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therightrighthand · 1 month

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Chaos Arc.

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So happy to finally finish this after keeping it on the back burner for so long! Read through the full story of Delgoth here!

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35 Betrayal: Anger and frustration began to fester. She felt like a fool being played and toyed with by the Inquisition, but what fueled her anger most was the insight she got from her time on Atoma Prime.

She saw how citizens were demonised and threatened for simply wanting to survive in a cruel world. Her anger allowed the taint of chaos to seep into the back of her mind. This led to a sudden outburst of violence and the unprovoked murder of an inquisitor during a private meeting as it all came to a head. All Delogth could do was flee to the Underhive of Atoma Prime and hope she would not be found.

36 Metamorphosis: After her fall from grace Delogth struggled in the Underhive. Without food, shelter or safety, she withered, but it was only at her lowest that she was granted a gift... Approached in a catatonic hallucination by a mysterious figure, Delgoth was offered the opportunity to play host to a new god, The Fathomless, The Son of Nurgle and the parasite god of decay, pollution and new life. How could she refuse?

By the chaos gods' graces, Delgoth awoke the following night in the generous care of the Benevolent Hand, a cult of chaos worshipers who'd found her starving to death in the filtration tunnels. Discovered by Jeremechy, a cultist whom she'd helped not long ago Delgoth was offered a sanctuary and home out of the kindness of their hearts, asking nothing in return, the truest nobility she'd once believed to be something the Imperium once stood for.

Over time, as her Psyker powers became more apparent, Delgoth was worshipped as a religious figure due to her connections to the Warp. Esepcially as her body began to physically change and mutate beyond her control, as the parasite started to grow ... and rebuild her her body, like a moth evolving in a cacoon.

37 Rebirth: After a year of incubation and growth, the parasite infecting Delgoth's body had completed its work and rebuilt what was broken; she and it were now one, and the power of the warp flowed through it, and her, like water through a stream. Her body wasn't just physically stronger, but her Pysker abilities had become fearsome to behold.

Among cultist groups, she had begun to embrace the role of a messiah, protecting the weak, spreading the good word of Nurgle, and tainting the lower levels with a toxic substance known as 'Blight'. Those who embraced Chaos and the Fathomless learned to live with Blight by growing immune, whilst non-believers suffered toxic poisoning or starvation of what little organic material wasn't tainted.

41-45 The Fathomless Blight: While becoming a religious figure appeased Nurgle and their offspring, voices from distant futures beckoned Delgoth to widen her ambition and share her gifts with the stars. During this period, Delgoth's body began to produce more parasites and use them to connect the minds of willing participants in a hive mind level of control. This became the beginning of her new army, The Fathomless Blight.

Piecing together fragments of the Imperium's tech and a few rotting corpses from fallen Astartes, Delgoth used her vast power to lead an army off of Atoma, and into the wider galaxy. They did not travel through ships but rather through oceans and seas, wading into the water on one side of the galaxy and out into another where chaos was most prominent. They were small, but they were formidable.

46 Eldritch Lord: The gods had truly smiled upon Delgoth, as each victor in her crusade brought her more power and allies to her hive-mind army. They infected oceans, corrupted landscapes, and attacked from the murky depths where the Imperium could not defend itself quick enough. For every planet that drowned in blight, millions would fall under her sway and become part of her infested trawl as the Fathomless Blight rose to power. With it, so did she as her body became to the Parasite's changes, as an Alpha level Psyker and an equivalent to some sort of Edlrtich Demon Prince.

Some tell tales that her reach is endless, that she can appear behind you in the death of night, silently lurching out of the water and taking you away in your sleep.

Whilst others tell tales of a small pollution scrubber who fell from grace.

Now Delgoth lurks on the fridge of Imperium space doing Nurgles bidding, but occasionally, she turns her sights past the walls of reality and the echoes of other worlds, other universes.

... other 'Del's...

-- Find my discord and other sites: linktr.ee/The_red_right_hand Do not use, repost or claim (rp) my art/character Art © The-Red-Right-Hand

#my artwork #oc #sci fi #del-verse #warhammer 40000 #darktide #40kart #delgoth

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irithnova · 11 months

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Headcanon that the only real reason why Mongolia and Russia go out drinking with each other sometimes isn't because they're bffs - it's because they both enable each other's bad habits.

Usually friends tell other friends to stop if they've had a bit too much but these two don't and that's why they do it - they know they can get away with it when they're with each other + it helps to be with at least one other person while drinking so you don't look like a loser.

Overall I think Russia and Mongolia have a toxic friendship (If you can call it that) situation going on because I personally think this reflects their history the best.

There are good sides to their relationship. Russia did help Mongolia maintain its independence from China, Russia did help with industrialising Mongolia and with education etc.

Mongolia depended on Russia to keep its independence, Mongolia helped Russia enormously during World War 2 with the supplies it gave.

But it's important to acknowledge that their relationship isn't perfect. Mongolia turned to Russia as a last resort to defend itself against China, Russia saw strategic value in Mongolia's existence rather than it being out of pure kindness (though I think Russia for an unknown reason did want to see Mongolia stick around but mainly for the strategic value). The Stalinist purges of the 30's were devastating on Mongolia, Mongolia having to use Cyrillic, cultural suppression, what Russia did to the Kalmyks and Buryats (Mongolic people), annexing Tuva, Lake Baikal etc.

There's also the issue of how Mongolia is dependent on Russia for quite a few things due to being landlocked between Russia and China. Mongolia doesn't really have a choice but to interact with him.

If you really want to go back, of course there were the Mongol invasions and the golden horde but I honestly think that aspect of their history is so overplayed by this fandom and it's usually to demonise the golden horde and Mongolia. The history of Russia and the golden horde/Mongolia during that era is a lot more nuanced than what this fandom makes it out to be. From a previous post of mine about Russia and Mongolia's relationship:

So yeah. Russia, though he still is a little butthurt about it sometimes (not often but probably when he and Mongolia argues), acknowledges the Mongols legacy on his history and to an extent, sees the ordeal as part of what makes him a nation today so he has come to somewhat appreciate it.

I'm saying this without glossing over how it did hurt him but it was so long ago, and again I feel like the fandom overplays this part of history to take away Mongolia's victimhood under Russia in the modern era and to play out age-old stereotypes of the big evil Mongol. Rochu shippers also do this when they portray Mongolia as the archetype of the evil Asian man / Fu Manchu/ evil Mongol archetype (because of the Mongol Empire) and China as the delicate lotus flower who needs a big strong white man (Russia) to come and save him.

I think it's important to see both sides of their relationship because often in the fandom it's either, Mongolia is the one who is demonised based on one part of history which is usually never even studied properly by people in the fandom, or people act like their personal relationship would not have any issues at all despite politics and I find that to be disingenuous. Though this post is brief, I just wanted to summarise why I believe Russia and Mongolia would have a toxic relationship/friendship in the modern day and to convey why I feel discontent with how a lot of the fandom portrays their relationship.

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eclaire-went-bam · 24 days

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one thing that i've found interesting about narc abuse truthers, is that they very often claim a narcissist won't ever have the capability or self-awareness to search within themselves and understand something's wrong, because they're so full of themselves or they don't want to do the work

while simultaneously demonising the disorder and making it even harder for people to be comfortable with that sort of introspection?

i think in general, our society is really weird about vanity and confidence. you must be confident and have some ego, but if you give yourself too much a pat on the back, even if you're not being toxic about it, it's seen as strange, almost. maybe too much. especially if you don't frame it in some humble way, like "i think i did this well" or "i tried to look good"

most characters portrayed as disagreeable in media have some sort of ego and aren't humble about it, a lot of protagonists are either humble about it or have lower ego, or use it in charismatic quips.

so when someone hears "narcissistic" in "narcissistic personality disorder," there's automatically that "oh, the vanity" type of disgust— even without hearing about "narc abuse" and the like

that being said, who would want to be associated with that on it's own? that pool shrinks even more when most sites online have a very ableist general opinion on npd, or have multitudes of posts about "narc abuse"

if someone turned around and called a self-proclaimed empath a narcissist, would they like it? no? if someone turned around and called your average joe who isn't chronically online a narcissist, would they like it? no? what makes you think someone with undiagnosed npd would like it, especially when that actively makes them look like a worse person?

maybe if you changed the way you spoke about npd and stopped clogging google with narc abuse falsing, more people with npd would be less averse to looking into the possibility they may have it

even in their own ableist worldview, they are part of the problem they're talking about

oh also generally speaking i do think it should be normalised for egotypicals to not need to be modest about something they're super proud of. i feel like that's a good first step that'll just help everybody anyways.

cut for my personal experience. not that i feel uncomfortable sharing it, i don't, i just feel like i've already said what i wanted to say. some people may find this relatable though idk

npd was really difficult for me to consider because of this. i'd done so many hours of research and even then it took me a long time to be able to say this, not to mention even talking about it openly. although i was exposed to pro "scary" mental health conditions stuff before the ableist stuff online (by some miracle), i still did see the ableist stuff. although i knew it was all wrong, i couldn't help but shake the unconscious conclusion that "if i'm not this, then i'm better." i knew what others thought of npd, so my imaginary way of getting on people's good sides was to simply not have it. thats how i'd gain the admiration of others, even if realistically they'd never know this

even after i came to the conclusion "oh jeez i probably have this" — after multiple years of it impeding every aspect of my life in both positive and horribly negative ways — i couldn't bare the thought that i'd be marked until the day i die. i'll have this, until my brain becomes food for the earth. i have this bug, that no matter what, i can't scrape away. and what made it worse (better?), is that the bug was simultaneously saying "oh hell yeah now i'm more interesting and cooler than anyone else in this room !!"

i'm going to be a bad person forever, when i wanted to be admired by everyone. it doesn't matter what sort of way i act, because this is in my closet, i'm just a bad person (Rhetorical)

and now that i have accepted i might have this, i can't even get help for it after reading all the horror stories !!! so like...what now ? what do the narc abuse truthers reasonably expect me to do .

#npd #narcissistic personality disorder #narcissistic abuse #is not real ^^

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brw · 1 year

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What do you think of EMH's Hank Pym? He's my favourite version of the character and the one I think of when I think of Hank Pym. I know he's very different however with his pacifism and him not having the ego that most iterations of Hank do.

I really like EMH's characterisation! It's proof to me honestly that you can adapt a character as historically mentally fraught as Hank, pay attention to those aspects & not demonise him for it as I feel the MCU thought was impossible. They did great adapting Yellowjacket I thought, and I appreciate Hank's pacifist role, even if it's not necessarily what I would have done. Personally, I think I prefer it when Hank is a lil aggressive? Like I think the introduction/solo ep caught a good balance of him being an idealist with these things but also kind of enjoying himself when he's shrinking and fighting people, but I liked how moralistic he is I think that's a good fit for Hank.

I've talked about it before but it's always felt conspicuous to me that Hank was missing from almost every Illuminati group, and while the reality is that most writers just don't consider him I think it would easily say a lot abt Hank's moral standards & how maybe he's less willing to compromise himself like Reed is for the greater good. like, he compromised himself so severely with Yellowjacket & I think it would be fair to say that he no longer wants that for himself & so isn't in the Illuminati, & the idea of Hank being different from Tony & Reed & other supergenius' in that way was portrayed well in the show, like when he's arguing with Tony about him dismissing Simon too easily.

They also portrayed Hank's insecurities well, & I appreciate how Janet is sympathetic without necessarily being supposed to fix him in any way? Like they got a really good balance of respecting Janet & making her fun & light-hearted & Hank being more uncomfortable with his role & struggling to fit his ideals into the superhero life without making their relationship horrible? Like ultimately it's just two people who love each other drifting apart because of their different positions in this business & I appreciate that. I think a lot of writers & fans seem to think that fixing the historical misogyny in Janet's history & fixing the historical ableism in Hank's history is mutually exclusive and you can either have Hank be sympathetic & a heroic but mentally ill man at the expense of Janet, or you can have a feminist, women-first version of Janet no longer defined by the men in her life at the expense of making Hank a one dimensional abusive figure. And EMH proves you can do both, respectfully & tentatively and have it be friendly for kids, no less. Its just such a good version of their characters its aware of all the changes it made & why and what aspects that were good that they wanted to keep.

All this to say, I do think outside of the first few episodes & Yellowjacket, I think it's clear the writers weren't sure what to do with Hank a lot of the time, because at some point he mostly is just there to get knocked out repeatedly, which I think is a shame, but in all fairness "what to do with Hank Pym" is a problem that plagued him for a very long time so it's not like it's exclusive to this show. Still, it does feel obvious in certain episodes that they couldn't figure out how to include Hank in a meaningful way so he's mostly there just to throw one line in or again, get knocked out. Part of this is because the show focused more on the pacifist side of things--like in Tales To Astonish the focus for me personally was more on Hank finding new & adaptive ways to save the day (like lying about getting appendicitis) to fight people he should really have no business fighting, and I think that would probably have been a more narratively rich way for them to portray Hank? It would have given him more to do than "oh violence first, I see" and then getting knocked out by Thor landing on him, but I get the show needed a voice of reason to the team other than Steve so Hank fit that niche well.

But yeah. It's a very good Hank & it's why I recommend this show to people curious in learning more about him, I think it's a good starting point ! Really wish the show hadn't been cancelled bc I would have loved to seen him Janet & Wanda interact, it's an underrated dynamic of those three I miss dearly.

#asks #avengers emh #hank pym #itsblueberry13-blog

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anti-katsuki-lounge · 1 year

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This latest anime episode... I've just got to say Nedzu is seriously dumb in thinking bringing Izuku to UA even with all those safety measures is a good idea. It's good to keep the evacuees there but placing the villains target in with them by extension makes them targets too. The civilians are right to be worried. What if the villains turn up while Izuku is resting? They're wrong to be demonised by this episode.

Also Uraraka's speech is overhyped, clumsily written/said and solved nothing. Yes she's right in saying that Izuku needs support right now but taking him back to UA...again isn't the right move. Sure she says it isn't a permanent one but if I were a civilian I would want to know -

1) how long is he going to be here?

2) Did you transport him here secretly or make a massive scene about it like realistically the 1A vs Izuku show down would be? (As it's the later realistically the villains should catch wind of this and show up thick and fast soon - I'd want to be evacuated to another shelter.)

3) If things go tits up and the villains do show up - how will our safety be prioritised? Or will we just die thanks to an overpowered Shiggy's decay?*

*Side note - can those little evacuee cars even outrun Shiggy's overpowered decay? Lmao

During that speech to me at least - I didn't see her as an awesome hero like Nedzu did - she sounded like a hysterical child pleading the civilians not to be so mean to her poor, beaten down, dirty fellow friend and hero. This is especially true with how it was voice acted (no complaints - the VA acted it well but it just came across more overly emotional rather than inspiring to me.)

I just... Honestly recently I'm finding it hard to watch through an episode without thinking at least once "this is dumb" or "how am I meant to support this?" in relation to something a hero/hero student says or does. Which is really not what you want from the guys you are meant to be rooting for.

All of this. MHA really dropped the ball lately. Like good god

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ac-liveblogs · 2 years

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Golden Slumber further evidences my joke theory that there is (1) competent writer on genshin's writing team who understands subtlety, nuance and discrimination, but that they are locked in the basement for most of the year and only see the sun for one day every 6 months.

(Said writer is responsible for Cyno's characterisation and Itto's quest, obviously.)

It also staggers me that golden slumber -a questline which intentionally or unintentionally discusses and references Edward Said's Orientalism -exists in game where every time the followers of the scarlet king start talking about their god, the dendro archon/a follower of the dendro archon comes in to archonsplain the true history to these ignorant barbarians. The whiplash is unreal.

This quest is also making me realise how much I wish the scarlet king were actually revived (maybe as a playable character).

Like can you imagine the emotional conflict and drive it would create for Nahida and Deshret for Deshret to come back and realise that, though they weren't betrayed in the moment of their death, in the centuries after, Nahida's people endlessly exploited theirs. That the sages threw away their 'human trash' to Aaru village without compensation. That they systematically painted over the desert's true history to demonise the scarlet king. That Nahida did nothing throughout all this. (Because she couldn't do anything. It absolves her, but is she frustrated about it? Guilty? There's material here!)

It'd give the Desert side of the equation a codified and important leader (unlike the big eremite who got jobbed by Dehya) and also have the advantage of grounding the conflict in the present and not 500 yrs ago.

Then again, this is the game where Nahida says "the sages have never done anything wrong until they started harvesting dreams" despite witnessing hundreds of years of discrimination so maybe she just doesn't care. There are people online who say she has no obligation to protect them but like, lmao, sometimes the obligation is just there by morality and capacity, lol.

See, I'm pretty sure that HYV cares about two things - lore, and the Archons. Most character or storyline pretty much just exists to facilitate learning about those things, so in, like, Sumeru - the storyline about the Eremites is only just barely about the Eremites. It's about learning about King Deshret's history with Rukkhadevata, and the Eremite rebellion is used as a vehicle to make that lore relevant so it can be explained to the player.

There's an Eremite rebellion because [x] > We now have to learn how that happened! > We have learnt something cool about Rukkhadevata! > We don't need the Eremite rebellion storyline anymore. They're just cool and over it now that they know the truth. But we WILL keep using them to exposit more Godlore! (Except we already said they got history wrong so uhhhh, the person that has to exposit is-)

It's Watatsumi all over again. The rebellion doesn't matter, shh, the oppression and grievances of their people are just window dressing that we'll do the absolute bare pathetic minimum to address, just absorb all the lore about their dead god, isn't that so much more interesting? Does Kokomi get to be involved in the Ekanomiya exploration? Lmao are you joking??? Why would we want HER here??? Go talk to a million ghosts instead, isn't that so much better.

So that's kind of the angle I view the writing of almost every storyline from, and the function of almost every sidequest character? They just want you to know the lore and craft their storylines around delivering that. They might accidentally write a good character or quest despite this (Sacred Sakura Cleansing still stands on top), but I really don't get the sense they're that interested in actually writing their characters or storylines beyond the scope of a wikipedia summary.

*cough* scaramouche *cough cough*

Which is a really long way of saying - sorry, anon, I emotionally checked out of Sumeru's sidequests because they take too damn long so I hit button mash central midway through the Aranara questline and I from what I've accumulated through social media, it doesn't really sound like I've missed all that much. I know the general plot beats of Golden Slumber and how it ends, but I skipped through most of it.

I just don’t think HYV cares at all about the storyline they’ve created with the Eremites beyond how it can be used to Drop Lore about Deshret and Rukkhadevata (and related). They’ll do the bare minimum to wrap it up once it’s not useful anymore.

I was thinking about King Deshret as a reincarnated character yesterday and originally thought it might be interesting, but I think I would have preferred... I don't know, Rukkhadevata genuinely Did A Bad for what she thought were the right reasons, and Nahida has to accept and make amends for that? It could end up being her first big Action as an Archon - one that sets her apart from both her predecessor and the Akademiya.

I get the sense in Sumeru that HYV is waaaaay more interested in Deshret than they are in uhhhh almost anyone else except Nahida? Is it just me that gets that sense? I can't imagine things would improve if Deshret was a modern character. Tbh, the less gods in the main cast the better. But you know what would be cool?

If we learnt what Cyno's damn headpiece meant

#ac plays genshin impact #no seriously what is it representative of in this universe #at this stage i think i'm probably only going to pay attention to stories that include the playable characters #and i will probably be happier for it

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katherine-mcnamara · 2 years

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yeah i think, im uncomfy with dominic sherwood being used in the rp because sometimes muns in defense of him swing to the other side of the pendulum too hard and act like it was no big deal at all, and i would rather not touch those issues with a ten foot pole, but i have nothing against him as an actor and i wouldnt boycott him or whatever. there is nuance to these situations, and ultimately its to the discretion of the people writing (as a group or as an individual), and we can leave it at that...

unless a fc is a whole ass criminal, in which case, maybe reconsider. and i can see where people get combative, since defense of an actor's actions can sometimes turn into accepting an actor's actions as anything less than what it was.

unless a fc is a whole ass criminal, in which case, maybe reconsider.

I'm just gonna answer this first because GET 👏 BETTER 👏IDOLS👏

I'm ngl and say I don't see where those types of fans are coming from. Like it 100% was not nothing, and he himself has refused to let people diminish it to nothing. But when 99% of the people coming at you for liking dom, for using dom, and being like he should be banned, are out there using m*tt who was apart of the same thing dom did, has never apologised, and was only upset because it was done ON LIVE, making it clear that it was something they did to each other, how they greeted each other. This whole ass STRAIGHT man who was a part of it then had the motherfucking AUDACITY to think he had to be in the video where dom apologised and look upset and disappointed. Not any of the lgbt cast not to apologise himself for it CLEARLY being a greeting they both used, no. Because this CIS STRAIGHT WHITE MAN, decided he could be there because he played a gay man on tv. HE'S STRAIGHT.

When you get people being absolutely gross about dom and demonising him but being totally fine with all lives matter tweeting, r/ joke making, arguing with people over "having the right/it was just a joke" about the s/a "joke", refusing to apologise, marrying and moving in with a very trump supporting family and the tweets of this are gone now but given his marriage/inlaws/his own father being forced to resign from office for his program racial profiling, i believe it, but being seen at trump rallies, the silence over palenstine when AGAIN during blm he tweeted all lives matter and none of y'all even CARED. He broke quarantine when it was at it's height and everywhere was severly locked down to leave his newborn baby in another state to go fly and party and get drunk.

but he's not banned.

So I don't really blame people being overdefensive of dom. when that is the rpc/fandom/people's in general reaction. Like you will not see m/tt on banned lists when dom is. even though he was part of the thing that got dom blacklisted.

Like I'm overdefensive of dom like people attacking him but giving that thing over there a free pass I got no time for. But I will never say what he's done doesn't matter. Because that erases all the apologies, all the good he's done, how he's grown. You can't have one without the other. So agreed there. I aint touching THAT with a barge pole either.

Like I always say. Ban whoever makes you uncomfy/you don't like. But don't harass me or others over dom when m/tt gets a free pass. you will get your feelings hurt. Especially because multiple PSA'S have been made and get a ton of hits daily. op's have shared their statcounter stats with me so I know people KNOW about m/tts shitty behaviour. they just free pass because they find him attractive when you can find 80 of him at walmart. he's not hard to replace. in fact use a black, indigenous, or turkish replacement just to say f you to his dads specific racial profiling program. or a latine to say f you to him being cast as a certain someone because he LOOKED similar to the others cast in the family.

Sorry this went all sorts of off topic but if i missed any of your points please lmk!!!

Also if people want to talk to me about this please censor full names so it doesn't go in their tag!!

#<3 #rpt #rpc #rph #asks #answered

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astracora · 2 years

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ok... just... ye...

I liked a few things. A few.

I liked Max's monologue about how she wished something had happened to Billy, that was THE most relatable representation of trauma from the outcome of abuse. The fact that she had room to say that, was so important to me. (did not like that as soon as she was done she got called a freak/monster, but...)

Lucas/Max, very cute, very pure.

Joyce/Hopper, very cute, very pure too.

Eddie, amazing character, loved his rocking out, very good, super cool. Most metal shit ever. 'Never Change'. Best new father figure.

Steve, always, mvp, uwu love you.

Badass Nancy moments, good shit good shit.

Argyle, god damn ur so fucking funny.

Brenner, not getting the validation he was desperate for, suffer scumbag.

Things I hated?

Too long to list, too fucking fucking long. Vol 2 felt like a kick in the fucking nuts, followed by a spit in the face, following by a goddamn anvil falling onto my head.

The general trend of abused kids getting killed, and then having to see Max end up like that, felt sickening.

The whole Mike/Eleven/Will bullshit. You can make Mike and Eleven a thing without using Will's pain you absolute pieces of shit Duffers. The fact we had to have THE ONLY QUEER CHARACTERS, bOTH have a scene where they saw the people they liked kissing someone else? Are you KIDDING ME? Not only that but Mike is the worst fucking friend, doesn't bother to remember Will's birthday, doesn't try to protect him, doesn't support him, insults him more than fucking once, acts like he's a freak more than once, somehow doesn't notice that he's SOBBING right fucking NEXT to him?

Making Eleven's story that she just needs a love confession to become powerful again??

Steve and Nancy... and making out Jonathan's useless/should have been there. Dude??? Was dealing?? WITH PEOPLE SHOOTING AT HIM AND HIS FAM? Nancy make a FUCKING decision and stick with it challenge. (I like Nancy but the way they write her like some kind of indecisive lady who is fit to swoon at anyone who smiles at her nice... I??) Also why is Steve's whole plot about finding a lady, jesus christ...

That quite honestly fucking sickening shit with the Jock bastard tACKLING ERICA TO THE GROUND AND THREATENING HER?? She's a FUCKING child, that was so fucking Tone deaf, and not only that but having her in that fucking gun shop, looking petrified. Fuck me.

Eddie. Don't touch me. I could have vibed with hero death, if he wasn't just.. brushed to the side and ignored by EVERYONE but Dustin. Y'all made no reaction, not a single fucking bit. This guy demonised, treated like shit (and surprise surprise queer coded), and fucked over for being different, and he gets this treatment.

Just p much so much of the season. One thing wouldn't have bugged me so much but between the way they treated anyone in the series who was different... it just... ye. Fuck you Duffers, stop writing, you suck.

#stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things spoilers #to be frank btw #this isn't up for debate #i don't care if they 'didn't mean to put this message across'#thats how it fucking read and showed #which means they fucked up if thats not what they wanted #also every single one of their queer coded characters got treated like a punching bag #so quite sincerely fuck you

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sublimeobservationarcade · 5 months

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Time To End The Two Party System?

Right now, is it time to end the two party system? The ideological polarisation between sides is so great now that the country is stuck most of the time in the middle of a fight. Party members and their supporting voters don’t believe anything that comes out of the mouth of those on the opposing side. Partisans take their news from those media organisations subjectively on their side. Truth has been sidelined by manipulative forces hellbent on muddying the waters wherever possible. The nation is in a mess and is bedevilled by party politics to such an extent that it is mired in lies and fake news. Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com

When Two Tribes Go To War

The two party system was supposed to streamline the myriad different views and policy suggestions into workable ways of governing. Now, the adversarial nature of this two-headed political beast destroys more good ideas for the country than anything else. Red vs blue has so lost the bigger picture that the unity of the nation is under real threat once again. It is time to bust open this system and let some sunlight in to disinfect the polarisation. It is time to stop the lies and exaggerations so prevalent in political campaigns. Higher standards are required to weed out the toxic lies in politics. Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com Two Party Political System Failing The Nation Why are we where we are and how did we get there? The shift from concern with policies to playing politics has come about via the pushing of ideological values at the expense of shared experiences of identity. Any good marriage counsellor will tell you that relationships are built on compromise. I don’t see much compromise happening in the current climate. Political campaign managers have promoted divisiveness in a bid to get their candidates elected. They have identified social issues bothering certain demographics within their electorates and targeted these folks with negative messaging about the other side. Demonising ‘the other’ has become the accepted thing in today’s politics. Populism is based on these stratagems. - Tell your voter targets that things used to be better back then – employ nostalgia for some golden age. - Blame ‘the other’ as reason why things are bad now – socio-groups on the other side. - Demonise ‘the other’ as lazy, taking government money, & holding values at odds with the target audience. - Tell them your candidate is going to fix things & only your guy can do it! Two Party Democracy Reduces Voices Heard The two party system reduces the diversity of voices heard in government. This adversarial, head-butting, paradigm wastes most of the human energy expended in civic life. It signs up passionate individuals to agendas they often don’t believe in, but for which they are forced to toe the party line. The old argument is that without the two party system government will never get anything done. Well, they are not getting much done as it stands. It's Time For Another Way The biggest difference between the current political sides seems to be one of conservatives vs progressives. However, within that broad categorisation there are exceptions and many different ideas at play. If the politicians were freed from their opposing teams, perhaps, they could get on and achieve something together. The current set up is just not working. Being forced to fit in on a particular side, in one of those two main parties, has turned civic life into a contest. The contest had gotten out of hand. The players have lost sight of their shared national identity. It is a shit show! What Are We Teaching Our Children? Think of our children and what they are observing. What are they learning from our current political paradigm? That the country is split. That our nation is divided and wont listen to those it deems on the other side. How is that going to serve them in the future? How is it going to serve our country going forward? People are so caught up in the fight they have lost their way. Civil wars cost a lot of lives. Is getting your own way worth destroying the whole? “Partisan polarization has long been a fact of political life in the United States. But increasingly, Republicans and Democrats view not just the opposing party but also the people in that party in a negative light. Growing shares in each party now describe those in the other party as more closed-minded, dishonest, immoral and unintelligent than other Americans.” - (https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/as-partisan-hostility-grows-signs-of-frustration-with-the-two-party-system/) Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom. ©MidasWord Read the full article

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a-wild-rosette · 3 years

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Hey saw your 'Ranboo Negative' post about how you don't think he's a good character? (i'm sure that's what you said) and i was wondering if you wanted to expand on that?

(no pressure i'm just not the biggest fan of him either and like hearing people who agree with me lmao)

Hi anon my beloved.

I don't usually write crit but I'm mad enough today so :D here we go :D

So I'll admit that his entire like, enderwalk mystery and such doesn't engage me as much because mystery isn't my most favorite genre and I just feel like there are too many questions and mysteries keep piling up on top of each other. But like, that's probably just a personal preference thing.

But like on a character development, especially emotional and the way the character interact with the world? Yeah not into that. Here's why.

1. People excuse his actions too much and there is literally no consequence on Ranboo for his actions whatsoever.

c!Ranboo is the type of person who is nice, but not kind. The kind of person that stands for nothing and therefore falls for nothing. Instead, other people suffer the consequence of his actions.

Like Ranboo gave Techno back his weapons and stood by and watched at people were tortured by Techno and Tommy. Twice, may I add, with Fundy - one of Ranboo's supposedly closest friends, and Connor - an innocent bystander. No one ever calls him out on it, and he can go on and deny what he did (or didn't do, more like) was not bad. Or like the whole ordeal with Doomsday. He basically talks a big game of being loyal and choosing people, but in Doomsday the only person he chose was himself and his own safety.

He betrayed L'Manberg. He left Tubbo and Tommy to fight for their death even though he said he was going to fight with them. He abandoned every other person who cared about him, only to go and team up with the people who destroyed the country of the FOUR PEOPLE who had always wanted to protect him (Tubbo, Tommy, Niki, Fundy). He refused to pick a side, and by that, he picked the side of the tyrant. In the face of injustice, inaction is an action in itself. But yeah, while everyone else lost everything, Ranboo has everything to gain. He has powerful allies, a home that he can fill to the brim with richness, and in the end, everyone who he has hurt? Tubbo goes out of his way to protect him against Quackity's (reasonable, albeit quite harsh) criticism. He's still friends with Tommy, you know, despite being friends with one of the dudes who blew up Tommy's country. Even Fundy and Niki still care about him in the aftermath. He didn't lose anything - everyone else in L'Manberg did.

Somehow, he never had to stop and reconsider his stance on everything and who he supports, he never had to stop and considered "hey, maybe i'm not as good of a person as I want to be". AND HE COULD DO IT because no one calls him out on his action (or inaction, more like). It's always "oh no he's a victim because he has memory issues". Cool motive, still murder :) He's still a person with autonomy, and "peer pressure" is still not a good enough excuse to hurting people. And you know for sure that, even if Ranboo hurt someone *again*, it's gonna still be "justified" by whoever he didn't hurt :) (Not naming names here but it starts with Ranboo and ends with apologists). Actually, just look at the outpost situation with Las Nevadas right now :D

You see, Ranboo can do things that are really just... frustrating at best and downright annoying at best, and the amount of people going hearteyes at him still is enough to overwhelm any meaningful criticism in character :)

2. In fact, the consequence of Ranboo's actions fall onto other people. Or like, people justify Ranboo’s actions by demonising other characters. C!Ranboo does this too.

Not just other people blaming Ranboo's actions on him being "peer pressured", Not just like, people getting hurt because Ranboo didn’t support them. But Ranboo himself pushing the blame on other people to maintain the view that he was blameless.

c!Ranboo wants to be a “good” person so bad that he went to a lot of length to justify himself, blaming any wrongdoings on other characters, putting himself in the victim role to explain away his actions. He wants to be a good person, a “reasonable person” who would bring “peace” to the server and resolve conflict, but he refuses to actually do the hard things, because being “good” means taking a stance, being “good” is hard and needs effort, efforts that Ranboo does not have the drive to put in. So instead, he chose the easier thing: explain his actions away. He wasn’t bad, he couldn’t control other people’s actions. He was just a victim. Oh no!

Like when he called Fundy a coward for wanting to team up, for “choosing people, not sides” - the exact things Ranboo preached. Like when he yelled at Tommy for when his plan to kill Dream failed, even though he and Tubbo helped Tommy without ever trying to stop him or make him more well prepared. He denied any of his involvement in any plan that went wrong and pushed the blame onto the people around him. And even in the Las Nevadas dispute just now? He also subtly hinted that Tubbo was the one who made the decision, not him. He’s the reasonable one here. As if he didn’t help Tubbo. As if he didn’t antagonise Las Nevadas right along his partner.

And I would be more lenient with this trait if it weren’t also supported by literally everyone around Ranboo. Like, take the time when Phil told Fundy he had “a lot of redeeming to do” and expressed that Tubbo also had things to make up for, and then compared Ranboo with them as the poor, manipulated victim. Deliberation or no, that comparison push a narrative between Ranboo and Tubbo and Fundy, between the “good” victim and the “evil” perpetrator. Or, like, take the times where everyone blames c!Dream for manipulating c!Ranboo, even though there is no hint about that actually happening. Ranboo’s “victim” narrative keeps being reinforced, which, again, gives him no space and no dissonance to actually reconsider his stance.

3. There's no stake for c!Ranboo's character.

When L'Manberg was still around, Ranboo clearly showed his loyalty didn't lie with the country. He had no emotional connect to the place, and he failed to see how the country meant so much to the people who built it and fought for it and saw it rise and fall. Even his emotional connection to Tubbo and Tommy was chalked up, by himself, as "they were nice to me, so i'm nice back". Relationships, in season 2 at least, were just a tradeoff of favors and niceties to Ranboo, and whether it was the case or not, Ranboo convinced himself that was the case. This gave him a detachment from *everyone*, because at the end of the day, the emotional stake wasn't there, loyalty was not in ss2!Ranboo's vocabulary.

And right now? Ranboo is in full life, he has a whole chest of totems. The closest thing he has to a stake is Tubbo and Michael, but like, meta-wise? I don't think Tubbo is dying anytime soon, and Michael is also probably safe because no one would be cruel enough to use Michael as a plot, when cc!Ranboo and cc!Tubbo are clearly really attached. Ranboo is rich, powerful, with a powerful husband, and a whole fucking lot of plot armor. And while, yes, his attachment to Tubbo and Michael is a positive development (and the *only* positive development actually), it's also paled a bit when Ranboo is still allied with the people who destroyed Tubbo's home, not to mention he was there against Tubbo when the Syndicate threatened him. The emotional connection between him and Tubbo was still not strong enough for Ranboo to reconsider the people he supports.

I’m gonna be patient for now, but honestly the way the character is being excused over and over both in canon and by the fandom is really frustrating to watch.

#dream smp #dream smp analysis #c!ranboo critical #long post #rose's analysis

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mccoyyy · 3 years

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moving this to my new blog so I can pin it again lol

@stregoni-benefici you are completely correct but I just wanted to expand on this a little bit - also i’m putting this under a read more cause this got a lot longer than i originally thought it would be

sexism: smeyers treatment of female characters throughout the entire series is extremely problematic. like you don’t even need to read deep into the books to see that. the backstories of all her female characters all involve some form of trauma and are significantly more violent than the male vampires (Rosalie and Esme enduring physical/sexual assault meanwhile Edward dies of the flu and Emmett gets vibe checked by a bear).

she also creates the idea that a woman isn’t complete without children/being a mother. every female vampire in the series is desperate for children yet can’t, its mentioned in pretty much every book and extreme emphasis is placed on how tragic this is. a female character wanting children isn’t wrong or sexist at all but the way its written in twilight makes it seem like its something a woman has to do in order to be happy and smeyer pretty much cements this idea by making Bella suddenly desperate to have Renesmee despite showing no interest in children/audibly voicing her thoughts against having children in eclipse and the start of breaking dawn (i’m pretty sure Bella has a line of dialogue in the books where she says something like she didn’t realise it was something she wanted/needed until it happened bit I’m not sure I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

there’s also the way she writes female characters, specifically Rosalie. its mentioned throughout the series that Rosalie has extreme mechanical skills and multiple degrees in STEM fields but its barely ever shown, and instead her characterisation focuses on being obsessed with her looks (first couple pages of this, written by smeyer for new moon), and being a ‘stereotypical bitch’. for the first three books most of her character/dialogue is based on being cold and rude to Bella. She is unnecessarily painted as the villain for having different views on Bella (quite literally) giving up her life and future to be with a man (which is a whole other can of worms). the same is done to the character of Leah in eclipse/breaking dawn. Leah is a woman in the Quileute Tribe, she has been severely affected by the Cullen’s presence in the area and is painted as a character that the reader is supposed to dislike simply because she doesn’t like Bella/the Cullen’s despite having extremely valid reasons not to

anti-Native - smeyers treatment of native tribes is horrendous. she has profited fr years off of of native american culture for years and has done so without any acknowledgements. furthermore, she also demonises native american teens (especially in new moon) by calling them wild, violent, dangerous and out of control and then uses these stereotypes to create a contrast between the self control and patience of the Cullen’s and make them seem more like the good guys, and the wolf pack being lesser. She does this again with the treatment of Jacobs character in new moon and especially eclipse.

Jacob starts off in new moon as Bella’s best friend. he helps Bella come out of a severe depression caused when Edward left at the start of the book. however in eclipse his character makes a complete flip and he becomes moody, temperamental, argumentative and disrespectful of Bella’s boundaries. his character becomes unrecognisable and despite smeyers claims of a love triangle, it is obvious what the outcome will be. I have seen countless instances of people on this site claiming they hate Jacob because he is a dick/disrespectful/just as unhealthy as Edward. this was done on purpose by smeyer as she uses Jacob to make Edward seem like the obvious and correct choice for Bella. if you need more proof of this, take the scene where Jacob kisses Bella without her consent and she breaks her hand when punching him, Edward swoops in and almost gets into a fight with Jacob for touching Bella without her consent. this is an obvious attempt to make Jacob seem like the villain and Edward the white saviour

there’s also the treatment of the native characters by the white characters in the books. multiple times in the series, the native characters are called/compared to dogs/brutes and have a distinct unpleasant smell. I don’t think I need to explain how this is racist. the pack also helps the Cullen’s/saves Bella’s lives and never receive any acknowledgement/are treated any better by the Cullen’s/anyone really. the pack are only ever used as a way to make the Cullen’s look better.

there’s also some pretty obvious similarities to colonisation with the Cullen’s entering Quiluete lands which then forces them to start phasing into wolves (and I’m pretty sure none of the pack actually want to start phasing). also, remember Leah? the only female member of the wolf pack? because of the change she effectively can’t have children? that has implications.

and to top it all off, after doing all that, smeyer has never once addressed this or even acknowledged the Quileute Tribe.

pedophilic - I mean even without mentioning breaking dawn its pretty awful. first of all you’ve got the blatant sexualisation of minors throughout the entire series. Edward is 17 throughout the series and smeyer is writing literal paragraphs about his chiselled abs. Jacob is 16/17 when she has him running about forks topless with a 6 pack. this is way more apparent in the movies but its still a huge issue in the books and lead to Taylor Lautner being confronted by adult fans trying to get him to sign their underwear, and being forced into being shirtless for most of the movies which made him extremely uncomfortable (Elizabeth Reaser (Esme) briefly talks about this in the ID10T podcast on spotify). and just as a reminder, Taylor was 16 when the first one was filmed and 17 for the second.

Breaking Dawn is a whole other can of worms. the glaringly obvious issue is Jacob imprinting on a literal newborn baby. now the concept of imprinting itself has racist elements to it, but its heavily implied in the series that imprinting will inevitably lead to a romantic relationship. Jacob imprinting on Renesmee and waiting until she is old enough to enter into a romantic relationship (never mind the fact that shes ‘old enough’ she will still technically be 5) is pretty much grooming. The same happens with Quil and his imprint, Claire (a two year old) where I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in breaking dawn where Jacob and Leah are watching Quil play with Claire and talking about how Quil isn’t going to date anyone because he and Claire are ‘pretty much inevitable’ (i might be wrong though, like I said I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

smeyer has also written a spin off book (its like 250 odd pages) called the short second life of Bree Tanner (Bree is that newborn vampire killed after the battle in eclipse by the Volturi btw). In this book, Bree is 15 almost 16, and another character Diego is 18 which is definitely pushing the boundaries of ok. (also as a side note, funny how Bree and Jacob are literally the same age and smeyer states multiple times how Bree deserved better and is only a child (who straight up kills people), yet when it comes to Jacob he has to be a responsible adult and is vilified for every mistake he makes)

racist - smeyer refused to let Catherine Hardwicke (director of the first twilight) have a diverse cast because she ‘imagined them a certain way’ (white) and it was a fight to get Edi Gathegi cast as Laurent and had to compromise with smeyer to make Bella’s friend group more diverse. this woman straight up refused to hire more diverse actors and only agreed to when they were side characters/villains.

Also in the official companion book/guide to twilight, smeyer literally writes that vampire venom makes you white

‘the venom leeches all pigmentation from the skin into a more indestructable vampire form…regardless of original ethnicity a vampires skin will be exceptionally pale’ (official illustrated guide pg.69)

this is a whole lot of bullshit cause she is literally whitewashing characters, but when you pair this with the idea that vampires possess inhuman levels of beauty it becomes extremely problematic and implies that being pale/white is more beautiful than darker skin tones.

also, if we go back to Laurent’s character for a second. so Laurent is one of the only characters who isn’t described as white (in the books he is described as having a pale olive skin tone) and in the first book he comes across as pretty reasonable (warning carlisle about James/Victoria, travels up to Denali and tries out the veggie lifestyle) but in new moon, his characterisation pulls a 180° (sensing a theme here) and is suddenly trying to kill Bella as a favour to Victoria and is Evil™ despite in the first book he literally says to Carlisle he didn’t particularly like travelling with James/Victoria and was only really doing it for convenience. where did this undying loyalty come from? yet again, smeyer is completely disregarding established characterisation in POC characters specifically to villainise them.

and finally, we have Jasper. for some reason (that reason being that she is racist) smeyer decides to make Jasper a confederate soldier in his human life. if you don’t have a lot of knowledge on the american civil war, the confederacy were the side of the US that seceded from the union in order to keep their slaves. Jasper was a confederate soldier, and not just any soldier, but a major. Jasper was a major in an army that fought for 4 years to keep the existence of slavery (and don’t even try to say that slavery wasn’t the root cause of the civil war. states rights aye? states rights to do what). now there’s an argument out there made by certain fans that a lot of people joined the confederate army out of pride/were forced into it cause of conscription to try and head canon the racism away but like that doesn’t matter. there was literally no need to make jasper a confederate in the first place. if she was so desperate to have a civil war vampire then she could have made him a member of the union. its been common knowledge that the confederacy was racist for a long time now, smeyer has absolutely no excuses here.

a lot of these issues overlap and I have probably missed heaps of issues (so feel free to add on) but hope this helps explain why smeyer can *ahem* get tae absolute fuck

#smeyer deserves jail #writing this pissed me off so much brb im off to buy a dartboard and a coloured printer #twilight #anti-smeyer #twilight renaissance #twilight resurgance #twilight revival #dont fucking buy midnight sun #edward cullen #jacob black #bella swan #the cullens #wolf pack #jasper whitlock #jasper hale

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bittersweetcandybowl · 3 years

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ik this is FAR from being a new development, but how do you handle all the grown adults screaming in the comments at fictional teenage cats?? sometimes I forget how bad it is and then a dramatic arc starts and suddenly everyone's taking the characters' actions personally as if the cast is reading the comments after each page is posted lmao. and then they demonize the shit out of the cast for not being perfect, like...??? does it take a toll on you or are you just used to it at this point? :(

Oliver: As community moderators we want to keep things welcoming and inclusive of divergent viewpoints when feelings get intense.

This is often at odds with the way people behave — tribes emerge, memes are deployed, and all of a sudden you’re reading every page with “Mike is awful” or “Lucy is awful” glasses, loudly proclaiming how objectively correct you are, forming bonds with your compatriots and rallying against the dissenters. Making good friends! But scaring off everyone else as you do so.

And various troublesome habits can spice it up and make it even harder to maintain a healthy space — personal experiences can make for extreme opinions that are basically unassailable without demeaning the person sharing them, therapyspeak can lend unwarranted scientific certainty to the diagnosis of this or that Bad Teenager, etc and etc.

It seems that the more time people connect with each other, the more likely people are to take sides and stop listening to others. I think the Patreon commenters are pretty good. But on Facebook and on Discord, battle lines are drawn and people start to lose that spirit of generosity and openness to others that I think makes for a good community. It’s hard and we need to do better shaping those discussions.

As authors following public reactions, it’s easy to say “wow, it’s great that people are going apeshit!! Shows they really care!” but there’s a fair bit more to it than that.

Bittersweet Candy Bowl isn’t supposed to be a black-and-white morality tale where there’s a Designated Bad One To Hate, so it does feel like a bit of a storytelling failure when a bunch of readers can’t connect with a character who's intended to be multifaceted and relatable. In some sense, extreme opinions can hurt, and it makes you think “oh, did we fuck this one up?”

So the hope is that people who have demonised a character will eventually come around. They’re just emotional. Consumed in the moment. Or maybe not a good fit for a story like this? There’s a few spicier alternatives I also keep in mind, too, but it starts to sound infantilising to air those out, I guess. But in the end, we gauge how we’re doing by hearing from those who engage with the story thoughtfully. And who like the sort of stories we like.

And as a simple comic reader, someone who loves the characters and likes talking about them... well, it's just fun that so many takes are out there, isn't it? I like reading people flesh out interpretations that align with mine. I like reading challenges from people who have different takes and seeing if they give me reason to rethink things. The intensity of it all doesn't matter to me so much as the volume of thoughtful, considered commentary. And for BCB, there's a lot!

Veronica: My basic stance when it comes to this is that you’re allowed to hate a character.. you’re allowed to hate them a lot, in fact! But it gets out of hand when you hate a character so much that you’re judgemental about other readers who don’t hate that character, and use words to imply there is something morally bad about those people. That’s when it becomes less analysing characters in a comic to personally attacking other readers.

“Mike has been horrible to Lucy and that’s why I hate him” is different from “Mike has been horrible to Lucy and that’s why I side-eye the people who relate to him..”, this is made even worse when words like “abuser” and “manipulator” are used. You don’t know the other readers! You don’t know their history! You don’t know why they might empathise with Mike!

At the end of the day, BCB doesn’t have villains. Mike doesn’t make mistakes because it’s his life goal to hurt Lucy, but that being said, you’re allowed to hate him! That’s not what the issue is! Just be mindful of who you might be targeting when it comes to implying there’s something wrong with you if you even have a semblance of empathy for Mike, and that goes for any other controversial character.

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jaskiersvalley · 3 years

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I've been doing nothing but read your fics for three days straight and I am in LOVE with your wolf pack fics. I love me some happy witchers and their bard.

I’m always so humbled when people read my stuff :) Thank you for coming along on this odd ride of who the heck knows what’s going to come next. But I am right there with you on happy witchers and their bard. So have some more :D

To say Jaskier was pissed off was an understatement. Nobody sent him packing with such cruel words. He would prove to Geralt that he was better than that. In fact, he would prove to the whole world! Revenge was a dish best served with a delicious side of “I told you so” and what was the point Jaskier had been trying to prove over the last 22 decades? It was that witchers weren’t the terrible, heartless creatures that the world liked to demonise them into. Well, maybe Geralt was but the others didn’t have to suffer because of his buffoonery. That left Jaskier with only one choice. He returned home to lick his wounds and prove his very own point.

It started, like many things, as an uphill struggle. Gone was Jaskier the bard and his place was taken by Julian Alfred Pankratz Viscount de Lettenhove. His parents had wanted him to take a more active role in ruling the lands and that was exactly what he was going to do. But on his own terms. The decree went out that no witcher was to be turned away. Payment was to be prompt and fair and, of course, it would be subsidised by the Pakratz treasury. If word got out that a witcher was shunned or shortchanged, that particular village or town would be paid a personal visit and not a good one either.

Word started trickling back. Witchers were suspicious at first. Some outright refused the offer of a decent bed and a meal, opting to kill the creature in the area and flee with a bigger than expected pouch of coin. However, it seemed that a few more intrepid witchers sniffed out the area and deemed it ripe for the plucking. One corner of the Lettenhove lands even seemed to get a resident witcher. At first, the locals were wary but, it turned out, they could only see a witcher a handful of times doing very human things like fumbling a pouch or staggering back injured before they bonded. And suddenly, a cat witcher found himself a home. Not only that, allegedly he had a friend in the shadows, elusive and rarely seen. A rare sighting or two could confirm he was grumpy, suspicious and more likely to pick a fight than accept any kindness. Jaskier would put money on the fact that it was a wolf.

The fortune of one cat meant another was bound to turn up to try and get in on the good fortune. It was just as well Lettenhove was big enough and this cat took the southernmost corner which also happened to be the warmest. Surely nothing to do with the viper witcher that scouted the area before settling in too. So now Lettenhove had three, possibly four witchers who didn’t seem inclined to move on to other contracts. In fact, the settlements nearest to them seemed to be doing a great job of finding contracts for them - not all monsters but a witcher’s might was definitely needed in the fields when the ox were being stubborn and rumour had it, the wolf was quite impressive if let loose in a forge.

A messenger came pleading for help on a sunny afternoon. The wolf witcher had dragged another one into the village but seemed aggressive to any who came near and tried to help. Even the cat was no use, seemingly preoccupied with tracking down a human companion of the injured wolf. Without hesitation Jaskier jumped onto a horse and rode hard and fast, heart breaking already. Surely Geralt hadn’t found another human companion so quickly. Even worse, he hoped that the companion wasn’t dead, he didn’t want Geralt on his own again.

It was an odd relief to see a mop of dark hair than white. Not that Jaskier ever wanted anyone to be hurting but he still did hold a torch for Geralt despite his cruelty. While he wasn’t allowed near the injured witcher, Jaskier could make an educated guess that they were Lambert and Eskel which earned him a sliver of trust. He was allowed to get things from the local healer and apothecary to help Lambert care for Eskel. Even better, Lambert finally accepted a room at an inn that he could carry Eskel to. If only that had been all the drama. Jaskier didn’t expect the cat to come into the village at a pull gallop, a body slung across the horse’s back. Thankfully the healer got there before Lambert and the human got carted off with worried cat in tow.

Jaskier only left when he was confident everyone was healing and was staying put for the foreseeable future. The little he gleaned of the unusual group had his heart warming up though, glad that even out on the harsh Path, they had each other.

Of course, Jaskier’s act of generosity had consequences. Two more vipers, another cat and allegedly a griffin also took up residence throughout the lands. Which meant that contracts around the continent were being left unfilled. Witchers had plenty of work throughout Lettenhove and were well compensated for it, they had no reason or need to go further afield into harsher conditions. However, it gave Jaskier a business opportunity he just couldn’t resist. Especially when the messengers started trickling in, begging to borrow a witcher. There was no obligation for any of the witchers he considered ‘his’ to step in. But Jaskier made his home the middleman for contracts. He could negotiate pay, accommodation and other sundries for his witchers before they were offered a contract. Funnily enough, cats were the most likely to venture out, needing the change of scenery. While reclusive and prickly, it seemed that Lambert had found himself a new stomping ground he was reluctant to leave. Sometimes Eskel headed out, feeling the need to do good but never again was he chased from a village without pay, food and rest. The one time a viper was run out, Jaskier blacklisted the whole region for contracts until the king himself came to ask for forgiveness. Watching someone regal apologise to a bewildered witcher may have been the inspiration for Jaskier’s next ditty.

A grizzled wolf turned up on Jaskier’s doorstep, assessing and shrewd. He never did leave as Vesemir’s talents were put to good use with negotiations and also information gathering. Overall, Lettenhove was becoming a force to be reckoned with. Crime was at an all time low, the people were happy and witchers were beginning to be treated better throughout the continent. Yet there was no sign of Geralt. Slowly, Jaskier stopped hoping.

“He’s a stubborn ass. Should have started a new school just for him,” Vesemir grumbled one evening. “School of the Mule.”

It had Jaskier snorting a halfhearted laugh but his still pined. Months went by and other regions began to take inspiration from Lettenhove, offering their own versions of protection for resident witchers. It both filled Jaskier with pride and dread because now Geralt could settle somewhere else. The continent was vast and the safe havens were cropping up thick and fast.

Whispers started up. An elusive witcher had been spotted to the north. Nobody quite knew what he looked like, yellow eyes flashed from below the deep hood of a cloak. That was ruined by reports of Lambert tackling the mysterious witcher and Eskel piling in. Vesemir only smiled as he listened to the messenger relay the happenings while Jaskier’s heart thumped hard in his chest.

“Stubborn idiot. But also a loyal wolf.”

There were only four wolves in existence and Jaskier already housed three. Which meant the fourth could only be Geralt. His hopes and dreams were brought to life by the thumping knock on the door. Opening it, Jaskier regarded Geralt coldly.

“I have come to apologise,” he said as a blonde head poked out from behind him curiously.

“Only six years late.”

“My head was stuck so far up my ass, it took this long to get free.”

As much as Jaskier wanted to hold a grudge, he was also relieved Geralt was alive and well. Even better, he had his child surprise in tow.

“You have a lot to be making up for. But come on in.”

The rest, they say, is history.

#geraskier #implied aiden/lambert/eskel/cahir #geralt of rivia #jaskier #lambert #eskel #aiden #vesemir #witcher wolf pack #long post #tldr: jaskier sets up witcher haven

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fndmxreader · 3 years

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fandom: harry potter. pairing: remus lupin x reader | the reader simps for lupin because isn’t that all what we do daily ? summary: connected to the self indulgent series where the reader is a slytherin muggle born witch working alongside the teachers at hogwarts. note: this series will bounce around a lot involving timelines, but a lot of them don’t really have a coherent story line anyway. movie setting: prisoner of askaban. pov: she/her pronouns.

you were looking off into the distance in a daze, end of pen in mouth as your writings came to a halt and instead getting caught up in thoughts. your summer hadn’t been great, if you were being completely honest : your muggle friends were getting on your case regarding being missing for a year, you knew at some point you had to pick : the wizarding world or the muggle one, living two lives was absolutely exhausting, living them meant being two types of people - like one example, you had accidentally used a levitating spell to put a cup back and last minute your friend walked in, smashing on the floor as your hand flinched down to your side.

“ what was that crash ? “ “ i put the mug too close to the counter, “ you had laughed nervously, quickly walking towards the glass to pick it up “ it fell off as a result ” “you’re clumsiness is going to be the death of you “

that was only one of the close calls, there were far too many to keep track of, including dropping hints to the wizarding world in conversation, only to stutter and try and say you were referencing a bizarre indie movie from overseas. at this point you were trying to pick would it be even possible to choose a side ? it seemed impossible just to pick one over the other, especially knowing that no matter what route you take it would result in an empty, hollow feeling left inside of chest. you’re not sure who you could go to for guidance, you weren’t familiar with any muggle borns your own age, and talking to a pureblood or half blood would go in vein, the latter would understand to some degree, but ultimately it’s not the same and with it being so complicated, listening to people who barely got it would be a waste of time and only twist the knife in gut.

“ everyone, i would like to introduce you to remus jo - “ that was all you really heard dumbledore say before ears blocked out the world like static, everything beyond the screaming in your head made everything else seem like a distant hum with no tune, a crackle of a tv that can’t quite catch signal. your pen tapped against your bottom lip, perching against it as you eyebrows knitted together in deep thought.

maybe professor dumbledore could help, he wouldn’t get it but maybe he could shred some light on the situation ? he was always good at that.

“ miss l/n - “

perhaps it’s all just being blown out of proportion, work leave would surely be something the muggles would understand that. even if they are after photos, work gossip and other details -

“ y/n “ between the firmness and the sudden block of your view as the men stepped into eyesight causes you to flinch, reeling away from nothing in panic as you try and grasped your surroundings once more, blinking up in a rapid succession that causes concern to flash on the two men’s faces. it takes a moment to register where you were, the surroundings, what the hell was going on in general...

“ huh ? “ your tongue pokes out to roll against your bottom lip, eyes wide as you stared up at dumbledore, only for sight to break away from the one your most familiar with to the new guy... you won’t lie to yourself, you weren’t ready for seeing someone like him, especially in your state. his eyes were beaming with life, amusement dancing behind dark hues as a faint smile tugged at lips, hands pushed far into pockets as eye contact seemed to lock, your lips part to say something, anything but much like before your brain seemed to short circuit, this time for an entirely and much more embarrassing reason, “ huh ? “ you repeated again, cheeks coming to life with colour as you kept looking at the new guy.

“ this is professor lupin, y/n. the new defence against the dark arts teacher - “ speaking slower now, and you’re rather grateful for the approach because you really needed things to stop going by so quickly, the whole world seemed to flash in front of you at lightening speed.

“ oh “ a pause, then it really began to register “ OH ! “ it was the most beautiful example of a pin drop ever to grace hogwarts’ walls ( yes, dumbledore will be thinking about it years to come ) - you jump up rather clumsily and hold your hand out to the man “ hi, sorry - i was just ... never mind, hi ! “ you repeated again, the embarrassment settling deep within bones, making itself at home in the creases of mind that would take weeks to weave out. but regardless of the mocking in head, you do your best to not feed it and give it anymore attention... at least for the time being. lupins much bigger hand wraps around yours, a firm but gentle grasp as he finally takes the moment to speak himself.

“ that’s quite alright, i can tell that we disturbed you. in fact i believe we should be the ones apologising, however professor dumbledore here insisted on the introduction - “ it came easily, between tone of his voice and the warmth of his hand, you’ve never felt safer, it was like being in a warm hug beside the fire on the night of winter; you mentally slap yourself for acting like a teenager towards a complete stranger. your eyes however, narrow towards dumbledore, in a way blaming you own pathetic display on him. a faint smile on his lips as he made up some excuse to leave the pair of you alone, not at all hiding the way his eyes twinkled with amusement at the scene that played out.

your hand flexed around remus’, far too busy sending daggers at dumbledore walking away than the fact you were still holding the older man hostage, not helping the murmured “ ugh, he can be such an arse sometimes - “

“ i believe that’s apart of the charm “ remus chimed, your eyes moving back to his as you smiled up at him once more, less tense than what your face was previously “ um, miss l/n ? your hand - “

“ oh, fuck, sorry - “ instantly your arms folded across your chest, the blush only darkening your cheeks “ i promise i’m not this socially inept, well, at least to this extent - “

“ oh, don’t fret. i’ve met much worse people, i myself tend to panic in social situations. they’re not my forte “ you shoulders relax, though you can’t help but note that he seemed surprisingly at ease even with the confession. your eyes dance around the staff room, much to your own relief they seemed to be back to focusing on their own work.

“ well, you’re doing much better than me if that’s any help. so, you’re teaching dark arts - ? “ then the conversation seemed to spark to life without much spluttering after that, eventually both sitting on the couch and bonding over lessons; including how you got your position in the first place, your arm rested on the back of the furniture as your body turned fully to him, the longer the pair of you were sat there, the more they progressed beyond work and more into personal ones, about experiences outside of hogwarts and within the walls, not helping the fits of giggles that bubbled in your chest.

“ being a slytherin comes with the natural title of ‘dark pranks,’ most of us tend to live up to the name. people demonise us, so we give them a reason to continue it. that certainly doesn’t end at our humour, i think it shows more than ever in that aspect - “ you giggled again, head shaking “ i remember my friends putting a real snake in one of the gryffindors bed covered in animals blood, the girl panicked for weeks - but they started it ! “

“ i must say being a gryffindor myself, i feel like i should be offended on behalf of them. then again, my friends here were trouble makers as well. their pranks could... “ wrist rolled in the air, and while there’s a hint of pain twisting in features and a haunted look that seemed to cover bright eyes, there was still a fondness in how he spoke “ extremely, well and truly out of hand ? “

“ ahah ! “ it’s like a triumph, finger pointing at the others face “ you can hide behind the fancy wording all you want, professor. but you gryffindors can be just as over the top as the rest of us, if not more so ! “ he knocks your hand away from his face playfully, grin widening as mock offence does its best to take over features.

“ firstly, you may call me remus, second of all, i will agree with nothing you say, i would never stoop so low. “

your heart skipped a beat at the notion.

“ you may call me y/n, only when you admit i’m right - “

a nice joke to push down the giddiness of calling him by his first name the short hours of knowing him.

“ how very slytherin of you - “

“ how very gryffindor of you to point that out, remus “

the back and forth banter eventually came to a halt, as minutes ticked by it was time to go to the great hall for food and to sort out the new years. you and remus walked in a comfortable silence, a lightness surrounding you both as it showed in your steps, and showed in the way his lips remained locked in a subtle smile. you were left with one feeling... finally, dumbledore hired someone worthwhile. you would also give him a hard time for that awkward bow that he did at dinner.

#remus lupin x reader #harry potter x reader #hp x reader #teacher!reader series.#the man. the myth. the good doggie -#MSODHSOIDHSOIDH #harry potter corner.#god this took days to write i dont even know why im sorry im a sham

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elizabethrobertajones · 3 years

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hi! is their any good lore or (more likely) what's your preferred headcanon on the metaphysics of demons? what actually *are* they, that is different from human souls they're made from, yet allows them to basically have human-like personalities in some cases (and be completely rabidly evil in others)?

Honestly the last few years have left me at “people be like that” and how hard is it anyway to convince someone who was already an asshole who got sent to hell that they’d suffer less if they inflicted pain back, and leaning into that will get you sick supernatural powers to do more evil with, and before you know it all these incel weirdoes who had an unhealthy murder-suicide pact in their head with the barista who had never even talked to them except to take their order and give them the side-eye when they stared too long, are in a weird one upmanship culture with each other about who can eat the most babies or whatever Hell’s current Evil Fad is in order to be the Most Alpha Bad Demon.

Which makes it a pretty chilling commentary before it was even fully in the epoch for pop culture commentary, on how society and herd mentality are warping people into terrible monsters, and many of those people are people who maybe would have been sympathetic and vulnerable and probably bullied and insecure a long time ago, but instead of being helped they’re put into this mill that twists them and feeds their insecurities and tells them who’s to blame for them and gives them a new sense of purpose and a club to belong to that for the first time they feel powerful and accepted and need an autocratic ruler to worship and follow and the only condition is to mete out pain? These people who’ve been filled with pain all their lives and would like nothing more than to lash out against everyone they perceive has hurt them?

I think the show has actually got into this a bit from the start with the Psychic Children stuff, and how Yellow Eyes was following them around bothering them and making their lives horrible in order to twist them or at least make them feel outside and alone and different. Like, after the Mary incident and seeing how John took up arms, he didn’t have to do SHIT with Sam until he was an adult, but some of the kids had had him whispering to them since childhood, probably because they were living too stable middle class comfortable lives and needed a push. Max for example didn’t have any known contact from Yellow Eyes though because he also grew up in an abusive home, and the people around him did all the work to turn him into a killer as soon as he had special powers to pay it back to those who hurt him.

A lot of the season 1-4 messaging was very much how Sam and Dean were good men because they had been put through this or sent to hell and how they struggled against what they thought might be their nature either from basically birth for Sam or the abuse Dean was put through (Dream a Little Dream very clearly showing how Dean could be someone who was ripe for demonisation just from his upbringing even before the torture because he had these things which could be twisted to make him evil if someone was going to manipulate him)... Sam’s side was all based on magic bullshit and he turned out to be mostly good all the way through even when he was being very very bad, but Dean’s struggles always were framed through this. Like the season 7 episode with Jeffrey, who was very strongly paralleled with Dean and put attention back on him having been a torturer in hell long after the main narrative had moved on from Dean’s trauma. But even when Dean did get demonised through magic bullshit it still was more based in his character than the way Sam struggled through knowing he should be a good guy and wanting to be a good guy and just always finding more magic bullshit in the way when he tried.

So I think you can say this is sort of the reasoning the show’s always given for how demons end up like that... Like, Ruby being a witch with a demon pact before she died meant she was very in control of herself and probably needed no torture whatsoever to pop back up as a demon because she was already willing to do these horrible things. Likewise idk if it was confirmed Rowena was a demon or just a dead soul in Hell who was too scary to fuck with, but either way she was allowed to just waltz onto the throne without any real process of suffering because she was so well suited to it from her life, even if her death was a heroic sacrifice and she had become a better person in life, she was still a blatantly hellbound soul and then once there blatantly a step above MOST souls Hell would ever be lucky to get their hands on. Dean on the other hand was someone who would resist at every step and have to be seriously broken by prolonged torture to ever even start him on the path. Rowena might not even NOTICE the day she slips from human soul to demon :P

I think back in season 10/11 there was more of an effort to suggest cosmic nonsense and the balance of hell to heaven and demons to angels and amara to chuck, giving Amara similar looking powers to demons with black smoke especially, and of course Dean and Cain being demonised as just an inherent part of their souls being in contact with her. No one ever laid down any ground rules about this but I suppose the magical process has to be at least somewhat borne out since Lucifer had the Mark at one point when he started making demons, so probably the Darkness has its spooky fingers in the mechanics of all this somewhere. But the psychological aspect is far more interesting to me. :D

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