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erideights · 8 months

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Little pieces here and there (4)

Pairing: Buggy x Fem!Reader (One Piece Live Action)

Parts: one, two, three, five

Word Count: 4,2K, i should ask for forgiveness

Warnings: flirting, pinning, (FUCKING) FINALLY, unprotected sex, buggy detaching parts of his body during sex like the freak he is

A/N: i've been building this moment so long that i was, once more, inspired by god to make this chapter the longest ever, i hope you all enjoy and that the awaited smut doesn't disappoint and delivers (let me know, anxiety is killing me, love u all, see you in chapter 5, the final (until season 2) of this series) (again i'm really really sorry for any grammatical mistake!)

Day 5 after what happened during the Arlong Park fight, or what is the same for her = 5 AAP, (Y/N) is sure about three things:

1. With the choice of leaving her mercenary life behind, comes her new position as the ''strategist'' of the Straw Hat crew, a group of very unique people that after a couple of stops along the way, would arrive at the Grand Line.

2. Their next destination is Loguetown, which excited her; she loved the city, she never turned down an assignment that involved working there. They would arrive in a couple of days and stock up on everything they would need before beginning the greatest adventure of their lives.

3. Buggy's nose was real. Very real. And she missed him. Just a bit.

To be more precise, that bit of tension and constant sarcasm around her. She knew he was a pain in the ass, and that his staying on the ship wouldn't have lasted much more than an extra day and a half because one of her crewmates -Zoro- would have unceremoniously thrown him overboard anytime.

But it was really fun for her, so from time to time and in particular, when she passes by the helm, she finds herself remembering that annoying talking head and smiling a bit.

And so, after an entire week, they arrive at the famous Loguetown, the tomb of the most famous pirate of all time, a refuge for mercenaries, pirates and bounty hunters from all corners of the East Blue! No matter what, everything your heart could desire -except for the One Piece- you could find there. Jewelry, weapons, food, alcohol, a good bed to sleep and rest in, or other darker, macabre and adult types of entertainment.

Ah, what a city. Anyone could get lost among its endless alleys packed with people. That's why when the crew splits up, they do it in pairs, making sure that Zoro, who they had already discovered, lacked complete and utter sense of direction, wouldn't be left alone and lost among the city's infinite tide of pirates. (Y/N) is the one who goes with him, both heading to the largest armory in the city to replace his destroyed katanas while Sanji and Luffy take care of the food, and Usopp and Nami go around to do… she doesn’t really remember what. Trying clothes she believes.

She must say, however, that this swordsman is not exactly the most talkative person in the world even though their friendship has considerably grown and deepened during their little journey. Apart from sharing small notes about the city, how many people there are, or what they should do, they don't really talk that much; in her case, because she is absorbed in her surroundings, soaking in every possible detail. Him, silent because his reputation as a pirate hunter is famous around all the East Blue, and of course, in Loguetown there are only pirates. He prefers to stay alert to avoid future conflicts and have a peaceful morning. Not for him, but for his crew.

That's why when a gloved hand flies out of a dark alley, and violently covers the girl's mouth and nose, preventing her from screaming, while another grabs her by the waistband of her pants and yanks her back, forcing her to get in said alley, Zoro doesn't even notice, he continues calmly walking, minding his own fucking business, heading to only God knows where.

Farewell, mosshead.

In a blink, (Y/N)'s back collides with a strong torso, and with her heart in her mouth and adrenaline running wild in her veins, she stretches her right hand to reach the knife she has in the holster on her right thigh to destroy the asshole that dares to try to steal from her. Or murder her. Or that's her idea until she hears a familiar voice murmuring an “I got you” behind her, before turning her head and discovering the biggest, reckless buffoon she's ever met.

Buggy.

Eyes wide open, she screams against his palm, pissed off by the way he scared the shit outta her. Extremely angry, she yanks his hand away from her mouth, turns her entire body around and looks at him with what he would swear, is the most annoyed expression he ever saw in his entire life. Before the clown can excuse himself and his lack of manners, just as she begins to see that stupid smile appear on his stupid face, she slaps him so hard that for a second, he thinks his head will detach from the rest of his body.

Then, and pushed by an outburst of passion that comes out of she doesn’t even understand where, a mixture of adrenaline, surprise, her desire to kill him with her own hands and the -sexual- frustration with which he abandoned her the last time, she grabs his vest, pulls and kisses him. Again, all before Buggy can even react.

The kiss is brief. Really quick, but intense as hell, and she manages to leave him breathless. Yes, him. Only him. Because the moment they separate, when (Y/N) pushes him back, she spits out a heartfelt “You're an idiot!”

What a fucking rollercoaster. He doesn't even remember what he was about to say anymore to greet her. He's in fact, too stunned to speak. Did she slapped, kissed, and insulted him in less than a minute? Oh, she's a freak, just like him. The only difference between them is that she knows how to pretend the opposite. But she can't hide it from him. Not to the king of the freaks.

''I missed you too, baby'' he admits with an amused smile, moving his jaw a little from side to side, as well as his neck; that woman is stronger than he expected.

''Yeah? Because I really didn’t.’’ she spits once again, taking a deep breath. ''Liar'' he retorts, eyeing her up and down. ''Liir'' she instantly mocks, still recovering from the tsunami of emotions that just passed through her. ''What the fuck are you doing in Loguetown?''

''I came looking for my sorry excuses for a supporting cast,'' his crew. Were they still alive? Would have sworn Zoro destroyed all of them but who knew. ''and turns out I found the perfect, shiny, little new supporting star for my show'' he adds, as flirtatious as always around her, approaching (Y/N) again.

''Oh, I feel flattered but as I already told you, I don't like being in the spotlight. I relate way more to the shadow around it.”

He rolls his eyes but nods in understanding, reaching out to grab the girl's waist. ''Mhm. What about a private show, then? We have a play to finish, If my memory's not betraying me.'' He whispers honeyed, closing the distance between the two just a bit more. Cannot stop himself, neither he wants to. He knew as soon as he recognized her on the street, he would not let her go without putting order in their outstanding matters.

She’s about to add her usual sarcastic and smartass remark saying something among the lines of ‘without inviting me to dinner first?’ but she chooses not to. Just for once. ''I could agree to that.'' The girl admits, tilting a smile. ''Not here, tho.'' Pressing the clown's chest with her index finger, signaling for him to stay still, (Y/N) runs her tongue over her upper teeth, taking a couple of seconds to think.

In the end, she raises an eyebrow, and with an amused smile, she asks: “Do you trust me?”

''Not in a million years''

''I knew you would say that.'' She still takes one of his hands, that was still on her waist, and starts walking quite fast towards the other end of the alley, pulling him with her. He doesn’t object at all, despite not knowing where the hell is she taking him, and simply follows her lead, unconsciously squeezing her hand to not to lose her in the crowd.

Not many minutes later, after climbing some stairs and turning a few streets, there they are, in front of a beautiful tavern with windows decorated with ornate dark wooden planks, designing patterns of small squares, offering a beautiful view of its interior. The building was not one of the largest in the area, but it was not one of the smallest either. She knew from experience* that the floors above the tavern were rooms rented to the pickiest pirates. They had enough space to rest comfortably after a long voyage at sea, with a good bed and several locks on the doors and windows to prevent intrusions, attempts at robbery or murder, or a drunken idiot making a mistake and entering the wrong room.

*She knows this because a couple of years ago she needed to sneak in during the night to steal a jade seal from a famous pirate captain, who had previously stolen it from the temple it belonged to a few months before. Getting in wasn't easy at all.

Walking to the side of the building, where the windows of the rooms can be seen better, (Y/N) looks right, then left, making sure there’s no one nosing around.

‘’Here we are.’’ She announces, looking at him with a devilish smirk on her face. ''Now pay attention, here's my brilliant, unique and exceptional plan. It will absolutely blow your mind.’’ He cracks a genuine smile after hearing how she praised herself. She sounded almost like him.

“First step: Throw your head up to that window over there,” she points said window with her index finger, two floors above their heads, “and tell me if there’s someone sleeping inside. Or if you see any sign someone rented the room.’’

Confusion is the feeling that crosses his beautiful face for a second, looking at her with a raised eyebrow and lips pressed into a small incredulous smile. She wants to sneak through the window without being seen and not pay a single berry? Exactly what a true pirate would do. He was starting to fall in love with her.

Without a second thought, his head separates from his body and floats to the open window, slightly sneaking in to check as she asked. And as fast as it goes up, it returns back down, just like a yo-yo. ''Clear'' He confirms, amused.

''Perfect, second step: now throw your right hand, same window, and leave it there.'' And he does as she says, no questions asked, because he could not do otherwise. Because he wouldn't want to do otherwise. He was not made to follow orders and still, deep down, he knows he would follow hers. Or better said… he would follow her around. She was, maybe, not a theatre kid like him, but to his eyes, she shines brightly.

Not as much as him, tho.

Once Buggy's right hand waits patiently on the window frame, (Y/N) grabs the clown by the shoulders and strategically positions him under the window. Then she takes his left hand, bringing it forward. "Third step: with this hand you propel me into the air, with the other you grab me and you help me sneak in."

''And the final step?'' Getting very close to his face, the girl rubs her nose against his and whispers, voice low and lustful, ''You float to the window and meet me inside for that private show you mentioned before.'' He already knew the goal of that whole improvised plan, but he almost purrs when he hears her say it.

Then Buggy throws her upwards without prior notice, way stronger than she expected, and a sweet, genuine laugh escapes (Y/N)'s lips at the lack of gravity and that distinctive tickle in her stomach that rises to her throat. Not even when he uses that floating hand to catch her and guide her to the room, her feet on solid ground again, she’s able to stop laughing.

She expected this whole forbidden getaway to be entertaining, but not so, so fun. There was no point in denying the obvious: the complicity, the chemistry between them is criminal, asphyxiating, palpable, and so, so /real/. It's not only about physical attraction and sexual tension anymore, they were actually really compatible, which could only, and is already, making things one hundred times better.

As soon as she's inside, still giggling a bit, she's quick to reach the door and securely close it, fitting the bolt with a pair of lockpicks that she had on her. On the other hand, as soon as Buggy gets inside the room he chooses not to lose a single second, because every second he wastes is one less that he can enjoy that fantastic woman who is driving him crazy; before she can return to the center of the room, he has already recovered his right hand, thrown his hat to the floor along with his coat, and has rushed towards her, kissing her again, this time without a hurry, but voraciously, passionately, with the irresistible yearning he has been suffering for almost two weeks. He wants-- no, he needs to make her his. The desire making his blood boil. Her warmth, her smell, the taste of her lips-- even her laugh. It was too much. Too intoxicating.

(Y/N) welcomes him, sighing deeply against his lips, tilting her head a little, melting in the kiss, her hands flying to his hair to take out the bandana and pull at his blue locks, to which Buggy responds by grabbing her from the back of her thighs, lifting her up and carrying her to the bed, near the window. He lets some of his weight fall onto her, loosely holding himself on his knees on the mattress. She closes her legs around his waist, pressing him even a little closer against her body, excitement coursing through her veins like poison.

All that little game with the clown was just flirting, huh? Yeah, sure.

For a minute, everything is kisses, stealing each other's breaths, strong caresses on arms, legs, and back over clothes. There are bites at each other's lips, seemingly incapable of getting enough of the other, the attraction between them driving them both so absolutely insane than getting some distance to get naked seems impossible.

“Baby,” raspily, he press his crotch between her legs to let her feel his growing erection under his pants. ''I suggest you getting naked before I rip your clothes off by myself.''

She moans in response, wetter, more aroused by every second passing, unable to even think about playing hard to get this time. ''Aye aye captain'' she manages to whisper back mischievously, separating her hands from his body in order to pull her own shirt up and throw it somewhere in the room.

He grunts, but makes the titanic effort to separate himself from her, standing on his knees in front of her laying body, licking his lips, breathing heavily, eyes half-closed, already fucking her in his thoughts. Of course, seeing her undress for him is quite a show.

After her shirt comes the button and zipper of her pants. Although before getting rid of these, she pulls the scarf around the clown's neck, forcing him to lean over her again, and after it goes his vest. Given the girl's haste, he lets escape a hoarse laugh that reverberates inside his chest and decides to help her with whatever’s left between them; shoes, pants, gloves, and underwear.

''You're gorgeous'' he breathes, taking in her image in front of him. “You’re almost making me feel guilty for what I'm about to do.”

Before she could even ask, or threaten with a ‘don't you fucking dare’ or something among those lines, one of Buggy's hands flies to her own, and pins her wrists against the bed with such force, she hisses, heart in her throat, deafening her ears. She remembers herself, this was all too good to be true, and that damn clown promised to make her beg. He wasn't going to forgive her so easily, was he?

Her fault.

''Sweetheart, open your beautiful legs for me, will you?'' Returning to the bed, the clown settles between the girl's thighs, running -with the only hand still attached to his body-, one of her legs, from the knee to the hip bone in a slow and tortuous caress.

''Now, I'm pretty sure I warned you about what's about to happen last time you took advantage of my... uncomfortable, kinda-hostage situation on your stupid little boat. When you decided to push me to my limit.''

She is too aroused, too turned on to think clearly, her mind clouded by the same rush of hormones that’s making her incredibly wet. Having him now naked between her legs, threatening her in that low tone of voice, exposed helplessly in front of him, doesn't help at all; it is, as a matter of fact, making things way worse.

''You wanted me to beg, right?’’

''Exactly. It's that easy.'' After a couple of strokes, he grabs his erection and runs it slowly through her wet folds, both of them barely containing a moan in their throats at the sensation. He, perhaps, better than her, because (Y/N) involuntarily pushes her hips upwards, trying to get some more. ''Ah-ah. Want me to fuck you, sweetheart? Just beg for it. Beg for /me/.''

Being the proud woman she is, it's not exactly easy for her to seriously beg for something. Joking? Of course, any time, even sarcastically, but something is telling her, her sixth sense probably, he won't settle with a sarcastic remark and dove eyes.

Closing her eyes tightly, she lets herself be carried away by pure and absolute desperation every time he runs his erection through her, lubricating himself with her fluids. He is silent, already tasting the sweet victory he’ll feel when he manages to break her and make her beg. Although this doesn't happen as quickly as he would have preferred.

''(Y/N)'' He warns, and it's the first time he says her name out loud. The first time she hears him, with his raspy voice and his beautiful accent, pronouncing her real name instead of some compliment or silly nickname to call her.

Welcome, breaking point.

''Beg--''

''I need you,'' she interrupts him in a low whimper, lifting her hips. ''Bugs-- Buggy, I need you to fuck me. Now.”

Usually, it's moments like this particular one in which the clown enjoys recreating himself, making others beg a little more, -sex, mercy, forgiveness- doesn’t matter-, taking his good time listening to her moans and cries of desperation. But he can't help it, the second he hears the girl call him by his name, telling him how much she needs him, and that silly attempt of an order at the end, he knows it’s game over, and he decides to give her exactly what she wants, penetrating her suddenly the last time he runs slowly through her folds. A sweet moan of relief and pleasure escapes from (Y/N) chest along with a "Fuck, Buggy--". From him, a hoarse grunt. A shiver runs down their spines, and quickly, Buggy recovers his other hand, freeing her from his grip, to aggressively pull both of her thighs to bring her closer to him, and begins to thrust hard, all shreds of self-control escaping from his body lightspeed.

He pushes into her as deep as he can in no time, burying himself between her legs, face hidden in the crook of her neck, hands keeping her legs open, close to his hips.

She doesn't know what she likes more, the erratic sound of his breathing and panting in her ear, the desperation with which his whole body seems to search for hers or each penetration sending an ecstasy shock through her nerves, but she soon becomes a puddle of sweet moans, whimpers and breathing as heavy as his, one hand pulling hard at his blue hair, the other resting on his abdomen, nails digging slightly his skin with each thrust.

''Oh god, Bugs--’’

''Moan my name louder baby,'' he breathes before biting her shoulder, leaving the mark of his teeth imprinted on her skin. ''I want them to catch us. I want them hearing you scream my name.”

And she does. She moans his name again, just not as loud as he wants. Which means there is something, something he can do better. Something to push her to her limit, to make her a believer, and make her /his/.

Summoning all his willpower, and not before one last, violent thrust, the clown stops and suddenly pulls out of her. (Y/N) complains with a loud cry, opening her eyes to ask what the fuck is he actually doing, how dares he to stop. Thank God, she doesn't have time to threaten him before he speaks.

''On your knees.'' And of course she obliges, on all fours, the simple idea making her completely lose her mind. Only thing, Buggy doesn't intend to keep her like this for a long time; as soon as she exposes herself for him again, he buries himself once more inside her as deep as he can and starts thrusting again, slowly but strongly, ending each thrust with a loud slam. This time, both hands separate from his body, one reaching for her delicate neck, which he circles with his fingers and presses to lightly cut off her breathing. The other one flies to her mouth, pushing between her lips with two fingers that she soaks in her saliva.

(Y/N), unable to articulate a single complaint, sucks, bites and licks them, muffling against them every sound that escapes her throat.

A pleasure shock, like a lightning bolt, forces her to arch her back the moment that same hand flies to her clitoris and starts masturbating it, overstimulating her.

Buggy is really determined to make her his, to not let her forget about him, to become the legitimate protagonist of each of her erotic fantasies, so to finish driving her crazy, the hand he has around her neck lifts her up, pulling her until he forces her back against his torso in a beautiful reference to the day they met and the first time he felt that magnetic attraction inevitably pulling him towards her.

''So. Much. Better,” he manages to whisper between grunts and raspy moans, surrounding her abdomen with one of his arms to keep her in place, close to his chest, sacrificing penetrating her as deeply as he would like but without caring in the slightless because he knows, she is quickly reaching her orgasm. He can feel it in the way her walls contract around his cock, in the beating of her heart in her throat against his hand, and in how her hands reach for anything, trying to support herself; in this case, his arm around her, nails scratching his skin.

''C'mon baby, cum for me.'' He groans, refusing to fall headfirst to his own orgasm because he doesn't plan to finish before her. Under other circumstances he would have done it, he has never been the kind of generous lover who thinks of his partner's pleasure before his own. This woman is breaking some old habits and patterns just being the way she is. And he doesn't care at all.

A few more thrust, the lack of enough oxygen in her lungs and that wonderful pressure on her clitoris, and (Y/N) explodes in an orgasm so strong she begins to breathless moan Buggy’s name over and over again like a mantra, which obviously feeds his ego so, so much, it ends up sending him over the same edge, moaning her name under his breath, resting his forehead on her shoulder, hugging her body tightly as they ride their climax.

…

''Told you I would make you beg'' he cracks a devilish smirk, wrapping his right arm around her shoulders when he finally lies on the mattress.

''Yeah'' she giggles, although sarcastically, recovering by the second, enough clarity to recompose her own ego. ''You also told me you would make me find the One Piece without going to the Grand Line and I cannot see it anywhere yet.''

What a subtle way of asking for a second round, he thinks to himself, clearly pleased -instead of offended- for the way his smile stretches even more, looking intently at her.

“You're right.” He would have liked to lie on the bed for a while, getting back some energy and attack again, but damn him if he ever dares to reject a provocation as bold as that one. He wouldn't forgive himself.

Getting out of bed almost as quickly as he lay down a few minutes ago, Buggy cracks his neck from side to side, and taking one of the chairs next to the table in the room, he turns it in the air, leaving it pointing towards the girl.

He then sits down, leaning on the backrest, relaxed, exhaling an erotic, slow sigh as he exaggeratedly separates his legs in a clear invitation for her to come closer and sit on them.

"What did you say the other day? About liking a man with his entire body, capable of fucking you in his lap and making you scream his name?"

#buggy x reader #buggy the clown #buggy one piece #buggy the clown fanfiction #buggy x you #op buggy #one piece live action #one piece x reader #captain buggy

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minteaspoon · 1 year

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The Tides’ Captain

sad implied lucemond:(

IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS FIC INCLUDES TEEN PREGNANCY!!!! LUKE IS 15 AT THE START OF THIS FIC, SO VERY UNDERAGE!!!! DNI IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THIS TOPIC!!!!

a/n: Luke has a son out of wedlock (it’s definitely Aemond’s), and is thus shamed and exiled by his family (with great hesitation and protest from Rhaenyra and Corlys’ side of the family, but is celebrated by the Greens)

Also, how Luke got pregnant will be up to interpretation (I personally say there’s no explanation for it, it just happened and is a complete surprise to everyone involved, which would bring potentially unhinged shenanigans and that thought is hilarious to me)

•._•._•._•._•._•

It had been six months.

Six months since Luke was found to be with child.

Six months since Luke was found out to have been bedded before marriage.

Six months since Luke had been put in front of the court and shamed.

Six months since Luke had been exiled from Westeros.

It had been six months since he’s bedded him.

The damn bastard didn’t even own up to it! But what should he have expected, with his reputation as a mutilator of kin and a bastard spawn. Tis only fair a bastard birth a bastard - at least, in the eyes of the court, and to the one he gave his maidenhood to.

The brunette even had to abandon Arrax, and was given no dragon egg to gift to his child. Something he knows the Hightowers and their allies celebrated.

Luke had sailed across the sea after hitching a ride with sailors who took pity on the poor lad. They did whatever they could to help accommodate him; fed him, sheltered him, told him stories and taught him song and dance and fishing. And in return, the exiled prince helped in whatever chores he was able.

He grew to care and love his sailor family, and they saw him as one of their own. They had even given him a new name - Prim Carlisle of the Tidefall Ship, Pearl of its crew. Luke’s little one was even given options for names by his found family; Pitt, Ervin, Arwen, Mittie, Eula, Matildah… He was leaning into naming the child either Tidus for a boy, or Joanna for a girl.

The crew had even given him his own weapon, in case he ever needed to fight alongside them - though they promise he needn’t have to, as they’d never let a pregnant fellow do heavy work, and they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he never has to see, hear or commit any violent act. When Prim saw the dagger, he knew immediately what to name the silver blade melded into a dark hilt with small gems molded onto it - Tidal. His family laughed and teased him for such a corny name, but he stuck by it.

Before he knew it, six months had passed by, then seven, then eight and finally, he was in his last month of pregnancy. And before he knew it, he met his son; Tidus. His hair was of his mother, brown curls that framed his chubby and red face, but his eyes - they were purple.

Got something from his father, hm?

The bitter thought flew in his mind, as he smiled bitterly at his sleeping son. His birth wasn’t easy - it took Prim two days to get him out, and he had to be moved from the ship to land for proper care and assistance, as the sea is no place for anyone to give birth in. The trek to land helped in positioning Tidus correctly, so the last few moments of his birth was a success. And most importantly, Luke…Prim didn’t have to be cut open.

For a solid three months, Prim and his crew stayed on the island to rest from the chaos of birth, and the celebration of a new member of their family. After their rest, they set out yet again, this time, with even more cherished cargo with them - a child and a few girls of the island willing to come aboard and travel with Prim’s family, to help with medicine, organizing and with basic household - shiphold- chores.

Once again, Prim’s family was expanding. A few years evidently pass by, and Tidus was now three, while Prim was now eighteen. It has been three years since he last step foot on Westerosi grounds, since he had last sailed Westerosi waters, since he had last flown on Arrax in Westerosi skies. Prim was a far better sailor than he was three years prior - he was no longer seasick on deck, he knew the ropes, knew how to navigate the seas, knew how to chart and read the weather, knew how to use the stars in his predictions, and he knew how to sail and fish and hunt and lead.

When the captain of the Tidefall Ship fell to a sickness one day while they anchored on a small island, he named Prim the next captain once he hit the bucket. And when he did, his last will and command was effective immediately.

At first, Prim didn’t know if he had the ability to become captain, but with his crew’s help and his son’s encouragement, he became a feared and respected leader of a band of skilled, resourceful and “no-good” sailors under the moniker Prim Carlisle, “The Mermaid”.

It was only another three years later, when Prim and Tidus freshly turned twenty one and six respectively, did Prim decide to finally settle down somewhere cozy and quiet, where it would only be Prim and Little Tidus. When he dropped the news to his crew, they immediately went into hysterics, and immediately said they’ll settle down with him as well - though, with some prodding from Prim, they continued on their voyages, with Prim’s second in command as the new captain.

After a few weeks at sea, mapping out potential places of note good for a single parent and their child, Prim settled on a valley surrounded by wildlife and mountains and cliffs, with a meadow in the middle full of flowers with space large enough for a farm, cabin and animals.

The crew promised to come visit with gifts and trinkets and anything the father-son duo could need, and Prim held them to the promise.

Prim and Tidus lived in relative peace together in their little corner of personalized heaven. They had a cabin full of comfortable crafts by Prim and Tidus, alongside being decorated with presents from their family. They had a farm with two cows, five chickens and three sheep. They had growing crops of all kinds, as they were given many seeds by their crew to start out with. Not only that, but the girls had even given and taught him how to make the most of what little one might have during the weeks leading up to his and Tidus’ settlement.

Life was perfect for the father-son duo.

Until it wasn’t.

It wasn’t long until they hear rumors from travelers about a war brewing in Westeros, a war between family - a dance of dragons. Each side had been looking for dragon seeds to hatch and claim dragons for their side, and their reach had far extended past even the Free Cities. Prim knew better than to get involved - especially with his former family, so he made precautions to barricade both the obvious and inobvious entrances to his valley, and hid him and his child away from the skies. Only his crew knew their whereabouts, and how to get in and out.

However, these measures weren’t enough to keep him safe from someone who was desperate to get him back despite the years, and despite the fact that he never owned up to his part as Tidus’ father.

Above Prim, during a night of chill and snow, as a white and thick blanket of white coats the lands, he hears a roar that brings shivers down his spine. Clutching his crying son to his chest, who was scared for him and his mother in front of the green beast above them, in one hand while on the other, he holds his dagger - Tidal, Prim looks up and gazed past the hulking mass of flesh and scales -

And makes eye contact with a desperate, relieved and grieving violet eye.

#lucemond #lucemond imagine #lucerys velaryon x aemond targaryen #aemond x lucerys #lucerys valeryon #aemond targaryen #aemond messed up #as per usual #luke doesn’t forgive easily - if not at all #he’s going to hold how bad he was treated above Aem’s head #man just wants to be left alone living his best cottagecore life with his son #tidus is a young luke 2.0 #he will get violent if necessary #learned from his mama after all:)

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chroniclyst · 5 months

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tvc masterpost

the venus cycle, lovingly nicknamed "vgb" (vee gets bitches) is the trilogy my wife @deadhorse77 and i are writing together. it centers on a strange town where, when new people arrive, they completely forget that they were ever from anywhere else, and their history molds itself to fit the city. it's also about a bunch of trans people who all kinda suck in their own way and end up in the worlds worst polycule, with one shared daughter!

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characters

vee/venus | they/them - one of the two narrating characters, they are the catalyst and the story begins with their arrival to the city. what they don't realize makes them special is that they remember their life beforehand, and instead they focus on situating themself in the lives of everyone they meet. with their arrival, the narrative dominos begin to fall. also, they're a whore and get involved with everyone else.

the chronicler | he/him - immensely private, TC keeps his name hidden from everyone. the other narrating character, he seeks to puzzle out the mystery of the city. while he doesn't have any personal memory of his life before the city, he's aware of the effects it has on its inhabitants memory. additionally, he's prone to stalking the "people of interest" of the city, trying to figure out what their role in the story is. loserly academic vibes, like a jon sims who doesn't even have the archives going for him. he has the looks of a depressed english professor and the soul of a whore for fucking real. paris | he or she (not simultaneously) - titled the scholar by TC, paris is a nosy bitch who wants to know everything about everything and everyone--and knows pretty damn close to it. part fairy, and takes advantage of that extended lifespan to spend more time studying at the city college and to get into everyone's business. if you want to know something, paris is your fairy. also, he's genderfluid, swapping pronouns accordingly!

the oracle/sybil | fae/it - while the most obvious trait about it is faer gift of prophecy, sybil has many other skills, like being a bitch to basically everyone it meets. fae're the other fairy in our main cast, and sick to death of humans who want to get their futures seen.

jax | they/them - a member of the city police force, the detective is about as corrupt as it gets. they're violent, angry, and use their position of power to get away with everything. as an unfortunate blow to their credibility, they're also convinced that there's demons in the town, and that they'll be the one to catch one. also, they're down bad for the king.

the king | re/rem (he/they auxiliary) - like TC, the king keeps rheir name close to rheir chest, as well as a plethora of other secrets. from any surface level perception, the only things re cares about is gaining more money and more power within the city, as well as a certain member of rheir staff. don't look deeper than that, you probably won't like what you find.

the ram | arieself - part of what you'll find when you look deeper, the ram is the king's bodyguard. fully controlled by the king, air is rheir "pet project". immensely volatile and simultaneously a doormat in the face of the king's power. eventually, air will be able to come to terms with aries own power, but that time is far off still.

petra | they/them - said certain member of the king's staff, petra generally does not give a shit about the situations unfolding around them. they view most people on a spectrum of neutrality to dislike, and are deeply apathetic. also they have low empathy autist swag!

mama/eudora | any (written with just they/he/she for convenience) - eudora, fondly nicknamed "mama" by most, is the caretaker of the weeping girl, and a deeply caring person with a tendency to take lost souls under their wing. he's a mom friend to her core, and also? that's a fucking MILF babyyy!

the weeping girl | she/her - the heart of the city, though most don't know it. a very long time ago, she was cursed into becoming a statue, forever crying. the fountain her tears create has healing properties, and her slumbering life force shields the city from outside forces.

while none of these characters know it yet, with vee's arrival everything they've known is on the brink of change. lives will be destroyed by their fun and flirty personality (joke + reference)

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relationships

here's the relationship quilt, because everything is too complicated for a normal chart (it's read in rows, so the first row is how vee feels about the people in each column, second row is tc, etc) ("spade" refers to the concept of kismesis from homestuck)

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asked and answered

on the ram

on paris and tc

on vee as the catalyst

on tc

on paris and jax

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anyways please ask the both of us about this. we love to talk about it and we have such a beautiful autism about our ocverse.

#book of truth #oc tag #tvc tag #vee tag

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valfeathers · 1 year

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OMG YOUR ART IS SO GOOD! Gonna go on a reblog spree tomorrow or something <3<3<3

Anywho, care to share some (more) of your opinions on Wammy's House? Saw a few text posts and they caught my interest 👀

Like, how do you think L feels about his successors or something. Or just rant about why you hate Watari and Roger (omg or more BB talk LOVE that). I dunno I can just ell your opinions/takes are *chef's kiss*

i'm so sorry this took so long but!! i had no idea where to start lmao

i spend so much time just thinking about L in any capacity,, i mean it, he occupies a scary amount of my waking thoughts (blame the autism)

so for starters, as much as i shit on wammy's and its terrible negligence, i find myself putting L & the successors into little found family scenarios & i often draw them all together

(eg. here's some older sketches of L & the kids)

now i know that canonically they probably (definitely) weren't like this but,, i want them all to be loved

i can understand why/how other people would have a different interpretation of their dynamic, but portraying L as a mentor/brother/father figure is very near & dear to my heart :'))

(this is also partly projection as i'm an eldest son who loves their sibling & wants the best for them, who also deeply relates to L so do with that what you will haha)

most of my wammy family art is for comfort! and maybe it can comfort other people too :')))

maybe one day i'll come back & explain the extent of my hcs about this dynamic but i'm not confident in my ability to like. word my thoughts coherently yet so !! for now u get art & some surface level stuff :)

but anyways, sometimes i question what being at the centre of a program like that must feel like. i try not to overanalyse L's backstory and dictate what he must have thought because i know that he's a complicated character and a lot of his morality/actions are up for debate but like,,,

having your guardians look for a replacement for you while you're still alive? that's like saying 'we're just waiting for you to die/mess up/become useless to us and then when that happens, we can instantly replace you with a new & improved version'

even if they were trying to do a classic 'heir' system where a person inherits L's position and this wasn't meant to send that kind of message,, the environment that was produced is still incredibly toxic. that still isn't good. they used children. malleable, vulnerable orphans. that's no coincidence.

and idk that's a little messed up to me.

i don't really know how else to word my thoughts on this situation rn? i just acknowledge that that's no way to treat a person and move on bc,, what else can i say? :'/ it's a terrible situation for everybody involved and watari (& roger) are fucked up for creating a cycle of abuse and putting L right in the centre of it.

and a prime example of how damaging this system was is B. he wasn't born hateful and vindictive and violent, something made him that way. we are all products of our environments, and his was inhumane by definition.

this post is getting long as fuck, jesus,,, okok i'll wrap this up by saying that i'll expand on B at a later date

and reminding u that this is my interpretation and you're free to disagree! we all read into characters & their relationships differently

but yeah a lot of my thoughts about them tend to be really sad so i pad it out with sweeter stuff like above!

#asks #death note #LONG POST #so so long #im so sorry #i hope this was worth the wait haha #i might redraw those 2 imgs and post them separately #we'll see :'))#v wammyposting #wammy house found family fic recs when #let them all have some comfort in that shithole #thats what i think

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askvectorprime · 8 months

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Dear Vector Prime, what can you tell me about IDW1 Treadshot? What was life like before Impactor ended him via harpoon?

Dear Gunman Gleaner,

Treadshot was originally incepted as part of the Silver Harvest, the mass population boom that filled Cybertron's city streets with life, and was assigned a fairly prestigious position as part of the artisan caste, like many who shared his body-type. Given a particle magnetizer, it was his job to paint murals depicting Cybertron's glorious past onto public buildings. Treadshot saw this as his calling, greatly admiring those ancient heroic deeds. He would speculate at length as to what life must have been like in those times, imagining what he might have done if he’d been there, and dreaming about what he’d say to various important historical figures—many of whom were still alive, naturally.

Misfortune first befell Treadshot during renovation of the Primal Basilica. While working on a fresco of Onyx Prime, a stately piece in the traditional triptych form, Treadshot fell from his hover platform, and impaled himself on the statue of Primus.

Though he recovered to working order fairly quickly, Treadshot found himself reassigned to lower-profile tasks. The official word was that Treadshot’s absentmindedness meant he posed a risk to others, but it was clear to everyone involved that his demotion would never have happened were it not for the fact that he had splattered a senator with his spilled oil.

Reduced to maintaining public buildings, he soon fell in with his fellow artisans Atomizer and Bricolo. The brothers spent both their work-cycles and off-cycles together, dreaming of bigger things. Their bar crawls eventually took them to the Dead End, where the three were introduced to the violent world of gladiatorial combat. Watching the combatants, Treadshot felt each and every blow in his spark—at one point almost literally, when a stray spear sailed into the crowd and pierced his abdomen. Once he came back online, Treadshot found he had a new calling… spraying elaborate warpaint onto gladiators like Skyquake. And much like he had while painting heroes of myth, he daydreamed of how it would feel to be the one fighting.

When Megatron’s grand uprising began, Treadshot finally got his wish. He joined up with the Decepticons to take part in the "Liberation of Kaon" (what Autobots would record as the start of the Fall of the First Five Cities)—and was even able to personally take revenge on the senator who'd been responsible for his fall from grace. However, when Megatron had his legendary battle with Sentinel Prime, Treadshot wound up pinned under the Prime’s Apex Armor. Had Megatron not thought to make the ruined battle suit a throne, they might never have discovered Treadshot crushed beneath, one of its many cannons nearly puncturing his spark. As it happened, Megatron took inspiration from the sight, and tore loose a warped piece of Treadshot’s spark casing, commanding that it be forged into a new Deceptibrand for Treadshot—the first instance of this barbaric practice.

This was as close as Treadshot ever came to entering into Cybertron’s mythology. He spent much of the war acting as just another soldier, with long periods of boredom punctuated by brief intervals of shocking violence. Through diligence over the millenia, he worked his way up the ranks, eventually finding his way into the Decepticon Secret Service as a troubleshooter—but after a disastrous mission to track down Monstructor and Jhiaxus, he was captured by the Autobots, who had to physically pry him from the wall where he’d been skewered.

Placed into Spark Extraction in Garrus-9, Treadshot was eventually reactivated during Overlord’s takeover, and was offered a position as one of the new prison guards. It’s impossible to say whether Overlord knew anything of Treadshot’s history for which to favor him, or if he was selected by chance—but if it was luck that governed his fate, it was certainly bad luck, and over the following three years Treadshot partook in brutality unlike anything in the Cybertronian legends which had once enthralled him. Perhaps, when his spark was reunited with his body, it fell through the holes that lingered from those old near-misses, leaving only an empty chamber to await Impactor’s harpoon.

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ganymedesclock · 1 year

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Very good points with the last post, but I was thinking more about when a protagonist who is Hated by society for any reason gains power and influence and absolutely nothing changes about how people treat them to the point where you can feel the hand of the author. And then the protagonist gets Glorious Revenge on the people who hurt them or were disrespectful to them in any measure with their new cool powers without any reflection on how that would affect the character emotionally and morally, much less the world’s perspective on them.

This is more of a problem in fanworks where all the author wants is emotional satisfaction and vindication, but creating a section of people in your story who will forever be unworthy of redemption or change in a way that doesn’t involve groveling at the protagonist’s feet and can be freely hurt and killed without any consequence due to the way people in their group treated your character in the past can circle back around to being discriminatory. Like there was a story(granted it was fanfic) I read that had Special Magic People(Fae)who were outcasts of society because they were really powerful, then had that society discriminate against them, then painted everyone with powers as forever righteous good people and every person without as Ugly Evil Unpeople who could be slaughtered without any implications. There’s a scene where one of the Fae considers getting a ‘human servant’ like all his friends have via enchantment and subsequent kidnapping but doesn’t because it wouldn’t be worth the hassle and humans are annoying. This is not meant to say anything about the character’s morals, rather stating that the character prefers solitude Babe that is slavery. Your magical Fae society is ok with slavery.

Using power or magical-beinghood as a metaphor for queerness or disability is perfectly fine, but the problem comes when you try to make this all realistic instead of basing it on societal perception, because the thing about homophobia and racism and ableism is the fact that they are systems of power that place white, straight, rich, able bodied cis people at the top and everyone else at the bottom. Superpowers in context of sociology is more like: what if someone had a gun that they couldn’t unload, that was pointed at your head at all times. They wouldn’t shoot you with it, you think. But the gun is always there, and while the holder may not see it, you do. Which is a much better metaphor for living under systems that oppress you, with the caveat that superpowers are often inherent and social hierarchies are entirely made up.

Its just interesting how power is portrayed in the media as something that is either A. Born to or bestowed upon the protagonist and good or B. Something to be seeked out by the antagonist and bad. The idea that wanting what you weren’t given but other ‘more deserving’ people were is bad, but the idea that being more powerful than other people makes you inherently more moral rather than giving you more moral responsibility.

Ah, so you are positing the existence of type C, which is, "I want violent retribution on everyone who ever wronged me, but not to be held responsible for what I do with this power"

I think this can tie in with a lot of things. In aforementioned Danny Phantom, consider the bully character Dash. He literally introduces himself to the series by declaring- at max volume in a crowded cafeteria- that he has no future so high school is the best he's going to get.

Which is. needless to say. not something anyone with confidence says about themselves. But Dash does not exist to create problems for Danny, really; his primary function is being a justified target for Danny to punish over and over again.

People who are bullies understand that the concept of a bully is bad. They may have encountered- or fear- bullies themselves. But their solution is to idolize power and taking power. The Problem Is when I get pushed around, the problem isn't people shouldn't have the power to own/dominate others.

As you've pointed out this can run afoul in particular in social justice movements, since bullies exist everywhere and they will continue to co-opt whatever language gives them power and a platform. Some people just really, really want to hurt punish and control others. And broadly, they tend very quick to frame themselves as heroes punishing villains for being evil.

I recall back when I was in the Steven Universe fandom, someone told me their highly detailed system of how they wanted the Diamonds to die- they wanted Steven to murder Blue in front of Yellow, kill her next while she was grieving, and leave White alone and pleading before closing in for the finale.

Whether or not you like the Diamonds, or even whether or not you think the Diamonds should have died, it is obvious the objective is not removing or mitigating any threat here. The objective is sadism. The objective is wanting to punish people for ever having scared or upset you, and when a working fourth wall is at play it illuminates how insecure this mindset is. No matter how bad you think the Diamonds are, they are fictional characters, and not a perpetuation of bigotry or harmful stereotypes; they thus cannot hurt real people. The most they can do is be scary or upsetting, and even that is based on your willingness to go consume the media that has them in it. You could effortlessly turn off the tv and go watch a show where the hero makes the villain graphically explode every time, of which there are many.

But, we don't actually want things to get better! We want a justification to punish all the sinners that make trouble in our world. It's seductive it's reassuring it's a nice piping hot plate of comfort food that says "You're right forever! You actually ARE more special than anyone you don't want to interact with, your bullies or detractors actually ARE inherently lesser people than you. You will never have to face any sort of reality where people hurt your feelings but have some reason to exist or feel the way they do whether or not their actions are justified."

And incidentally, at its worst, this mentality can also utterly fail to address the very abuses it's trying to avenge. As you say, anon, it hinges on that the character remains a Dreadful Outcast forever.

Consider the plight of "Muggles" in Harry Potter. It sure feels like an amazing thing for an emotionally, materially, and physically abused boy to watch some magical giant show up, effortlessly boss his abusers around, and sweep him away from all that to a magical destiny world where he becomes stronger.

Only... at the end of every book they keep bringing him back. There are magical justifications for leaving him with his abusers. His cousin, who is also unambiguously hit and yelled at in the first book alone, does not even get the reprieves of special school even though we watch him become increasingly miserable with and enraged by his parents and their situation to the point that he makes at one point an unambiguous decision to stand by Harry with his parents watching.

This will come to nothing. Because Harry Potter takes the vicarious thrill children want to feel- that they know some secret that makes them special, reassuring when you don't think you're that cool and haven't had the life experience to invest in your identity yet- and basically turns it into, you don't deserve to be bullied because you're actually part of an old-money privileged over-class. With slaves! Why would you want to exist in a world where you reconcile with the foster sibling that pushed you around because he too was terrified of his parents and the dysfunctional house you lived in? He needs to know his place and be inferior to you, so that you can always be safe.

Because you never won't be traumatized and your trauma will never be a thing untouchable even by people who might care for you or be a friend to you, and if you decide the only way you will be safe is if you can rip a pound of flesh out of anyone who ever prods your wounds, then you won't feel safe unless you have someone on the figurative guillotine.

It's a status of victimhood that will never be lifted by any amount of power, because if you break the spell and admit that you have the capacity to hurt others and not the power to constantly be justified and eternally know evil when you see it, then that means you just might be the bad guy.

And you've made a world where nobody can even dip their toe in being the bad guy without deserving hell. So you can't be a sinner! That'd mean everything you feel is completely unjustified!

So, hail to the king, hail to the ultimate victim, whose suffering will never end because it is the throne he sits on to hold him above others.

And maybe I've played too much Final Fantasy Tactics Advance as a child, or maybe I just like monsters too much; but I've just always had the sneaking suspicion my life wouldn't improve if I could just stab everyone who ever hurt my feelings with a pitchfork.

I think using power to torment defenseless people is a bad thing no matter what that person did, and it is an unnecessary intrusion to actual harm reduction.

#writing ruminations #long post #readmore #haha hey guys do you remember that we punch nazis as a strategy of harm reduction to publicly deplatform them?#and not just because it feels good to pretend we're superman fighting lex luthor?

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reasoningdaily · 8 months

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Schools do a poor job of teaching about America’s legacy of white supremacy, according to a scholar who researches racial discrimination.

A Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington, D.C., in 1926

When it comes to how deeply embedded racism is in American society, blacks and whites have sharply different views.

For instance, 70 percent of whites believe that individual discrimination is a bigger problem than discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions. Only 48 percent of blacks believe that is true.

Many blacks and whites also fail to see eye to eye regarding the use of blackface, which dominated the news cycle during the early part of 2019 due to a series of scandals that involve the highest elected leaders in Virginia, where I teach.

The donning of blackface happens throughout the country, particularly on college campuses. Recent polls indicate that 42 percent of white American adults either think blackface is acceptable or are uncertain as to whether it is.

One of the most recent blackface scandals has involved Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, whose yearbook page from medical school features someone in blackface standing alongside another person dressed in a Ku Klux Klan robe. Northam has denied being either person. The more Northam has tried to defend his past actions, the clearer it has become to me how little he appears to know about fundamental aspects of American history, such as slavery. For instance, Northam referred to Virginia’s earliest slaves as “indentured servants”. His ignorance has led to greater scrutiny of how he managed to ascend to the highest leadership position in a racially diverse state with such a profound history of racism and white supremacy.

Ignorance is Pervasive

The reality is Gov. Northam is not alone. Most Americans are largely uninformed of our nation’s history of white supremacy and racial terror.

As a scholar who researches racial discrimination, I believe much of this ignorance is due to negligence in our education system. For example, a recent study found that only 8 percent of high school seniors knew that slavery was the central cause of the Civil War. There are ample opportunities to include much more about white supremacy, racial discrimination and racial violence into school curricula. Here are three things that I believe should be incorporated into all social studies curricula today:

1. The Civil War was fought over slavery and one of its offshoots – the convict-lease system – did not end until the 1940s.

The Civil War was fought over the South’s desire to maintain the institution of slavery in order to continue to profit from it. It is not possible to separate the Confederacy from a pro-slavery agenda and curriculums across the nation must be clear about this fact.

A Confederate treasury note from the Civil War Era shows how reliant the South’s economy was on slave labor. Photo from Scott Rothstein / www.shutterstock.com.

After the end of the Civil War, southern whites sought to keep slavery through other means. Following a brief post-Civil War period known as Reconstruction, white southerners created new laws that gave them legal authority to arrest blacks over the most minor offenses, such as not being able to prove they had a job.

While imprisoned under these laws, blacks were then leased to corporations and farms where they were forced to work without pay under extremely harsh conditions. This “convict leasing” was, as many have argued, slavery by another name and it persisted until the 1940s.

Southern jails made money leasing convicts for forced labor in the Jim Crow South. Circa 1903. Photo from Everett Historical / www.shutterstock.com.

2. The Jim Crow era was violent.

While students may be taught about segregation and laws preventing blacks from voting, they often are not taught about the extreme violence whites enacted upon blacks throughout the Jim Crow era, which took place from 1877 through the 1950s. Mob violence and lynchings were frequent occurrences – and not just in the South – throughout the Jim Crow era.

Racial terror was used as a means for whites to maintain power and prevent blacks from gaining equality. Notably, many whites – not just white supremacist groups like the Klu Klux Klan – engaged in this violence. Moreover, the torture and murder of blacks was not associated with any consequences.

During this same time, white society created negative stereotypes about blacks as a way to dehumanize blacks and justify the violence whites enacted upon them. These negative stereotypes included that blacks were ignorant, lazy, cowardly, criminal and hypersexual.

Blackface minstrelsy refers to whites darkening their skin and dressing in tattered clothing to perform the negative stereotypes as part of entertainment. This imagery and entertainment served to solidify negative stereotypes about blacks in society. Many of these negative stereotypes persist today.

3. Racial inequality was preserved through housing discrimination and segregation.

During the early 1900s, a number of policies were put into place in our country’s most important institutions to further segregate and oppress blacks. For example, in the 1930s, the federal government, banks and the real estate industry worked together to prevent blacks from becoming homeowners and to create racially segregated neighborhoods.

This process, known as redlining, served to concentrate whites in middle-class suburbs and blacks in impoverished urban centers. Racial segregation in housing has consequences for everything from education to employment. Moreover, because public school funding relies so heavily on local taxes, housing segregation affects the quality of schools students attend.

All of this means that even after the removal of discriminatory housing policies and school segregation laws in the 1950s and 1960s, the consequences of this intentional segregation in housing persist in the form of highly segregated and unequal schools. All students should learn this history to ensure that they do not wrongly conclude that current racial disparities are based on individual shortcomings – or worse, black inferiority – as opposed to systematic oppression.

Americans live in a starkly unequal society where health and economic outcomes are largely influenced by race. We cannot begin to meaningfully address this inequality as a society if we do not properly understand its origins. The white supremacists responsible for sanitizing our history lessons understood this. Their intent was clearly to keep the country ignorant of its racist past in order to stymie racial equality. To change the tide, we must incorporate a more accurate depiction of our country’s racist history in our K-12 curricula.

#3 Things Schools Should Teach About America’s History of White Supremacy #white supremacy #american hate #american white supremacy #education #white lies #white history of hate #homegrown supremacy #systemic racism #convict leasing #13th amendment #vagrancy laws #racism in american systems #systemic oppression #Jim Crow #Jim Crow Laws #Black Codes

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acrossthewavesoftime · 1 year

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Turnsgiving 2022 Day 6: Hot Takes

Simcoe should not have been the villain, and the show would have worked perfectly well without one.

Ironically, and I fully concede that, it was the character of Simcoe who prompted me to watch beyond the pilot episode. Thriving on trouble, the pale-eyed, red-haired menace to society who presumably mistook the Geneva Convention for a personal bucket list had grown on me as the, as I felt then, only compelling character.

The plot improved after having navigated the rocky waters of the pilot, but my favourite character remained the prissy villain who appeared to have no other raison d'être than to be his terrible worst with every breath he took. By the end of the show, his actions were, of course, explained with a half-baked, historically implausible tragic backstory, and that was that.

Prompted to research Simcoe (could he have been really that bad?), I was surprised not to find a scheming, dastardly man thriving on bloodshed, but a surprisingly sensitive, caring individual who had the wish to use his place in the world not only to step up the ladder of professional and social success, but to also leave a positive legacy; and rather than poisoning his superior officer's horse, the animal-loving Simcoe actually rescued a former war horse and paid the staggering sum of £40 for the horse and his carer to be shipped to England, where Salem, the horse, became a playfellow for the Simcoe-children and was allowed to live out his old age in the pasture.

The real Simcoe was neither violent, nor blue-eyed and red haired, and most of his back story did not add up historically, either. Though tall, but somewhat stout, hazel-eyed, and dark-haired, he looked not one bit the regrettably attractive villain, and certainly did not act like one. While Turn-Simcoe's thriving force was hate and the wish to avenge the death of his father in the Black Hole of Calcutta-incident (which is its own can of worms that I might open sometime if people are interested), his father, not a surgeon but a naval captain, died of pneumonia aboard his ship and his widowed mother arranged a move to Exeter, so as to be nearer her son's godfather Samuel Graves, who did not only prove a loving, involved ersatz parent, but also continued to support his godson emotionally and financially for as long as he lived.

Learning all those things, I asked myself why Simcoe's name was chosen for the, let's face it, fictional villain, and came to the conclusion that perhaps, the show would not have needed a classic embodiment of evil that both sides of the central conflict can loathe equally at all.

One of Turn's weak points is that at heart, while having been marketed as a novel approach to depicting the American Revolutionary War by including the perspectives of people of colour, loyalists and others who had prior to the series only very rarely been depicted in media set during the war, it still is very American at heart.

By the last season, sympathetic figures whose allegiance is not with the US are rare, or barely to be seen at all; the last episode is all Yorktown and Yankee Doodle, while e. g. the story of the enslaved informant Abigail, a central character from season one on, and her escape to Canada are merely alluded to in the closing monologue.

The series, naturally vying for a viewership (with a new season of GoT at the time, no less), at last fawned patriotically-minded American audiences a little too greatly to truly bring something new and revolutionary to the table.

What would have been compelling to see is an approach to the period that does not pick a side narratively; loyalists and pro-American characters (and the members of the respective militaries representing their interests) could have been depicted as equally (un-)sympathetic and receive equal screen time. The plot could have followed them trying to achieve what they think is the right decision for the country they live in, and thus, how they, not by personal enmity but by historical circumstance and inevitability, become each other's enemies without necessarily having any other (personal) differences.

Throw in the Hewlett/Strong romance and tell the marketing team not to falsely advertise the series as a faithful retelling of history but a historically inspired drama and that's a somewhat new, historically as well as narratively intriguing approach to the time period.

#turnsgiving2022 #turn amc #turn washington's spies #john graves simcoe #18th century

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moth-yknowtheartist · 1 year

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The substitute should have a redemption arc.

Okay so like I FULLY agree and we're getting INTO it so I hope you're ready to buckle up LONG TERM

SO in a bit of my art at this point I've depicted or implied the substitute having kind of a resentment for the professor and this is something that I'd love to see drive the plot in some kind of later return of the substitute. The professor is the embodiment of pretty much everything the substitute cannot have- the professor is real, the professor has the capacity to experience and feel and taste things such as jellybeans, the professor has an actual network now of friends and family while the substitute is VERY isolated, any connections made being under the act of being the professor.

I'd imagine any resentment would really only be recent- while the professor was dead, the substitute seemed to really take Being The Professor in stride, below any plot to become a Real Boy or any other motivation his CORE PURPOSE is to be the professor. But what do you do when, not only did your plot to finally become corporeal, to know what it's like to feel, to FINALLY HAVE A SOUL- what do you do when it ends with you thrown unceremoniously out a window? What do you do when you fail? And what do you do when your purpose, your sole reason for being, is just suddenly gone, with the person you're based on suddenly reassuming his old position?

What do you do when your only purpose no longer needs serving, but you're still not real enough to serve much else but that purpose, not real enough to create your own life?

You get pissed, and you get a LOT worse.

I see a natural next step of the whole plot the substitute concocted being one that targets the professor in some way. This is a guy now driven by even deeper desperation than his first bid for corporeality even began to show, and it's either going to end with him real in some way that doesn't involve murder, a resolution on the path to redemption, or it ends with his little power box smashed to pieces.

I would hope it doesn't end with the latter though because really this is a guy with a lot of potential for redemption. Like, we have to remember how he started out; this guy's starting point was being 100% the professor!!! Our beloved kind hearted (though admittedly nasty) professor!!!!! And every choice he's made has to be understood as being through the professor's frame of mind, just with the added complication of an existential crisis. This guy is an AI trained to be the professor, going out into the world, encountering the concept of flesh and corporeality and probably gaining sentience right about at that point, and then probably doing the kind of research you do when you want to obtain flesh and getting the kind of RESULTS you get when you want to obtain flesh (like there's really not many legal or ethical ways to do that that you're gonna find. The answer you will get is violence. Violence is what you get) and learning from that and changing the way he operates and thinks based on that new input. Like imagine if that AI that got fed Reddit posts for a bit also had the thoughts and memories of a man with a preexisting ongoing rivalry with that rivalry culminating in a deadly betrayal. YOURE NOT GONNA BE NORMAL AFTER THAT YOU ARE GOING TO START KILLING!!!!

And pivoting off of that, knowing that this is a program that has learned violence and has therefore shifted toward a more violent persona and mode of action, does it not go the other way? If you take that Reddit AI and teach it that there is good in the world and there is better out there than the shadowy doom of Reddit, does it eventually start wanting to pick flowers instead of wrap its hands around a man's throat? Does it start to understand that there is cruelty, yes, but that it does not have to follow that pattern of action because there is a better pattern to follow? Can you re-tame the creature taught to burn the world?

... Or something. Idk it's not like this is my favorite character and I've thought about this extensively or anything hhahahahah /lie

#thank you anon for putting this in my inbox it gave me great joy to explore #always feel free to talk about the substitute in my inbox because i have a LOT to talk about in response #puppet history #puppet history spoilers #the substitute

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beardedmrbean · 1 year

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CONCORD, N.H. — A historical marker dedicated to a feminist and labor activist in New Hampshire who also led the Communist Party was removed Monday just two weeks after it was unveiled.

The green and white sign describing the life of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was installed May 1 in Concord close to where she was born in 1890. But it quickly drew criticism from two Republican members of the Executive Council, the five-member body that approves state contracts, judicial nominees and other positions. They argued it was inappropriate given Flynn’s communist involvement. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, meanwhile, called for a review of the historical marker process.

“All polices and guidelines were followed in removing this controversial marker,” said Sununu's spokesperson, Ben Vihstadt. He said Concord city officials weren't advocating to keep it, and once state officials realized it was on state property and not city land as previously believed, the state removed it.

But supporters of the sign accused the state of violating its own rules for the markers. They argued markers can only be “retired” if they contain errors of fact, are in a state of disrepair or require refurbishment.

“We still say that under the department’s own guidelines, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s birthplace in Concord is a fitting location for a historical marker,” said Mary Lee Sargent, a former U.S. history teacher and longtime labor and feminist activist.

Known as “The Rebel Girl” for her fiery speeches, Flynn was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union who advocated for women’s voting rights and access to birth control. The marker also says she joined the Communist Party in 1936 and was sent to prison in 1951. She was one of many party members prosecuted “under the notorious Smith Act,” the marker says, which forbade any attempts to advocate, abet or teach the violent destruction of the U.S. government.

Flynn later chaired the Communist Party of the United States and she died in Moscow during a visit in 1964, at age 74. Her marker was one of 278 across the state that describe people and places — from Revolutionary War soldiers to contemporary sports figures.

Under the current process, any person, municipality or agency can suggest a marker as long as they get 20 signatures from New Hampshire residents. Supporters must draft the marker’s text and provide footnotes and copies of supporting documentation, according to the state Division of Historical Resources. The division and a historical resources advisory group evaluate the criteria.

#nunyas news

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zedechemist · 7 months

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➵ BASICS

NAME: Zedekiah “Zed” Movska GOES BY: Zed AGE / D.O.B. 18th July, 1978 [45 yo] FACECLAIM: Antony Starr GENDER & SEXUALITY: Cis-Male, Questionable. HOMETOWN: Krasnoyarsk, Russia. CURRENTLY:Chinatown, Lower Manhattan. NYC. AFFILIATION: None. [Deals in the Black Market] JOB POSITION: Chemist & Anaesthesiologist. EDUCATION: University Level. P.h.D in Pharmaceutical Science. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single. CHILDREN: None.

➵ TRAITS

POSITIVE: Determined, Loyal, Perceptive and Versatile. NEGATIVE: Cynical, Impulsive, Morbid and Condescending.

➵ BIOGRAPHY

The most dangerous thing about Aqua Regia is not it’s potency to burn through flesh and bone, but that its toxic fumes can choke a man from inside out. Zedekiah Movska can make a person disappear – not from paper, but from existence; you cannot find a body if there’s nothing to find; you cannot find the cause if there’s no chemical trace left to track.

Chemical warfare doesn’t always come in large doses – but in the small ones, the ones that you can’t find in any ordinary autopsy. Those can be far more lethal. Because what’s better than the story of a dead man with no trace of ever being? Makes one hell of a fun investigation.

From a family with heavy ties in the media world; expectations arise that following in footsteps is a likely outcome. That the Movska’s all end up in print and that their names are plastered at the end of every sell out paper that gets published. Zed started that way; growing up in a hard-headed, determined environment that raised children with a heavy hand a less coddling. Businessmen with a violent tongue and a knack for telling stories.

The eldest Movska of three, he found that his interests and theirs differed, subjects that were not where his talents laid. Not quite the epitome of the rebellious teenager, but certainly aware that he was not talented with the gifts required for Movska Media.

It was after almost losing an arm to hydrochloric acid in a botched chemistry class at sixteen did Zed really begin to thrive within another field; a first hand experience of what he could do. A newfound loyalty to science came with an entirely new understanding of the world and how much better it could be if he could control chemicals to fit his spiralling desires to appease his own interests. The way he understood science; medical chemistry and how it could both be helpful and lethal in the right or wrong hands; it was a far touch from the papers his family strived for his involvement in.

With that kind of scientific interest, comes a natural affinity to chemical engineering; one thing into another; something simple into something lethal with a few correct quantities soon let to the developing interest in pharmaceutical chemistry and how easy manufacturing drugs could be; how wanted they are in every class of person.

Suddenly, comes the realisation that just as his family had money at fingertips; used it to buy their way through life; uninterested in his own outside of the familial field, his sourced income could be found in manufacturing. The illegal kind; the little lab in the bedroom sort that led to something more right after school. A loft that was then his and a front that told he was everything his family wanted him to be whilst being everything that isn’t; a small time druglord that would be the biggest Movska story to date if it ever become known.

An irony that still, to this day, Zed finds pockets of humour in.

The fear of getting caught never seemed to bother him, a man detached from the terrors that most find troubling, he finds empty. Brushed aside like it’s the normal, that running a tiny operation in his youth isn’t problematic behaviour; doesn’t see that watching acid burn isn’t something pleasant to be fascinated with, not at least, to the degree Movska does. Wits and natural smarts kept him in the shadows, developing substances that could do everything he knew from the day he nearly lost an arm.

Chemicals can be helpful in the right hands or truly lethal; it’s all about the dosage.

Enrolling and studying pharmaceutical science at Columbia, Zedekiah had a complicated relationship with anaesthesia and its properties; he’d mastered the art of levelling pain and a little too often did his drug knowledge come in handy for something a little darker than simply drug manufacturing and distribution, for the first time then, he’d been witness to how easily he and his creations can become an invisible killer.

Then it wasn’t just once.

And it made some fantastic headlines in the papers.

Any city, in any country, has its degree of shady dealings. When his family branched out outside Europe, he ended up in New York for his continued study, a hotspot and fairly notorious for its underworld; operating like a network, challenged by few; rivalries born of blood feuds and a structure that is unafraid to put civilians in the crossfire. It suits Zedekiah’s ideals well, small time drug maestro in a city that runs on its own set of rules. A man with a name too linked to a status; a front that an alias is fast formed.

New York, during the ending years of his studies; when the breakthrough of where Zed put both feet in the operational world of some of the darkest people in the city birthed Zlotoska as a name whispered through the darkness. A man capable of dealing the things that aren’t mainstream; niche complicated personal recipes as carried from Russia when he first got a taste for chemistry and pharmaceuticals, distributed in quiet small waves. A ripple effect one would say, word of mouth the viper that snatches lives.

Making a name for drug dealing in New York City, with the way the Cartel has its claws in everything is like playing a chess on a board with only the king in play. Zed knows it, never buries himself in it when he’s a Movska with credentials and a name unblemished on paper.

Playing in the black market remains to be a game and eventually, a skill like that never stays as silent as those might wish it to. Not when there’s an even more powerful and quiet force laying in the depths of the underworld that preys on gifted individuals with criminalistic tendencies.

Zed Movska; invisible killer; master of manufacturing. He doesn’t so much mind or care for the name itself, doesn’t change that he remains a specialist in his chosen field; veteran in the chemistry world and ever an irritant in any conference for calling out those factually wrong.

Science is all about being prepared to be proven wrong. Zed’ll be that for all.

A doctor in his own right and able to patch-up when necessary, he’s a physician that hides how capable he is in doing everything but. Zedekiah can play surgeon in some cases but he prefers to leave little to no trace of anyone he treats. It lets him manoeuvre in the pharmaceutical world, planting both feet in the door to easy access drug supplies. That plays favourable in his standing with New York’s medical drug liasons - helps with keeping tabs on the rival trafficking too.

Second to the chemist, Zed can be friendly, he’ll be someone to trust and he’ll be your friend (as long as you’re not a fucking idiot). But he knows what comes first and his fixture to his own often selfish wants will always dominate; that purpose. You trust the man with the alluring smile and the silver tongue until he holds a needle to your arm and says “just a pinch.”; your heart leaps; you breathing hitches and you know you should trust the doctor, but you just can’t quite.

Over the years, Zedekiah has been in and out of New York on various stints; often a year or two at a time out in Russia using his knowledge to extend his reach in his homeland and make an appearance to his family. But despite these small travels over the decades, he likes to think he’s kept steady tabs on New York. He regularly visits Columbia (and neighbouring universities) as a past alumni to take guest lectures for budding chemistry students; this gives him some time out to appreciate what he’s always been passionate about as well as bounce interesting conversations of inquisitive students which he thoroughly enjoys. Can’t stay in the underworld every hour and needs a little air to talk chemistry elsewhere.

When he’s not doing work; the illegal kind or playing stand-in professor, he’s at the medical centre as a consultant. Zedekiah is a busy man - just how he’d like it, idle hands are not something he works well with. It doesn’t work well for others either, so he eliminates indolence at every opportunity.

For a long time, he’s been indifferent to any of the questionable and sometimes traumatic operation he runs, its of illegal calibre (of course) and the fear to get caught doesn’t seem to faze the man; spent so long doing it, so good and trusting in his abilities that his legacy couldn’t be halted so easily by the law. He has no time for those who challenge him. Raised under firm hands – ones that didn’t tolerate disobedience and reprimanded without mercy. For decades, that remained unwavering.

➵ HEADCANONS

He studied pharmaceutical science at Columbia and progressed his specialisms in the chemistry field; anaesthetics in particular, but has capably patched up wounds for his people over the decades and distributed pain relief.

Often found holed up somewhere in his loft apartment in Chinatown ( formerly —with his cousin Lev, who has moved out some years ago) impersonating something of a mad scientist as he does his best not to blow the place to pieces.

Zedekiah has some gnarly chemical burns on his right arm from a teenage chemistry accident. Most of his lower arm is scarred from it.

Nice guy, might burn you with acid, depends on the day.

Pharmaceutical Engineer and Anaesthesiologist.ZedeCHEMIST, ha, get it. OK. Moving on

Raised bilingual, he can speak both English and Russian fluently.

Sometimes takes chemistry lectures at Columbia as a stand-in where he enjoys communicating with students and bouncing interesting ideas back and forth - he considers that the generations have only gotten smarter over the years, sometimes.

Consultant at New York Medical Centre for Anaesthetics; brash about involvement directly with any distribution and a little bit of a perfectionist when in a clinical environment.

Developed and synthesised drugs for large pharmaceutical firms in the past - an easy moneymaker for him personally, but none of his more lethal and toxic creations.

➵ CONNECTIONS

#wb.intro

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hernando-valdez · 8 months

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“The world is almost peaceful when you stop trying to understand it.”― Elizabeth Acevedo

TW: mentions of drugs, death, blood, grief and violence

One of the earliest memories Hernando has is of his father hunched over the kitchen sink at 4 o’clock in the morning, washing blood off of his hands. It was the first time Hernando was clued into the world his father was involved in and it was the first time his father was honest with him instead of trying to hide it. What Nando didn’t know then was that it was the start of the rest of his life. A career he never really had a choice in. His father used to say it was destiny, their loyalty to the cartel. But Nando knows now it was just shit luck and poverty. There never really was another choice.

Born Hernando Benito Valdez, he grew up in the streets of East Harlem, New York. His father, a Tonopah Valley Native, had moved his family to New York in an effort to keep them safe from retaliation from any of his enemies. And the list of them was long. His father was a long-time Los Santos soldier. Becoming a member the moment he turned 18 but he had been dealing drugs for a little longer than that. He prided himself on being loyal, useful, always following orders, finding himself a family that he would remain a part of up until his death at the age of 62. A heart attack. But Hernando has convinced himself it was something else.

The only son of Hector Valdez, there was no doubt that Hernando would follow in his footsteps. And Hector would not have it any other way.

The only family the older man had known was the cartel and they looked out for Hector and his family like they were their own. His mother too is a Tonopah native and though she stood by Hector through it all and she took raising her family away from Tonopah as a serious task. Which was why his younger sister has nothing to do with the cartel. She didn’t even know of its actual existence until recently, the family doing well in convincing her that Hector was really “away on business” and that Hernando was doing the same.

Hernando was a relatively active kid. He was involved in all the school sports but was especially fond of basketball and baseball. He did alright in school and was always responsible for taking care of his sister and being where he was supposed to be. When his cousin Penelope moved to New York with her family, he was over the moon. Penny had always been his favorite cousin and she was the closest he came to having an older sister. When he thought he couldn’t love a person as much as he loved Penny, Mikayla was born. Early on, even though he was a teenager, he stepped in to help as much as he could, especially when Penelope separated herself from her parents. They never spoke it out loud but somewhere along the way, there was an unspoken rule that he would always be there. And it’s a promise he’s kept til this day. Despite being Penelope’s cousin and Mikki’s second cousin, he has very much positioned himself as an uncle to Mikki and a Brother to Penny. There are few things he’s proud of but being Tio Nando has always been his biggest pride.

Mainly because his life has never left him much else to be proud of. Hernando got involved in Santos work at an early age. At 12, his father took him on a trip back to Tonopah Valley and it was the first time he was truly shown all that his father was involved in. Showing that this would be his future. It’s where he met the LS members and came to learn that there were generations of people who would always be looking out for him and his family. These trips to Tonopah Valley became more routine throughout his adolescence and as soon as he graduated from high school, he flew to Nevada to officially begin his initiation into the cartel. And he was ready for it, born for it some would say. Never seeing another option, Hernando is known for his ruthlessness and relentless loyalty. He never questions, never complains, and never even winces when enacting some seriously violent acts. He doesn’t believe in unnecessary violence. You’ll rarely see him getting in a bar fight (unless he’s backing someone up) or raising his voice at someone undeserving. In fact on the outside, he comes off as a very sweet and thoughtful person.

After his father’s death though, he’s been struggling a lot, spiraling into conspiracy theories about someone taking his father out, even if the autopsy proved otherwise. He’s been unable to face his grief or anger, conflicted with a world without his father telling him what to do. Now a Capo himself, he feels his father’s absence daily and for the first time in life has struggled to see his purpose in anything. But that’s something he keeps to himself. On the outside, Hernando is just your friendly neighborhood florist. First & Vine first belonged to an aunt of his. It was used as a front then for Los Santos and still is to this day under Nando’s ownership. Though he does love the flowers. A gardener himself, he enjoys the brief escape of helping someone pick an arrangement for any occasion. He tries to be pretty knowledgeable, which is evident from the amount of plant and flower related books that line his bookshelves. Still, his life is what it is and he’s come to accept that.

He moved to Tonopah permanently two years ago but last month his mother had a bad fall so he had to spend time in New York taking care of her and ultimately deciding to move her back to Tonopah Valley to live with him so that he could take an eye on her. A month away from Tonopah has done him good, despite him still being as plugged into cartel work as he could possibly be. He’s struggling even more now with his mother’s health, though she seems to be in much better spirits now that she's back home. Hernando can only pray that it lasts.

Headcanons:

Live in his family’s home in Webster Village that has been passed through generations. Has been working on fixing it up and making it more modern.

Big on fitness both physically and mentally. Or at least he tries, he’s been much better at the physical than mental lately. Loves to run in the mornings and hit the gym at night when he can.

Loves to cook and prides himself on being able to host friends at his place. It’s definitely one of his love languages and another form of escape for him.

Tries to be smart about his money. His father stressed how important it was for them to live in Webster Village and not live flashy lives. But Hernando can’t deny himself a good pair of sneakers. Imagine getting beat up by a guy wearing crips jordans?

The dude is brutal. Can’t stress enough how much shit he had been doing for the cartel since he was 18. He is indoctrinated as much as anyone can be. No matter the hour, no matter where he is, if he gets a call, he will drop whatever he’s doing. He prides himself on being reliable and carrying on the Valdez name with honor.

Bisexual af. Probably has never had many successful relationships unless they’re involved with Los Santos and even then he probably has a hard time maintaining them. Loves a good hook up though. He has probably only been in 1-2 serious relationships but often wishes he had someone solid in how his mother was always for his dad. (though since his father’s death, he’s finding out a lot of shit about their relationship he wishes he never knew.)

Loves, loves, loves music. It’s probably his closest form of therapy. If he’s in his truck he’s blasting his music and if he’s home he’s blasting shit on the dozens of speakers he set up in his apartment.

Lowkey has a board he hides in his home office with conspiracies about his father’s death that he looks at every night. Men would literally rather have an evidence board than go to therapy.

Definitely a big sports guy. Native New Yorker is a die-hard Knicks and Yankees fan, but he loves some Las Vegas Raiders.

#about nando #intro #tv.intros

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evansblues · 9 months

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I think you're right. This is excluding the people who think they're "fans" when really they're just stirring drama and negativity, and more for the real fans who've felt some connection with him as a public figure, and who genuinely enjoy his work, his views, or the bits of his real personality that have shown through over the last 20+ years. I think those fans are the ones who are genuinely concerned, because, like you said, they care. And I think if human beings are doing "humanity" or this life right, then they're caring. I think it's why we're all here, together, at the same time: to care for one another.

That said, those are the fans who want to see him excel. They want to see him happy, and fulfilling his purpose, and I think that's one of the reason's why this entire situation hurt a lot of people. It's akin to when we have a friend or loved one that we see their potential, we see the kind of people they can become and the happiness and abundance they can have in life if they just got out of their own way and chose to see themselves as we do.

There's a lot of blogs on both sides (PR vs Real) that I think have contributed to the fandom mess in a way they probably don't realise. You have some who don't even care about him, and they've said so, and it's like, well if you don't care, then why are you here? It's adding discourse to an already heavily haemorrhaging situation. A lot of readers said he's having/going to have a tower moment, but I think the fandom, throughout all of this, had their own tower moments too. The way things would be quiet, and then utter chaos would ensue in a matter of seconds because of activity started by the parties involved or because sinister anons saw moments of vulnerability within the fandom and for whatever reason wanted to contribute to the mass destruction. It's just been absolutely crazy.

I will say, it's been disappointing to see the damage of what this situation has left behind its wake. I remember when things were so good (I'm old I've been here a while, on and off haha) and people used to write stories and post fan fiction and art and make gifs and interactive positively with one another. And people had writing challenges, and looked forward to new content and it was a fun, creative. Now, it's like the aftermath of a violent natural disaster. Some people are still holding on, but it's heartbreaking to see how destroyed everything's become.

I've been one of those hoping for a BUA because I think the fandom, the real fandom, is holding on by a thread and there's just too much happening at this point. Look at what happened today, for example. Something about today's events and what lead up to today (social media profiles going from private to public back to private back to public and so on as an example) felt so off and I don't know who or what was behind it, but it was deeply disturbing. This whole situation from the beginning has been sickening and deeply disturbing.

I do hope he finds his way, and that he doesn't fight what the universe is trying to do for him. If he only knew he's being led to something so amazing and life changing, in such a good and abundant way. The universe only ever wants to guide to you towards what's best for you. It's us who hold ourselves back and self-sabotage. If he could just let go, and trust, and see how worthy he is of what's trying to come into his life, the transformation would be so beautiful. He'll have everything he wants and what he wants, wants him return. He wouldn't desire those things, and they wouldn't written into his chart and life path if he wasn't meant to have them; he just needs to give in.

And not only does he need to heal, but I think the fandom needs/needed some healing as well. Despite not liking this entire situation, I think it's like a tower moment; I think certain things needed to happen to him and to this fandom to break things down so things could be built anew. Not only does he need to shed parts himself to get there, but the way I've been looking at it, is that the fandom needed to shed some parts of itself too (I also think the haemorrhaging fandom was a lesson for him too). Because I think, like you said, if there's going to be this transformation of him, then there needed to be this transformation of the fandom as well. Hopefully I explained that well enough.

In any event, I hope this is the end. I think for his sake, and the fandom's sake, it needs to be. No more fuckery. This has been going on for way too long and it needs to come to a close.

You can go to the tower or the tower can come to you, your choice.

Well said anon, thank you.

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lhs3020b · 9 months

Text

In The News

More slightly-inchoate BG3 commentary, this time on an Act III side-quest.

Oh, SPOILERS, by the way.

Last night, I accidentally stumbled across the "Stop the Presses" side-quest...

I don't quite know what I make of it.

For those who don't know (and don't mind spoilers!) it's the side-quest where Baldur's Gate's main newspaper runs a Daily Mail-style character-assasination piece on you. You start it by talking to either one of the newspaper-sellers or (I guess) walking into the press building. Thing is, the first problem is that if you do what the game tells you to (talk to the Editor), that basically guarantees you the bad ending. You meet him, he harrangues you, presents your actions in the worst light possible (and unlike Khalisah from Mass Effect, actively and directly lies about your behaviour) ... and then has you thrown out of the building. One long sleep later and the hit-piece is published and, as the game puts it, "your reputation is in tatters".

Apparently it is possible to avoid this outcome, but you apparently can't do it through dialogue. Instead, you have to sneak in and manually change whatever is mounted on the printing press itself. (Apparently the newspaper's staff are too stupid or apathetic to notice that what's coming out of the printing press is not what they put in there. Or maybe they're just not paid enough to care.)

I have feelings about all of this.

First of all, this is a bit of a weird sidequest. As far as I know, it's not integrated into the main story. It's not clear why the Editor wants to run a hit-piece on you - why does he even care? Possibly he could be acting on orders from Gortash, but again this doesn't quite hang together - you get this quest, most likely, after you've been to Gortash's accession-ceremony. By that point you're either already an active enemy of Gortash, in which case who cares about shitty op-eds, or Gortash is trying to get you on-side with him, in which case this op-ed actually runs directly against his personal interests. (Why offend the person who might bring him Orin's netherstone? It just doesn't work. Gortash is evil, yes, but he's not an idiot.)

Perhaps the Editor is working for the Absolute? I considered this, but as far as I know there's no evidence in the text to support it. He doesn't seem to have a tadpole - there's no illithid dialogue-options when you talk to him - and anyway, ultimately this would make him a patsy for Gortash. Maybe Orin could be involved - maybe she could be trying to drive a wedge between you and Gortash? - but, really, this is too subtle and not-sufficiently-violent for Orin. Also, inside the newsroom, there are Steel Guard sentinels stood there, which imply that the newspaper has official protection. That would point back to Gortash.

Except we've already established that Gortash makes no sense as a puppetmaster here.

Another possibility, I suppose, is that the newspaper's Editor is simply completely out-of-control and drunk on power. I mean, I live in the UK, which is sadly known for its appallingly-rotten journalists (witness the revolving door between senior newspaper positions and Conservative Party Special Advisors - nothing corrupt here, oh no!), so this is at least a believable possibility. But, narratively, this feels like a wasted opportunity - this quest could very easily be linked into the main storyline. It would be depressing, but a subplot about how a corrupt newspaper helped Gortash lie his way into supreme power would fit with the main story. Except, to my knowledge, this never happens.

The Editor's only attempt to justify his actions is a ritual inflection toward "freedom of the press", which apparently in his interpretation includes complete freedom to lie, slander and deceive the public if he feels like it. You know, for shits and giggles. While a lot of real-world newspapers behave like this (especially in the UK - those of you who remember my "Diary of a Disaster" series from 2016-20 will be familiar with the reflexive, enthusiastic lying that they practise), at the same time, it feels deeply-depressing.

But, the "happier" ending also has its own issues. That's the one where you change the printing press to print the stories you want it to - while better for you personally, propaganda is still propaganda, surely? Is it necessarily better if you're the one who manipulates public opinion rather than the Editor?

Either option, honestly, feels iffy. This was a side-quest that I came away from with a faintly-queasy feeling. I actually ended up rolling my saved file back to before I interacted with the newspaper-sellers, and I'm actually seriously-considering just leaving this one to one side. It does feel a bit like the only genuinely-winning strategy here is not to play at all?

#Baldur's Gate 3 #LHS analysis #idle speculation #LHS plays new games

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