his first aid supplies. "Toga, stop wiggling, you're moving Asami!"

Toga's grip around Asa's waist doesn't loosen at all, in fact tightening, as her face snuggles into Asa's back. "Ey, Twice, it's no fair you get to feed Asami first, I wanna do it!"

It's at this moment when she feels like Dabi and Shigaraki are the most normal out of all of them, until they start bickering over a container of noodles and begin destroying things so Kurogiri needs to reprimand them again. Eventually, the others who were off somewhere else return and the chaos kicks up. Even so, among all the prodding, poking, squeezing, fighting, pulling, bickering, and smothering; Asami wonders if this is what family is supposed to feel like. What a real family is supposed to feel like.

A secret smile only she can see tugs at her lips. Nah, they're just a bunch of weirdos.

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smithsibsceo · 9 months

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long post underneath!

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peanut-tyrug · 2 months

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Smth I’ve realized

If the dead Stitchpunks were to be revived in a 9 sequel movie/show, wouldn’t that ruin the point of the ending?

I feel if the dead Stitchpunks came back, it would make the the ending of the film pointless, as if it just exists without reason to. A scene without purpose, the emotion it was meant to have

I’d love for the five that died to return as much as anyone else, but I feel rather than them being alive, if they were to show up, they could be spirits

I feel the plot of a 9 sequel could be 9 wanting to undo what he did, so like 9: The Savior Returns, but rather than the dead five coming back, they stay dead, but remain as spirits

9 struggles with the guilt of what he’s done and he wants to undo it, but he eventually realizes he can’t. What’s past is past and he can’t change it. The five spirits could tell him that, mainly figuratively. 9 can’t undo what he’s done and he needs to learn to move on, learn to forgive himself for his mistake and open up a new chapter in his life with the other survivors

The spirits and the revived world could be a metaphor for learning to move past the past, understanding that you can’t undo your mistakes, and rather than wallowing in your mistakes, learn to forgive yourself for them and open up a new chapter in your life

I’m conflicted though bc I want the dead five back really bad and I want them all to be a big happy, revived family, but I feel it’d be better storytelling for them not to come back, allowing 9 to truly understand he can’t undo what he’s done, but also forgive himself and learn to move on

#shane acker's 9 #9 #tw long post #tw long text

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gemsofgreece · 8 months

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would love to hear from a real Greek on the subject of Katharevousa. What do you think of it? Are there some conflicting opinions between the older and younger generations on this matter? What is the general Greek opinion? is it simply viewed as an elitist ideology for purists or an inspiring dream to reinstate Ancient Greek? sincerely, a humbly curious non-Greek individual...

Hello, my friend! You bring up an interesting and very complex topic. I would say my opinion on this is less passionate, more moderate than of the average Greek and ironically this also means my opinion might seem edgy to the average Greek!

That is because a majority of Greeks loathe Katharevousa (or what they think it stands for), with older generations being more neutral whereas younger generations can express a very baffling fierce hate towards it, despite never having to study it.

The reasons for this hate are the following:

1. It is harder than Demotic and most Greeks have an allergy at whatever Greek-related presents even the slightest of additional challenge to them.

2. Its existence has been relentlessly and unfairly politicised since the early 20th century, when the historical national and then transformed into political disunity of the Greeks was channeled into many things, including painting those who were positive towards katharevousa as nationalists, fascists and extreme far rights in general.

*The second reason bleeds into the first, in some ways. Young Greeks will unironically say “why should I learn something Greek that needs a little more effort or even slightly resembles something ancient, am I a nationalist or anything?”. That is because the old Great Division of the 20s and the Civil War of the 40s were never actually fully resolved but only passed on through political tensions, and thus somewhat mollified, yet still causing significant problems in the society which are now much harder to explain and find the root cause for, so they seem to appear out of nowhere. This leads to new generations of Greeks opposed to studying properly the Greek history and Greek culture and feeling very proud of their liberal (???) choice until a conversation with a foreigner who appears to know more about them than they do embarrasses them and sometimes gives them a wake-up call. Of course, not all young Greeks are like that, but a lot are.

In any case, I am not saying I prefer Katharevousa to Demotic. I prefer Demotic for the simple reason that it is the organic evolution of the Greek language, influenced by the actual history of the Greeks rather than the history the Greeks wished they had. For this alone, it wins. What I am saying is that Katharevousa does not deserve all the fierce hate and that I would honestly not mind having it used occasionally for whatever reason, just like I wouldn’t mind using any other form of the Greek language for whatever reason. And I do not confuse various forms of the language with various political ideologies, despite others doing so. Which is very much true by the way. During the national schism, Katharevousa was accused as the symbol of royalists, nationalists and conservatives on one side whereas Demotic was accused as the symbol of communists and Venizelists from the other side. In the 20s, Greek schools would change the lingual form taught every time the power changed hands. A tragedy for the students, really.

Katharevousa was originally NOT founded on an elitist ideology but rather on a sentiment of ethnic uprising. The term for this lingual movement first appears in 1796 and thus precedes the Greek Independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was supported by many Greek scholars and influential people of the time, most of all Adamantios Korais. Katharevousa is not an attempt at reinstating Ancient Greek but an attempt of removing all the influences in the contemporary Greek language by an empire Greeks were unwilling and often rebellious subjects of. Katharevousa means exactly that, “getting purified - cleaned”, not going back. Of course, it did not only remove Turkish elements, but Latin and Slavic ones and anything else for which there was an original Greek root and was thus considered redundant. By removing the foreign loanwords from Modern Greek, you automatically bring it to a state closer to Ancient Greek without meaning that it is an actual more ancient form of the language. The Katharevousan grammar certainly tried to resist simplifications and changes taking place in Demotic Greek but it still remained an essentially Modern rather than Ancient Greek grammar. I believe the syntax was also closer to Modern. In the end, Katharevousa was like a very posh, exclusively Greek-root, old-fashioned way to speak Modern Greek.

Which is why I dislike it when the “competition” of demotic and katharevousa is often referred to as “diglossia” which means “bilingualism” or when they are even called different idioms. We are not talking about two different Greek languages here and I am quite baffled when people claim to struggle to understand katharevousa. Honestly, at this point I don’t even believe they really mean it. You see, the level of education nowadays, with all its faults, is infinitely better than what it was at the time when katharevousa was actually taught at schools. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most kids wouldn’t even complete elementary school and then go work to some farmland so it makes total sense for them to struggle to adjust to katharevousa when they were only really communicating in basic demotic in real life. But for people nowadays claiming the same, I can’t take them seriously, I am sorry. Such things are connected. If a student of decent education by today’s standards can’t understand katharevousa, it can only mean they face really fundamental challenges in demotic as well.

Katharevousa did not intentionally marginalize lower social classes within the society itself but the unintentional challenges were inescapable due to the poor level of education I described. In the end, Katharevousa was used by the authors and poets, in the newspapers and later the TV and radio news, in written forms, such as official documents, even in personal letters. Regardless of their level of education, people tried in written form to apply as many katharevousan elements as possible, to the extent of their knowledge. In everyday speech, though, things were different. People would simply talk in the way that came most natural and effortless to them. It’s very interesting that in very old movies, if there is a narrator, you can observe that the narrator speaks in a mild more katharevousa-like form while the actors playing the roles use demotic, obviously because otherwise the ending result wouldn’t be very realistic to the people watching. However, rich Greeks and aristocrats would more often speak in katharevousa too, exactly because they could receive much better education and get the hang of it, inevitably making this a social issue without it ever intending to be one. And then of course it had also the politics of the country imposed on it secondarily, which is a very sad and unfair equation that handicaps Greek progress in all matters.

What happened with Katharevousa and Demotic is not an unprecedented occurrence in Greek at all. This is literally Greek's constant lingual history. It can be observed in Ancient Greek, as the Classical Attic you may have read was in no way identical to the everyday language Ancient Greeks spoke. Throughout all the East Roman / Byzantine Era, scholars would try desperately to retain as many archaic elements as possible, to the growing impatience of the populace. While its full achievement was always doomed to be a lost cause, let’s also acknowledge that the reason Greeks boast about how conservative Greek is for a language so old would not exist, if all those scholars throughout the centuries did not struggle to preserve older elements, and katharevousa’s case is not different. A few of its elements have actually passed to demotic, such as phrases and expressions in the dative, even though this case has been dropped in the Demotic Greek grammar otherwise.

In the seventies, after huge political changes taking place in the country which struggled to finally enjoy some peace and quiet, katharevousa was abolished along with the monarchy and the dictatorship as another sign of nationalism, conservatism, anachronism and so on. In my opinion, a lingual form on its own does not deserve to be vilified like this.

Nowadays, you will hear just about anything as an accusation to prove how evil Katharevousa was. Some say it had “mistakes” because it was an academic process of reshaping the language against its natural, organic evolution. I would consider this, had it not been for demotic also having some funny shortcomings of its own. In case you are wondering what such a shortcoming can possibly be in a language - well, as Greek keeps evolving, some things change first while others stay behind. The elements that stay behind have trouble adjusting for practical or aesthetical or other reasons. Here is one example:

Modern Greek faces a hilarious problem with the verb εκρήγνυμαι (ekríghnime - I explode). It is a verb with a distinct archaic form which is super ugly to a violating degree if you adjust it to the modern Greek conjugation of the simple past. As a result the ancient formation of the simple past is fully retained, which is not irregular but it is hard enough that it appears irregular by modern standards (εξερράγην - exerráyin - no it’s not irregular!). As a result many people might not know it and mess it up entirely by trying to apply modern formations which will earn them mocking later if it's on TV or paper (ie εκρήχτηκα - ekríhtika - can kill you instantly if it comes from the mouth of a journalist) or you are going to see it on their face real-time that they go through the five stages of grief and seven consecutive panic attacks as they try to say “it exploded” without actually saying “it exploded”! Even more hilariously, the screenshot I added shows all the conjugations by labelling them “for scholar use” and it adds another label clarifying that only the third person of singular and plural are actually regularly used (apparently needed when speaking for bombs) and the others are avoided as much as possible. In short, we try not to use the past of a simple verb such as “explode” because we have no idea how to say it because adjusting it to modern is so monstrous that you have no solution other than keeping it entirely ancient, in a phrase otherwise entirely modern! It is actually very funny.

I said all these in order to stress how people trying to find unacceptable “flaws” in katharevousa are hypocritical because if we accept that a concept such as “flaws” is possible in a language, then it does exist in organic demotic as well. On the other hand, it also depends on the speaker. Katharevousa supporters varied in their ferocity and whereas most just kept it at the "purifying modern" object, some others tried to mix it with actual Koine or Attic Greek, undoubtedly causing lingual teratogenesis.

Some last notes: katharevousa is not entirely extinct. It is used by a newspaper, it is the language used by the Churches of Greece and Cyprus and by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, as it resembles more Koine (Biblical) Greek which is their actual sacred language. Some people show it off on internet comments but you can usually (not always) guess their political ideologies which is unfortunate. Ironically though, Modern Standard Greek, which is the common language we speak right now, is according to linguists considerably influenced by the katharevousa in its mixing with demotic. So, standard Greek, even though it derives from Demotic and it is technically Demotic Greek, is closer to Katharevousa than the Demotic of the 20th century is.

Another interesting point is made by Georgios Babiniotis, the currently most prominent Greek linguist. An unlikable guy if you ask me, but I can’t help but agree with this point. Although the polytonic stress system was abolished along with katharevousa with the reasoning that it served no point in Modern Greek, Babiniotis says that this was a mistake, as the monotonic system has surprisingly caused a deterioration of the musicality and correct articulation in Modern Greek. In fact, anyone who knows can go watch kids reciting poems in school and you will realise it is true. I am not putting myself out of this. Sometimes I read something loudly and I think to myself “heck in my mind this sounds so much better, why am I reciting it so poorly?!”. Even though I actually have a perfect articulation up to this stage in my life, my reciting is bland like of most people, while it wasn’t the case at all with the people in the near past. You can hear the difference when you hear actors of the 50s and actors in movies now. Both spoke in demotic, but actors of the 50s spoke much more beautifully on so many levels, including intonation and articulation. This agrees with a post I made recently unknowingly when on my own I realised that the grave accent is actually retained in modern Greek when spoken animatedly or carefully and correctly. I was almost scared to publish that post because I am no linguist but I was excited to see that the -always otherwise unlikable- Babiniotis said this too! Few liked that post - dunno if everyone hated it or it was just a huge post published at 5 am. Or both. Aaaaaanyways, I am linking it here in case anyone has reached so far down and is interested.

To summarise, Katharevousa was the victim of the insane political infighting that is such a trademark of the Greeks. It was founded on ethnical rather than elitist reasonings. It wasn’t trying to exclude anyone even though this might have indeed happened unintentionally. It is still Modern Greek. I don’t believe it should ever eradicate Demotic, however I value its existence and I think it could have a place of application and people should be free to use (within reasonable context) or enjoy it without being vilified or immediately have their political beliefs assumed. I personally find it beautiful but I also find Demotic beautiful, just in different ways. In some occasions I prefer one and in others the other. I enjoy prose and poetry in Katharevousa, it’s bloody beautiful. But use of rich and intricate demotic is also insanely wonderful. Both are great and I genuinely feel this way. I can get behind the reasoning that if a foreign loanword doesn't sound very aesthetically pleasing in the Greek language, it shouldn't be considered weird or eccentric to prefer the Greek-root word and give up on the loanword. I have used this example before, if the loanword is "dudúka", while two Greek-root words of the exact same meaning exist ("tilevóas" and "megháphono"), then why the heck would I want to use "duduka"?! No offense to the language that it comes from, but this word... I mean, come on. It doesn't sound good at all in Greek. Same with the grammar. If someone can use more intricate and complex grammar, why should we immediately blame them for doing what they can do? Come on, guys.

#greece #greek language #languages #linguistics #langblr #language stuff #modern greek #katharevousa #demotic #greek history #greek culture #anon #ask #tw long #tw long text

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genericnam · 6 months

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A Miraculous Ladybug fic that I might or might not write someday:

Marinette centric, long multi-chap

During an Akuma attack, Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth figures out Ladybug’s secret identity (no one else discovers it). Marinette returns from school to Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth standing in front of her burned down bakery, with her parents dead inside.

Thinking fast, and running on adrenaline and hate, Marinette manages to dodge Hawkmoth’s attempts to catch her and she escapes with the Miracle Box, no Kwami lost.

Marinette is left without anywhere to go, too scared to try living with any of her other family members. She begins to spiral, sacrificing her life as ‘Marinette’ in favor of being Ladybug as much as humanly possible.

Regularly pulling all nighters and fueled by the energy boosts of having superpowers, Marinette and Ladybug both are messes. Chat Noir and all of Paris are concerned about Ladybug, and the entire class is worried about Marinette.

When she isn’t paranoidly patrolling the city for days on end, Marinette crashes with Alya, Luka and occasionally Kagami. Her excuses growing weaker and weaker until she just stops bothering trying to explain things, walking out of class whenever she needs to be Ladybug, and climbing through her friend’s windows to sleep on the cots that they don’t even bother taking down anymore.

Marinette’s constant fear and overprotectiveness of the Kwamis leads to her regularly sacrificing her own needs for them, often choosing to give them her meals while she just barely makes due with the scraps she keeps for herself.

Eventually, things would catch up with Marinette, and the class (minus Lila) would realize the full extent of what she’s going through (they thought that she was staying with her grandfather, and she swore Alya and Luka to secrecy), obviously, this will not do, so the class and their parents all pitch in to help her out.

On the superhero side of things, Chat Noir, after figuring out Ladybug’s current situation, becomes even more determined to stop Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth from doing anything more, so that Ladybug won’t live in fear of visiting her own family.

Sooner or later, he and Ladybug take down Gabriel, revealing their secret identities in the process. Adrien is conflicted about his father being Hawkmoth, but after discovering that the man had killed the parents of one of his closest friends/love interest and completely destroyed her mental health, he can’t bring himself to have sympathy.

(On a side note, over the course of the fic, Marinette’s inner monolog slowly stops calling her “Marinette” more and more as she spirals and starts referring to herself only as “Ladybug” and “The Guardian”)

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #tales of ladybug and cat noir #ladybug and chat noir #hawkmoth #akuma #tw long post #tw long text #tw homelessness #fanfic #fanfiction #miraculous ladybug fanfic #au concept

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asherlockstudy · 10 months

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LMAOO!! ok I'm not gonna spoil the R&L video but plspls if you watch it tell us what you think!!

OKAY I have watched it twice now. It is obviously another symbolic work but the first time I was so dumbfounded by all the weirdness that I got like only a couple of symbolisms. The second watch was more fruitful. So let's get to it!

The Brown Diamond

First of all, the moment we got the title and the teaser I knew this would have potty humour and that, also, it would be about anal again.

The standing doggystyle in the beginning is fun but does not have a significance in the story. However, since the title is "The Quest for the Brown Diamond" it might be an attempt to create a subconscious connection between the two.

It is interesting that the very next scene sort of subverts the expectations formed from the previous one: Rhett is a very awkward and reserved, shy, gentle, intelligent man with many phobias, Horst, whereas Link is Sandy, a loud, crude, angry but good hearted man, with an established interest in women. They seem like total opposites of the characters they play, however there is truth hidden in them i.e Rhett is an introvert and he can be gentle and intelligent and Link can be angry and loud despite being a good person. I don't understand what was exactly the concept behind making the characters diverge so much from Rhett and Link in other aspects. Perhaps it was a red herring.

Whatever they said in the end, there is no more genuine statement of affection than "You look weird as hell...... but you always do".

Horst says he has this hair to have a form of natural shield and this might give as a hint as to why Rhett's character has so many phobias and puts up so many defenses; maybe it's about all the things he considered sinful and unacceptable when he was still in the faith.

The whole quest to essentially steal the diamond is Sandy's initiative and passion, while Horst simply follows because that's what he does, he follows Sandy. This might explain Sandy's assertiveness; by every allegorical work of theirs we have seen before it is implied again and again that Link (perhaps counterintuitively) was actually the pursuer of their relationship. Don't forget Carney in Friday's GMMore freaking saying that Link was Romeo between the two, whom Stevie had just described as an extrovert who pursued his relationship with Juliet! And that was the last episode before this video! Isn't all this...WILD? This also suggests that at this point a lot of the crew members know.

Horst opens tentantively the door and Sandy sarcastically says: "Look, Horst contributing already to the project!". They get in the mansion, where Sandy decides to rub himself on every single surface while Horst watches scandalized. The one time poor Horst tries to mimic Sandy, he realises he was trying to rub on a cherub which obviously kills his mood again. So this is likely about how much Link had to "throw himself out there" to make this work and how hesitant and scared Rhett was in the beginning.

By the way

Of course.

This gives me Rhett mixing his words flashback and saying "Link McLaughlin". Except this here is intentional. Then again someone could say best friends and branded business partners could do that too. However, with all the other stuff here, we can suspect this is not that simple of a case.

Horst pumps them both up with energizing food for the quest and it might be associated with the whole theme of the puzzle video, where it was implied they needed some... assistance in their first times. Sandy has to eat some seaweed, an experience he describes as "cunnilungus with the ocean" and Horst eats a sausage wrapped in bologna, which is the point where he breaks character a little, as Rhett apparently finds this too amusing! This all means that the energizing food scene though is heavily sex-coded.

After a straightTM moment, when Sandy builds up the courage to ask his ex-stepson (Tanner? Tunner?) if his mom still thinks about him, he starts looking for the diamond. He mentions he was looking at his Nana's drawers when he was young but then he asks this to be cut from the film as he doesn't want people to think that about him, which means this too is suspicious and in this case it probably implies he was exploring his feminine side. Ironically, this was also mentioned in the last GMMore, when Link asked for a few more years before he starts dressing like Miss Pingy...!

Meanwhile, Horst doesn't look for the diamond but gives as an empathetic, admiring, caring and loving description of Sandy. Yes, Sandy is frantic, angry, a brute but Horst sees through him and understands why he is the way he is. Sandy's childhood is similar to Link's to some extent.

Sandy follows and gives a shorter but emotional description of Horst: he stands out, he is a little weird but he is good and smart. Sandy also establishes he is protective of him and warns the stepson to not hurt Horst.

AND THEN OF COURSE THEY BROUGHT UP THE PUZZLE ARRYFFUJBIOGD Sandy even has a tattoo of the notorious puzzle piece, while Horst keeps it in his bracelet of things he fears and loves. (If you don't know what the deal with the puzzle is please read this).

Horst finds a guitar and starts playing a sweet song... so sweet that it is literally called

Sandy, much like real Link every time Rhett sings and plays music, stops his frantic search and listens hypnotized to Horst's playing. He joins him by the fireplace and they sing together. It is very sweet, very domestic. When the song ends, the silence between them is heavy and uncomfortable but full of warmth. Sandy asks Horst how he is feeling and Horst admits he is still scared. Sandy, pensive but respectful, decides that they should go, as apparently this whole thing isn't working out for them. He expresses regret for dragging Horst into this.

But, lo and behold! At the last moment, Horst finds a secret door and is suddenly the more excited one who reminds Sandy of their quest. In this secret room, they find a video recorded by the deceased owner of the mansion and the diamond, who gives instructions on how to get the diamond. The quest is bound to a riddle and this riddle IS THIS ONE:

To be shared between three, the heart must not be free but the damage is done if the heart is given to one.

Get it? If you have to give your heart to other two, your heart is not free, but then again when the heart is given to THE one only, that's when shit hits the fan (well literally in this video).

Can you believe it? Can you believe this is the story of these apparently extremely romantic middle-aged Southern youtubers?

The heart, the diamond, is of course inside Bahau moon, a three-ass artifact. Reminds of "the way to a woman's heart is through a worm's / woman's anus".

Sandy and Horst hear noises from upstairs and it appears Brandy, Horst's best friend at work, was trying to steal the diamond before them. And that is because Horst told her their secret as “he tells her everything”. What does Brandy symbolizes? Horst loves her a lot as a friend and keeps no secrets from her, Sandy is antagonistic to her. Sandy gets his hand in this ass first and competes with her for the diamond. Horst follows hesitantly again. They realise neither can win over the heart and all be happy. So Horst implores them to all lay off the heart diamond. In fact, Sandy has grabbed the heart and agrees to let it go only if Brandy promises to also not stick her hand to the ass again. Sorry for suggesting this...but can Brandy be a wife, like Jessie? Once they are all out of the Bahau moon and safe, Horst realises that his "phobias and loves" bracelet is dropped inside the artifact. He begs the other two to get inside the Bahau moon once more so he can retreive his bracelet. This might be associated to Rhett always having this pattern that he wants this to stop, to prevent it but then he is the one falling back to it (check Hazel where he tries to save Link but then Hazel takes him first and in the dig-a-hole video where he pulls Link out of his enjoyment only to later suggest a larger hole than Link did and drive the excavator himself). Horst really begs Brandy, tells her to do it for the sake of their “old good memories” together. This whole thing reminds me of that time Rhett was bringing up a lot that his marriage had gone through a milestone, that he and Jessie had had a very big and serious talk that changed but also supposedly “strengthened” their marriage. And then once Link let it slip that he was present during that serious talk of the couple, which one would expect would have happened privately.

Brandy betrays them, takes the brown diamond and leaves them. The Bahau moon starts releasing toxic gas. Sandy tells the camera man to save himself. The camera man still records Sandy and Horst's last moments from outside the window. As they are dying, they hold hands with their still free hand. Sandy asks forgiveness for everything but Horst does not hold anything against him. Before he takes his last breath, Sandy tells Horst he loves him. They die there, trapped forever. This ending resembles Hazel a lot, where they disappear forever in Hazel's forest. In Hazel, Link was also trying to tell Rhett he loves him before what he thought would be their last moments.

This gives the riddle another dimension, because in the end Sandy and Horst remain with their One, meaning each other, also stressed by the love confession, and this kills them. It is perhaps suggested that Brandy (a wife?) got her heart back and went on with her life, while they can't do the same. They stay trapped with the love that kills them.

And here's another ANON I got, I hope they read it cause I am answering here:

Thanks a lot for telling me!!! Yes it doesn't surprise me one bit. The ending is supposed to have that despair and melancholy of always staying trapped, hidden. Just like Hazel. Very interesting that it was braver before the cuts. Perhaps they thought it would make it too obvious? But, too little is obvious for A LOT of their fans, right? I also don't understand, do they actually want people to pick up on it after all, or not? They confuse me so much.

Unless the few of us still imagine all that stuff lol never in my life before have I seen friends act like that but the funniest thing is that I haven't seen people in love act like that either! Will we get an autobiography from them in the distant future, I wonder? Because we should.

#rhink #rhett and link #randl #r&l #r&l videos #the quest for the brown diamond #long text #tw long text #tw long #tw long post #mythical #anon #ask #mail

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waywardsunlight · 2 years

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I really like that despite Hunter’s disability not directly representing anything in the real world (not talking about his PTSD bc that does) it still feels real. Hunter is excluded from being able to get an education, he’s treated as lesser than his peers, and he’s seen as somebody who gets special treatment when he’s given help despite that help is just catching him up to everybody else.

It really reminds me of how people with ADHD + Autism are treated IRL (especially because there are some hints that he is one or both). He has to work way harder than everyone else to mask how he’s different. He’s automatically seen as less valid because he’s disabled and instead of helping him, the people around him enforce the social standards that they conform to. And Hunter isn’t aberrant to what he is (not that it would be wrong for him to be), he’s at this disadvantage entirely due to how society decides to incorporate him. There’s nothing wrong with Hunter, there’s nothing wrong with people who have Autism or ADHD. The conditions he’s struggling with are manufactured in a sense by the expectations and conformism of the Boiling Isles. Hunter is fine, it’s the society he lives in that pushes him down and forces him into the situation he’s in at the start of the show. His disability is real but there’s an active attempt to force him to conform when he can’t.

Belos very directly takes advantage of that disability giving him the whole “nobody is going to help you, only I will so you have to stay with me or you won’t survive” vibe, very similar to how real abusers take advantage of disabled people. Hunter makes this very clear in Hunting Palismen, he can’t leave Belos despite wanting to make his own choices because Belos holds all the power + the tools that Hunter needs to survive in the Boiling Isles. There are alternative ways for Hunter to survive but Belos blocks Hunter’s path to them because he wants to control him. Hunter getting a new support system + new ways to cope was a huge step in his ability to leave Belos.

This is also the one thing I feel a little icky about with Darius, because he does very directly voice the opinion that Hunter is less than because he’s disabled. I don’t think it’s true that he feels that way, I think he was just trying to hurt Hunter or get him to leave him alone in that moment and was caught up in his own emotions and the act he was playing but it was super shitty of him. It’s clear he doesn’t care later and it was never an issue for him, but that doesn’t change how it hurt Hunter in the moment.

Honestly this aspect of Hunter is why I love him so much. I really related to that part of him and I think both he and Eda are really good characters as well as characters who echo the experiences of disabled people (and Eda is disabled for real now oop). I also love that neither of them get “cured”, I will forever love that scene in Knock Knock Knocking on Hooty’s door where Eda realizes that the elixir helps her come face to face with her disability, it’s so good 💕

#the owl house #toh spoilers #toh #toh speculation #disability #tw abelism #hunter #hunter owl house #hunter wittebane #long post #tw long text #tw long post

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rayman-chibi · 7 months

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What is one head-canon you really REALLY like but don't actually want it to be canon?

I'll go first (TW Long rant about Rayman being trans and people not liking it)

As you may know, I was one of the first known Rayman artists to make the head-canon that Rayman is transfem, (which is ironic considering how manly Rayman is in his games like 95% of the time, but y'know, some transfems might have actually been like that before their eggs cracked, sometimes maybe even after to repress their gender dysphoria (not to be personal though -v-'))

When I first posted the drawing of Rayman holding the transfem/gender-fluid flag, I first thought that this would get me banned from the faces of Tumblr, Instagram, even Twitter (ESPECIALLY Twitter) just for making some video game character who's canonically male to have a more feminine gender... but surprisingly, people were cool with it. In fact, some people actually encouraged me to keep going with this head-canon. So I did. I've been showing off this head-canon to Tumblr and Instagram (mainly Tumblr), with other artists praising me for the stories I make with this head-canon, but this got me thinking at one point, "how would a more public audience react if this were canon?"

Now, this is where the second part of the question comes into play, because as much as I like the idea of Rayman suddenly realizing that he was an egg all this time and coming out to everyone he knows- his friends, his family, even his own worst enemies- that he's a trans woman/transfem and everyone just accepting it and even helping on defending him whenever some random person makes transphobic remarks to him... I'm kinda paranoid that this would hurt the series and the creators of said series as a whole.

So far, I only have one reason, but it's a reason to keep in mind, and that's the fact that there is a possibility this would end up in a situation similar to Snapdragon from High Guardian Spice or Bridget from the Guilty Gear series, with people getting angry at the creators of their respective series and even sending... pretty gruesome threats towards them. The only main difference is that while with Snapdragon and Bridget, when they were being feminine, it seemed to be a part of their characters and it's also what helped them grow to realize about themselves, with Rayman... well, what about Rayman?

As I've stated before, Rayman hasn't been very effeminate in the games; there was a time in a Hoodlum training video where we supposedly saw him dressed up as a ballerina for a few seconds and another time in the Raving Rabbids series where he dressed up as a grandma as a wearable costume... but that's just it. That's all the real explicit potential there is to make him a transfem. The effeminate aspect of him has been pushed aside by the creators and people brought those examples back up just to go, "oh meh gerd, look at how silly this is! Haha femboy go brr".

Now, again, it is possible for transfems to go through a masculine phase before realizing that they're trans, but this is a fictional character someone made and publicized who can't even talk much about their problems to you directly and therefore can't defend themselves from the many brutal messages coming from those who were fans of them we're talking about here, so the problem then is how people are going to react, and we all know how people had reacted to fictional characters going from effeminate men to trans women so suddenly.

It's also possible that that won't happen, but it still might because I'm kind of scared that the internet as a whole wouldn't learn their lesson and just dunk on Rayman of all people for being written to come out as trans, drowning out the actually accepting people who would come to those same terms.

I'm just gonna tell you right now that at the end of the day, this is just a fictional character, we and the original creators can do whatever we want with him (except make him into too much of a horrible person for either the stupidest of reasons or for no real reason at all), we can even call him a "her" if we so please, that is all.

Thanks for reading (if you've made it to this point at least)

#rayman #rayman chibi #it's text. it's all text.#transfem #head-canon #tw transphobes #tw long text

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moontheyo · 2 years

Text

Let's talk about sensory issues for a bit

So I saw a video on someone talking about getting mad about people not liking smelly foods, which has inspired me to make this post. PLEASE note this is not hate, canceling, or me calling this person an ableist in any way. This is just me respectfully disagreeing and putting my take out there as an autistic guy with sensory issues, especially when it comes to food. I will not say the person's name or name of her YT channel for reasons.

So to start of: What are sensory issues??

Sensory issues(sensory processing) are basically any oversensitivity or undersensitivity of any of the 5 external senses: touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste, as well as the 3 internal senses: proprioception, vestibular, and interoception. It's something alot of people, especially neurodivergent people, have.

Sensory overloading can cause uncomfort, sickness, overstimulating, and so on, while undersensitivity can cause someone to seek more sensory of any kind. Some people have one or the other, and others can have both. It's not something that should be shamed, but rather it is something that should be understood, which is something society has trouble with.

In the video, someone talks about hating that people don't like smelly foods, and thinks they're missing out on something great if they don't try it.

This is common for neurotypical or people who just don't have sensory issues in general to think. And while it is understandable that trying new things can be a good thing, that mindset is also kinda harmful for us. We would LIKE to try new things if we wanted, but sometimes we can't help it if we get uncomfortable by a certain thing.

For example, I don't like cold meat. I don't like the smell it could have and I don't like the texture. It always leaves me feeling nauseous or stiffened up. I always love my meat warm or hot. Because of that, I don't eat sandwiches that have cold deli meat in it. It's not something I can control. It's just been a thing for me.

And while I understand her explaining that her culture involves fermented foods and how her and her family have enjoyed it, not everyone will feel the same way. No matter what.

Alot of people look down at us for something we can't really control and call us "picky eaters", and most of the time, it hurts. We don't mean to be, and I wish more people would understand that.

So how can I understand people with sensory issues more?

Talk about it with them(if they want to). Try to understand where they're coming from and don't shame them for it.

From there, maybe even recognize or know what certain things they don't enjoy or may need more of from any of the 8 senses.

Research is important. Look for any reliable sources to understand sensory issues a little more(Do not get your research from Autism Speaks).

Even if you can't fully understand or get where that person is coming from, the best thing to do is just support them, and know it's not their fault.

That's all I wanted to talk about. And again, this is not me accusing this person of being ableist or canceling them. This is just me bringing something to light. If you know who is this person is in any way at all, please do not send hate or harassment to them.

Thanks for reading :)

Links for more info about sensory issues:

X X X X

#tw long post #tw long text #sensory issues #sensory problems #sensory #sensory processing issues #neurodivergent #neurodivergency #autism #actuallyautistic #actually autistic #adhd #sensory processing sensitivity #important #long post #tourettes #dyspraxia #anxiety #ptsd

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agent-toast · 20 days

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Varian is actually bi.

reference to this post

thanks for the ask! i have heard that varian's bi, and while i'm not too sure whether that's canon, i do think it makes sense even with just the show and not vat7k.

what i'm not sure about is whether he's both biromantic and bisexual, since those are two different things.

when people say 'bisexual' or 'bi' they usually mean both biromantic and bisexual for convenience's sake, but this doesn't always mean that the character is not on the ace or aro spectrum (so yes when you say bi it could also mean aromantic bisexual)

if anyone knows whether varian is confirmed both biromantic and bisexual (preferably with evidence), that's cool to know and i won't hc him as asexual anymore.

but right now i hc him as biromantic asexual, having not heard anything about him canonically being bisexual. though i don't really do anything about the romance side of varian cause

-i'm not very interested in vat7k

-therefore varian is still like 15 or 16 in my head ie a minor

-also ships are kinda boring to me :(

-and i personally can't see varian with anyone (again, do not know anything about vat7k and do not intend to)

by the way, for those who don't know what being asexual means, here's a summary from an aroace person (cut cause it's kinda long and may have some sensitive stuff)

people on the ace spectrum generally feel some level of not being sexually attracted to anyone. this differs among people, hence stuff like grey, demisexual, etc.

you can be asexual and enjoy sex-related content. you can be asexual and despise that kind of stuff. you can be asexual and indifferent to it. none of that makes you any less asexual. to be on the extreme end of asexuality, ie to not like anything sexual in almost any way, does not make you 'more asexual' than someone who is ok with sexual stuff but, for example does not like actually doing it.

being asexual has nothing to do with romance. you can be in love with someone and not do anything sexual with them.

(written by a romance-indifferent/adverse, sex-repulsed aroace!)

thank you for reading!

#varian tangled #varian tts #asexual #sorry about how long this was #tw long text #i tried to paragraph split it #i'm assuming this ask doesn't come from aphobia #it doesn't seem like it is #maybe it's misunderstanding and/or they don't know what asexual means #i mean i myself am not sure whether varian's canonically bi in the show #i also don't know whether vat7k is canon #so i may be missing a lot here #if they don't know what asexual means or something similar then i hope my explanation was enough :)

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ijusthavesomanyblorbos · 10 months

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rotb

hi guys. so i saw rotb. unfortunately i fucking hated it. lemme talk about why. (spoilers, obviously. be warned this is very long.)

first of all, lemme preface this by saying two things. number one being i did not have high expectations for this movie in the first place. because lets be honest, this is the transformers fandom, and hollywood has almost never done us justice. also, the trailers and teasers weren't exactly encouraging. number two being i am a huge fucking movie nerd. okay. i love movies. so just keep that in mind.

i think it's worth pointing out that my number one critic of this movie is that for almost the entire runtime, it's something worse than bad: it's boring.

i mean, how do you make giant robots boring??? how is that even possible? let's unpack that.

first of all, it has the most generic, cookie cutter action movie plot ever. we have to get the.... thing! you know, the thing! and we have to do it before the.... other guys! who are working for the BIG guy! and if we don't... the world will end! wahhh!

how is anyone supposed to be invested in that. there are no stakes. there's no tension. there's nothing. we've literally seen this exact plot played out one million times. THERE'S NOTHING NEW!!!

furthermore, the characterization of literally everyone is dogshit. the villians are bland, and have absolutely no motivation behind "darkness and evil." that's NOT INTERESTING!! there's no backstory! i literally could not even tell you the NAMES of the three main antagonists that are on the screen for half the movies runtime. that's how unimportant they are.

and god, the autobots are even worse. first of all, optimus prime and mirage are the only actual characters. i can't remember a single line any other robot says. not one.

but optimus is so under-hyped. they claim he's some big warrior (optimus primal even goes "i'm named after you") but we don't get ANY backstory. we don't know anything about cybertron, or the war, or even what the hell they're doing on earth. we know they "crash landed 7 years ago, and haven't been able to get off since". and they "have to get back, or cybertron will be destroyed!" do they ever tell us WHY cybertron might be destroyed? NOPE!

now we, as an informed audience, can reasonably assume it's because of the war.

but.... what??? friends, the decepticons are never even MENTIONED.

lemme repeat that. the decepticons are never. even mentioned. SO WHY WOULD ANY AUDIENCE BE INVESTED IN THEM RETURNING TO CYBERTRON? THERE'S NO STAKES!!!

back to the autobots though. also mirage is just annoying. he's literally just a"POP CULTURE REFRENCE" machine. that's it. that's all he does.

i... i can't even address what happens between him and the human guy (literally can't even be bother to remember his name) in the finale. i can't. i need to leave that alone or we'll be here all day.

god, i have so many things to say about this movie i need to speedrun a couple okay let's go

humans. boring. why are these movies about giant robots so determined to shove human characters in our faces they DON'T COMPARE EVER!!! the two humans are? fine? but the dude is literally just hero fantasy and the girl is. unimportant. nothing in this movie is important. you could cut any of them.

the action. mediocre. impossible to enjoy when "GENERIC ACTION ONE LINER!" is being crammed down your throat literally every five seconds.

why did the movie market so heavily with arcee wheeljack and bumblebee. they literally have like 15 total lines of dialogue. i can't express to you how much they don't matter.

and you know what. all of that could have even been forgivable. if they had just bothered to put some classic characters in there, with classic character designs, and make a product that actual fans could at least appreciate in aesthetic/homage, if not writing!

but they didn't. they used random ass characters who NOBODY cares about and gave them all SHIT designs too!

and it's so tragic when you consider all the amazing source material that they have to offer. i mean, i have been begging for YEARs for a movie set on prewar cybertron following megatron. the political conflicts and class wars! the origin of megatron is literally the MOST INTERESTING PART OF HIS CHARACTER! BUT IT HAS NEVER A SINGLE TIME BEEN ADDRESSED! HE GETS REDUCED DOWN TO BIG MUSCLE SCARY GUY WHICH IS LITERALLY!!!!!!!!!!!! THE VERY THING HE REBELLED AGAINST!!!!!!!!!! ITS THE WHOLE FUCKING REASON FOR THE WAR AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

can you tell i have a lot of feelings about this. wow. okay this is so long. i'm sure nobody's acutally read this far. alright. what's left.

what'll i'll say is this.

there is literally no appeal to this movie. NONE. it isn't watchable as a fun, transformers piece come to life. it's not watchable as a quality action movie. hell, it isn't even worth a hate watch!!!!!

and somehow. some fucking how. it is still the second best transformers movie. OUT. OF. SEVEN.

friends. how is this possible. how could this have happened.

to all the fan creators making fan art and writing of this movie. you guys are fucking heros, alright. you are taking this incomprehensible garbage, and making actual art. you guys make this franchise worth staying in. thank you, and i wish someone put you guys in charge instead of MICHEAL. FUCKING. BAY.

in conclusion. fuck hollywood. someone give money to the people who actually care about this franchise. or i'll die.

thank you and goodnight.

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lastchancestardomm · 5 months

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A Real Family

Mercenaries x Teen!Reader

Word Count - 2.5K

Warnings: Child Abuse. Swearing. Fluffy Found-Family Mercenaries. OC-insert. Written accents.

Status - Not Beta Read

A/N: Remember that post I made about the Mercs bullying Teufort citizens? That's how long this big boy was cooking. This is my brain slop served on a silver platter for all to see. This isn't a reader insert, just my 16-year-old TF2 oc Ana Ivanova (who was pushed out of a helicopter into Snakewater but shhh we don't talk about that). The translations for the Estonian words are in the replies of this post. As for Ana's lore this is just the tip of the iceberg lol.

The cool Estonian air poured into the room like a wave lapping on the shore of a beach. So sudden, yet so common. Ana flipped over in her bed, the créme-colored, thin fleece blankets hand-knitted by her late mother wrapped around her. Ana squinted through the dark, and saw the silhouette of her sister's grinning face in her doorway.

"Hei, sister! Today, it's your turn to help me string the nets and catch us some breakfast!! C'mon, get up and put on a smile, unekott!" Maria chimed, her voice falsely inviting.

Ana's stomach grumbled under her blankets at the mention of breakfast. Last night, Maria sent her to bed with no dinner because she gave her lip. Ana leaned up on her elbows, back popping as she squinted up at her smarmy sister. Maria rushed her, like a cat pouncing on its prey, her hands gripping Ana's arms, and Maria hauled Ana out of her safe and comfy bed.

"Hei! Mida-"

"Ei! No cuss words," Maria sternly reminded her, hooking arms with Ana and dragging her from her bedroom to the kitchen.

The two siblings skipped down the hall, as the oldest of them was in the kitchen brewing some hot tea. Little Olev was cradled in his arms, wrapped in another white fleece blanket that was hand-knitted by their mother.

"Tere, Alex!" Maria said in a sing-song voice, greeting her older brother.

She sighed. "Tere, Aleksander– tere, little Olev," Ana hastily greeted. Maria whacked the back of her head. Ana made a groan, as her brother's sweet-as-honey smile faltered slightly.

Maria kissed the top of Ana's head to ease Aleksander, and she skipped over to kiss her older brother on the cheek, as her littlest sibling made a tired noise of distaste. Twirling playfully, she yoinked a black, furry coat off the coat rack and began buttoning it. Ana simply stared at her display.

"Mida? You're fourteen, you can get the coat yourself. Now, hurry! Before I do it all and you'll get nothing to eat!" Maria benignly threatened in her sisterly voice. Ana flinched when Maria's hand raised to exaggerate the "nothing to eat".

Ana nearly tripped over her socked feet; drunkenly stumbling to the coat rack to grab the slick maroon coat. The soft, rabbit fur lining slipped over Ana's lanky arms. The shiny zipper cocooned Ana in her coat, and throwing on her boots she grabbed the ice drill and a cup of bait on the key stand. Maria smiled at Ana and pat her on the back, Ana recoiling from the action.

The sisters rushed outside into the snowy Estonian grass. It was near ethereal. The sky was silver, as frost twinkled on every blade of grass. Powder snow rained down like it always did in the morning, and Ana sped out after her sister for the frozen lake.

Stepping onto the ice, and seeing the imprint of her boots on the thin sheet of snow covering the lake, Ana smiled. Maria did a whistle for Ana to come near, and she stomped on a soft part of the ice where all the small fish were. It was never a lot, but it was enough to feed the four of them.

Ana set the drill down onto the heart of the crack Maria made by stomping on the ice, and slowly rotated the drill-tip in her hands. The ice was already pretty thin, so when Ana pressed the side button meant to punch a hole in the ice, she accidentally dropped the drill into the cold water.

"Mida kuradit?!" Maria screamed at her. That drill was hand-made by Aleksander and their father, back when Maria was little. Her papa always held the family drill in high value, and so Maria did too. To lose the drill felt like losing a 10,000 quid lottery.

"Ma- vabandust!" Ana pleaded. Maria grabbed Ana's dirty blonde hair, teeth gritted in contempt. Maria yanked on Ana's hair firmly, to twist her away; and Ana fumbled on her feet when she was spun, so she slipped and fell face-first onto the ice.

Maria fell with her, but she caught herself on her knees. Ana was laid out on the ice like a dead body, as her older sister glared down at her with empty eyes of hate. Ana's neck craned back, and her face was bashed against the ice.

Again and again, Maria continued to pound Ana's face into the ice 'till she bled. Her eyes were filling with blood from cuts on her forehead– her sister fading into the red, blurry void.

Eventually, the ice broke; Ana's face heading into the water below. She screamed, bubbles of air gurgling out of her mouth. Her head flew up, freed, and she was flashed with sunlight. Her achy arms lifted her up on silky, gray-brown sand. The sky was a gentle blue, and calm waters tickled her wrists. The rocky outcrops were rounded, warm, and soothing.

At least until the screaming came. Men, screaming. Explosions turned the once-gentle sky orange, and all the white puffy clouds in it dispersed into black smoke. A bullet bounced off a rock beside her, chipping it and turning it jagged. Then. The worst part of it all. Had to be Maria's laughter. It came from the loudspeakers. It made Ana's ears ring. Maria's fucking cackling.

Ana's hands rushed to cup her ears; to make the vexatious, awful laughter go away. It was deafening, and made Ana's head pound. She screamed, and she screamed and she screamed to make it go away.

As she screamed for Maria's stupid laughing to go away, people calling her name emerged, and it got louder and louder with the laughter too. "Ana! Ana! Ana!" it was like a bunch of different voices were speaking all at once. Her eyes squeezed shut against her will. This didn't feel nice. Make it stop. Make it quiet. Shut up. Stop it.

"Stop." she sorely, and quietly mustered at first. But the voices kept coming. "Stop!" she demanded, eyes now open and pouring unshed tears. But the voices continued to get more anxious. "Stop it!" she screamed. But they kept coming.

"STOP!"

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Ana's eyes fluttered open, and she wasn't on the hellish battlefield anymore; rather, on a couch. A red couch. A man in a white doctor's coat was level with her, on his knees; his icy blue eyes locked with Ana's turquoise ones.

A breathy, Estonian "Ah?" lazily left her lips in a yawn.

The hands on Ana's face were not hers, trying to block out the laughs; but rather the man's, whose soft thumbs were wiping away tears. Her world seemed fuzzy, but slowly, she could make up the words flying around her.

"Ana? Mein Kind, vake up," Medic was saying. An expression of worry was worn on his face. Others were also trying to coax her awake. She felt herself trembling on the couch, now aware of someone's arm wrapped around her.

"Medic?" Ana asked quietly. He nodded, and Soldier and Pyro were now shushing the others. "Mis juhtus?" she asked looking around, accidentally slipping into her mother-tongue.

"Jou fell asleep betveen Heavy und I," Medic started, the arm around Ana belonging to Heavy. The large Russian was looking down at her, his worry also evident. "Jou started vhimpering und tvitching. Vhen jou started crying ve all tried vaking jou up," Ana was suddenly aware of all the eyes on her; every Merc staring her down with a concerned look.

"It was just a nightmare, I'm fine, really!" Ana said, trying to nonchalantly shrug it off. A shaky breath trailed her words.

"Kiddo, no one should be actin' like dat when sleepin'," Scout stated.

"Oui, Scout is right. What was zhe dream about, chérie?" Spy asked from his spot next to Sniper.

She shook her head, "It doesn't matter, I'm fine now," Ana said, attempting to reassure them. It seemed to only worsen their state, though. Medic took Ana's hands, holding them, opening his mouth to begin to speak when Engineer cut him off.

"Yah weren't dreamin' 'bout her again, were yah?" he asked. Ana's eyes guiltily fell to her hands, an obvious yes.

"Roo, yah left that sheila behind the day yuh fell into Snakewater," Sniper said, sighing. His head dipped low, solemnly, but he straightened back up when Ana spoke.

"My brother... he didn't even try to look for me," she said, feeling the salty tears drip down her face once more. "He didn't even try."

"Ana." Heavy stated suddenly. "Look at Heavy vhen he iz talking to you." She did as he told, meeting his eyes. Heavy's grip on her tightened. "It iz better dat he did not." he said. "You are happy vis us, да? Happier than you ever been?" Ana nodded at all his questions, taking her hand from Medic's to wipe away still-wet tears. "You should not care about her."

"She treated yah like crap! She was messin' with yer family so she could hurt yah wit'out no one questionin' it! Now tha' is no way tuh live," interjected Demoman, shaking his fist. Soldier patted Demo on the shoulder in agreement.

"Ana?" Scout, almost somberly, asked. Ana looked over at him; he was holding his hat in his hands, and his headset was around his neck with his short brown hair ruffled. "Did... did any of 'em evah tell yah dat they loved yah?" When she shook her head, a no, the temperature in the room seemed to increase.

Their combined anger could've rivaled Ana's late father. A lot of them were muttering curses under their breath. "But none of them needed to! Alex kept the roof over my head and Maria was keeping food on my plate; it was all just peachy!" Ana was shushed by Heavy.

"Ana. Zhose are her words, not yours," Spy said. "Zhat is not love. Zhat is what caretakers legally 'ave to do for you in this country,"

Ana frowned. "But Maria always told me-"

"Ana! She had lied to you about a lot of things!" Soldier said suddenly. "Hudda hudda!" Pyro added, probably agreeing with Soldier.

"Ana, listen to me." Medic said, drawing her eyes back to him. "Jour birzh parents, siblings, whoever- vill never love jou as much as ve do. Zhey do not compare to us; zhat may sound narcissistic, but it is true,"

Ana nearly froze. "You guys... love me?" It was a genuine question.

"I mean, yah kinda fell from the sky and took a tumble on 'dem rocks in Snakewatah, so Doc hadda heal yah, and we all wanted to keep yah at that point," Scout said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ve had to fight the Miss Pauling to keep you," Heavy added.

"Aye! Even after that we had to fight The Administrator!" Demoman chimed in.

"Darlin', we gave yah somethin' yer old parents never could." Engineer said. Ana rose her brow and he smiled at her. "A real family,"

"We love yah more than anythin' kiddo," Scout said.

"We'll foight for yah, even if that means we lose our jobs; yer way more important," Sniper stated, grinning. Though his grin was lost when Ana suddenly burst into tears.

"What is the matter, Cadet?" Soldier asked frantically.

Ana covered her face with her hands, attempting to wipe away the tsunami of warm tears dribbling down her face. Don't cry, please. "I- I'm just so happy!" she cried. "No one's ever- ever loved me before! Aitäh, aitäh!"

Medic sighed, a small grin on his lips. "Ana, I know, I fell in love zhe second I saw jou," he shrugged, "Even zhough jour head vas bleeding." Medic covered a part of his mouth with his hand, leaning closer to Ana. "But I know jou love me zhe most," he whispered, though he made sure the others could hear it.

"Now hold on a moment, tha's not true. Ana loves me the most," Demoman said, earning a shove from Soldier.

"Both of you are lying! We all know who Ana's favorite is and that's-"

"Me!" Before she knew it, Ana was swept up in Demoman's arms. He hugged her tightly as he kissed her cheek. Then Scout snatched her from him, holding her in almost a headlock by his waist; ruffling her hair as he "hugged" her.

"I want to hold Ana!" Soldier argued, grabbing her from Scout and hugging her to his body with only one arm, like she was a teddy bear.

Ana was used to this, surprisingly. She got a lot of amusement from this human tug-of-war. "Guys, there's plenty of me to go around," she joked, grinning.

"Yes, well now you are mine, and only mine," Soldier stated.

"Ohoho, is zhat a challenge?" Medic asked (more like teased), smirking. He grabbed Ana, engulfing her in a hug, and peppering the top of her head in small kisses. Heavy stood in front of Medic, effortlessly grabbing and holding Ana with one arm, and holding Medic back with the other.

"Aye! I had Ana first!" Demoman whined, trying to grab her back. With Heavy distracted, Pyro cut through the fray and grabbed Ana; sending Demo to the floor with a thud! as the Scotsman's weight slammed against the ground. Pyro held onto Ana as they spun her in a circle gleefully.

Spy got a hold of her next, but before he could vanish with Ana in tow, Sniper grabbed him. His left arm wrapped tightly around Spy's neck, while his right arm was draped over Ana's shoulders. Sniper slyly grinned up at the Frenchie.

"Let go of me Bushman!" Spy snapped, nearly elbowing Sniper in the throat.

Sniper chuckled and did as told, but he kept his grip on Ana. That left Engineer, who stood in front of Sniper with his arms crossed. "Wot are yah gonna do, shorty?" Sniper teased.

Engineer quirked a brow, flashed his wrench on his belt, and smirked up at Sniper. The kiwi gave off a nervous chuckle, politely shifting Ana to Engineer. Engineer looked around at the other men. And Pyro, who seemed to be getting closer to him, "Now fellas, why don't we just let Ana tell us who her favorite mercenary really is?"

"But I can't choose, I guess you're going to have to keep trying to win me over," she joked, grinning slyly from ear-to-ear.

"Well that'll be easy, I'm already winnin'!" Scout boasted.

"In your dreams, maggot!" Soldier retorted.

"Now look what'cha started Ana. We got a whole war startin' 'cause you're so damn lovable," Engineer said, laughing as the bickering began to grow. "Imma just start walkin' away, we both know Ah'm your real favorite anyway," he joked, turning on his heel and starting to walk back to his workshop.

"Vhere do jou zhink jou are going, Engi?" Medic called, the others now noticing him leaving, too. Next thing Ana knew, she was the one running. After all, she had nine mercenaries all trying to smother her with affection and attempting to become her favorite.

She was loving it though. How they were trying to show her how much they really loved and cared for her. This was something other than a competition between them. And as Ana was in her room, giggling up a storm as she heard the Mercs all playfully calling out her name like it was a game of Marco-Polo, she knew that Engineer was right; this was a real family.

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peanut-tyrug · 3 months

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Smth I noticed abt the scene after 7 kills the Beast is a muffled line from 2. The music and the whirring of the Talisman from when 9 picks it up makes hard to hear, but from what I could tell, it sounded like he was saying “You should really fix that, you know.”

I’m not sure if that’s actually what he said, that’s just what I thought it sounded like, but if that is what he said, I believe he’s referring to 7’s scar

Before 7 turns to face 5 and 2, they can get a decent look at her scar. I can’t think of whatever 2 was referring to (other than the scar) with that line, if that’s what he said

I’m not exactly sure what she could do to fix it either. Maybe patch it up further with corduroy and repaint the number on her back?

#shane acker's 9 #2 #7 #9 #5 #tw long text #tw long post

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gemsofgreece · 3 months

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A place for every month - commentary

This is directly inspired by a Daily Mail travel article, which recommends one Greek destination for every month, as it declares the country a year-round destination. I loved the concept but I do have some thoughts on the recommendations themselves. This is not to say I don't agree with the recs - all places mentioned are beautiful - but I am not sure they are the ideal option for the month their chosen for each time. The article focuses on avoiding the crowds which is understandable, however it also sometimes leads to missing the trademark summery places in summer and the wintry places in winter and... where's the charm in that, right? So I don't know what exactly the point of this post is, maybe some insider commentary on that overall good article concept.

January - Mystrás

Daily Mail recommends Mystras. Mystras is the Byzantine Castle City, the last Byzantine stronghold which also served as a capital for a while, the times Constantinople was sacked and fallen. It is a must-see medieval cultural site, however I would not pick it for January. The article does not explain the reasoning, but I believe it is picked for this month because it is in the southmost mainland, therefore it is a way to experience as a mild January as possible. Mystras is situated in a beautiful hilly region in the countryside that gets very green and beautiful in spring. January would be a relatively unremarkable time to go there. Furthermore, the surrounding regions are coastal and summery, so it's better to visit this region in late spring - early summer. It's not a tourist trap anyway. As for where to go in January, well, this is a tricky month. It is not the coldest month of the year - it has what's called "Alcyonides meres". This is a phenomenon of ongoing mild, pleasant weather in the midst of winter. Because it's hard to predict what facet of January you will encounter, especially when travelling from abroad, January is a good month to visit diverse destinations that look great both in mild and cold weather. Those usually are mountainous coastal regions in the mainland (i.e Magnesia - Mt Pelion, Pieria - Mt Olympus, even Chalcidice where Holomon is unfairly overshadowed by the beaches) or very large mountainous islands (i.e Crete and Euboea). Technically, Laconia (where Mystras is) can serve too, as it's where Mt Taygetus is, but all I am saying is January won't make Mystras much justice.

Mystras on the left, Pieria and Euboea island on the right. I realise I am self-nagating right now but look, of course it snows on Mt Taygetus and occasionally it can snow in Mystras as well, however just because there are photos of it, it doesn't mean it is as frequent an occurence as the ones I recommended. But like I said, weather in January is a hit or miss case - in general finding the weather you want in winter in Greece is tricky.

February - Patra(s)

Daily Mail recommends Patras because of its big Carnival Festival. This is a good choice. A visit to Patras in February can be combined with exploring the countryside around it, including the mountain town and ski resort of Kalavryta and a visit to nearby Corinthia, to Mount Killini, Feneos and Lake Doxa. February is the coldest Greek month to be sure, however it's still tricky because you don't know if you will fall into a typical cold February or an early spring. Other good recs for this month are all other regions with carnival traditions, such as Xanthi in Thrace or the west regions of Macedonia. And because it's February and those places, unlike Patras, are in the very north of the country, you are going to get the winter vibes well there.

March - Athens

Athens is a clever choice for March. The capital is located in the driest, hottest region of Greece, therefore it is smart to spend March there and avoid the spring rainfalls or the surprising cold March brings along in most other regions. Furthermore, Athens doesn't have significant summery attractions therefore it should be avoided in summer unless you want a pointless sunstroke. The article makes a valid point; if you are in Athens in March, you shouldn't miss the military parade on Independence Day. It's worth seeing. My only commentary is that March is a beautiful month, so if you have a lot of time available, it would be nice to spend some days in the countryside close to Athens, Parnitha or Parnassus mountains, the site of the Oracle of Delphi or Arachova. Again, March is a surprisingly cold month, sometimes as cold as January or even more! This means that while Athens may be almost warm, in the nearby regions that are full of mountains, it can be prolonged heavy winter.

April - Hydra

For April Daily Mail focuses on Orthodox Easter, fairly so. The Saronic islands do have a lot of Easter traditions.... but so does Kerkyra (Corfu) island, probably the ultimate Greek Easter destination. There's nothing wrong with Hydra whatsoever and both destinations are going to be sunken with visitors anyway. My only objection is that we are four months in and three out of the recommendations are from the same geographical region... Some variety, come on, guys. So, Hydra is great, Kerkyra is a great alternative far away and Chios island is another great alternative in the very opposite side of the country.

Easter celebrations in Hydra island.

May - Parga

Oh wow, we changed region, guys! Daily Mail recommends this coastal town surrounded by mountains for the end of spring. It's a good choice, though I will argue... it's May, you can go anywhere in Greece and be happy.

June - Corinthia

Oookay back to basics. Let's be real, the journalist either has spent 95% of their time in the Peloponnese or is secretly a southern Greek. I already recommended Corinthia as a combo vacation with Patras in February and I will stick to this. June is such an amazing month in Greece - save for the sudden thunderstorms - it's summer but the tourist masses haven't arrived fully yet. There are so many places to enjoy before Corinthia; beaches, islands! I don't mean to diss Corinthia at all, it has the stunning Feneos I already mentioned, it has the unique Corinth Canal and it has many significant archaeological sites, but those can be enjoyed throughout the year. Save June for something else, if possible.

See, Corinthia is amazing but earlier in the year is more charming than June.

July - Náfplion

Errr... the Peloponnesian sweep continues. Nafplion is one of the prettiest cities in Greece, without doubt. It has significant historical monuments and very important archaeological sites nearby. But, again, it's July, go to some island, go to a beach. Save Nafplion for autumn. Nafplion is indeed coastal and has several small islands nearby...but STILL, there are some places that are simply more ideal for July. The article probably wants you to escape the very hot, very touristy destinations in the peak season. I hear this, but there are some remote, lesser known islands that are totally worth visiting. And it's not like Nafplion doesn't have its fair share of tourists anyway...

See, Nafplion can work in winter...

August - Ioánnina

As a person who somehow it is always August when I visit Ioannina and I am perpetually on the verge of moving there, no, August is not the ideal month for this place. In truth, every month can be ideal for Ioannina because the city and its surrounding countryside is of outstanding beauty. But, again, it's August in Greece and you recommend a lake city inside a ring of mountains? This is for heavy winter. This is for heavenly spring. This is for dreamy autumn. This is for everything except AUGUST. I understand the heat and tourist avoidance but, let's be real, isn't this part of the charm? What's the point of coming in the heart of the Greek summer, if not to get a little roasted? This is part of the fun of going to a different place. Be careful, of course, put on a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, blast the air conditioner in the hotel room... but also get a little roasted. That's the deal. See some desert and water. Get some blinding sun and taste the salt in the air. Board a ship. I think it's a seriously missed opportunity if you are in Greece in summer and not experience it in its admittedly most ferocious might. It's also a little hypocritical, if you are willing to go to Hydra on Easter, then why not go to Tinos island in August? Like a second easter in the summer, the island's largest chuch, which is the major Marian shrine of the country and said to have been the place of many miracles, commemorates the Dormition of Mary and has a huge festival that attracts pilgrims from all over Greece and the Orthodox world. Landscape-wise, it is exactly the place you should be getting roasted in August.

Somewhere in Ioannina in what is certainly not August (left), Tinos island (right).

September - Crete

September in Greece is prolonged summer, especially in its southmost large and most diverse island. Crete is good for any time of the year, including September, no objections here.

October - Thessaloniki

This is a very correct one yet funny, because somehow it's like everyone has collectively agreed this is the right time to visit Thessaloniki. The second largest city of the country is a very loved destination amongst Greeks and is on the rise with foreign tourists as well. It is sometimes called the cultural and food capital of Greece, although to be fair Athens is not lacking in either. In any case, October is a good month for some city break, although it might be a little windy there. What's also funny is that Daily Mail recommended Athens in March for the military parade. Here's the thing, in Thessaloniki the military parade takes place in October! I don't know if Daily Mail is aware of this but it ain't letting you miss any big Greek military parade from now on XD Thessaloniki is in the north of the country, which has several forests nearby. It is a good time to explore the forests, while the first autumn colourings will be observed.

November - Santorini

This is where I flip a table probably. If it's your first time in Santorini, DON'T GO there in November. If you have been there multiple times, have seen all the important stuff, love it and now you just want to chill there forever, sure. Otherwise, it's a pity to see it in its most unremarkable season for the first time. Sure, the high season is getting elongated, the prices will be lower, but you will also be getting cold dark waters and cloudy skies. Please go to Santorini anytime from April to September if it's your first time. It's a really striking place, see it in its peak. As for November destinations, all the mainland mountainous and forested countryside is perfect for this month.

Santorini in definitely NOT November and, as an example, Kastoria in quite possibly November.

December - Mt Maenalo Ski Resort

Back to the usual suspect, Peloponnese. It wasn't mentioned the entire last season and I got scared. Arcadia is a most mountainous region of the Peloponnese, it is very beautiful and Daily Mail recommends its ski resort so...nothing wrong here. But it's December which is the warmest winter month, it's southmost Greece and Maenalo is almost ultra but not the biggest mountain of the region. The Kalavryta ski resort I mentioned for February is in a higher altitude. Kyllini and Taygetus are also bigger mountains than Maenalo. All I am saying is... it might not have enough snow yet in December. And here's the thing, Greece has bigger mountains and far more northern regions! So, for December, other ski resorts might be safer choices. On the other hand, Arcadia has many lovely traditional mountain villages that will be beautiful during the Christmas holidays. It's a good rec, it's just that many other places in very overlooked regions might have even more wintry and Christmas-y vibes at the time (i.e Parnassus and Arachova, Volos and Pelion ski resort, Trikala, Vasilitsa ski resort, Lailias Ski resort, Kaimaktsalan ski resort etc etc).

That was it! Any additional thoughts? Hopefully not from a Peloponnesian who wants to bite my nose off XD Huge love for this gorgeous region, it's only I wished for wider representation! Hopefully, this might be useful for aspiring travellers from abroad, perhaps it will help you develop a strategy or a certain way of understanding about the things you should be considering when travelling in Greece.

Many of the photos are from Creative Commons, but for some places it was pretty hard. All photos belong to their rightful owners.

The Daily Mail article.

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genericnam · 4 months

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After spending way too long working on these on and off, I have finally finished some OC character drawings. These characters are pretty overpowered, but in my defense, they were actual parts of a DnD campaign I was in that reached level 20, so that's why they're so strong, lol. (Also, forgive my shit photo-taking skills, the only lighting I have is the lightbulb on my ceiling)

First up is Huskoshe! Huskoshe is a cunning, dealmaking devil, and a Warlock who follows the word of a god of Life and the Sea. Huskoshe spent the first of his many centuries alive traversing the ocean alone, where he met his god and became a Warlock, obtaining powerful magic.

Soon after, he was recruited to a pirate crew known as the Sea King's Ships as the barrelman (lookout), though he was much more popular among the crew for his near perfect track record on successful missions. Huskoshe spent many centuries aboard the Sea King's Ships, becoming one of the senior members of the crew.

When a dangerous religious cult began to spread across the lands, Huskoshe, his party members; Kin and Kalotoff (not my characters, so I haven't drawn them yet), along with the rest of the Sea King's Ships, led the war that eventually was the downfall of said cult.

As he went, Huskoshe obtained further and further power, amassing a personal army of devils he obtained through soul contracts and deals. Huskoshe's army was small in numbers, but its power was vast due to one special distinction: each person who joined his army did so willingly. There was no treachery or betrayal, as everyone from his strongest generals to the weakest Imps were loyal warriors who Huskoshe knew personally, and shared the glory of victory with.

At the end of his journey, Huskoshe made a proposition to the God of Death—Asmodeus—for a spot on his court. After recovering three ancient artifacts of Asmodeus', Huskoshe was allowed to battle Mephistopheles—the Archduke of the 8th layer of Hell—to the death in combat for the title of Archduke.

Huskoshe won, and now he rules the 8th layer, turning it into a land of water and ice, populated by the only Archduke in the history of Hell to be beloved by their minions (who didn't use mind control, at least).

Of course, he wouldn't have made it nearly as far if it weren't for his first ever minions.

Rhirale the Blade is a towering Pit Fiend who uses the power of ice to cut through his foes. His two weapons, Frozen Blood (right) and The Buckler of Ice (left) were forged from his own life force. Even upon death, he doesn't go down without a fight, exploding into thousands of sharp ice crystals harder than diamonds.

Rhirale was not always this powerful however. Once, he was a runt of an imp, who was born alongside his sister, Zankas. Rhirale's left wing is deformed, being smaller than the other, and it caused him much trouble. However, the imp possessed great ambition and a warrior's pride. Rhirale trained, becoming more powerful than any other Imp on his layer, and being promoted up in his ranks.

This went on for many years, until Rhirale had become an Ice Devil, and become satisfied with his physical power, choosing to pursue the power of wealth through working under a Dragon on the material plane.

He and his sister (we'll get to her) worked under the dragon Baryon, until the Sea King's Ships arrived. For you see, Baryon was a leading power within the cult they were battling against, and the pirates had come for his head.

Huskoshe saw the power and potential of the devils hired by Baryon to block their way, and offered them a deal. Each and every devil in the room could join his side and fight for glory and wealth beyond their wildest dreams, or they could choose to flee, and be spared. Some devils fled, but many of them joined Huskoshe, becoming his first minions.

When Rhirale made the deal with Huskoshe, something happened. Fate seemed to recognize the Pride that Rhirale possessed, and as he had begun serving under the future lord of Pride, it saw fit to give him his final promotion. Rhirale the Blade was reborn as one of the highest ranks of devil one can acheive, only below becoming a Duke of Hell: A Pit Feind.

Rhirale became one of Huskoshe's two generals, uzing his power and sheer will to command respect and charge his way to victory.

I did mention Rhirale's sister, no? Well, this is Zankas Septum, the second general of Huskoshe's army, and Rhirale's sister.

Like her brother, Zankas was born a runty Imp. She too, had a wing that was too small, being her right. Zankas held as much pride as her brother, battling with speed rather than brute power.

Zankas weilds the powers of Poison, and possesses a weapon known as the Revolving Longsaber, a flaming golden blade that can polymorph into a snake-scale revolving gun.

Zankas worked her way up the ranks of the devil heirarchy as well, ending her training as a Succubus before she began work under Baryon.

When Zankas made her deal with Huskoshe, she was gifted power equal to Rhirale, becoming an Erinyes, titled Zankas Septum.

Zankas' speed is unmatched, capable of using her claws and sword at speeds faster than any mortal can react, and anyone who is able to dodge her attacks can be defeated with manipulation, as her ability to manipulate and mind control her enemies exceeds what any Succubus or Incubus would ever be capable of.

Zankas Septum and Rhirale the Blade are Huskoshe's closest allies, managing his army while he deals with fiendish politics. The three of them have plans of expanding their reach in the future, but for now they are content to be the unmatched army of the 8th layer of Hell.

#artwork #oc artwork #oc #oc art #dnd #dnd art #dnd character #dnd oc #devils #dnd devils #tw long text #long post #story #dnd story #dnd campaign #devil art

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asherlockstudy · 1 year

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It has always been one story

The last days I have been making some analyses based on Rhett and Link’s latest video “We Dug a Medium-sized Hole”. My realisation of what I have been explaining there led me to a new surge of excitement when watching their content. I have talked before about how much I like Hazel but to be precise I never watched the TikTok videos, I had only listened to the two versions of the song, which is certainly the best song they have written and performed so far in their career in my opinion. So a few days ago, my YouTube feed actually suggested the Hazel videos to me and, as I have been in this new RandL surge, I thought “why not”. I thought it will be fun and creepy, and it was, but once again I wasn’t ready for the hammer of realisation that fell right on my forehead. You see, being freshly out of my We Dug a Hole analyses, I noticed a load of similarities between the two. But even more importantly, I noticed numerous similarities between Hazel and the Lost Causes of Bleak Creek. In fact, what I mean by “numerous similarities” is that they are all essentially the same story, and the only thing that changes are the settings, the side characters and other secondary elements. So if this is the case, Rhett and Link have been telling one story again and again for quite some time and, in their words, have been somewhat disappointed at the reaction they did (not) receive from the viewers (Hazel), their difficulty to promote their story in other media (Bleak Creek) and now their decision to not have expectations so that they won’t get disappointed again (Digging a hole). But let’s say a few words for each of these major projects.

We Dug a Medium-sized Hole

Let’s start from the last one, which is also the smallest and most superficial project. It is a humorous video with a prepared song and a predetermined concept which is supposedly unscripted. I analysed it in excruciating detail a few days ago so I will just give you links to my posts “They Dug A Hole” and “The ‘We Dug A Hole’ Discussion”, which I would recommend because they will help make this post much clearer as well. Anyway, to summarise, here’s what goes down: Rhett and Link agree to dig a medium sized hole without examining this agreement and intent thoroughly and carefully enough to see if they are on the same page fully. They slowly get the hang of this, Link becomes very invested and loses control entirely. Rhett panics and tries to help Link get back to his senses and establish control between them again. Yet, if you remember this part from the “They Dug A Hole” post,

well, it had intrigued me then but it actually proved to be unexpectedly significant for real! Despite Rhett being the one who tries to establish control in the hole-digging process, soon he is the one to fall back into it the hardest. True enough, the second time it’s Rhett we see running the excavator. There are no other characters in the video, except for the mole who supports them but is accidentally killed. Rhett and Link have revealed this is the first of a series of similar videos (and songs, perhaps).

The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

If you haven’t read their novel yet, well this is simply the best thing they have made so far and I definitely recommend it. I have always found it curious how little tumblr fans speak of TLCOBC, especially since it is RAGING with innuendo and symbolism that is not even subtle. I will give the story in very broad terms, however there are going to be some strong spoilers here because I don’t have another way to prove my point. Be warned. Of course here we have a different setting and the main characters are preteens. The setting is a dark twist of Rhett and Link’s actual childhood. Their small town with its extremely puritan, conservative community. The book has many characters but once again there is only one more character that can be considered as “main”, Alicia Boykins, their female best friend with whom they are secretly both in love. Well scratch that off, there is also Janine who is important, she is clearly Stevie’s character. But anyway. Rhett and Link have implied in a Mythicon that Alicia is a symbolic character who represents “their ideal selves”, “who they wanted to be”. So in short Rex, Leif and Alicia is a trio of best friends who live in this small Christian town hiding a dark secret. Leif falls in love with Alicia first and more profoundly, Rex a little later. Alicia is kidnapped and sent unfairly to a notorious reformatory school. Rex and Leif agree to save her but the whole plan goes wrong and Leif falls in a trap, in a very dark, deep and hopeless place, where Alicia also is, where you lose memory and the sense of self. (Won’t spoil more.) Rex returns to his town in utter panic and frustration and creates a master plan to rescue Leif. After a lot of allegories and adventures, Rex dives in the dark deep place and saves Leif (in a very romantic way btw). Alicia is rescued too. They confront the evil guys who control the reformatory school. They resume their peaceful life in their town. The book ends in a cliffhanger where Alicia sees something while bicycling that is a major sign that the cult / curse / that thing that was going on there is not defeated. So here we have as common themes: Link losing control because of how invested he was (in Alicia), Rhett panicking and trying to save him and correct the situation, and another main character who is a mysterious symbolism. It’s a little hard to be certain of what Alicia exactly symbolises, just like it is the case with the mole. What we don’t see in TLCOBC is Rex being the one to fall in deep the second time, but I bet this is the intended plot for the second book.

Hazel Macon

I watched this video a few days ago for the first time. Hazel is a fantastic project Rhett and Link came up with but the platform they chose to execute it on originally (TikTok) literally executed its chances for success. I will explain this in more detail. Rhett and Link promoted Hazel to the unaware GMM viewers by saying they were pulling an all-nighter to compose a song with their fans through TikTok. So they overestimated how many would go to TikTok for that. However, for those fans who signed up for this, they had already prepared a short movie separated in short bits, being uploaded gradually, telling a very creepy story. Here’s the plot: Rhett and Link start their all-nighter in the Creative House by uploading videos on TikTok. In order to get some ideas for their new song, they randomly choose the album Yearning by Hazel Macon. Link is confused because he does not remember this album, although Rhett argues confidently it’s Link’s and he acquired it in GMM (true). They play it and it is a haunting song of a girl wandering lost in a forest (as also evident on the album cover), waiting for someone to play her song, so she can be set free. They both hear whispering in the song and they figure it is backmasking (messages recorded backwards) so Rhett plays the record backwards to decode the message, to Link’s discomfort. Rhett says the message is there for a reason and he mockingly parallels it to satanic subliminal messages. He hears “I just want out. Just open the door. It’s been so, so long. I feel so lost. “ (Needless to say, this is in the official song obviously too.) Meanwhile, dead birds (crows) fall on their doors and windows every time they try to get out of the house. As they listen to the secret messages of the song, the girl vanishes from the album cover and they hear her singing from the back of the house. Scared to death, they see her emerge from the middle room (👀) . They try to hide in the kitchen where Link attempts to say something final and heavy with meaning to Rhett in case they die, but Hazel appears behind him and touches him causing him to fall into shock. She vanishes. Rhett stops playing the record but Link is now in a dead-inside state, the video suggesting Hazel is now inside him. Rhett roams the house but there is no way out as birds fall on every door. In a moment that Link escapes Rhett’s notice, Hazel reappears, turns Link into Harlan Macon, a reserved southern dude coming straight from the 1900s, and leads him to the middle room. Rhett follows in panic but there is nothing there when he opens the door. The Yearning album cover has changed and now it’s both Hazel and Link on the cover and on the record singing. Rhett in despair realises that he will have to play the record again, open the portal, find Link and save him (again, like in TLCOBC, see the trope?). As Rhett walks towards the door listening to Link’s voice from somewhere deep, he says “I don’t know if he can come out. I don’t think I want to go in there but I think I am gonna have to go in there”. This time when he opens the door to the middle room, it is an opening to a forest during a very dense night. It has a claustrophobic feel. Long story short, Hazel attacks him and turns him to Hardy Macon. However, when Hardy meets Harlan (Link), Harlan is “way too deep”, in Rhett’s words, he doesn’t recognise Rhett and he has assumed a different personality. Hardy!Rhett orders Harlan!Link to follow him, he bumps Hazel with a fallen branch, finds the door of the middle room and saves them both. Rhett immediately stops the record and Link returns to his normal self but has no memory of any of this. The album now has only Hazel on it again. Rhett tries frantically to get rid of the “Yearning” album but the “Yearning” album proves to be indestructible. It does not break, it does not melt and when he tosses it in the yard, it comes back.

Then there is a hilarious joke which Link now films; that Rhett is locked in the toilet for way too long, and Link thinks Rhett has shitted himself (however I bet the implied joke is that he was trying to wank it out, as a last resort solution to deal with Yearning). Link then explains to the fans how he still doesn’t remember the Yearning album and hypothesises that Rhett must have brought it earlier to him and ruined their entire evening. Link concludes that if he plays the record backwards again, he will decipher the message and be done with it. Rhett screams from the toilet but it’s too late. Hazel reappears and turns him to Hardy again. When Hazel and Hardy appear to Link again, the camera drops from his hands. The album which had turned to have Hazel and Rhett on the cover and record once Link started playing it again, now morphs into having Rhett and Link together, implying that they now both are lost in those woods with no way out. An unknown hand turns the record to play the normal version, by the Macon Brothers.

Notes and conclusions:

* It is important to note that all of these projects have an either neutral or bad ending. The most neutral one is the digging a hole one, where they have succeeded in making a medium hole but there is also the unintended massive hole behind them, which they choose to ignore. TLCOBC has a fake happy or ominous ending, as the threatening sign appears just when everything seems to be working out well. Hazel is dark and ends in melancholic despair - Rhett and Link remain trapped in that ominous forest hiding in the middle room of their house. These are not happy stories even though all feature Rhett and Link’s light humour (the fork in Hazel came to mind, this joke gets me every time).

* Alicia and Hazel clearly stand for the same or a very similar symbolism. They likely are the personification of yearning, of confronting the truth openly, of being free, as Rhett said Alicia was an allegory for who they truly wanted to be. In two of the projects, they are trapped female entities, whose steps Link follows.

* All of the projects were meant to be part of a series. The book ended in a cliffhanger. Rhett and Link had revealed in their EB for Hazel that they had more scenarios prepared to execute in the same way. Alas, this podcast was filmed before Hazel aired and apparently they were very disheartened by Hazel’s failure. Imagine all that I described, it didn’t take more than 76,000 views in TikTok and most video bits only made like 11,000 views, which must have been a stab in the heart. Ironically, they later uploaded the whole thing on YouTube, and it now has half a million. I mean it’s still not as much as expected for this type of production, but it’s better than the 70,000. In any case the moment was lost then. Now they return with the hole digging which they announced it is the first in a series of similar videos coming. They emphasised how they were determined to ignore the views this time, and even though they did not mention Hazel, I believe the concept is connected directly to the concept of the Hazel video series, postponed for two years after their disappointment. The videos tell the same story, accompanied by a song, but in totally opposite styles.

* Settings, secondary elements and characters vary - the main plot remains the same always in at least 2/3 of the projects at any moment. For whatever reason each time, Rhett and Link decide to do something that unexpectedly makes them vulnerable to a truth they either had not realised or hid well within themselves. Link is seduced or trapped by this truth and falls deeper and deeper, there is always this trope of him falling in deep, either because he wants to or because he has no choice. Link reaches a desperate, helpless state and Rhett realises that he will have to help him out of the situation. Rhett is always very scared and very panicked but in every version he is determined to bring back Link or bring him back to his senses or save him. Rhett struggles and he gets into this dark zone or loses himself in this seductive trap momentarily in order to get Link back. However, he succeeds. They are both back to normal, figuring things out properly. The success is short-lived as Rhett eventually realises he is in fact trapped in way too deep as well, that he is trying to fight something he cannot defeat. The moment he realises this, Link relapses again soon too. This of course is given in a very cheerful, carefree way in the digging video while the plot in the book doesn’t reach the moment of Rhett’s defeat yet.

* The traps in all projects share some common characteristics: the bright sun doesn’t make it clear at first but a hole in the desert is still a hole in the desert. The bigger and deeper it is, the harder it gets to escape it and beneath it there is just darkness and dirt. The forest in Hazel is accessed through a portal to the Creative House’s middle room, it is dark, dense, quiet and claustrophobic. The trap in the Lost Causes is the most mystical, underwater and deep and with other dangers looming as well. Another common element in the last two is the memory loss and losing the sense of self or consciousness.

* Does religion have anything to do with all this? Yes, lots. Is religion the only thing that has to do with all this? No…

* On a lighter note, the Hazel song slaps! It is so good that it is haunting even when played backwards!

* On a heavier note, I was already convinced Rhett and Link are hiding a message in all these projects. I am still not sure however, whether they want this message to be decoded by people or they just make it in order to vent, to get the sensation they escape for a bit the walls of the room, the house, the trap. Hazel is perhaps the boldest of the projects (although the innuendos in TLCOBC are the most glaring) as a main plot because Rhett himself in the video brings awareness into the fact that their song has a hidden, forbidden message that subtextually yearns to be heard.

PS. Just to lighten the mood