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agent-cupcake · 3 years

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you ever thought abt writing about if Dimitri's feral side didn't go away? or maybe one where the only way he stops being feral around others is if he, ahem, takes his frustrations out on Y/N

I might have talked about this before but I can't remember for the life of me so, sorry if I'm being repetitive.

I don't have any plans in particular for writing this but I like thinking about Dimitri never fully recovering and just becoming somewhat more functional and all of the many disastrous ways it could change the way he has relationships.

~Like, if Dimitri realizes that the best way to get revenge on Edelgard is to engage in the war strategically. Not because he sees the error of his ways, just the error of his methods.

~This would be a Dimitri who becomes aware that his delusions aren't real, who realizes he can't go on as he is, but isn't able to reconcile with his issues or the dead. His campaign is no longer about those he has lost but those impulses, that madness that drove him to such extremes in the name of the dead, remains. He's sane enough to fight against that side of himself, just not very successfully.

~To that end, he takes the feral, primal rage and misery that compelled him for so long and refocuses it.

~Dimitri's Crest is tied to the Major Arcana Justice and that becomes his driving motivation.

~His army retakes Fhirdiad, the first step in canon!Dimitri's recovery, but instead of remaining calm and using it as a moment of character growth, he brutally tears Cornelia apart on sight. The men come to admit to their treason and he orders their deaths. There is not any cruelty he will spare those who are opposite what he sees as just, this Savior King Dimitri.

~And, yes, Dimitri takes on the mantle of King, he vows to fight for his people rather than the dead, but it's more so because he needs some way to alleviate the pressure of his aggressive urges, because that is the burden of madness he feels he must now pursue. But that's the way of war, isn't it? That is what's necessary.

~Whatever pain it causes, whatever cost it asks of him, he willingly accepts as retribution. This is not a man who is asking for forgiveness or is attempting to better himself, he still views himself in the incredibly negative way he does through the first few chapters of the timeskip, he just deals with it differently.

~When he kills Edelgard and finally gets the revenge he was pursuing, Dimitri realizes that it does nothing for him. His mania, his rage, his insanity still haunts him.

~And, okay, even though he's horribly unapproachable and snaps at people, spends an uncomfortable amount of time training (brutalizing the poor training dummies), and is held together by duct tape and a prayer, Dimitri is somebody who so horribly desperately wants love and validation.

~You give it to him because of course you do, you fool.

~But, at even the faintest whiff of this affection, he taints it with his unresolved mess of emotions after realizing that revenge couldn't fix him and ends up hyper fixating on you as an object to fill the vacuum left by his fixation on Edelgard because he is a messy man with messy feelings.

~So he's not "feral" exactly, but he never actually recovered or figured out a way to deal with his emotions in a healthy way. This is exacerbated by his lack of a support system. I don't doubt that his friends would support him given that he's a competent ruler and I think it would still be in their best interest to help him but his constantly shifting moods and single-mindedness towards some not-so-savory endeavors would make him quite uncomfortable even without being feral. Felix would probably give up his title and run away similar to his non-AM endings.

~So, basically, Dimitri clings to you even tighter because at least you're not going to leave him.... Right?

~I suppose this entire (far too complicated) scenario is just laid out to highlight issues I already see him having.

~Dimitri would have a white-knuckle grip on you because of his terror of losing someone precious to him.

~His anger would bubble up given even the slightest hint of losing the few things he feels keep him stable, or at having his justice challenged.

~Unlike canon!Dimitri, you wouldn't get very much in the way of emotional vulnerability. Not expressed through words, at least. He'd make his devoted desperation clear in other ways.

~He'd be so paranoid, which is another big deviation from canon!Dimitri because I don't think he would trust you very much at all and would be a lot less likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if he began to think something was going on.

~While it's not like I think he'd go full boar on you physically, he wouldn't be that great about controlling his strength. You think you're going to leave him? Hah, good luck when you can't even walk the next morning.

~Everything about this version of Dimitri would be so much more intense than what could be considered even slightly rational. In general, he's already an intense person, but his driving, unrelenting need would become suffocating and excessive, constantly flip-flopping from aggressively possessive to fanatical devotion.

~I've never thought that Dimitri would be a particularly sexually driven person (more that he'd care about his partner's needs over his own needs), but I do think that his need for physical intimacy would be persistent and ravenous enough to make a case for it in this instance.

~He would rely on you a lot more to help manage his moods and emotions and ground him when he needed it, so it'd be insanely emotionally unbalanced. You'd basically be Dimitri's emotional keeper. Not in the cute emotional support way, but in the scary "it is your responsibility to ensure that the King doesn't have a mental breakdown" sort of way.

#fire emblem three houses #fe3h #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fe dimitri #headcanons #this is a mess i just start thinking about dimitri as his worst self abusing me and lose my mind a little #also i'm going to be traveling the next few days so i should be packing but you know what #exploiting a mans mental illness for my personal gain is essentially the brand now

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carewyncromwell · 4 years

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Next installation of the POTC AU, at long last! Sorry for the delay...RL has been a bit of a hindrance, and I also had to kind of restructure some things in the storyline to help with flow and such, and that resulted in me having to draw another drawing, and yeah, blah blah, Tory lost her sense of rhythm and pretty much daily update schedule in the process. XD; Mea culpa!

In this part, we’ll have focus on both sides of the “divide,” with both Carewyn and her new ally Davy Jones/Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws and Charlie Weasley (pictured above in an even more pirate-y coat and hat than we saw last) and his sloop’s passenger Chiara Dalma. Will our pirate friends be able to reach Shipwreck Cove before they’re cut off by our non-pirate ones?

Interestingly enough, there was a pirate called Moody in the 1700s, though this one was Christopher Moody, not Alastor. Not much is known about him aside from his brutality (refusing to take prisoners), his unique Jolly Roger flag (which was red and gold rather than black), and his death by hanging in 1722. Pirate!Mad-Eye is going to be much more like his book/movie/game counterpart, but I just thought it was a fun coincidence. (Particularly his red/gold color scheme for his flag, which of course are Gryffindor colors!!)

Jules Farrier-Weasley belongs to @cursebreakerfarrier, last part is here, and whole tag is here! Hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

Carewyn knew there was no way she would be able to get Jones’s heart as long as her men were guarding the Chest -- yet, at the same time, she couldn’t just order them to abandon it without cause...and she’d need that time, if she wanted to unlock it without stealing the key from Rakepick. And so she’d need a proper diversion.

Davy Jones himself came up with a solution. If the Flying Dutchman was engaged in battle, then the soldiers might have to jump in to help defend it. All they’d have to make sure of was that the enemy they engaged in battle was one Cutler Beckett would approve of -- namely, one of the more wanted pirates in the Caribbean, and someone who could end up being one of the Pirate Lords.

“I do not know any of the pirates’ current list of so-called ‘Lords,’” said Jones, “but if I were to guess, I would say your brother’s a viable candidate.”

Carewyn shook her head. “Rakepick blew up the Tower Raven. Jacob managed to escape, but he only has one other person with him and he won’t have a ship.”

“Not his flagship, perhaps, but the rest of his fleet would have still survived,” pointed out Jones. “And the more ships there are, the most justification there would be for your Navy reinforcements. Once I have my heart returned, I can always call off the attack -- there’s no need for me to capture or kill them, aside from following Beckett’s direction.”

And so it was very reluctantly that Carewyn agreed to let Jones covertly seek out the remainder of the Tower Raven’s fleet while supposedly looking for Shipwreck Cove. Little did Carewyn know that the Tower Raven’s fleet was likewise headed for Shipwreck Cove, and that they were on a collision course with a tiny red sloop steered by Charlie Weasley.

When Charlie came upon the fleet of pirate ships, he initially wasn’t too worried. Yeah, naturally, they dwarfed his vessel easily, but he presumed that they were heading for Shipwreck Cove as well, and they didn’t have much reason to attack a small sloop like his. What Charlie hadn’t factored in was that the captain of one of those ships -- Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody -- had gone through his fair share of trauma when he used to be in the Navy and was something of a paranoid sort...and so within minutes, the little sloop Charlie and Chia Dalma were on was soon pursued by Moody’s much larger galleon, called the Phoenix.

Fortunately Charlie was more than talented enough of a sailor to keep his head. Using the advantage of his boat’s size, he weaved expertly through the remainder of the Tower Raven’s ships to evade the Phoenix’s cannon fire.

“Oi!” Charlie bellowed up at one of the ships he was hiding behind. “Tell your mate to bugger off! I’m not with the bloody Navy!”

Chia made no move to help Charlie: instead she stood on the other side of the sloop, watching the seas with a wary eye. There was something troubling on the wind -- something in the air...

A pirate from the Phoenix came up to the railing to look down at Charlie and Chia on their sloop as Charlie sailed it around his galleon. He was a broad-shouldered man about Charlie’s age with dark red hair under a black bandana and small emerald green eyes, and he was dressed in a burgundy-colored coat.

“Hey -- you!” the pirate bellowed down at him. “Down there! Shout up your name!”

Charlie hesitated at first. He knew it was unlikely that most pirates would recognize his name as being that of a pirate -- if anything, the name “Weasley” was associated more with the Navy, even if he, Jules, and Bill had recently been branded criminals.

‘Even so,’ he thought, ‘I’m never going to be able to build a reputation as anything other than a Navy veteran if I don’t use my name. And well, these guys answer to Carey’s brother -- it should be safe...’

“I’m Charlie Weasley!” he shouted back. “Quartermaster of the Revolution under Captain Jules Farrier-We -- ack!”

Before Charlie could even finish, both he and Chia had gotten a net thrown over them and they were hauled aboard the Phoenix.

As Charlie had feared, the name “Weasley” made everyone on the Phoenix tense up with suspicion. Charlie’s “twin,” it turned out, had been swept up by Cutler Beckett, who was now flaunting the fact that the famous, brilliant young Commodore Carey Weasley was answering to him and helping him with his new anti-piracy campaign. Charlie knew full well the only reason Carewyn could be associating with Beckett was to try to sabotage him, but the Phoenix’s Captain Moody seemed doubtful of that explanation. His First Mate, Barnaby Lee -- the young man who had first demanded Charlie’s name -- seemed noticeably less suspicious, but wasn’t half as assertive or articulate as Moody, so the Captain’s conclusion won out among the crew.

Charlie and Chia were soon hauled down to the brig with the thought that once the fleet arrived in Shipwreck Cove, Moody’s superior, Black Jack Roberts -- were he still alive -- would be able to discern how best to deal with them. Charlie hadn’t been too surprised that Jacob hadn’t told everyone in his fleet that “Carey Weasley” was really his sister, but he couldn’t help but curse the fact that Jacob had merely ordered that his men not “damage anyone with the name ‘Weasley’ and immediately bring them to him to deal with.” Even if he had to keep up a “tough guy” image, it would’ve been nice if Jacob had factored in the possibility that he wouldn’t be leading his fleet.

Unfortunately Moody’s suspicion had a real cost. Because of his focus on Charlie and Chia Dalma, he wasn’t focusing on the turbulence of the seas and skies that Chia picked up on -- and so had no warning whatsoever when the Flying Dutchman attacked. Soon the entire fleet of ships that once sailed under the Tower Raven was hotly engaged in battle with the infamous ship of the damned, pirates facing off against both cursed sailors and Navy officers.

While Davy Jones, his crew, and the Navy’s officers were fighting on the upper deck, Carewyn had stowed away below deck to where the Dead Man’s Chest had been left. After sending the remainder of the patrol above deck to help with the sea battle, Carewyn immediately got to work picking the lock on the Chest. Although it was a bit trickier to do it on her own than it had been with Percy, that hindrance was counteracted somewhat by her having unlocked the Chest once before. Within fifteen minutes, Carewyn had unlocked the two-sided lock and opened the Chest.

But when she opened it, she found it completely empty.

“It seems we truly are as alike as I thought.”

Carewyn whirled around.

Rakepick was leaning her shoulder against the door frame. She’d discarded her tricorn hat just as Carewyn had since they were no longer on deck, and her dark blue eyes were locked on the Commodore’s face as though it were a target.

Carewyn immediately pulled out her pistol, pointing it right at Rakepick.

“Where is the heart?” she said very coldly.

“I confiscated it,” said Rakepick simply, “back when I checked to make sure Jones’s key works.”

“On Beckett’s orders?” asked Carewyn.

Had she truly not fooled Beckett, after all? Had Rakepick been sent to watch her as well as Jones? Her face blanched at this thought.

“For my own benefit,” said Rakepick. “Just as I daresay your attempt to steal the heart also was.”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not stealing anything.”

”I don’t know what else you’d call picking the lock on a Chest that’s in the custody of the British Navy,” said Rakepick with a rather cool smile.

Carewyn clicked her pistol and pointed it right at Rakepick’s head.

“Hand over the heart,” she murmured, “now.”

Rather than looking the least bit intimidated, however, Rakepick almost looked more pleased. She eased herself off the door frame and took a few steps closer to Carewyn.

“You intend to kill me, Commodore?” she said.

“I would prefer not to,” Carewyn answered icily. “But I suggest you don’t push me -- I can still shoot you in plenty of places that would be extremely painful or deadly, if left untreated. And no one would come to help you with your wounds -- there’s more than enough noise above deck to muffle any gun shots that might come from down here.”

Rakepick’s lips spread into an even fuller, satisfied smile as she came to a halt just a foot from Carewyn. “I see. If I’m dead, you won’t learn where the heart is. Very astute, Miss Weasley.”

Carewyn stiffened sharply.

“I knew it as soon as I saw you,” said Rakepick softly. “I daresay because your family is poor, you didn’t have enough prospects to just marry into money. Probably were too independent and self-sufficient to settle for that, as well....so you joined your brothers in the Navy by dressing as another son. I suppose ‘Carey’ is just a play on your real name -- is it Cara? Or Carina?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carewyn whispered.

She tried to obscure her fear with anger, but it was proving difficult -- her face was as white as a sheet.

Rakepick couldn’t fight back a scoff. “Now, really, Commodore -- do you truly think you’re the only woman who realized how few opportunities there are, for us to get ahead in this world run by men? I dressed as a man and joined the Navy myself during the War, fighting the French off the coast of Africa as a privateer for his Majesty’s Navy.”

She started striding in a leisurely circle around Carewyn, even as the Commodore kept a beady eye on her.

“‘Patrick Rakepick,’ I was called then. I probably would’ve continued that way too, had privateering not been outlawed with the end of the War. Suddenly all of the skills I had learned -- just as with all privateers -- became illegal and therefore useless. I was at the bottom once again, even worse off than before, thanks to the time lost and the injuries suffered. So I did what many other privateers did -- I became a pirate, so I could continue using those skills the Crown had taught me to support myself -- ”

“By pillaging merchant ships and attacking innocent people,” Carewyn spat. She wished she’d been able to keep her temper, but the mental image of this woman shooting Jacob in the back and pushing him overboard had rippled through her mind and it was a knife to her heart she couldn’t bear.

“We all have to do things we’re not proud of in order to survive, Miss Weasley,” said Rakepick very quietly. “That’s the reason you’ve stayed in line with Beckett yourself, is it not?”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. Rakepick took her silence as an excuse to press further.

“I saw the way you treated the prisoners from Tortuga. You did not treat them as Jones would, or even as any other officer would. You insisted they be fed and watered consistently, despite their large numbers and their shortened lifespans. You gave one a Bible, on request. You even moved a woman into a different cell so she could be with her husband for the rest of the voyage back to Port Royal, without even being asked.”

Rakepick’s dark blue eyes surveyed Carewyn with something interested, almost admiring, as she came to a halt just behind the shorter young woman.

“You have the heart of a guardian, Miss Weasley. Something not frequently seen in any line of work I’ve ever been part of -- privateering, piracy, or pirate hunting...and something never found among men like Cutler Beckett. It makes you want to protect others as well as yourself. It makes you a natural leader -- one that anyone would be foolish to deny their proper place.”

“I don’t need your flattery, Rakepick,” Carewyn said coldly, turning on her heel to face the older woman once again.

“This is not flattery,” Rakepick answered just as coldly. “It’s advice from someone who has been in your shoes. It’s not easy for anyone without money and status to get ahead in this world, but it’s even harder for a woman. Even when she’s able to acquire those things, there’ll always be a man attempting to clip her wings, so as to make him feel more powerful -- more in control. Even the tale of the goddess Calypso herself proves this. She ruled the seas, until the Pirate King and his Brethren Court ‘bound her’ into human form and stole control for themselves. They were powerless in the face of the Crowns of Europe...and so they exerted power over someone they could hurt.”

“Yet Cutler Beckett hired you, regardless of your sex,” said Carewyn, raising her eyebrows.

Rakepick crossed her arms over his chest. “Cutler Beckett will clip anyone’s wings, female or otherwise, if it benefits himself. Hence why I need this leverage over him.”

“Seems like the leverage is much more over Jones, considering you hold his life in your hands,” Carewyn cut her off harshly. “Now enough stalling -- give me Jones’s heart.”

Rakepick gave a half-frustrated, half-exhausted sigh. “Miss Weasley, do you truly think I wouldn’t have handed the heart over to you already, if I could? I’ve already made it more than clear I trust Beckett as little as you do. I’m not in this fight for him. I have no more love for either the Navy or the pirates than you do. I assure you -- we’re on the same side in this.”

‘Doubtful,’ Carewyn thought spitefully.

Nonetheless she could tell that she’d been outmaneuvered. Rakepick wasn’t going to hand over Jones’s heart, whether because it wasn’t on the ship or Rakepick was just too brave to give in to any threats she might make. She’d lost the element of surprise completely...and if force wasn’t going to work, then a new strategy was clearly needed. She needed to find out the heart’s new location. So, very reluctantly, she tucked her pistol back into its holster.

“If you’re so out for yourself,” said Carewyn coldly, “and you believe me to be just as out for myself...then we can’t be on the same side, Rakepick.”

Rakepick’s eyebrows rose over her narrowing dark blue eyes.

“I never said you were out for yourself, Miss Weasley -- merely that we are alike.”

She swept past Carewyn and headed for the door. When she reached the door frame, however, she paused. Turning her head back toward Carewyn, she spoke a bit more seriously.

“The battle between the Navy and the Pirate Brethren Court is going to be a fierce one. It would truly be in your best interest to get and stay off the Dutchman, before that fight begins.”

Carewyn shot a suspicious look over her shoulder without turning around.

“What battle?” she asked lowly.

“The place where all pirates will have to make their final stand.”

“You’re so assured of that? We haven’t even found Shipwreck Cove,” Carewyn pointed out. “Come to think of it...shouldn’t you know where Shipwreck Cove is, since you were a pirate yourself?”

Rakepick’s eyes flashed.

“I’m afraid not,” she said, her voice noticeably icier than it had been previously.

The question seemed to have gotten under Rakepick’s skin, and Carewyn suspected she knew exactly why. Only pirate captains were generally told the the location of Shipwreck Cove -- since she hadn’t assumed captainship through “Code-sanctioned” means, Rakepick couldn’t have been told by anyone else on the crew of Howell Davis’s ship where Shipwreck Cove was.

‘Serves you right, for what you did to Jacob,’ Carewyn thought, and she couldn’t completely fight back a small smirk.

“Regardless,” said Rakepick, “it won’t take long to find it. You saw the map Beckett designed, in your office -- it’s been finished, since you last saw it. The world’s edges have been drawn and charted, and so too have all of the places pirates could’ve once hidden. Now that they’ve been fenced in and the British Crown has allocated its Navy to the East India Trading Company’s war on piracy...it’s only a matter of time before all pirates face extinction. Those in power will not surrender it peacefully...least of all to those they’ve decided to treat as inferiors...so they’ll use every bit of that power they’ve accrued to try to quash any resistance. Those remaining pirates will have to either adapt to this terrifying new world their rebellion has molded...or perish.”

Rakepick turned away.

“And you, Miss Weasley...should not remain on the Dutchman. You don’t belong on a ship like this.”

Even as Rakepick left, Carewyn remained where she was, standing straight-backed in the center of the room with her fists clenched. Then, after a long moment, she brought a hand up to the lid of the empty Dead Man’s Chest and shut it with a harsh SNAP.

The sea battle up above raged. Captain Moody, it seemed, was truly a force to be reckoned with, despite his age and wooden limbs. When Navy officers and Dutchman pirates found their way onto the Phoenix, he fought four of them off single-handed, even going so far as to yank a blunderbuss out of his pants and shoot one of them right in the head before smacking two of the others with it as if it were a club. It was just fortunate that Charlie -- newly escaped from the brig thanks to a charm of Chia Dalma’s -- was able to block the sword belonging to the last of them with his own dragon-hilted blade.

Despite this, the Phoenix and the rest of the Tower Raven’s old fleet was severely outmatched, since Jones’s crew couldn’t die. Many ships had already started to flee, only for the Flying Dutchman to cut them down with cannon fire. Even though the Dutchman was no larger than the pirate galleons, it seemed to have the supernatural ability to heal any damage dealt to it within the span of a few minutes -- an ability not shared by Captain Moody, when he swung over to the Dutchman and pursued Jones with singular, irrational focus, only to finally be overpowered and killed by Jones himself.

“NO!” bellowed Barnaby.

Charlie straightened up sharply, his eyes widening in horror, at the sight of Moody falling to his knees, Jones’s blade stuck right through his chest.

Jones regarded the old man with a grim expression.

“Alastor Moody,” he murmured, “do you fear death?”

Moody glared up at Jones with his one good eye, but was clearly too badly injured to speak. So instead he spat at his feet.

Jones looked almost jaded by the reaction -- the way any embodiment of Death would likely be, whenever anyone got mad at them for doing their job.

“Clearly not.”

With this, he rather callously tossed Moody back over onto the deck of the Phoenix and whirled back to his crew.

“Ready the cannons!”

Barnaby immediately rushed to his captain’s side to help him up.

“Captain -- Captain, are you -- ?”

Alas, Moody was still too injured to speak clearly. When he opened his mouth, all he could do was cough up blood. Charlie rushed over too.

“He’s hurt bad,” he muttered. He turned to Chia. “Is there anything you -- ?”

Chia shook her head, her gray eyes very solemn. “I’m sorry, Charles Weasley. There’s no more time I can give him.”

Charlie was startled by the sensation of someone grabbing the collar of his shirt. Moody pulled him down closer to him, trying to whisper into his ear.

"You -- ” he choked through the blood in his mouth, “ -- have the Pacific Ocean’s Piece of Eight -- ?”

Charlie blinked in surprise. He glanced down at the anchor-trimmed “S” button Chia gave him, which he’d pinned to his vest for safe keeping until he could properly sew it somewhere more secure.

“...Yeah,” said Charlie. “Chia Dalma gave it to me.”

Moody squinted up at Charlie.

“...Shipwreck Cove -- is due west, of here. Fifty miles -- through the D-Devil’s -- Throat. Take -- the crew there.”

Charlie was completely blind-sided. “What?”

“Lead them. Take them to -- Shipwreck Cove. To the rest of the Court. To -- Black Jack.”

Charlie’s brown eyes rippled with sadness, seeing how much difficulty Moody was having talking. He was out of time, as Chia had said -- and yet, here he was, putting his crew first.

‘For all of his faults,’ thought Charlie, ‘Mad-Eye Moody is a good captain.’

The second-eldest Weasley took Moody’s wizened hand in both of his and gave it a squeeze.

“I will,” he said firmly. “I promise.”

Blood streamed from Moody’s lips as they curled up in a pained smile. “That’s a good lad...”

He coughed, trying hard to take another breath. This time, however, the blood blocked his throat enough that no oxygen could reach him. And so Moody, in the last shreds of his life, bravely raised his eyes to the sky with a smile.

Barnaby had brought his two large fists up to obscure his face as he started to cry. Charlie hung his head respectfully over the fallen captain of the Phoenix. After a moment, he brought up a hand to close Moody’s eyes and then rose to his feet, his eyes blazing with determination.

“ALL HANDS, PREPARE THE CANNONS!” he bellowed. “We need all the explosives and smoke bombs we have -- we’re getting the Hell out of here!”

Charlie’s strategy was to assault the Flying Dutchman with two waves of attack. The first would be to damage the ship enough that it would need a few minutes to repair itself -- the second would be a smokescreen, so as to hopefully put enough distance between the Phoenix and the Flying Dutchman that the second couldn’t actively take down the first with its cannon fire. When Charlie ran to the edge of the Phoenix beside Chia Dalma to make the order to fire, he was startled momentarily by who he saw coming up onto the deck of the Dutchman.

It was Carewyn.

Jones confronted her immediately, his eyes narrowed sharply as he barked something to her -- Carewyn looked rather frustrated herself, but Charlie couldn’t make out what they were saying. Within seconds, however, both Jones and Carewyn turned their focus to the battle -- and they both caught sight of the two people at the railing.

Jones’s eyes flickered with shock, disbelief, and something oddly more vulnerable. He’d never seen the human woman on that ship’s railing in his life...but he knew those gray eyes...

“Ca...lypso...?”

Chia Dalma’s hands clutched the railing as her eyes filled with tears and a weak smile prickled at her features.

“Finn,” she breathed.

Carewyn, meanwhile, had met Charlie’s gaze straight on. Her eyes were very wide at the sight of him, just as much as Charlie’s was at the sight of her.

“Carey!” cried Charlie.

His heart felt like it was fit to burst, seeing his surrogate twin again. Part of him just wanted to throw himself over his ship’s railing over to her and pull her into the biggest hug, and yet --

She was on the Dutchman -- the Flying Dutchman, the ship of the damned --

Carewyn’s eyes flooded with fear as she shot her head around, taking in her soldiers fighting off pirates from the rest of the Tower Raven’s fleet on the deck of her ship and the Phoenix’s cannons being turned into the proper position.

Her gaze then shot back to Charlie’s face with urgency.

“BECKETT IS COMING!” she mouthed to him desperately. “BECKETT IS COMING! GO!”

She then yanked her pistol out of her belt and purposefully shot right over Charlie’s head, to make her point. Clenching his jaw, Charlie nonetheless nodded firmly, blinking back some traces of tears as he whirled on his crew.

“FIRST WAVE, FIRE ALL!” he roared.

With the Dutchman effectively hampered by both waves of attack, the Phoenix was able to successfully put a respectable distance between it and the Flying Dutchman. Carewyn tried to keep their focus on the rest of the fleet and on capturing prisoners from those vessels, but Rakepick contradicted her, ordering the Dutchman to shadow the Phoenix in case it was heading to Shipwreck Cove. What Carewyn did not expect was Jones agreeing with Rakepick.

“I want everyone on board the Phoenix locked in my brig,” said the captain of the damned icily, his gaze flaring with raw emotion as he glared at Carewyn. “I will not let them escape me.”

Carewyn knew she’d been outmaneuvered again. There was nothing more she could do, to protect everyone now. It was all up to Charlie now, to warn Bill, Jules, and Jacob...to warn Orion...

The memory of the pirate captain’s calm, dark eyes made Carewyn’s heart clench with longing and pain. He’d always made her feel so much stronger, whenever she felt most useless and hopeless...but right now, more than anything, she longed to have him at her side -- to feel his shoulder resting against hers and see his soft smile once more...

Rakepick was right -- the final battle was coming, sooner than anyone could’ve ever predicted. It was all up to Charlie to warn the Brethren Court now.

#potc au #au #pirates of the caribbean #my art #my writing #charlie weasley #carewyn cromwell #chiara lobosca #Mad-Eye Moody #barnaby lee #finn mcgarry #jules farrier #bill weasley #patricia rakepick #damn it rakepick!#sadly we couldn't afford to set finn free just yet though #gotta get closer to shipwreck cove and reunite him with chia :3 #but yay captain charlie weasley of the phoenix!#he may or may not change the name to something more dragon-like later XD #but yeah technically you gotta be a captain to be a pirate lord #one reason moody gave charlie captainship #and also because as great as barnaby is I think he makes a better First Mate than a Captain #just like bill does XDD #I love putting rakepick and carey in a room together #wonder if you guys can guess who the brethren court members are...#hint: two of them are mc's who have done content for the au #(another mc is the keeper of the code >:3)#four are hphm canon characters #(one of those is charlie of course)#and the last is one of my kiddos >:3

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rossodelgiorno · 3 years

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2020/ Chain of Fools

2020 was the year I adopted a boiler suit and gas mask as a daily uniform. The world had gone into a global lockdown to combat the COVID19 virus which meant we were only allowed to leave our house for essential reasons such as grocery shopping and exercise. When outside, we were government mandated to wear face masks to prevent the spread of the disease. They made me feel like a muzzled dog and I resented no longer being able to smile with strangers on the street. Feeling like a prisoner in his own home and under extreme stress from job insecurity, my boyfriend Jake’s amphetamine addiction began to spiral out of control.

As a result of Jake’s addiction, we had accidentally befriended a posse of drug dealers and prostitutes- bonded by our love of having a good time and a general disregard for consequence. We met Dani through a call girl friend of mine who had realised the difficulty of making a living through writing online fashion content. Dani had big brown eyes, fat, botoxed lips and dressed only in high end labels like Gucci and Balmain. Born into a wealthy family, she had acquired a taste for expensive things but lacked the work ethic to maintain this taste without selling her body for sex. Dani began to visit more throughout the lockdown to deliver Jake drugs, hidden in a bag of a groceries. One night, she played Carole King on our old vinyl player, while Jake rolled us a joint to share. I flirted with them both, knowing that it would lead to a threesome. We smoked Jake’s joint, snorted lines of cocaine off each other and then took turns going down on each other.

A week later, Dani introduced us to a crew of “script kiddies”- long haired, internet hackers with a love of mumble rap, cryptocurrency and ketamine. I made cocktails for everyone and established that one of these kids shared a mutual friend with Jake. They seemed fascinated by the genuine sexual chemistry between myself, Jake and Dani and expressed gratitude for our generous hospitality. Eventually I came to the conclusion that by associating us with this crowd, Dani had managed to successfully pray on the vulnerable- trusting junkies like us who were lax with internet security and keen for a good time. In retrospect, I wish I had known that Dani was a hustler at heart- making money in any way she could without considering the impact of her choices. At the time however, I felt like we were fully living life in the moment- something I was certain would bring me happiness, meaning and didn’t question her motives for a moment.

Ella, Dani’s best friend, had a boyish pixie cut, high cheekbones and was tall and slim. She had gradually joined in on our shenanigans, along with Mark, a dealer with a steady supply of the best gear available north of the river. We all hung out together in our plant-filled, converted warehouse listening to electronic music and sharing stories about our favourite mind-altering substances. My stories were consistently focused on MDMA. As a notoriously private person, I’d discovered MDMA helped me open up and allowed me to dance, free of fear of judgement. It had also helped Jake open up about the sexual abuse he experienced as child, a fact I doubted would have ever come up without the influence of a truth serum and something which I was certain had driven him to substance abuse in the first place.

While we laughed, chatted and danced with Dani and Mark, Ella, who claimed to be a part time poet and part-time model, entered a viral script virus onto our wireless network by requesting our wifi password. Something we provided willingly, without second thought. This meant remote access to every digital device we owned and access to all stored personal information including scanned copies of our passports and birth certificates.

The issue with Mark, despite his criminal lifestyle, was that he was excellent company. Intelligent, engaging and a DJ in his spare time- we thrived off his love of hip hop and old-school funk. Similarly, he thrived off our property location in the Inner North- close to his regular customers and discrete enough from the prying eyes of authority. We welcomed him into our home with open arms, deprived of social contact through social distancing practices enforced by the pandemic. We held COVID19 illegal gatherings where we got high off Mark’s supply, enjoyed each other’s company while Ella hacked our electronic identities. When you’re lonely, it doesn’t really matter if others are using you and you’re using them. As long as everyone is filling a clearly defined role, the maladaptive social ecosystem continues to function.

It’s unclear exactly how many international drug smuggling routes were established using our stolen online identities before Jake clued on that something wasn’t right. He told me that he had been locked out of his email account, that the speed of his phone had slowed and that he could hear clicking noises during his phone calls. He was certain that his was a breach of online security and started to question the motives of our new friends. I wrote him off as crazy, blaming his excessive use of amphetamines and the psychological effect of social isolation. I was determined to keep my online identity public, obsessed by the idea of becoming the next millennial therapist and too blinded by Dani’s beauty to believe that she would want to harm us in any way.

Eventually Jake’s distress became too extreme to ignore and he shook me violently one night, yelling at me to believe what I had assumed was a paranoid conspiracy theory. A sinking feeling in my gut became apparent when he started to coherently piece together his concerns about his online security issues. I realized that my sense of reality had been clouded by my lust for Dani and by a dark depression that had developed through my work as an essential worker during a pandemic. Based on Jake’s erratic behaviour, I knew we had to get out of the warehouse immediately, but I had no idea where to go and was fearful of drawing attention to any law-breaking activity when police presence was so prominent.

We agreed to seek refuge with our friends Trish and Rick, former 90s British ravers who had channeled their drug-fuelled benders into successful and respectable careers. I called them panicked that night, shaking and rambling about what had happened. Without hesitancy, Trish told us to come over right away. Rick’s brother back in the UK had recently killed himself and they were struggling too. Trish and Rick lived in an affluent area in the inner East which meant we needed to blend in quickly through a disguise of expensive athleisure and an almost painful sense of normality. It appeared that our efforts at disguise were successful and it seemed to result in freedom from any unusual online activity on our devices. We bought new phones, changed our phone numbers, email addresses and disconnected from the outside world for an entire week. We spoke about going to the police, however we both agreed that this would place us at too much risk to the criminal world to be a viable option.

When your online identity is stolen, you quickly start to daydream what it would be like to steal someone else’s identity. For example, what exactly would you do with those proceeds of crime? Which tropical island would you escape to, what designer clothes would you wear, which car would you drive? I quickly became entranced and jealous at the thought of this fantasy life, but then spent time reflecting on my own morality and these feelings subsided. Instead, an intense anger developed at the thought of others taking advantage of Jake and his mental illness. High on a sense of ethical superiority and new found fury, I decided to employ my favourite psychological defense mechanism, repression, to cope with my latest traumas. May you rest in peace, memory, I said to myself before engaging in my daily mediation ritual.

While repressing my consciousness, I also began to focus on the importance of social support. I knew this shit was important but didn’t fully understand until Trish brushed my hair one night, my arms too frail from fear and stress to function. Trish and Rick played familiar Britpop, drank tea and encouraged us to embrace the therapeutic benefits of music through use of the guitar and keyboard that we had brought to their house. We took turns cooking for each other, played board games and counselled each other through each personal problems, one at a time.

Jake and I stayed with Trish and Rick for two weeks until we could establish an exit plan from the city. We migrated to rural Victoria like many other Melbournians, traumatized by the lockdown. The pace in the country was slow yet calming and people genuinely seemed to care about your welfare when they inquired “How you going, mate?” After such an extended period of social isolation, many of us forgot how to interact with others. We valued and craved human connection more than ever, and yet we seemed scared of what we might connect with. We continued to develop our own deformed version of sign language to communicate through the face masks and focused on re-developing social skills that had been lost through extended disconnection.

Jake and I continued to battle through the challenges of online identity theft and the consequences of his addiction issues. Jake’s substance use had subsided substantially without the influence of Mark and Dani and we eventually adjusted to living normal, routine driven lifestyles. He had cycled through periods of problematic use before, however I still felt somewhat shell shocked by the intensity of his most recent relapse. However, one day late in December I found myself wandering through the tranquility of the Otways, fully freed from the constraints of the lockdown which had finally lifted and contemplating my progress in life since leaving this place as a teenager. The rainforest sounds were vivid and the smells of the ocean salty in my nostrils. I wasn’t where I had planned to end the year 2020, but I was alive and I had Jake. And for that, I felt eternally grateful.

Rosso Del Giorno

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sometimesrosy · 3 years

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Hey Rosy, writer anon here. Things have been going well, I suppose. I've written about 20 pages during the little time I have, while still distracting myself with other things to not burn out. However, I feel like I'm writing really small scenes, with very few description. Heres the thing: I'm writing in my mother tongue, and for years now I've only read in English. I started learning, alone, when I was six, and I studied Translation at university. I work as an English teacher. Everything I do +

+ revolves around English. Even my phone and computer are in English. I just do most things in English, except talk with people in my days because, well, I'm in my home country. I know - or heard - that for an author to be good, they need to read a lot. I'm a very slow reader, but that was never a problem. But now, when I look at my writing, I feel like it... sucks. Imposter syndrome, probably. I've written in English before, and I felt like dialogue was great, but description wasn't. + + I've been noticing that my descriptions aren't good even in my own language, there isn't much of it. Yesterday I wrote a little, created a new motto that goes like "write write write and then you'll edit", but I'm starting to be paranoid with "should I keep writting like this or switch to English?" The book I'm currently reading (in EN) was written in a way that really appeals to me, but it probably also had a lot of editions. I've been editing as I'm writing but... what if English was better?

First of all, being fluently bilingual is a great thing. It's a benefit for your writing. I'm not so I feel ill prepared to give you advice on it, but you have a familiarity with more words, with more ways of speaking and terms of speech. I know you probably feel as if you're spreading yourself too thin with both languages, which makes you not as good in either one, but I feel like the human ability to communicate is translatable from one language to another.

But like I said, my brain doesn't work well with language learning and I failed to become fluent in spanish, my second language. I can barely remember words in my first language and have to frequently google them. And after I got sick, I started losing words. What do I mean bringing this up? I mean you don't need to have perfect language abilities to be a good writer. You don't need to write perfect description, or have perfect recall, or spend as much time working with one language as the other. You just have to trust yourself and sit down and keep at your writing.

Like I said, I use google when the flaws in my language crop up. I use google A LOT. Unlike when I speak and I can't ever remember words at all.

But writing allows us to take time with our words and find the right ones. We don't need to have it perfect the first time. We don't need to have it perfect, ever. The point is not to be perfect, the point is to tell your story, engage the audience, impart your world view... or whatever it is you might want to do with your writing. Different writers can have different goals.

I want to remind you that not everybody uses all that much description. How much description you use is a matter of your writing style. And not everybody even LIKES to read a lot of description. While some people do.

But if you don't like your description, there's an easy solution to that.

Practice writing description. Get more comfortable adding description to your work.

This is one way a journal can help your writing. You don't need to practice description WITHIN your current WIP. Take out your journal and spend some time DESCRIBING things. Use the world around you. Go to a cafe, describe the setting, the people, the sounds, etc. Pick a familiar place, describe that. Try somewhere you've never been. How does the newness come across in your writing.

When you write description, try to remember ALL the senses. Not just vision. Not everything is going to have a smell or taste, of course, but if you remember that this isn't just a movie screen, and when we experience things, we experience taste, texture, sound, sight and scent, you can often add in that little detail that makes it come alive. Like. The clink of coffee cups or the feel of fog on your eyes, or the metallic tang of blood. IDK. All of those descriptors are for different settings/scenes, right?

THat's another thing. Description is not merely writing how things look. It's picking the right details to give the readers the emotional, psychological or intellectual experience. If you're writing a cozy romance, you probably don't want the tang of blood. If you're writing an action scene, you might not want to focus on the smell of cinnamon apple pie. Although switch those two descriptions and it might work.

Instead of fearing that you don't have ENOUGH description, try adding JUST THE RIGHT description. Too much description slows things down. You might want that in some places, to work with pacing, but in other places, where you want the story to go fast, you don't want description.

#sorry this took so long i wanted to think about the answer #writing advice #writing description #also you've got a couple things going on here. the description issue. the imposter syndrome and the bilingual issue.#a lot of people have problems with description i don't think it's a matter of being bilingual #and gaining self esteem as a writer is a problem for everyone but pompous jerks #almost all writers struggle with self worth that is part of the struggle of being a writer #it doesn't mean you're not a good writer. it means you are a writer.

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artemis-entreri · 5 years

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[[ This post contains Part 3 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

Introduction

I. Positives I.1 Pure Positives I.2 Muddled Positives

II. Mediocre Writing Style II.1 Bad Descriptions II.2 Salvatorisms II.3 Laborious “Action”

III. Poor Characterization (you are here) III.1 “Maestro” III.2 Lieutenant III.3 Barbarian III.4 “Hero” III.5 Mother

IV. World Breaks IV.1 Blinders Against the Greater World IV.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril IV.3 Self-Inconsistency IV.4 Dungeon Amateur IV.5 Utter Nonsense

V. Ego Stroking V.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall V.2 Me, Myself, and I

VI. Problematic Themes VI.1 No Homo VI.2 Disrespect of Women VI.3 Social-normalization VI.4 Eugenics

VII. What’s Next VII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood VII.2 Profane Redemption VII.3 Passing the Torch VII.4 Don’t Notice Me Senpai

Poor Characterization

Boundless sees an overall regression from Timeless in terms of quality of characterization. It almost feels as though Salvatore is saying, "I don't have room for character development because Boundless is such a non-stop action novel". Most of the page space is taken up by the many unfolding events, with opponents one after another that Zaknafein has to duel in the past and a full on war fought on at least three separate fronts in the present. However, even putting aside the fact that so many of those pages could've been truncated and space dedicated to character progression, instead, what we find in Boundless is shallow, self-inconsistent, lazy, and really, just mediocre. I'm not sure what effect Salvatore was trying to achieve through the cursory and flat overviews he gives to all of the characters in his Dramatis Personae section that precedes the body of the novel. Descriptions like the one for Briza Do'Urden, which reads, "Malice's eldest daughter. Huge and formidable" makes me wonder if Salvatore was going for humor. Yet, there isn't anything funny about the rest of the characterizations, except in an ironic sense in how bad they are, as though they were the words of someone trying to explain the characters to a not very bright child. I suppose it's an appropriate precedent, given how the "fleshed out" characterizations go in the novel.

"Maestro"

As suggested by Boundless' cover art, there's a lot of Jarlaxle in the book. Sadly, this manifests as a sort of butchering of Jarlaxle's capability and characterization in both the past and present timelines of the novel. Overall, Jarlaxle is very flat-footed, constantly doing the proverbial rocking back on his heels and falling on his butt. A character rocking back on their heels is one of Salvatore's favorite descriptors, and while, ironically, that phrase doesn't appear in Boundless, Salvatore does an excellent job of showing that Jarlaxle does it a great deal. This would be great in terms of showing instead of telling, except that, unfortunately, it happens when Jarlaxle's supposed to be doing something clever or there's some great revelation that manages to escape his masterfully strategic mind. I'd often joked that Salvatore isn't smart enough to write a character who's supposed to be as smart as Jarlaxle is, and this is very much evident in Boundless, except there's nothing funny about it. It's really just disappointing to see a character who is actually a nonconformist dragged down and forced to conform to Drizzt. Jarlaxle is also becoming more like Drizzt in the sense that he acts very differently from how he's supposed to be, all while we are being told over and over how he is truly, for real, pinky swear that certain way. In Drizzt's case, it is a judgmental, sanctimonious, pretentious, self-aggrandizing and presumptuous twat hailed to be the shining hero of goodness and virtue. And now, sadly, in Jarlaxle's case, a dopey, shortsighted, reckless, inattentive and not very bright clown wrapped in the cloak of one whose flair is matched only by his genius.

As he is presented in Boundless, Jarlaxle would've been wholly consumed by the perils of Menzoberranzan almost immediately. The Jarlaxle in the past timeline should be closer to how he was in the Legacy of the Drow trilogy, but he's been tempered to beyond how he is in The Sellswords trilogy. He's even more tame than how he appears in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, where he features as a genteel, at worst mischievous, sort of villain. Jarlaxle has become closer to Drizzt than even Zaknafein, with Zaknafein being more brutal. The Jarlaxle of the past is nearly identical to the Jarlaxle of the present, as though he were transcribed across the hundreds of years. I don't understand the reason that Salvatore did this. The current version of Jarlaxle is unpalatable enough, with all of the "intrigue" and the being for himself stance as nothing but empty posturing. It makes no sense that Jarlaxle would be that way in the past, for supposedly, experiencing the personality-altering phenomenon that is Drizzt Do'Urden hadn't even happened then.

That said, let's look at some details. First, Boundless introduces an activity that Jarlaxle and Zaknafein enjoyed together, "cavern jumping", which is what we call free running or parkour in our world. They first partake of this activity in a super inspired and uniquely-named chapter entitled "Running Free". I was sarcastic just now, but I'm absolutely not sarcastic when I say this: parkour is dangerous. Even in our world, experienced traceurs can and do get hurt, and they don't normally run in an environment where many individuals stand to benefit if a fatal accident befalls them. Despite Jarlaxle saying that the risk is what makes the activity fun, this seems like a weak justification injected by a paranoid narrator who's aware that they're recounting a very unlikely event. For, the reality is, it's already dangerous that Jarlaxle and Zaknafein perform risky acrobatic maneuvers in one of the deadliest cities of Faerûn, they're doing it without any of their magical equipment. The very fact that Jarlaxle engages in this activity is reckless, and what makes it even more unlikely is the lack of assurances that are put in place to minimize potential "accidents". Zaknafein and Jarlaxle's cavern-jumping escapades aren't at all like when they pillaged Barrison Del'Armgo's armory. Although both are adrenaline-seeking activities, the latter was a controlled simulation that Jarlaxle had engineered and pulled strings to achieve. Jarlaxle might be a daredevil and an excitement-seeker, but he's not stupid, and he's supposed to be prudent, else everything that he's worked for would be for naught. He takes risks but we've been told that they're calculated ones, ones in which he's already figured out and examined every possible outcome. There's nothing calculated about cavern-jumping, and the only aspect that's even approaching consistent is their route. Even then, "consistent" can hardly be applied, for the two are constantly one-upping each other, pushing one another to quicker paces and more daring maneuvers. There aren't even Bregan D'aerthe scouts watching every turn, keeping an eye out for any parties of ill intention that might target the two high profile male drow. Heck, Jarlaxle isn't even aware of who's watching them, and he should both know and care, especially since Zaknafein is big enough of a target that many individuals wouldn't care about implicating Jarlaxle while attempting to "cavern-jump" Zaknafein. In fact, we even see in the same chapter one such interested party, and given that so much of the book is about people wanting to kill Zaknafein, I feel like the whole free running thing was just an excuse for Salvatore to show off his action scenes, except that there isn't anything to show off there. Simply showing off to this degree puts both of them at a disadvantage given how cutthroat and scheme-based drow society is supposed to be. Shouldn't Jarlaxle be worried about illustrating how flexible and agile he is, and doesn't Zaknafein want opponents to underestimate him?

Far from being circumspect, Jarlaxle doesn't seem to think at all. Even obvious things that would've occurred to a novice strategist escapes the one indirectly dubbed as "maestro". Following the fight between Zaknafein and Duvon Tr'arach, a holder of a century-long grudge against the weapons master who destroyed his house and humiliated him in combat, Jarlaxle is surprised to find that the drow whom he thought were ambushers were actually reinforcements brought by Zaknafein. This is not evocative of a streetwise genius maestro super spy. Of course Zaknafein would bring back-up, he knows the way of his society and knows how many want him dead. It would have been more reasonable for Jarlaxle to be surprised if Zaknafein hadn't brought anyone from his house with him. Salvatore has Jarlaxle thinking Zaknafein clever, but what should've happened is that Jarlaxle should have known about Zaknafein's backup in the first place, and have had agents monitoring them the whole time instead of embarrassing himself with his lack of foresight. Even better would have been if he feigned being surprised and impressed while we see Jarlaxle's agents melt back into the shadows without them alerting Zaknafein's assistants.

Jarlaxle being blindsided by the relationship between Zaknafein and Dab'nay, while more reasonable than the previous example, nonetheless doesn't belong to the same drow who, during the Crenshinibon era, knew immediately that his two lieutenants were conspiring together against him. It's true that Jarlaxle is younger and less experienced during the flashback scenes of Boundless, but there's already a rapport between him and the members of his band, a trust that would not have built up solely based on individuals sharing the same plight. Jarlaxle's followers are fiercely loyal to him, and not solely because of his charisma. Jarlaxle shows these second-class citizens of his society something they've never known before, that someone is interested in who they are. He wins their favor because all they've known previously is that their worth is measured by their bloodline, their aptitude in combat and their aptitude in the bedroom. Even if Jarlaxle's intellect wasn't enough to allow him to foresee Dab'nay and Zaknafein hooking up as a possibility, his personal knowledge of Dab'nay should've suggested the probability to him. There's another poor characterization in that if Zaknafein's hatred of priestesses was as absolute and blinding as we've been told that it is, the only dagger he'd have plunged into Dab'nay wouldn't have been the one that's permanently attached to him. However, the relationship between Dab'nay and Zaknafein being what it's forced to be, surely, Jarlaxle would've known Zaknafein well enough to at least suspect the possibility.

Although Jarlaxle is only literally stated to have "for once, seemed at a loss for words", his demonstrated lack of cleverness fails to back this up. Even in the scenario in which that is explicitly written, it's uncharacteristic of Jarlaxle to not know what to say. The passage reads:

So, from this we are to believe that the genius Jarlaxle can't produce an answer to that simple statement, when even I can think of a number of things to say on the fly: that Jarlaxle's not just any drow, that there are varying levels of trust that should be adjusted based on the circumstance, that there's such a thing as "trust but verify", that, fundamentally, the drow word for "trust" isn't as black and white as what Zaknafein is demanding. Jarlaxle's int score is a staggering 20, and he should easily come up with everything I've come up with just now and many many more answers that I can't even begin to think of with my far less staggering intellect. Things like these are just downright embarrassingly inept portrayals of Jarlaxle's alleged brilliance.

In the current timeline, Jarlaxle is even more dull, which I suppose is appropriate given the nerfing of who he was in the past. In addition to being just as flat-footed and shortsighted as his past incarnation in Boundless, Jarlaxle draws some really inaccurate conclusions. For instance, "Jarlaxle knew, of course, that Bruenor was more friend to Drizzt than Zaknafein had ever been, and indeed, more father to Drizzt than Zaknafein had ever been." Really? He knows, of course and indeed, this totally untrue assessment, does he? The first might be true, for Zaknafein wasn't present in Drizzt's life for nearly as much as Bruenor was, and even while he was there, the interactions between him and his son was restricted. But when did Bruenor risk his life on numerous occasions to simply ensure that Drizzt's moral compass and free will were not tainted? When did Bruenor sacrifice himself so that Drizzt might live? Bruenor was never even in a position to entreaty an assailant to take him instead of Drizzt. Perhaps if Salvatore defines father figures as aloof and distant presences in one's life who give tough love but never direct validation, then certainly Bruenor has been more of a father to Drizzt than Zaknafein was. However, the reality is that Bruenor never protected Drizzt the way that Zaknafein did and never guided Drizzt the way Zaknafein did. The only way that it would make sense for that assessment to belong to Jarlaxle is if Jarlaxle's own understanding of parent and child relationships is so incomplete that he doesn't know better, or if he's as stupid as he is shown to be in Boundless. The first possibility is most likely true from a personal angle for Jarlaxle, but Jarlaxle has lived long enough on the surface, mingling with enough surface folk to know, especially with what should be his level of perceptiveness, what it means to be a good father. He would need to have a good understanding of those kinds of dynamics, because they contain weaknesses that can be exploited. So, really, the only thing that would make all of this consistent is the latter possibility, which sadly, is where everything is trending anyway.

I'm not very emotionally invested in Jarlaxle, though I prefer him to most of the rest of the somewhat bland characters we see in Boundless. So when this many things make someone like me unhappy about Jarlaxle's characterization, I'd hate to see what someone who feels towards him like I feel towards Artemis Entreri will take away from Boundless. I'm sure that I'm missing a lot of irksome things, but the ones that I've pointed out are what stood out to me, and I'll end the discussion of Jarlaxle with one final example. In both Timeless and Boundless, Jarlaxle has this strange and decidedly non-Menzoberranzanyr perspective regarding "married couples" of drow. The usage of "husband" and "wife" in these books is extremely weird, because as we know from all D&D and Forgotten Realms source material, including Salvatore's own books, that there is no formality in Lolthite drow relationships. Females take males at their pleasure, abandoning them as whimsically as they pick them up, and being a Patron of a house means nothing. What's even more strange is that Zaknafein isn't even the Patron of House Do'Urden, Rizzen still holds that title while Zaknafein and Malice are sexually active together, yet since Timeless, Zaknafein has been referred to as Malice's husband. Furthermore, while, as far as we know, Jarlaxle has never slept with the partners of people that he likes, it was always more of a strategic decision rather than a moral one. For instance, he found Calihye and Dahlia unstable, thus not cuckolding Entreri and Drizzt, and the closest he'd come to showing interest to a "taken" partner was with Catti-brie, but even then, morals aren't what prevent him from pursuing her. Yet, steeped in the degenerate society of Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle prefers not to have sexual contact with Malice because Zaknafein is his friend. Where did this belief come from? It certainly doesn't exist in drow culture, males are sex objects for the females, perhaps sometimes rising to the rank of favored toy, nothing more. In a society like that, the toy doesn't have delusions of possession. Jarlaxle is one of the few, if not only, male drow in Menzoberranzan who even has a choice, who can even say no to a female without being killed horribly. I get that Salvatore is trying to show that Jarlaxle is honorable towards his friendship with Zaknafein, but he doesn't have to break the character in addition to his own world-building, as well as that of other creatives', to do so. There are so many ways to do it, but I suppose those are less obvious and require more thinking.

Lieutenant

The poor characterizations extend beyond what's done to Jarlaxle. The number of times that an inconsistency arises between what a character is supposed to be/know and how they perceive things or act is staggering. In the past, there is Arathis Hune, Jarlaxle's first and only lieutenant for a long time, and presumably, one of his most trusted friends. Arathis and Jarlaxle should understand each other quite well, so the fact that Arathis didn't foresee that Jarlaxle would assist Zaknafein during Zaknafein's rigged duel with Duvon Tr'arach is unlikely. Arathis might've had an ace in the form of psionic assistance in swaying the match, but unless he is a total fool, he wouldn't think that Jarlaxle wasn't aware of his dalliances, especially with potential allies as powerful as Oblodrans. Furthermore, Jarlaxle's fondness of Zaknafein is enough of a thorn in Arathis' side that Arathis would've certainly anticipated Jarlaxle intervening on behalf of Zaknafein, even if Arathis didn't specifically guess that Jarlaxle would do so by means of lending Zaknafein his eyepatch. Even if Jarlaxle had never explicitly told Arathis about the functionality of his eyepatch, Arathis, who would've certainly witnessed Jarlaxle constantly escaping the various mind-manipulating magics of the priestesses of Lolth, should've been able to deduce that Jarlaxle has a magical item that protects him against such intrusions. Arathis might not be a master genius like Jarlaxle, but he is a drow, who are supposed to be masters of intrigue in their own right as being able to survive in Menzoberranzan requires such of them. Moreover, he is a capable enough drow that Jarlaxle chose him to be at his side, rather than tending the bar at the Oozing Myconid. Yet, Arathis doesn't foresee any of what he should've known immediately, nor did he have a backup plan, which to a drow is something that one possesses as certainly as keen eyesight.

Barbarian

In the present timeline, Wulfgar suffers from the same treatment given Arathis, which is really saying something since Wulfgar's characterization has been all over the place even before his rebirth. Nonetheless, two things that Wulfgar is supposed to be, are one, a good guy if not a hero, and two, not dumb, if not intelligent. Yet, Wulfgar's portrayal in Boundless shows him as possessing none of these positive traits. For the first trait, it wouldn't be the first time that a member of the Companions of the Hall thought or performed something dishonorable. In Hero, this manifests as Regis and Wulfgar literally kicking people who were already down. In Boundless, Wulfgar is surprisingly nonchalant about the possibility of Kimmuriel committing casual murder, even hoping for it:

The only thing that Calico Grimm is guilty of, that we're shown anyway, is being boisterous and foolish, which is hardly grounds deserving of death, unless it was early Artemis Entreri doing the adjudication. But this isn't early Artemis Entreri, or even current Artemis Entreri harboring such thoughts, it's Wulfgar, a returned hero. Calico Grimm might be obnoxious, but he's still a comrade in arms whose ship Wulfgar boarded. Even if it were the case that Calico Grimm is actually a pirate, one of the ne'er-do-wells that gives Luskan its shady reputation, it doesn't change the fact that they are on the same side. After all, the Companions of the Hall are supposed to stand for noble self sacrificing values like not randomly murdering people that are even temporarily on the same side as them.

Not only is Wulfgar's moral compass unaligned with how it's supposed to be, apparently, the damage that he'd done to his brain during his The Spine of the World alcoholism managed to stay with him through the reincarnation. That, or Drizzt and his supposedly tight-knit group of friends aren't as close as they're made out to be. During Wulfgar's duel with the demon-possessed captain of the fleet besieging Luskan, Kimmuriel imbues Wulfgar with a psionic shield that absorbs all damage and releases it all at once at the absorber's will. It's the same mechanic that's been used countless times in the past, including but not limited to saving newborn Jarlaxle from Matron Baenre's sacrificial dagger, preventing Calihye's blade from piercing an otherwise defenseless Entreri's heart, and, of course, allowing Drizzt to strike down Demogorgon with one hit. That last scenario is pretty monumental, and the kind of thing that Drizzt would've told his friends every detail of, for even if he didn't volunteer, surely they and others would've pried and pried about how he defeated Demogorgon. Yet, Wulfgar has no idea what's happening when his opponent's blows fail to scratch him. It's just mind-boggling that he doesn't make the connection, especially since psionicists are rare enough already in the Realms, even more so in Salvatore's corner of the Realms; Kimmuriel is literally the only psionicist that the Companions of the Hall know. Wulfgar's failure to put one and one together really leads me to wonder if the whole purpose of making him so obtuse is to perform yet more tedious review and Drizzt-flattering.

"Hero"

Most painful to me, of course, is Artemis Entreri, who only appears a bit more in Boundless than he does in Timeless, but what's done to him in Boundless is pretty bad. Entreri's characterization kicks off on the wrong foot from his entry in the Dramatis Personae section, which reads:

For the umpteenth time, Entreri would not have a concept of "friend", especially how it is presented in the Drizzt books. It's an oversimplification and kills the nuance of a character who would still have significant psychological scars and trust issues, even if he were truly and completely over his childhood traumas, which in itself is highly unlikely. I can forgive this bad summary of Entreri, but I can't overlook how, quite frankly, melodramatic, he's presented to be in Boundless. While the assassin seems to talk the talk, calling Regis a fool and ridiculing him for his naiveté, he definitely no longer walks the walk. The aura of intimidation that's so integral to his character no longer feels present. Entreri is quick to reassure Regis about the safety of Donnola, something that even his tempered down self seems unlikely to do. Regis and Entreri have history, and not all or even most of it was pleasant. It's as though Salvatore forgot that Regis found a helpless and broken Entreri dangling precariously from a branch, and rather than finishing him off quickly as would be the honorable thing to do, Regis stole Entreri's most prized possession, then cut him loose so that his final moments would be spent in fear and helplessness. One as fiercely protective of his own free will as is Entreri would not forget that so easily, and even if he doesn't actively hate the Companions of the Hall anymore, just as it makes sense that Regis is uncomfortable about the stub of his pinky that Entreri had inflicted on him in his previous life, Entreri should've let the little rat squirm before perhaps mentioning off the cuff that all the citizens of Bleeding Vines survived.

The worst thing done to Entreri in Boundless, however, is worse than the physical trials and travails that befall him. Given that the situation that ensnares him is that he's trapped in an unbreakable cocoon being stung on every mentionable (and unmentionable) part of his body by vicious demonic wasps, more and more I feel that it'd be best for Entreri if Salvatore just killed him off before ruining him more. While Entreri's plight is pretty dire, still, it doesn't seem like enough for him to launch into Drizzt journal entries' level of melodrama. Entreri has high levels of pain tolerance, as we've seen countless times in the past with him losing none of his agility or fighting prowess even after taking a blade through the ribs. Furthermore, the amount of psychological punishment he's endured far outweighs what he's gone through physically, such that he shouldn't resort to wishing for death right away, or cursing everyone, including himself, so quickly. I can maybe accept that he'd do so after a couple of tendays, but we only see him in the cocoon for a few days during Boundless. Furthermore, the impression given by how the pain is described in Boundless is significantly less than the pain that Herzgo Alegni inflicted upon Entreri by striking a tuning fork against Charon's Claw. It's more likely that someone of Entreri's discipline and willpower would've found some way to put his mind above the constant pain to focus on figuring out how to get out, if not simply detaching himself from the sensation. Instead, right from the get-go, the first soliloquy we see from him in the cocoon is:

In addition to being too weak, Entreri's portrayed as being too dependent. As a person who's lived twice as long as he should have and endured much more than his fair share of torment, one who is used to depending on no one save for himself, how quickly Entreri cries out for Dahlia, how quickly he wishes for death to be spared the pain, just doesn't fit. Instead it simply completes Salvatore's neutering process, now not only is Entreri a good guy, but he is no longer even a disciplined warrior. Salvatore's handling of Artemis Entreri is akin to what I'd said about Salvatore being not intelligent enough to write someone as brilliant as Jarlaxle. It's clear that Salvatore doesn't have enough understanding of trauma and physical pain thresholds to do justice to Entreri.

Mother

Another poor characterization in Boundless has to do with Dahlia, who seems to have completely forgotten about Effron. Effron doesn't make an appearance, or is even so much as mentioned, despite some portion of the novel dedicated to the Hosttower of the Arcane, where he currently resides. While I can buy that Effron isn't significant enough for Gromph to even think of him when declaring the position the Hosttower will take, he is, or at least should be, important enough to Dahlia for her to at least think of him. The relationship between Dahlia and Effron might have started off at a badly, but throughout the entirety of the Neverwinter Saga, Dahlia is tormented by guilt over her son. Seeing what she believed to be the remains of Effron broke Dahlia's mind and will, causing the normally fiery and irrepressible elf to docilely accept being dragged away for further torture. Seeing that Effron was safe and being reunited him would've granted Dahlia closure, but closure doesn't mean that she wouldn't want to see him and be near him. We've seen that Dahlia tends to be very clingy to those she cares about, so it seems unlikely that she'd accept living in a different city from Effron. Given what Dahlia's like, she should be torn between her love for Entreri and her love for Effron, especially as the two male characters don't much care for each other and most certainly wouldn't want to live together, which Dahlia would likely prefer so that she can be close to both. It should be a cause for tension, not Dahlia simply following Entreri around like a pet, not that Entreri would've allowed that anyway. For all of his dislike of Effron and his brusqueness with the general populace, Entreri has shown himself to be extremely devoted to the women that he's loved. Just as he looked for Calihye after she tried to kill him and accepted her back into his life years later, Entreri would've made certain that Dahlia wouldn't be miserable choosing him over her son.

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blancheludis · 5 years

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@whumptober2019 Day 2: Explosion

Fandom: MCU, Spider-Man Characters: Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Tony Stark Tags: Explosion, Whump, Hurt Peter, Hurt Ned, Family, Guilt Words: 3.383

Summary: Peter has a headache that does not want to go away. Less an ache, really, than a feeling. Like something is just waiting for him to lose focus so it can stab him in the back. He is being silly, he just did not sleep. End of story. (Then, of course, someone tries to blow him up.)

---

Peter should have called in sick. He is saying that now in the safety of his mind, while he is navigating the halls of the school on shaky legs. As if he would have ever done the smart thing and admitted defeat when it is his own fault that he is aching all over. Maybe that will teach him not to meddle in things bigger than him and engage the kind of bad guys in fights that are definitely out of his league. He does not think so, but considering how he feels, he has hopes not to make the same mistake twice.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Ned asks from his side, frowning when Peter immediately tries to straighten. “You don’t look –”

“Ned, I’m fine,” Peter cuts him off. “I promise. It was a long night.”

At least half of that is true. It was a long night. Long enough that he barely remembers how he made it home, or how he managed to sneak in through his window without alerting May.

“You’re limping,” Ned points out.

Looking at his feet, Peter realizes Ned is right. He already knew he had twisted his ankle the night before, but he is usually better at masking it.

“Give it a few hours,” Peter replies, more cheerful than he feels. He skipped breakfast in favour of spending more time in bed. Only now that is making him feel even worse.

“This is seriously awesome,” Ned says with that special enthusiasm he reserves for everything that separates Spider-Man from a baseline human. Then he grows serious again. “But perhaps you should go home.”

Peter shakes his head immediately. “I can’t.”

He was not supposed to go out last night. Karen has been sworn to secrecy, although she has only agreed reluctantly, considering that last night was a really close call and Peter is by no means sure he will not still be limping tonight. If he goes home early, the school will call May, and May will have questions Peter does not wants to answer. And if she thinks Peter is keeping things from him, she will call Mr. Stark, and Mr. Stark is not in the habit of taking no for an answer.

Also, Peter is almost out of web fluid. He was going to make more in Mr. Stark’s workshop, but he will have to avoid that until most of his wounds have healed. Karen might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt sometimes, but FRIDAY will snitch him out to Mr. Stark the moment he steps into the foyer. He will have to use the school lab for now.

It is not a big deal. He has done so for long enough. He is just really not feeling well. His body is stitching itself back together. The bruises are pulsing, his broken ribs are itching. All of that is all right, but he has a headache that does not want to go away. Less an ache, really, than a feeling. Like something is just waiting for him to lose focus so it can stab him in the back.

He is being silly, he just did not sleep. End of story.

“You can take a nap in Physics. I’ll take notes for you. Although it’s not like you need them.” Ned has been talking for a while as Peter’s thoughts drifted off, but it appears as if Ned has decided to trust Peter for now.

Peter has done a lot of dumb and dangerous things in his life. He has been ungrateful and secretive. He does not like to see reason even in the face of overwhelming evidence that someone else might know what is good for him. Yet, Ned has never left him hanging.

“Thanks, man,” Peter says, bumping Ned’s shoulder with his own. He immediately has to swallow a whelp. He is sore all over.

Ned sighs, not happy but making due. “Just take care of yourself.”

Instead of making a promise he cannot possibly keep, Peter mutters something about his locker and limps off before Ned can stop him. He ignores the way his chest hurts, knowing it is not just because of his ribs.

The day appears to drag on endlessly. Peter does sleep through Physics and feels somewhat refreshed afterwards, but this is not something a short nap can fix.

After school is over, a few precious vials of new web fluid in his back, Peter and Ned are walking to the bus stop together. Peter is feeling much lighter now that his bed is getting closer with each step.

“So I thought we could have a Star Wars marathon this weekend,” Ned says, as enthusiastic as ever, making up for Peter simply shuffling on next to him. “My parents won’t be home, but I know they’ll leave me pizza money. It’ll be awesome.”

An entire weekend with Ned would be. Ever since Peter became Spider-Man, they are not nearly spending enough time together anymore, although it has gotten better since the secret is out.

“I’m busy with my internship on Friday,” Peter says, even though he will have to see how much of his body has fixed itself until then.

Ned knows that his ‘internship’ is mostly him working on secret projects with Mr. Stark himself, but Peter is always paranoid when they are out in the open.

“That leaves all of Saturday and Sunday.”

Which Peter often uses for patrol, but Peter will not mind sitting out a couple of days. He needs a break, and time with Ned always makes him feel better.

“I’d love to,” Peter says. Then he grins and stares Ned squarely in the face. “We’ll start with the prequels?”

The look of betrayal on Ned’s face is enough to make Peter burst out laughing. It hurts his ribs but is nonetheless the best he has felt all day. Of course, that is when they have to be interrupted.

“Hey, kid,” someone calls from behind them. It is an unfamiliar voice, slightly mocking. It has Peter’s hackles rising.

When Peter turns around, he sees a man with a scarf pulled over his nose and a hood drawn deep into his face. He has the feeling he is missing something. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something thrown at them from ahead. Peter’s senses scream.

“Pet-” Ned says, but at that point, Peter is already moving.

He is glancing at the object at their feet, which is looking innocently enough but blinks ominously. Not wasting any time, Peter grabs Ned’s arms and pushes forward, forcing them both into the mouth of an alleyway. They have not gotten far when the air around them is torn apart and Peter is at once blinded and deafened when something blows up.

A bomb, Peter’s mind pops up helpfully. His second thought is Ned. The blast pulls them apart no matter that Peter is trying to hold on. He scrambles for control but is thrown against something hard, feels his healing ribs groan under the pressure. The back of his head collides with the wall and he shuts his eyes against the pain, not knowing where is up and down, unable to make sense of anything that has happened.

He is Peter Parker. He was walking home with his best friend. Nobody has a reason to attack him. Nobody could know to attack him. Except perhaps – the men from last night. The weapons deal Peter stumbled onto, the base he followed them back to and was subsequently jumped at in.

He did not win that fight by any means, but he got out. With how little he was himself last night, could he have noticed someone following him or slipping him a tracker? But that would mean –

Peter forces his eyes to open. His world has turned into a field of grey. Dust and soot are whirling in the air, pieces of wood and molten plastic are strewn on the ground before him. He cannot hear anything over the ringing in his ears, and his vision is hindered by the black creeping up from the edges.

Ned, he thinks and pushes himself upright despite the pain. His entire body feels aflame like he was torn apart and stitched back together wrong. He reaches automatically back for his suit, but his backpack must have been blown away by the force of the blast. His web slingers too are gone since he wanted to refill them first as soon as he got home. Peter only has himself. That has to be enough for now.

The first steps he takes are wobbly. It feels like the earth is shaking underneath him, but he puts one foot in front of the other. He still does not see very well. There is no immediate movement he can detect, which means they might not be attacked any further. It also means that Ned could be –

“Stop stalling, Parker,” he says, but does not hear it beyond an increase of the ringing in his head. He hopes he is not going to go deaf.

Steadying himself against a bent trash container, Peter looks around, trying to get a better sense of the situation. There is still nobody coming towards him. But there, a few feet away from him, half-buried under pieces of a fence, lies a shape.

“Ned,” Peter calls, feeling his throat protest against the strain. Then he is moving, faster than he would have thought possible with all the pain he is in.

It is Ned, looking comically small covered in soot. He is not moving. A shock travels through Peter as he lets himself fall to the ground next to Ned.

“No, no, no,” he mutters, still not able to hear much beyond the ringing and his own panicked thoughts. “Don’t do that to me.”

He reaches for Ned’s shoulders, trying to remember what the first aid training Mr. Stark made him go through said about explosions. All he can remember, about all kinds of trauma, is to never move the victim too much in case of spinal fractures to avoid making things worse.

Ned is lying face down, though, and Peter needs to know whether he is breathing. The alternative would be – Allowing himself no second thoughts, Peter pushes at Ned’s body, turns him onto his back. Ned does not move, does not give any sign that he notices what is happening.

Holding his breath, Peter reaches out to feel for a pulse. Distantly, he sees that there is blood on his own hands, leaving a glistening crimson trail on Ned’s pale skin.

There, fluttering and barely palpable, is Ned’s pulse. A sob escapes Peter’s throat and he feels it with every fibre of his being. He does not think he could have lived with himself if he had gotten his best friend killed.

They need an ambulance. Ned needs a hospital, and Peter does not feel so good himself, although the pain has lessened immensely now that he knows Ned is alive. Just as importantly, he needs to talk to Mr. Stark, needs to inform him about the attack, about someone possibly knowing his identity. He needs to keep Ned safe until help arrives.

His watch. Help is within reach. Fighting against the dizziness, Peter rearranges his body so that he is shielding Ned from everything that might be coming for them and keeps his eyes on the mouth of the alley, still expecting the man and any possible accomplices to appear.

With shaking fingers, Peter reaches for the watch. It has a large crack down its display, which tells him that he is lucky to still be standing at all because it is meant to withstand large amounts of force. It is still working, though, to Peter’s great relief.

“Karen,” he gasps as soon as the interface is activated. He does hear his own voice now, although it is nothing more than a distant rumble. “We need help. Ned is hurt. There was an explosion.”

He cannot make out her answer, but the display blinks in what he hopes is an affirmative. Then, there is nothing more to do than to stand guard, and to hope he does not black out until help is here.

He makes it until the distorted sound of sirens pierces his muffled hearing. With a sigh, he lets go.

---

When Peter comes to, it is to the sterile white of a hospital room and the incessant beeping of a heart monitor. His first thought, before he even fully remembers what has happened, is relief at having gotten his hearing back.

Then he shoots upright, his mind filled with the memory of the man following them on their way home after school, the explosion, Ned. Wild-eyed, he looks around in the room, eyes jumping from his chart to the monitors at his side and finally to the bed a few feet away from his own, and the familiar shape inside it.

“Ned,” Peter breathes, staring until he catches the regular rising and falling of Ned’s ribcage, and hears the beeping of the second heart monitor. Ned is breathing on his own, is not in intensive care, looks like he could wake any second. Something unknots inside Peter’s chest, although the guilt he carries only intensifies.

When he moves his legs, intent on getting over to his friend because he still does not fully trust his eyes, he notices a red post-it note pinned to his blanket. He recognized the scrawl immediately, soothing even more of his worries.

I would have gotten you a private room, but I thought you’d appreciate seeing your friend once you wake up. I took care of your problem. Call me when you are awake. Don’t do something this stupid ever again. -T.S.

Mr. Stark knows. He must have come, must have gotten them to the hospital. With the problem, Peter is sure, he means the men Peter angered and who followed him home. He is in Mr. Stark’s debt again, but for now, he does not have it in him to feel guilty for that too. Ned is alive. That is all that matters.

Taking care with his IV line and the monitor as to not alert the medical staff, Peter makes his way over to Ned’s bed. He is still somewhat dizzy, but he is already doing so much better.

“Ned,” he calls quietly when he makes it over, lowering himself onto the edge of the mattress because he is sure his legs will not carry him for much longer.

He should not try to wake Ned up but he cannot help himself. Ned’s hand lies on the blanket, a bandage travelling up until it disappears under the sleeve of the hospital gown. With utmost care, Peter picks up Ned’s hand and takes it between both of his.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I should have noticed we were being followed. If had listened to you and gone home early, you would have never been in danger. I’m –”

Supposed to be better, lies on Peter’s tongue, but he never manages to say it because, in that moment, Ned’s fingers twitch. It does not feel like a coordinated motion but not like a creation of sleep either.

“Ned?” Peter asks, leaning forward to not miss any possible change.

Ned mumbles something inaudible, his muscles tensing the way they do when someone wakes up from a deep slumber. Peter finds himself holding his breath until Ned’s eyes open briefly, blinking against the blinding white of the room.

“Ned, you’re awake.” Peter exhales with a sigh, so unbelievably relieved. “I’m so, so sorry. I should have known what was happening. I should have never put you in danger. I’m –”

“Peter,” Ned says, interrupting his rumbling. His voice is weak, barely audible against the beeping of the monitors and the thundering of Peter’s heart

He closes his eyes again, causing Peter to shift forward, clinging to Ned’s hand, afraid of his friend going somewhere he cannot follow.

“Don’t go back to sleep,” Peter pleads. He does not want to be left alone with his thoughts and his guilt that is now surging. “How are you feeling? Should I get a doctor?”

Ned blinks, but it is obvious he does it mostly for Peter’s benefit. It might not even be good to keep him awake, but in movies, everybody is always afraid of wounded people falling asleep. Of course, Ned should be out of immediate danger if he is here with Peter, in a regular looking hospital room.

“’M fine,” Ned says. It comes out slurred, but his lips twitch into something that might be an encouraging smile.

Peter feels only worse that Ned is still trying to cheer him up, despite Peter being the reason he even is in this situation. “I’m so sorry,” he says again, feeling like he is going to repeat these words a hundred more times if he is allowed to.

Squeezing Peter’s hands back, Ned appears to come more awake, groaning a bit when the pain hits.

“You should be,” he says, although still with that half-smile and without heat. “The last thing I heard was you telling me you wanted to watch the Star Wars prequels. That hurt more than the –” Ned’s speech has become livelier the more he said, but now he cuts himself off and takes the time to look down at himself and then at Peter. “Was there an explosion?”

Peter almost sobs with relief. He does not know anything about medical care, but this alone makes him believe that Ned will be all right. He has not gotten his best friend killed.

“It won’t happen again,” Peter promises because he will do his best to keep his friends safe from now on.

Ned’s eyes widen as if realization is only just hitting now. “You saved me from an explosion?”

Pressure on Peter’s throat makes it hard to swallow, let alone form words. He cannot let Ned think that he is not at fault here.

“I was the reason there was an explosion,” Peter says, his voice thick with pent-up emotions.

Ned raises his head to better look at Peter, trailing his visible skin just like Peter has done with him earlier, cataloguing bruises. “Are you all right?” he then asks and means it.

Years of friendship and Ned still manages to take Peter by surprise, never reacting the way he is supposed to, never pushing Peter away even if it would be healthier to do so.

“Ned, I –” Peter tries to argue because he is not a hero in this, perhaps not ever, despite his best attempts.

“You got me out,” Ned cuts him off, sharp despite the way his lids are drooping. It is too soon for them to have a conversation like this, no matter that Peter wants to shower his best friend with apologies. “I know you’ll try to blame yourself. I think I won’t be able to stay awake through it.”

It must be the pain medication or simply the fact that Ned’s body needs sleep to heal. Much more so than Peter’s, which still feels like he has been through that explosion but that lets him walk around already.

“You need to rest,” Peter says, feeling selfish for having woken Ned and then keeping him awake.

“You too,” Ned mumbles, but he is already drifting off again. “Tell me everything later.”

Despite himself, Peter smiles. How does he deserve such a loyal friend? “I will.”

Peter watches as Ned falls back asleep, searches his face for signs of distress or pain. He knows the guilt will not go anywhere anytime soon, but he can have this for now. He can rest knowing that Ned will be fine.

Struggling to his feet, Peter gets back to his own feet. He is still tired too, and his entire body aches. Sleep sounds like the right idea. First, though, he needs to call Mr. Stark and explain what happened. Mostly, he needs to thank him for getting Ned and him out. For keeping an eye out for Peter, always.

He has never been gladder that he got to meet his hero. Perhaps that means that not all hope is lost where Peter is concerned.

#whumptober2019 #no.2 #peter parker #ned leeds #whump #explosion #hospital #tony stark #spiderson #iron dad #guilt #fanfiction #my writing #ao3

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mindthump · 6 years

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Data Factories https://ift.tt/2NZNum8

I’m generally annoyed by the cliché “If you’re not paying you’re the product”; Derek Powazek has explained why the implications of this statement are usually misleading and often wrong, something that is particularly problematic in the context of Aggregators. After all, if a company’s market power flows from controlling demand — that is, users — that means said company is incentivized to keep those users satisfied; it is suppliers that have to “take it or leave it”.

This explains why the idea of an Aggregator being a monopoly is hard to get one’s head around; in the physical world where market power comes from controlling distribution — think AT&T, or your local cable company, or a utility company — there is no incentive to treat end users well, because users have no choice in the matter. On the Internet, though, where distribution is effectively free, alternatives are only a click away; Aggregators are extremely motivated to make sure that click doesn’t happen, which means giving the users what they want (the technical term is “increasing engagement”). Users are a priority, not a product.

And yet, as is so often the case, clichés persist because there is some truth to them. Facebook and Google — the two Super Aggregators — make money through ads, and advertisers come to Facebook and Google because they want to reach consumers. From an advertiser perspective users — or to be more precise, access to users’ attention — is a product they are absolutely paying for.

Views on Facebook

This seeming dichotomy — prioritizing users on one hand, and selling access to their attention on the other — makes more sense if you first think of Super Aggregators as two distinct businesses: Aggregator and advertising-seller. To use Facebook as an example (as I will for the rest of the article, although nearly everything applies to Google as well), it is both an Aggregator that content providers clamor to reach, as well as the gatekeeper for consumers advertisers wish to sell to:

Still, this isn’t quite right, because Facebook the company is not simply the so-called “Blue App” but also several other businesses, most notably Instagram and WhatsApp (there is also Messenger, but given its user-facing network is the same as the Blue App I don’t really consider it to be distinct). Once you add those to the mix Facebook the company looks like this:

You’ll note that I’ve taken to using the term “Blue App” to distinguish Facebook the network from Facebook the company; the question, though, is what exactly is the company anyways?

The Data Factory

At a superficial level, Facebook is a sort of holding company for social networks; back in 2014 I called it The Social Conglomerate. That, though, is very much a user-centric perspective; to that end, if you consider the advertising perspective, you could argue that Facebook the company is an advertising dashboard and sales force.

I think, though, that sells short the functionality of Facebook the company. Specifically, Facebook is a data factory. Wikipedia defines a factory thusly:

A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial site, usually consisting of buildings and machinery, or more commonly a complex having several buildings, where workers manufacture goods or operate machines processing one product into another.

Facebook quite clearly isn’t an industrial site (although it operates multiple data centers with lots of buildings and machinery), but it most certainly processes data from its raw form to something uniquely valuable both to Facebook’s products (and by extension its users and content suppliers) and also advertisers (and again, all of this analysis applies to Google as well):

Users are better able to connect with others, find content they are interested in, form groups and manage events, etc., thanks to Facebook’s data.

Content providers are able to reach far more readers than they would on their own, most of whom would not even be aware said content provider exists, much less visit of their own volition.

Advertisers are able to maximize the return on their advertising dollar by only showing ads to individuals they believe are predisposed to like their product, making it more viable than ever before to target niches (to the benefit of their customers as well).

And then, in exchange for these benefits that derive from data, Facebook sucks in data from all three entities:

Users provide Facebook with data directly, both through information and media they upload, and also through their actions on Facebook properties.

Content is not simply data in its own right, but also a catalyst for generating user action data.

Advertisers, like content providers, not only provide data in its own right, which acts as a catalyst for generating user action data, but also upload huge amounts of data directly in order to better target prospective customers.

Those aren’t the only avenues through which Facebook collects data: the company has deals with multiple third-party data collection companies, gathering everything from web traffic to offline store receipts, and also has incentivized an untold number of websites — particularly content providers — to include Facebook links on their sites that collect data from those sites.

That results in a much fuller picture of Facebook’s business:

Data comes in from anywhere, and value — also in the form of data — flows out, transformed by the data factory.

Regulating the Internet

Two weeks ago, in The European Union Versus the Internet, I argued that effective regulation of tech companies, particularly Super Aggregators like Facebook and Google, had to work with the fundamental principles of the Internet, not against them; otherwise, the likely outcome would be to entrench these Internet giants with little gain to consumers.

First and foremost regulators need to understand that the power of Aggregators comes from controlling demand, not supply. Specifically, consumers voluntarily use Google and Facebook, and “suppliers” like content providers, advertisers, and users themselves, have no choice but to go where consumers are. To that end:

Facebook’s ultimate threat can never come from publishers or advertisers, but rather demand — that is, users. The real danger, though, is not from users also using competing social networks (although Facebook has always been paranoid about exactly that); that is not enough to break the virtuous cycle. Rather, the only thing that could undo Facebook’s power is users actively rejecting the app. And, I suspect, the only way users would do that en masse would be if it became accepted fact that Facebook is actively bad for you — the online equivalent of smoking.

For Facebook, the Cambridge Analytica scandal was akin to the Surgeon General’s report on smoking: the threat was not that regulators would act, but that users would, and nothing could be more fatal. That is because the regulatory corollary of Aggregation Theory is that the ultimate form of regulation is user generated.

If regulators, EU or otherwise, truly want to constrain Facebook and Google — or, for that matter, all of the other ad networks and companies that in reality are far more of a threat to user privacy — then the ultimate force is user demand, and the lever is demanding transparency on exactly what these companies are doing.

What, though, does transparency mean in the context of enabling “user generated regulation”, and what might meaningful regulation look like that achieves the goal of forcing said transparency in a way that fosters competition instead of inhibiting it? The answer goes back to data factories.

Raw Data Versus Processed Data

The first challenge with a data factory is that it is impossible to peer inside. Both Facebook and Google offer customers ways to view their data, but not only is the presentation overwhelming, the data is precisely what you gave them. It is the raw inputs.

Advertisers, interestingly enough, cannot download custom audiences once uploaded, but given that data is (also) their business, it is extremely likely that they retain the list of email addresses they uploaded in the first place; the same thing applies to 3rd party data providers. Websites, meanwhile, are completely in the dark: that Facebook badge or like button may provide a page view or two, but it doesn’t give any data back in return.

What no one gets is the final product: the melding of all that data from all those sources to build a far more detailed profile of every Facebook user than they provided on their own. There is no question, though, that it is happening. Last week Gizmodo had an excellent write-up of a paper in the journal Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies detailing how Facebook users could be targeted for ads with a whole host of information that was never provided by the user, including landline numbers, unpublished email addresses, and phone numbers provided for two-factor authentication:

They found that when a user gives Facebook a phone number for two-factor authentication or in order to receive alerts about new log-ins to a user’s account, that phone number became targetable by an advertiser within a couple of weeks. So users who want their accounts to be more secure are forced to make a privacy trade-off and allow advertisers to more easily find them on the social network. When asked about this, a Facebook spokesperson said that “we use the information people provide to offer a more personalized experience, including showing more relevant ads.” She said users bothered by this can set up two-factor authentication without using their phone numbers; Facebook stopped making a phone number mandatory for two-factor authentication four months ago.

That quote from the spokesperson is an acknowledgement of the data factory: Facebook doesn’t care where it gets data, it is all just an input in service of the output — a targetable profile.

This lack of care about what precisely goes into a finished product is hardly unique to Facebook. One of the most famous examples is Nike:

According to the Internet, this is the photo from Life Magazine. I could not find a copy to be sure.

That image is from the June, 1986, issue of Life Magazine, which detailed how children in Pakistan were manufacturing soccer balls for pennies a day. Nike executives, in a refrain that is vaguely familiar, were initially aggrieved; after all, soccer balls were not inflated until after they were shipped, which meant the photo was staged.

That was surely correct, and yet such a complaint utterly missed the point: Nike didn’t really care where it got its soccer balls, or shoes or clothes or anything else. It simply paid the factory owners and washed their hands of the problem. That photo, and the decades of protests and boycotts that followed, forced the company to do better.

The Privacy Obstacle

Unfortunately, while Nike could not stop a photographer from traveling to Pakistan (and, truth be told, stage a photo), the general public has no way to see inside the Facebook or Google factories — and this is where regulators come in.

The most important thing that regulators could do is force Facebook and Google — and all data collectors — to disclose their factory output. Give users the ability to see not simply what they put in — which again, Google and Facebook do (and which GDPR requires), but also what comes out after all of the inputs are mixed and matched.

Make no mistake, no company will do this on their own, and not simply for business reasons. Note the Facebook spokesman’s response to Gizmodo when asked about the use of uploaded contact information:

“People own their address books,” a Facebook spokesperson said by email. “We understand that in some cases this may mean that another person may not be able to control the contact information someone else uploads about them.”

This gets at how it is privacy regulations in particular go wrong: in the attempt to make rules that protect people without their agency, those wishing to take said agency cannot even know what exactly Facebook knows about them because, well, privacy. Meanwhile, websites throw up pop-ups and overlays that no one reads, or ban entire continents, not because their users care but because a regulator said so.

Privacy Realities

Here is the other reality regulators need to grapple with: most users don’t care about privacy, particularly if it saves them money. I came across this tweet in response to an interview clip of Tim Cook talking about privacy and it rather succinctly made the point:

You can have my data for a cheaper iPhone 😂😂😂

— Daniel the Idle (@Mantisness) October 1, 2018

Frankly, I don’t blame the apathy of most users: what Facebook and Google and all of the other ad-supported services and sites on the Internet provides is immensely valuable. Moreover, I’m the first (and often only!) to defend personalized ads: I think they are a critical component of building a future where anyone can build a niche business thanks to the Internet making the entire world an addressable market — if only they can find their customers.

At the same time, most users truly have no idea what data these companies hold. Might they change their mind if they actually saw the processed data, not simply the raw inputs? I don’t know, but I do think it is their decision to make.

Moreover, establishing clear requirements that users be able to view not only the data they uploaded but their entire processed profile — the output of the data factory — would be far less burdensome to new and smaller companies that seek to challenge these behemoths. Data export controls could be built in from the start, even as they are free to build factories as complex as the big companies they are challenging — or, as a potential selling point, show off that they don’t have a factory at all. This is much easier than trying to abide by rules that apply to every user — whether they want the protection or not — and which were designed with Facebook and Google in mind, not an understaffed startup.

Indeed, that is the crux of the matter: regulators need to trust users to take care of their own privacy, and enable them to do so — and, by extension, create the conditions for users to actually know what is going on with their data. And, if they decide they don’t care, so be it. The market will have spoken, an outcome that should be the regulator’s goal in the first place.

#IFTTT #Feedly #hmmm #good to know #business

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jojosmusing-blog · 7 years

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The dons Giogio, and Diavolo hcs on how they treat their crush? How do they impress the crush? Are they mentally obsessive and keep tabs on them? Do they daydream about the future relationship? Do they give up trying to woo them easily or persist?

Ohhh, of course!!

This turned out pretty long. I got carried away xD

I hope you like it!! :D

Diavolo

Before Diavolo even thinks about doing anything, hewill send some subordinates of him to investigate them. He will never approachthem should they have any ties to anyone or anything that might be a threat touncover his identity to the world, nor someone that might be interested in hisposition. Even if they are not a threat, nor do they have ties to anything oranyone, it will take a long time until Diavolo decides to approach them. He istoo paranoid and mistrusting in people to willingly to get in contact withsomeone without really thinking about the consequences.

Diavolo definitely keeps tabs on them, in the sensethat there will always be one member or a team of Passione to watch over them.First of all to make sure that nothing happens to them, but also to watch outthat they don’t get into contact with another gang or.. well, other men. They’rehis crush, and if anyone woos them it will be him.

He doesn’t daydream. Something that comes close todaydreaming is the thought of him being totally free of any ties to his past,his face totally hidden from anyone or anything, but he doesn’t daydream abouthaving a bright and happy future with a partner. Nonetheless, the thought ofhaving someone at his side like this, blindingly trusting him, understanding ofhis wish to erase his past, and someone that stays so loyal to him not becausethey swore it to him but for entirely different reasons… there’s somethingreally appealing about this though.

Even though Diavolo thinks the result is what counts,and normally he would take the shortest path to get what he wants, this is theone situation where it doesn’t apply. The possible outcome of approaching thiscrush would mean that a person gets involved with him. They will know him, bewith him, eventually figure out some things about his past, and these thingsare pretty much everything Diavolo wants to avoid. On the other hand he wantsthis person. Diavolo is extremely conflicted, and needs a long time to decide,whether to actually approach them or not. For him it is basically acost-benefit analysis, just on more personal rather than economic terms.

He eventually will approach them, because he is tooproud to admit that he fears the consequences wooing someone may have for him(and maybe the thought of someone caring for him and vice versa is kind ofappealing. After all it worked once before…). He approaches them when he seesthem in a random store, simply engages in more or less good small talk, whichactually works out. However, his crush is rather confused and kind of scaredbecause Diavolo can’t help but look around, observing everything, and hisparanoia pretty much ruins his first attempt, because his crush thinks he mightactually be a criminal (they’re not wrong), who wants to rob them or something.It takes a lot more coincidental meetings like this to get his crush to talk tohim a bit more. Although these first conversations are ridden by his crushthinking it’s rather creepy that Diavolo appears everywhere recently where theyappear too. Diavolo is just convinced to woo them even more, because not onlyare they really smart, but incredibly cautious too, and especially Diavoloappreciates that. It takes some convincing and some charming words to get hiscrush to agree to a real meeting instead of these “random” meetings (and he canbe charming if he wants to be as the Don of Passione).

Diavolo is pretty persistent in wooing his crush. Whenhe wants something he gets it, and he is too proud to retreat or accept arejection. That doesn’t mean, though, that his crush has to fear for their lifeshould they reject him. He is calm enough not do that.

Giorno

Giorno will, like Diavolo, investigate them, but onlyto know, whether they’re affiliated with another gang (he knew if they werewith Passione). Should his crush be a complete civilian with no ties to themafia world he’d be very reluctant for a while to approach them. Becausethey’re his crush and not some random person Giorno also wants to introducehimself to them as himself. He coulduse a fake identity, a fake life story, but given the purpose of himapproaching this person he’d rather not. It would be counterproductive, if hestarted a conversation – or even a relationship – that is built upon one biglie.

He is overly protective of his s/o, so occasionally heorders someone to keep an eye out for them to protect them from any potentialdanger. Since they’re a normal civilian though there is no imminent threat, andhe usually lets them be. When he actually decides to approach them in person heis confident he will probably find them again, even though around a millionpeople live in Naples.

Giorno does daydream sometimes. Having a partner athis side that loves him, and whom he loves, is such a delightful idea that hismind sometimes wanders. He is realistic though. Even if he gets to know hiscrush, it might never turn into something real, yet alone love. This crush isbased on looks and a little bit of how they act and behave when Giorno saw themthe first time. So, he usually stops himself before the daydreaming gets toofar. The older he gets, the less he also tends to give in to the nice picturesand ideas his mind produces.

He does not approach them before thinking thisthrough. Yes, he will introduce himself as Giorno Giovanna, and he will not lieabout his life and occupation, but actually telling them about Passione and hisposition is a matter that should be discussed at an actual later date, shouldit ever come to that. Nonetheless, even if this topic comes up and they reactpositively to it he will not let them join Passione. He’d want to keep themsafe and away from this criminal life for as long as he can, if possibleforever.

While Giorno always had a way with words, and thisjust gets better the older he gets, he is nervous about approaching his crushin person. He has no issues with approaching other dons, business people, politicians;none of them would ever assume that Giorno might actually be nervous aboutanything. If he can’t keep his composure like this he will not hold thisposition for long after all. However, what he wants to gain from approachinghis crush is something entirely personal, and eventually really life changing.

Nonetheless, he does approach them when he sees themthe next time. He uses Gold Experience to create a flower, and simply gives itto them. A soft smile on his face, the flower in hand, his head and upper bodyslightly bowed, and a compliment on his lips that just makes his crush blushand accept the flower (or makes them run away because Giorno’s too cheesy?).Giornopolitely asks them, whether they would let him treat them for some coffee or justhave a talk with him walking through a park or the streets of Naples; basicallysomewhere public, because he knows it may have a comforting effect on his crushto be around people when they agree to talk (or go out) with a stranger.

Giorno is persistent to the extent that he would tryto approach his crush multiple times as long as they don’t reject him openly,but rather have a “try a bit harder” attitude. Should they reject him rightaway (or at a later point) for whatever reason, he will step down. He might be hurt, especially when he thinks aboutwhat might have been, but he accepts it without trying to push his crush (what else is there to do for him anyway?). Inthis case he’d probably also tell himself that it’s better this way, so theywon’t get involved with his dangerous life.

#jjba #vento aureo #diavolo #giorno giovanna #va #part 5 #giogio #don giorno #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #sfw #crush #headcanons #jjba headcanons #jojo headcanons

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thecorteztwins · 7 years

Text

(Hellfire Club AU fic! Rated PG-13 for a sexual situation---nothing happens, just suggestiveness--and some sexist language from Fabian. Note: This is very much set in an AU, so if something confuses you--like why Monet is a young adult while Emma is still in her coma and why Nigel Frobisher is still alive when Courtney Ross joins---that’s why.) Their invitations were scrutinously examined, the great grand doors were opened for them and they stepped into the marble foyer. Anne Marie was immediately beset by a few members of the female staff---all attired as was de rigeour for the Hellfire Club --- gushing over her, saying how happy they were to see her again. Anne Marie took it in affectionate stride, seeming neither shocked by the warm welcome nor refusing it, and instead happily embraced them back and allowed herself to be led away by the hand at a healthy pace by them. Some of them did smile invitingly at Fabian, in their trained way, and his lip curled in return, part in smug appreciation part smugger dismissal. Fabian did not like the girls employed by the Hellfire Club. The way they strutted around in scanty costumes for everyone to see disgusted him. Though it did not disgust him so much that he didn’t look too, of course---and take advantage of what the club offered. If it was on the table, why say no? But he still judged the fact that it was on said table in the first place. He’d indulge later though. He couldn’t let his mind get clouded too quickly here. Speaking of that, he didn’t like the Club’s tendency towards an abundance of psychics either. Luckily though, Emma Frost was comatose, and he was safe from the powers of his cousin Manuel so long as he had Anne Marie by his side--he’d have to retrieve her soon enough. Poor Anne Marie, she believed the Inner Circle's claims that all they did behind the scenes was for the betterment for mutantkind!

Well, there was some truth to it, he supposed---it certainly benefited a select number of mutantkind. Very select. That was who was in attendance in tonight, mutants only. Mutants who were already either members, who were interested in joining, or who the Inner Circle was themselves interested in. For instance, just over there was Monet St. Croix, the wealthy daughter of a Monacan ambassador. She’d once had the looks of a fashion model---now she had the looks of a fitness model. Why did women do that to themselves? And a few yards to her left, in dresses of lilac and violent, were Betsy Braddock and her girlfriend Kwannon, whom he could swear shared a mind. It was unsettling, how he could be talking to one and not know which she was, even though they were different races. And approaching him now, her loyal lapdog Nigel Frobisher at her side as ever, was the Club’s replacement white-clad platinum-blonde backup bitch queen, Courtney Ross. At least she wasn’t as slutty as Emma---though her high-necked gown also meant he couldn’t subtly eyeball her cleavage while he talked to her. Just as well, he supposed; best he kept all his wits about him when it came to her, same as her predecessor. He didn’t know what kind of powers she possessed, but she must have them if she was here---and most of the Club didn’t need them to be dangerous anyway. “Mr. Cortez, how delightful to see you here,” she said, “And how...unexpected.” Impertinent slag. He took her white-gloved hand, which gleamed with her signature opals and moonstones, and kissed her knuckles out of politeness as was expected, and resisted the urge to grant a subtle insult in return, instead saying, “I’m so glad I am, Ms. Ross---it means that I have the pleasure of seeing you.” She laughed as she withdrew her hand, but Fabian got the feeling she’d have laughed the same way at a dog that had just performed a trick. Speaking of dogs... “Where’s Anne Marie?” Nigel asked, glancing around, “Did she come with you? I brought Vixen, she loves Vixen.” Fabian couldn’t stop his lip from curling the second time that night as he watched the emasculated buffoon bounce the pet fox mildly in his arms, perhaps to calm the creature in this hectic environment, or simply to emphasize to others that it was there. He couldn’t believe any man could be so desperate as to even desire his sister. Of course, if he’d known Nigel a little better, he might know that while Nigel hit on every woman in general, he did seem to have a certain type that Anne Marie fit.

”Anne Marie is otherwise engaged at the moment,” said Fabian, a hint more coldly, but only a hint, “I’ve been meaning to track her down, though----you know that child, can’t leave her alone for a minute!” ”Oh, please let me know when you do,” Courtney touched her hand to her flawlessly foundationed cheek, “I do find your sister so very engaging.” Before Fabian could reply, they were joined by none other than Sebastian Shaw, Black King of the Hellfire Club, and its unspoken leader. Selene and Courtney might fill equal seats in name, but Fabian knew where the real power lay. He was good at that, at picking out the top dog in any kennel, the creme de la creme in any dairy, the crown jewel in any diadem. But he also knew that simply because Shaw was head honcho now didn’t mean he had any control over these two women either. They were very much free agents he dared not interfere with. Fabian couldn’t blame him; he wouldn’t challenge the likes of them either. Another thing Fabian was good at---never underestimating an opponent, potential or otherwise. Male, female, human, mutant, he never let these factors cloud his judgement when it came to taking the measure of someone he might have to take on. Shaw affected a jovial attitude, making the requisite greetings and welcomes, but Fabian felt, as he always did when Shaw approached him or anyone else, that Shaw was really just there to check. Check for what, Fabian didn’t know. But something. Conflict, perhaps, to quell or exploit to his own ends. At least that’s what Fabian would do, and thus as far as he could figure. He invited them to a game of chance, but while Courtney was delighted (Nigel looked rather nervous) Fabian politely refused, saying he really needed to find his dear sister before settling into the fun and games. In reality, he just didn’t trust the telepaths to play fair---sure the building had psi-dampeners, but it was their building---and he had no doubt Shaw knew every cheat in the book too. He probably wrote it, in fact. Ugh, this was supposed to be a place to cut loose, but he couldn’t even have a drink to calm his nerves, because he didn’t want to risk dulling them even a little around these cutthroat sharks. Becoming privy to the Inner Circle---if not yet an actual titled member---had turned what was a den of hedonism for everyone else into a place of paranoid abstinence for him. Still, it would be worth it for the power he could get here if he played his cards right...just, not literal cards. But instead of seeking out his sister as promised, he retired in one of the Club’s many private rooms with a trio of girls. He sat while one started by rubbing his shoulders. When he closed his eyes and his lips parted, she took her left hand from his shoulder, hooked her index finger finger, and began rubbing him under his chin near where his neck attached to his jaw. Oh, oh that was nice. He leaned back so head resting against her chest, turned and cheek pressed against exposed top of her right breast. Bless these costumes. Without opening his eyes, he gestured in the air with one hand, speaking to either remaining girl, “You, come over here.” When he could feel her close to him, he then ordered, “Start unbuttoning my vest.” When she began, he grabbed one of her wrists, “No, don’t bend over to do it---get on your knees. There’s a good girl.” She obeyed, and he put his hand on the top of her head, stroking her hair as she undid the buttons, nuzzling the bosom of the one behind him. ”Now the shirt,” he breathed, and gestured again, this time to the third, “You too, you come over and--” Just as he had grabbed hold of her and been about to really get busy, the door opened. It was Tessa, Shaw’s...secretary, or sex doll, or whatever she was...so he couldn’t yell at her. “Fabian Cortez,” she said in her ever-flat robotic tone, “There is a conflict in the game room.” When he arrived there he saw the ‘conflict’ for himself. Courtney was being helped to her high-heeled feet from the floor by a begrudging Betsy and Kwannon, while Monet looked on in her typical judgmental apathy. Across from Courtney, expression triumphant and aggressive, was Selene, her black-gloved fists clenched, psychic power brimming around her. Between them stood Anne Marie, stance stalwart, fixing the Black Queen with a harsh, determined gaze. As Fabian took in the scene, Nigel emerged out from under a nearby chair, Vixen nowhere to be seen, and half-whispered to Fabian, ”Selene attacked Courtney---something about undermining her power base behind her back---and your sister stopped her! I think they’re---” ”Fighting with their minds now, yes,” said Fabian, “Even Anne Marie knows better than to touch that woman physically---I hope.” “You challenge me, child? I who have seen the passing of centuries?” Selene laughed, “I can feel you trying to break into my mind. What do you plan to do once you’re there, I wonder? I almost want to let you in the find out, I won’t be affected by whatever you try anyway.” There was no answer from Anne Marie, only her unending stare. Unlike Selene, she didn’t need to defend, she could put all her energy into an attack. Selene was no great telepath like Frost, and thus Anne Marie’s own psionic abilities blocked her out automatically. Whereas Selene was having to fight against Anne Marie to keep her out. And for all her boasting, Selene knew she was at risk---not just of losing the fight, but, far worse, losing face before the Inner Circle and their guests. Any blow to her image as an impenetrable predator, and the jackals would swarm her in hopes of taking a piece of her power for themselves. So she begin to make use of her other power, summoning her telekinesis to assault Anne Marie physically, to break her concentration. It started with a nearby vase that flew at Anne Marie, who blocked it effortlessly with her arm. it shattered, but her gaze never wavered from Selene. More decoration did the same, and bigger too, and Fabian doubted it would be long before Selene simply risked turning her mental energy to full offense and crushing Anne Marie with the floor itself as she had once tried to do to Shaw. Indeed, the hardwood had begun to ripple under her in threat of exactly that. And still Anne Marie stood, throwing back every mental force she had. ”Enough games,” Selene raised her hands, “I could have forgiven your interference--but you signed your death warrant when you did not submit to the Black Priestess, mistress of the---” THWACK! Selene toppled forward, unconscious, felled by a kick to the neck from behind and above. It was Viper, Prince of Madripoor, operative of both HYDRA and The Hand, and Courtney’s bodyguard. She had leaped down from somewhere in the ceiling, having apparently been lurking up there should the White Queen need her. Fabian hadn’t even thought she’d been in attendance tonight. He supposed that was the plan. ”Such an egregious display,” she purred, as Courtney joined her proudly at her side, “First to assault my mistress so rudely---and then to toy with a sweet little girl like that!” Fabian wondered if they had been watching the same fight. ”Shaw, what should we do to her?” said Courtney, “I take it there’d be no objection if I killed her?” ”You’re welcome to try, madam,” said Shaw, “Myself, now that the show is over, I think I’ll have a drink in my office.” Cortez, care to join me? Fabian heard Shaw’s voice in his head, surely relayed there by his pet telepath Tessa, If your sister needs no attendance, of course. Fabian looked at Anne Marie, who simply shook her head, dog-like, as though coming out of a daze, then beamed over at him. Looking back at Shaw, he sent a mental affirmative. Since the message had been relayed psychically rather than spoken, despite Shaw being right there, Fabian assumed Shaw didn’t want the others knowing about the invitation. Therefore, he did not follow him immediately. Instead, he waited around a bit. When an argument began---the others had been betting on the fight, and only Kwannon and Nigel had correctly predicted Viper’s interference, and there was some debate on if that was fair from Nigel, since he surely had foreknowledge she was there---he took his opportunity to slip away. Tessa let him into Shaw’s office, then stood guard dutifully outside it. Smiling, Shaw stepped from behind his desk passed a glass of cognac to him. Fabian took it, planning how to only seem to drink it. ”I know you instigated this weeks ago,” said Shaw. He sounded amused. “Set this up. Whispered in the right ears, knowing it would reach Selene, and that she’s one of the few of us who would act so overtly, as she initially tried with me. I wonder, did you mean to eliminate Ms. Ross? Or simply set the women against each other? Was Anne Marie getting involved an unplanned error, or a way to make it seem like you, by extension, oppose such conflict? Perhaps endear Ross to you in future endeavors? If that’s your goal, give up, she doesn’t understand gratitude. She’ll just think your chivalrous sister is easy to manipulate. Of course, if that’s what you wanted...” “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Fabian. No defensiveness, most certainly no rudeness, just a matter of fact reply. Shaw smirked a bit, and looked more amused than ever, “I could have Tessa pluck it from your mind, you know. But it matters little to me.” He drank from his own glass, “So long as you’re not threat to me---and you’re not---I think I shall enjoy watching more of your games, Fabian.” Placing one hand on Fabian’s shoulder, he steered him towards the door, but not without another smile, this own knowing and unpleasantly eager somehow. “Expect an invite to our next event.”

#fic #writing #hellfire club

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decoding1432 · 7 years

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The Art Behind Manipulating & Guarding a Fandom (p. I)

NOTES:

*I’ll be quoting a lot, esp the parts I consider more relevant, however if you want to study the whole thing [which I HIGHLY recommend] I’ll attached the link to each of the sources. It might seem like a lot of info but PLEASE do yourself a favour & check it ALL out.*

*I’ve divided the subject in FOUR PARTS bc since I need your total attention & I don’t want you to start sleeping halfway, I’ll be posting periodically, at least till you end processing the prior post*

*Most of the posts I direct you to, are SHORT & in my opinion not too dense to read. In fact, the great majority are Q&As. I'll identified every post with a letter, it means that throughout the various posts you’ll see them repeated, so no need to read one twice*

*If you’re starting to get tired or feeling swamped with the amount of info. Take a break, process it, go eat something & free your mind then come back. It’s highly relevant to read the whole & if you think it helps you to rest for a moment, I encourage you to do it*

*Everyone who has a 5H blog or related, READ & SPREAD THIS. At the end of the day we’re equal victims of this happening*

- decoding1432.

Ever felt like you get fishy anons? Ever questioned whether if your blog or Twitter acc is monitored? Ever doubt those “exposing accounts” claiming to be insiders? Ever mistrust a mutual or similar? Yeah, well all that encircles a phenomenon better known as:

Astroturfing

Before we jumped into the meaning & detailed explanation of it, allow me to tell you the story of how I found out this fascinating concept. I’ve been wanting to do a post about “bot accounts” & “fanbase manipulation” since I read this post about the way Sony deals with fandoms. If there’s someone out there who knows about this better than anyone else, is the directioners. I swear the amount of data they own regarding the industry is enough to fill 10 libraries (I went through hell to find everything lol)

I must say in advance that most of the information obtained in my research are posts from theirs– all credit to them for their masterposts– so I apologise if you get too tired of reading “Harry, Louis, Ziam, Modest & bla, bla, bla” but it is ultimately very worthy stuff & let’s not forget that band came out from the same womb (great thing fans over there are too woke & we can grab a lot from their knowledge, seriously I have insane respect for that fanbase). Anyway, like I was telling, I first heard the word “astroturfing” when I was talking to lawyerlarry:

I asked her with the purpose of being linked to a post relating “bot accounts” or alike but to my surprise I was lead to a much more complex principle. At first, I deadass thought my lack of vocabulary in English was the cause I hadn’t understood what lawyerlarry was trying to tell me. When you look it in the dictionary, you’ll probably get something like this:

Now, what does it really mean in the SM context?

(NOTE: I’ll leave several definitions so that you can get a clearer idea).

No.1 *link A*

“This sounds very much like, trolling, you say. It does, but whereas trolling is done by one or several individuals for mischief, astroturfing is an organised, professional form of trolling with an agenda, an objective, a set mode of operation and an end-goal. Think trolling on steroids.

It sounds very far-fetched and very conspiracy theory-ish, but it’s been used in a lot of forms, from maligning celebrities and high-profile people to companies using astroturfers to provide fake consumer reviews, boost their credibility (thank you for reblogging that article mirandaskye, btw!), or discredit their competition. Some even go on a nationalistic scale of seeding political dissent among political parties. Because of the anonymity that the internet can provide, astroturfing is mostly common online.

Astroturfers can take several forms:

Posts, comments, etc from fake social media identities

Fake consumer reviews or brand/product testimonials

Fake online organisations/watchdog communities”

No. 2 (summarised) *link B*

Means pretending to be a fan, when in reality the agenda and strategy are controlled by a non-fan or “tptb” organisation. (‘tptb= the powers that be’ for the 1D fam is what we refer here to men in suits).

“Astroturfing takes place all the time it happens all across the internet everyday. There are varying degrees in which it happens. There are corporate bought twitter followers (x) and paid for positive and negative yelp reviews (x). It goes on and on. It is just part of business. Unethical? Misleading? Yeah but they’ve been doing it since forever. Big multibillion dollars have been fined for engaging in astroturfing (x) yet they still engage in it. The financial benefits must outweigh the risk.”

No. 3 *link C* (more summarised)

No. 4 *link D* (even more summarised)

If you ask me, I would personally keep the first definition because certainly astroturfing encompasses more than just Tumblr. It extends to Twitter up to the political world. If you’ve gotten to this point thinking it’s a conspirative aspect, watch the following video, IT’S A MUST:

youtube

Since I’m such a nerd for TED Talks I enjoyed it besides I’m so fascinated by this concept. But in all honesty, ten minutes of your life that won’t go to waste.. However if you decide to keep scrolling down at least I suggest you skip to minute 2:08- 2:48 & 8:56- till the end. For anyone who can’t play the video, I’ll remark the points:

Min 2:08- 2:48

“What is Astroturf? It’s a perversion of grassroots, as in fake grassroots. Astroturf is when political, corporate, or other special interest disguise themselves & publish blogs, start Facebook & Twitter accounts, publish ads, letter to the editor, or simply posts comments online to try to fool you into thinking an independent or grassroots movement (in our case fans) is speaking. The whole point of Astroturf is to try to get the impression there’s widespread support for or against an agenda when there’s not. Astroturf seeks to manipulate you into changing your opinion by making you feel as if you’re an outlier when you’re not.”

Min 8:56- till the end

“I have a few strategies that I can tell you about, to help you recognise signs of propaganda and astroturf. Once you start to know what to look for you’ll begin to recognise it everywhere.

First, hallmarks of astroturfing include use of inflammatory language such as crack, nutty, lies, paranoid, and conspiracy. Astroturfers often claim to debunk myths that aren’t myths at all. Use of the charged language tests well, people hear something’s a myth, maybe they find it on snopes, and they instantly declare themselves too smart to fall for it. But what if the whole notion of the myth is itself a myth and you and snopes fell for that?

Beware when interests attack an issue by controversialising or attacking the people, personalities, and organizations surrounding it rather than addressing the facts, that could be astroturf.

And most of all, astroturfers tend to reserve all of their public skepticism for those exposing wrongdoing rather than the wrongdoers. In other words instead of questioning authority, they question those who question authority.”

Why is this so incredibly familiar…?

#astroturfing #this is how they monitor us #part two will be about the types of astroturfers & how to identify them #sneaky little bitches #5h fandom #harmonizers #fifth harmony #camila cabello #fifth harmony blogs #camren blogs #read & spread

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phynxrizng · 7 years

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FACTS ON WICCA...

Source,

The Celtic Connection

Blog Training Course On Wicca Teachings of The Elect Magical Shops

The article below describes how Wicca draws from the Old Traditions of Witchcraft. While this is true, we would simply like to clarify that Witchcraft and Wicca, while simular in many respects, are not the same. One can be a Witch, without being a Wiccan, just as a person can be a Christian, without being a Baptist. Wicca is a recognized religion, while Witchcraft itself is not considered a religion. Thus, Wicca might best be described as a modern religion, based on ancient Witchcraft traditions. What Is Wicca

Contrary to what those who choose to persecute or lie about us wish to believe, Wicca is a very peaceful, harmonious and balanced way of life which promotes oneness with the divine and all which exists.

Wicca is a deep appreciation and awe in watching the sunrise or sunset, the forest in the light of a glowing moon, a meadow enchanted by the first light of day. It is the morning dew on the petals of a beautiful flower, the gentle caress of a warm summer breeze upon your skin, or the warmth of the summer sun on your face. Wicca is the fall of colorful autumn leaves, and the softness of winter snow. It is light, and shadow and all that lies in between. It is the song of the birds and other creatures of the wild. It is being in the presence of Mother Earths nature and being humbled in reverence. When we are in the temple of the Lord and Lady, we are not prone to the arrogance of human technology as they touch our souls. To be a Witch is to be a healer, a teacher, a seeker, a giver, and a protector of all things. If this path is yours, may you walk it with honor, light and integrity.

Wicca is a belief system and way of life based upon the reconstruction of pre-Christian traditions originating in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. While much of the information of how our ancestors lived, worshiped and believed has been lost due to the efforts of the medieval church to wipe our existence from history, we try to reconstruct those beliefs to the best of our ability with the information that is available.

Thanks to archaeological discoveries, we now have basis to believe that the origins of our belief system can be traced even further back to the Paleolithic peoples who worshipped a Hunter God and a Fertility Goddess. With the discovery of these cave paintings, estimated to be around 30,000 years old, depicting a man with the head of a stag, and a pregnant woman standing in a circle with eleven other people, it can reasonably be assumed that Witchcraft is one of the oldest belief systems known in the world toady. These archetypes are clearly recognized by Wiccan as our view of the Goddess and God aspect of the supreme creative force and predate Christianity by roughly 28,000 years making it a mere toddler in the spectrum of time as we know it.

Witchcraft in ancient history was known as "The Craft of the Wise" because most who followed the path were in tune with the forces of nature, had a knowledge of Herbs and medicines, gave council and were valuable parts of the village and community as Shamanic healers and leaders. They understood that mankind is not superior to nature, the earth and its creatures but instead we are simply one of the many parts, both seen and unseen that combine to make the whole. As Chief Seattle said; "We do not own the earth, we are part of it." These wise people understood that what we take or use, we must return in kind to maintain balance and equilibrium. Clearly, modern man with all his applied learning and technology has forgotten this. Subsequently, we currently face ecological disaster and eventual extinction because of our hunger for power and a few pieces of gold.

For the past several hundred years, the image of the Witch has been mistakenly associated with evil, heathenism, and unrighteousness. In my humble opinion, these misconceptions have their origin in a couple of different places.

To begin, the medieval church of the 15th through 18th centuries created these myths to convert the followers of the old nature based religions to the churches way of thinking. By making the Witch into a diabolical character and turning the old religious deities into devils and demons, the missionaries were able to attach fear to these beliefs which aided in the conversion process. Secondly, as medical science began to surface, the men who were engaged in these initial studies had a very poor understanding of female physiology, especially in the area of a women's monthly cycles. The unknowns in this area played very well with the early churches agenda lending credence to the Witch Hunters claims and authority. The fledgling medical professions also stood to benefit greatly from this because it took the power of the women healers away giving it to the male physicians transferring the respect and power to them.

Unfortunately these misinformed fears and superstitions have carried forward through the centuries and remain to this day. This is why many who follow these nature oriented beliefs have adopted the name of Wicca over its true name of Witchcraft to escape the persecution, harassment and misinformation associated with the name of Witchcraft and Witch not to mention the bad publicity the press and Hollywood has given us simply to generate a profit.

What Witchcraft is: Witchcraft is a spiritual system that fosters the free thought and will of the individual, encourages learning and an understanding of the earth and nature thereby affirming the divinity in all living things. Most importantly however, it teaches responsibility. We accept responsibility for our actions and deeds as clearly a result of the choices we make. We do not blame an exterior entity or being for our shortcomings, weaknesses or mistakes. If we mess up or do something that brings harm to another, we have no one but ourselves to blame and we must face the consequences resulting from those actions. No ifs, ands or buts and no whining...

We acknowledge the cycles of nature, the lunar phases and the seasons to celebrate our spirituality and to worship the divine. It is a belief system that allows the Witch to work with, not in supplication to deities with the intent of living in harmony and achieving balance with all things.

The spells that we do involve healing, love, harmony, wisdom and creativity. The potions that we stir might be a headache remedy, a cold tonic, or an herbal flea bath for our pets. We strive to gain knowledge of and use the natural remedies placed on this earth by the divine for our benefit instead of using synthetic drugs unless absolutely necessary.

Wiccan believe that the spirit of the One, Goddess and God exist in all things. In the trees, rain, flowers, the sea, in each other and all of natures creatures. This means that we must treat "all things" of the Earth as aspects of the divine. We attempt to honor and respect life in all its many manifestations both seen and unseen.

Wiccan learn from and revere the gift of nature from divine creation by celebrating the cycles of the sun, moon and seasons. We search within ourselves for the cycles that correspond to those of the natural world and try to live in harmony with the movement of this universal energy. Our teachers are the trees, rivers, lakes, meadows, mountains and animals as well as others who have walked this path before us. This belief creates a reverence and respect for the environment, and all life upon the Earth.

We also revere the spirits of the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water which combine to manifest all creation. From these four elements we obtain insight to the rhythms of nature and understand they are also the rhythms of our own lives.

Because Witches have been persecuted for so many centuries, we believe in religious freedom first! We do not look at our path as the only way to achieve spirituality, but as one path among many to the same end. We are not a missionary religion out to convert new members to think the same as we do. We are willing to share our experience and knowledge with those who seek our wisdom and perspective however. We believe that anyone who is meant for this path will find it through their own search as the Goddess speaks to each of us in her time and way. Wiccan practice tolerance and acceptance toward all other religions as long as those faiths do not persecute others or violate the tenant of "Harm None."

What Witchcraft is not: More information about Witchcraft is available in the Frequently Asked Questions section, but in the interim, here are the main points.

Witchcraft or Wicca is not a cult. We do not proclaim ourselves to be spokespersons for the divine or try to get others to follow us as their leaders.

We do not worship Satan or consort with Demons. Satan is a Christian creation and they can keep him. We do not need a paranoid creation of supreme evil and eternal damnation to scare us into doing the right thing and helping others. We choose to do the right thing and love our brothers and sisters because it IS the right thing and it feels good to do it. I suppose it is a maturity thing.

We do not sacrifice animals or humans because that would violate our basic tenant of "Harm None." Anyone who does and claims to be a Wiccan or a Witch is lying.

We have no need to steal or control the life force of another to achieve mystical or supernatural powers. We draw our energy from within, our personal relationship with the divine and nature.

We do not use the forces of nature or the universe to hex or cast spells on others. Again, "Harm None" is the whole of the law.

Witches have a very strict belief in the Law of Three which states that whatever we send out into our world shall return to us three fold either good or bane. With this in mind, a "True Witch" would hesitate in doing magick to harm or manipulate another because that boomerang we throw will eventually come back to us much larger and harder then when we threw it.

This is not to say that Witches are perfect, we are human too just like everyone else and make mistakes and errors in judgment. Just as there are parents who love and nurture their children, there are parents who abuse their children. As there are many who devote their lives to giving and helping mankind, likewise there are those who devote their lives to taking advantage of and using people for their own gain. Unfortunately the same flaws in human nature applies to witches too.

Most of us continually strive to consider all potential outcomes of our thoughts and actions pausing to seriously consider the consequences before undertaking a ritual, spell or rite that could go astray. It is when we follow the path with the love of the Goddess in our hearts and adhere to the basic tenant of the Reed that our works are beneficial and we achieve harmony and balance with all things.

The heart of Wicca is not something summed up into a few short words and can often take on different meaning to each since the Lord and Lady touch us in different ways. To gain a fuller understanding of the Craft, I urge you visit the other pages on this site as well as following the links to a select group of exceptional Wiccan and Witchcraft sites. Through the wisdom and words set down through the ages, you will find that you are able to understand the basis of our beliefs and how they may apply to you. Your inner voice will also quickly let you know if the intent of what you are reading is for superficial purposes to benefit self instead of working to benefit the whole. Remember to read with your heart, for it is when you see life and the world with your heart and spirit that you truly gain an understanding of what Wicca is.

Blessed Be!

Herne

Next Wicca Index Main Index

Reposted by, PHYNXRIZNG

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hanzi83 · 4 years

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Trying To Log Off For Awhile (but you know it probably won’t happen)

I wanted to cover a couple of things, and since I have not been organizing my thoughts like I would with journal entries, and my mind has become more scatterbrained, so much so I worry if I am wasting creativity and takes and giving it away for free, and then it hits me, this is probably as good as it will get because this world is probably going to end soon, whether we like it or not, which in part makes me more frustrated, because I have spent a lot energy just waiting for the end to come, but for some reason I am able to continue to live, getting uglier, fatter and lonelier and don’t want to make connection with people or even engage in sex because I don’t want to put my mental illness on others even though I try to flirt for fun when on periscope, to see what is conveyed as joking around and both are having fun and sometimes realizing something might not have been appropriate to say because I am still learning, in a world where I used to lean on ignorance as my trope, because it was easier to dumb yourself down and act a fool then actually show some character, because being intelligent and being creative was so corny, and the bottom of the barrel type of stuff being said would be the cool thing. I am going in different segues that I didn’t even plan, but at least I bring layers to these blogs, some of my best nonsensical shit, like on twitter I am completely nonsensical with my theories, but it comes off more aggressive because I taking in a constant flow of tweets, and on periscope, I deal with horrible trolls who have made it their mission to make me feel even more worse about myself, and push me to such aggressive energy, and they will never stop torturing me, even if I am trying to create good discussions, and because it does not center around their interests, and these trolls, from all spectrums have become so entitled, they think the type of shit they want needs to happen now, and if I don’t you will make me feel like a piece of shit and even go as far as putting paranoia in my fucking head, and sometimes I feel like I should log off, but with the nonstop flow of information and breaking developments, I feel I need to know and need to give my shitty takes on this stuff.

I know if I ever do become vindicated or be able to succeed, then a lot of my ignorance and craziness will bite me in the ass, and it is like an initiation in the system, and then because it seems so crazy, a story gets sold to the media, and different cliques doing shit for performative reasons, while they might actually feel that way, it seems like different contingents are to capitalize as much as possible on situations, Sometimes I just don’t give a fuck because I assume I will be dead sometime soon or be allowed to finally leave this planet, it does not seem consequential for me, and because I am so pissed that I did not use my “celebrity status” better and take advantage, and feel like people in my life have been able to do that, while I have been shafted, and my relationships and friendships have fallen apart where it seems gatherings for me happen within limits, and it already takes me out of it, and it feels like at least people in my life would make it look like they are trying to make it seem special, but because I can see attitude at times, or jealousy, like people hate me for being known, and it is funny because sometimes a portion of me hates people because I know they are in better positions than me, and have hidden stuff that has been important, involving me. Do these people really love me? Or would they build a coup to take me out if I am able to be on top, and maybe that is why I did not want to find out if I sold my soul, what enemies I will make, and how evil would I become if I wanted to assimilate with the elite. So it disappoints me to know maybe people in this world, especially my life are part of the problem, and it scares me, and it is like this will never get better? Maybe I am wrong about everything,

I distract myself with trying to create content and at least give whatever fan base I have left, but when these people online go too far, maybe instead of me taking a break, maybe some of these people should take a break, if you are so butt hurt over being blocked on my account and the capability of making 100s of more. These people are so infuriated that I am trying to have fun and actually create content, but they have to go to next levels, of pretending or not, about potentially kidnapping me, or killing me, and that people are constantly watching me and if I react horribly to these people, they will twist my rants into me being hateful, when you are constantly showing off you are altering the google search shit with complete negative shit about me beating my mother or beating up a gay couple, when I have never been in a fucking fight, unless the elite have a fucking clone of me who is doing horrible things and will be used to frame me, I don’t know why they say it like they are so sure, unless I am in a fucking movie, and I am too behind on pop culture right now, I can’t even make a reference but just use your imagination of what television show this would be, maybe Black Mirror, or is that not hip enough anymore, I mean did the good press end up and now is it cool for the most critical to take the contrarian stand of thinking it was overrated shit. I don’t know. So they preplan destroying my image and having the most negative portrayal of me, so if let’s say Howard is exposed for evil shit he has hid, and I am one of the guys they look into, they will see my craziest and most fucked up thoughts with me just trying to be entertaining or me going through a manic phase. And the system does not care about mental illness, they will do a narrative of mental health and act like they are killing off the stigma, but they don’t expand the conversation that much, and how dumbed down people could buy into dangerous propaganda if they are looking for something to believe in.

So I put out blogs of the last few years, and maybe the hackers deleted some of those as well without me knowing. I have shown the process of where my mind has gone, whether you think I have evolved and still have severe flaws, or maybe to a lot of you I have gone through even more randomness. I never know because most people don’t read my blogs, and I barely get any kind of feedback, unless it is my dedicated troll squad misrepresenting it and making it seem like it is nothing important, but they still pay attention to every fucking word and have to always post it in their private groups to discuss it because I am not allowed to be respected, only in an ironic way because I am the former whack packer from the Howard Stern Show. I have discussed the drama of the last few weeks that have amped up, and even though I was in the process of deciding to log off for a bit, something happened I did not want to go on periscope because these trolls keep insinuating things will happen to me or anyone in my life, it takes me out of it. They even tried to get me swatted at some point, but I want to give police the benefit of the doubt and hope they got a call and instead of going through with it they had to snoop around the backyard to see if something was going on. Maybe a contingent of law enforcement are employed to harass me and maybe it was a scare tactic, but this is what people are seriously going to do, I don’t use resources to look into people, and the people I meet online, I don’t know if they are as sincere and genuine, or what kind of cliques they are a part of. I can try to get a long and have discussions while trying to get them to see a more leftist view, but when people are stuck in their views, and want to continue to be ignorant, can I really help them? So I try to keep away and not contact people about in private, and if I do, I am aware I am being monitored. I at least think so, I used to be part of a facebook group and even though it was just jokes, sometimes I could see that the system cosigns these and with your different groups you do some problem solving, and sometimes I would not really be aware, but whatever. I don’t belong in private group chains, I just assume everyone condemning people for shit are doing that same shit in private. So because it is all on air and transparent with me, it feels like these people get upset they have not been able to get me in private to blackmail me with, like I assume that people part of these troll groups are blackmailed,

I don’t know who it was that potentially tried to do that to me and realize they could have potentially hurt someone because you were mad that no one is buying into your Stern Show act, or whether it is my trolls who have been putting out messages that are so evil to put me in a paranoid state, and even encourage me to kill myself, why can’t I assume it wasn’t you who did this? You have been hinting at something bad happening to me. What is the goal? Are people working hand in hand to push me to being institutionalized or actually have me attempt suicide, is that one of the rituals you are enforcing on me, because that is part of the tropes of being a self destructive personality? What is it you want? We already established that none of my rants, or none of these blogs will ever make you have a soul, or even take a second to realize you are hurting the wrong person, and you are working with the devil to fuck with someone who wants peace in this world, I guess because I am the Muslim, I have to be pushed and bullied into being a fucking radical, and none of the people online, ones that claim to be woke, really care because you are allowed to mentally bully and push a Muslim, because if I lose my mind, you can have pretentious assholes like Bill Maher, saying it is part of my culture, and after the work of Howard Stern perpetuating that kind of WWE gimmick on me, people will see me that way, you can’t have me being intelligent and being calm. What fun is that? It is sickening, and these people fear when I actually take time to write my feelings down, and even if it is repetitive and it just becomes a long boring blog, people will not like that I am able to write this out and put energy into it, instead of just taking in more information and jumping though to thought and theory to theory, whether people are being killed or are elite type faking their death because we are almost at the end of this series that we call earth, I know by now many people have made the reference of being the final season of life, but I couldn’t resist. They fear that when I put it down in writing it becomes a little more official, even with the terrible layout, atrocious grammar and spelling.

It is just scary to me that me being down and out and feeling like shit, and wanting to eat my feelings and just having a continuous loop of pity party on my platforms with dwindling audience, and I really think we are approaching the final milliseconds of my “celebrity”, that is not enough for these people, they are so hurt I am content in trying to create content and see who I can gel well with, on my terms, they have to destroy everything, whether it is showing up in other people’s scopes I am in to spread crazy shit or bring up embarrassing shit, like I won’t cop to humiliating moments, because I know they will think I am trying to hide my flaws from new people I meet, and if that does not work they hint they are scaring people not to come into my scope to hang out. And when that does not give, they just flat out start to create videos to harass me and hint something horrible will happen to me. They expect me to take it, and the more times that goes by without writing, they think they got me at the edge and are hoping for me to just attempt suicide or something, or maybe get so riled up I end up threatening people, even though the threats they are doing won’t leave them accountable. Instead of getting help for their mental illness, they cross the line and join the dark side, and I have been on the dark side and just wanting to make things worse and put my anger on others and spoil their good time, but I sit back and reflect and stay away from people if my mental illness takes me there, because the more angry I get the deeper I go and I start not to give a fuck. I feel bad and feel remorse if I have to say some dark shit to people to defend myself from a system that sends their foot soldiers digitally to bring me down to my worst so it is on public display because there is a target on me. What did I ever do to you that badly that you would compromise yourself physically and mentally just to appease the people paying you to do this, even though all of you deny any of the “accusations” that I am not 100 percent sure of, but it feels like that the more this world is exposed, and some of us are part of this game and a lot of them have been beaten mentally into submission, while I have my dark moments, and lose control mentally, I still have a better grasp at hanging on even though they push me more and more.

How long does this have to go on? Are people in the media who work independent scoping this out and making sure they got the right people who might be monitored, or is it not convenient to care about because there is no documented evidence for the claims of me being targeted by the system, and being done by someone like Stern or other power people who don’t like me mouthing off, even though I don’t like they have destroyed the planet and influenced negative behavior being rewarded, and sometimes I have to go off and I should expect payback, but they know I am harmless. I have no weapons; I am in my mom’s basement with arthritis in my back. I am not a threat, but I do broadcasts and put disclaimers of it being a theory, no one believes me, unless you are so scared people do take my opinions seriously on the low, but cannot admit it. I don’t know.

I was going to incorporate the Kobe Bryant tragedy and dissect it but maybe I will save that for later, because sometimes larger than life pop icons symbolize something and because I feel these deaths are planned out but it symbolizes something greater with the exits and it has to be sold in different ways to appease different cliques to profit off it in some way whether it is for the sake of good or sake of evil, but I am too stuck in my mode about these trolls because I hope one day they can redeem themselves, but when you threaten me and people in my life, it crosses a line. I want to leave the internet, but I won’t lie I am addicted, and I try more and more not to go on or maybe just send out a tweet and not look at the plethora of storylines breaking in the world, and then you are pressured to have a take, but then you figure all them are taken, so your hot take is to bring up how everyone has a take, and it does not matter because you are practically shadow banned online, or enough people don’t care about what you have to say so they can just steal from me and not credit me for influencing stuff in the industry that becomes kind of a trend, but most people are not ready for that, because I am too low on the totem pole, and anyone discussing these blogs, are going to discredit anything I say and since the people who support me, supposedly, won’t back me up or take time to write positive shit about me, It is because I don’t give them incentive or money and right now I am the unsympathetic “good guy” that is constantly getting beat down in the ring, but I am not worthy of any other baby face to make a run in. There I wrestlized it for all of you. It is probably the only pop culture I am able to retain.

Anyways I am going to try and get off line and I am putting it out there on purpose because I know there is a good chance I will go back on my promise because I am too weak at times, and it is unfortunate, so they won’t hesitate to put a generic slanderous title saying I am too weak after I promised I would not, but as long as I am just giving in into going online, it could be worse, I could compromise my sexuality by elite type and let me control every part of my life, or I could just try to back away before I become so angry I say something I will regret in more depth than usual, I can’t even try to move on and try to have discussions and interview people, because they want to stump my growth, it is bad enough my actual growth didn’t go anywhere after being 12 years old, but now any growth I make that does not include Howard Stern, these people will bring it back to Howard Stern. “Stop talking about Howard” Okay let me talk about wrestling. “Why did you get banned from Howard, what did you do? You were just a crazy caller”. They can’t wait to fuck with me. I want to believe people can change but you just can’t deny what you have done, and I notice this with people in my life, where they will just rapidly admit they something wrong but want to move on with the “I am sorry” which shows that they are not really sorry but they know they are in the wrong, but instead of actually dissecting it and showing they should be held accountable, they want to move on from it when they have put so much fucking energy in bringing me down mentally. I don’t want to be here, there are better innocent people who are worthy of this life, I have been a waste to this planet. I will never be happy because they will forever torture the fuck out of me, and the best part it just looks like I am such a pussy I can’t handle people being mean to me online, and trust me I could manage it if it just that innocent, but when you have people try to destroy your character nonstop, and then take my talking points, and reverse it on me like I am doing it to people, when I have not done anything to start any of this. It is not my fault the system is fucked. I guess this blog is pissing them off because they moved my cursor again, but maybe they did that because they figured out my blog needs to make mention of that, and since I am writing as it happens, maybe it adds another layer to this blog writing. It does not matter; most of you will never read this anyways. I don’t blame you.

Anyways peace, I probably won’t have any nor does it seem like I will ever rest in any. So fuck it. I am stuck on here and I will always be worried about if these sick people, especially people like Jimmernam are going to strike, because Jimmernam got his channel suspended for full out making death threats etc and even though people might see it as a victory, it feels like with him offline it will make him become a lot more evil and give less of a fuck he will actually encourage his followers to go do something on his behalf. I have been writing about this guy for a while, and I hope people are monitoring this situation because you let the guy ruin so many people’s lives, and what is scary if I had the drinking problem I did in the past, and all these resources, with my ability with being tech savvy, I would probably have used my dark side to do what he was doing, but luckily I don’t and even though I become an asshole if being pushed, I don’t take it passed insults, yeah sometimes if someone is being a threat, I might message their spouse and ask if there is a problem at home and maybe check on their husband’s activity. I don’t harass and dox them. This guy is out of control and has fucked over people so much and then has used any power he has had for absolute evil and it seems like no one gives a fuck. And maybe aligning with people who are also against him may have seemed cool for a bit, but then it makes me wonder are the people I am aligning with, do they have skeletons in their closets? I might not even agree with some politically or how some of them might do shock jock humor, not because I don’t think it can’t be funny, because it can be in doses and depending on context, but maybe because I see that kind of humor as much propaganda as the overly PC shit, especially when people think they are being so edgy with that kind of humor and act like they are defying the greatest power, while giving into the right wing power of propaganda. It becomes conflicting, I got involved again because a seemingly innocent woman talking about True Crime was getting played and being made to feel like shit. I miss being on her panel to just shoot the shit because I felt I was making a new friend but now with Jimmernam threatening people more, maybe it was best for me to stay away for a bit because he wanted me on his show, and his anger really went over the edge because I did not stay with his show initially even though he was trying to convince people, I would fall down so rapidly because he gave me some kind of sense of purpose, but because I overcame long enough for him to destroy whatever he built, he thought he could lure me back in because he had lost everything, after having a modicum of success with the reddit shit, but because I was not falling for it, he decided to turn Wendy against me, who he has been manipulating for the longest time.

He will read this and strike at me again. I just need to be done with this, but I hope he got monitored and hopefully he is put in some rehabilitation or depending on what horrible shit he did behind the scenes, maybe be behind bars before he further hurts others. The more time he is free, he can organize more and more, and now with his people he has on his side willing to just do whatever blindly, I have hope some have woken up but are not ready to expose it because they don’t want to be fucked with. I can only hope but who the fuck knows. It is just not having fast enough, and if he is the guy who got that other youtuber Mommy Ramblings swatted, then who is to say what will happen. Even one time he allegedly had one of his followers show up on the panel of who he was harassing with a gun to show some intimidation. I was not there live for that one, but the people involved said they had already contacted the authorities. I don’t know what the deal is with that. I just hope it is being taken care of, but it just shows how connected some people might be if they have been given carte blanche (is that how you spell it) to do spew their evil and create as much chaos. It is just sick. It makes me even question some of the people who are “independent” because how independent are you if you have to be given permission to cover something. I am sure I will get these kayfabe rules of why it can’t be done for such and such reason, but it is just bullshit because they don’t want it out there that there is time frame when certain things become covered. It is a sick world really.

#Hanzi Howard Stern 2020 Illuminati Trolls Swat MiseryBox Misery Box Jimmernam Conspiracy Harassment Dangerous Doxing Celebrity System

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mrsteveecook · 5 years

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coworkers are attacking people over grammar, responding to alumni networking requests, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Two coworkers are attacking people over grammar

At my company, we have a couple of grammar fanatics who go out of their way to correct people even when they’re not in the conversation. Sometimes this will even occur during important one-on-one meetings on projects that have tight deadlines. These two people will interject to say exactly what we said wrong, and how we should have said it. It annoys everyone, and we tried several times to get them to stop correcting everyone to no avail.

We have tried several things like stating that we don’t care if we are saying it wrong, throwing the logic out that if you understand what I am saying there is no need for correction, and some of us have even started changing our speaking habits so that we can stop being pestered over little mistakes. We have even found that sometimes they’re actually wrong on how they corrected us. When we confront them with this, they get extremely defensive, and more or less call all of us stupid for trying to look up something we clearly can’t understand.

I am at a loss of what to do here. At first I didn’t mind the occasional feedback, but they are starting to get more and more aggressive with their corrections and starting to blatantly call people under-educated, unprofessional, or just out right stupid. Half of me thinks its time to go to their manager (they have the same manager), but in the past when other coworkers would go to the manger over other issues with these two people, there would be a backlash from them. They would say that everyone is too “sensitive” and “can’t pull up their big boy/girl pants so they had to go to management.”

Is this something we should even bring up, or are we being too sensitive? Would just ignoring it be better to keep the relationship up with two people who I really don’t see leaving the company any time soon? (Seriously, several people have gone to their manager over similarly obnoxious things and nothing has come out of it.)

Normally would this would be something to address with their manager, because not only are they being annoying by weaponizing grammar like this, but they’re actually insulting people. Regularly, it sounds like.

But if your experience is that their manager won’t act, then you might be better off just ignoring them. They interject to correct something, and you just going right on talking as if you didn’t hear them. Or, when they correct you, you can say “I’m not interested in grammar corrections while I’m in casual conversation” — and repeat that as needed. There’s also, “It’s so weird that you think that’s appropriate” — but with the way you’ve described their hostility, I’d lean away from anything that might spur further engagement or attacks.

It’s also pretty messed up that their manager is allowing aggressively hostile behavior like insulting people, and you might consider whether there’s anyone else you could bring this to — ideally someone who’s senior to their manager and has a track record of being willing to take on problems. If you do, part of the message to that person needs to be that these two have a history of attacking anyone who complains about them, and so part of addressing the grammar weaponization has to include laying out clear prohibitions on that as well.

2. Information interview requests from fellow alumni

I’m wondering what you think of the career advice that tells current students or recent alumni of your university to reach out to you, as an alum, without ever having met you, asking to learn more about the work you do or where you work because they’re interested in doing the same thing. I find this happens mostly on LinkedIn because that’s where you can see where someone went to school (assuming it’s on their profile) and send them a message even if you’re not connected.

I had heard that advice before and thought it made sense — school pride and all. But now that I’m on the receiving end of these requests, it feels odd and I’m hesitant to agree. I’ve never met the person, and I have absolutely no connection with them beyond having gone to the same university (no mutual friend or anything). But then I also feel like a “bad” alum for not being willing to help out someone who’s in a position where I used to be.

What do you/your readers think? Is this good advice to give to current students (or recent alumni)? Do most people have a more positive reaction than me, and are more open to helping out?

A lot of people do feel a connection to people from their school and are more willing to help them. The thinking is that you’ve had a shared experience, to some extent have a shared frame of reference, and are part of the same network, and you may have benefitted from alumni’s willingness to help you (or might benefit from it in the future).

But some people don’t feel any particular connection to fellow alums. If you’re in the latter group, that’s perfectly okay; you’re not ever obligated to grant strangers’ requests for your time. (Although if you found that alums helped you when you were starting out, you really should pay it forward to keep that network going.)

But enough people do feel that connection and are wiling to help that it’s still worthwhile advice to give out.

3. My new manager accused me of timesheet fraud

I am stunned by an email I just received from my new manager. She has rejected my timesheet because she believes I padded my hours on last week’s timesheet. I work part-time in the field and assist sales reps doing customer visits, trainings, and sales presentations. She went through my timesheet line by line and explained how it wasn’t possible that I worked the hours that I had recorded.

She is mistaken. When recording hours, the system is not great and allows very limited room for notes or description. All hours are recorded on one of two timesheets, either customer-facing or non-customer-facing.

Last week at 7 am on Monday morning, I got a call from my manager and one of the reps requesting I extend the assignment I had that week from an overnight to a full five-day week. Many coworkers were unable to attend a conference due to extreme weather and despite record-breaking extreme weather. I agreed to help. I proceeded to field phone calls from the rep and my manager as the schedule was worked out and travel arrangements were made and I rearranged things to be gone for the week instead of overnight. I recorded this time (from 7 am until I left my house at 9:45 am) as non-customer-facing time. My manager emailed explaining it was impossible that I was driving at that time based on the time arrived, etc. I never said I was driving, I simply indicated that I was working and not customer-facing. This is one example of many she listed throughout the timesheet submitted.

I am blown away. I think I have been accused of committing timesheet fraud through an email and don’t even know how to respond.

It sounds like you need to more explicitly explain to her how you were using that time; she may not realize you were doing work tasks during that time. (It’s even possible she doesn’t consider those activities to be work time, although she should.) That of course doesn’t make it okay for her to accuse you of misreporting your hours; if she has questions, she should ask them, not make accusations.

The best way to respond is to indicate that you take that kind of accusation really seriously. Say something like this: “I take the accuracy of my timesheets seriously. Misreporting my time would be a serious violation, and I’m taken aback to hear you’re worried I would do that intentionally. I’m attaching a detailed account of how my time was spent on the days in question. As you can see, all the time I reported was for work activities. Can you please confirm that this clears this up, and that there aren’t questions about my integrity?”

4. Are my hands keeping me from getting jobs?

I’ve been out of the full-time-employment game for a little over six months now but have been doing freelance work and applying for jobs every single day. I’m doing phone or in-person interviews almost every weekday which is good and promising, but nothing has stuck. I’ve had a litany of different circumstances lead to me not getting a job (positions losing funding, employer ghosting, interviewers finding a better candidate, etc.) but lately I’ve only been getting one in-person interview before I get the dreaded “thanks but no thanks” email.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out just what could be going wrong so I can find a reasonable solution. I’m preparing for interviews the best I can, I’m dressing professionally (though on some days, my non-offensive forearm tattoos are visible — but if they can’t deal with that I don’t want to work there). I worry it may be the state of my hands.

I gesture a lot when I speak as well as take hand-written notes in interviews to help keep me on track and lessen my anxiety. I am a chronic nail-biter and cuticle picker and the stress of job hunting has made it almost worse than ever. My hands, particularly my thumbs, look a little worse-for-wear these days. Do prospective employers actually care about stuff like that or am I being a little paranoid?

It is very, very unlikely that having hands in rough shape is preventing you from getting hired. I mean, maybe if they looked like they had gangrene, in which case some unconscious bias might creep in, but bitten nails and picked-at cuticles are not likely to be a big deal. Most people won’t even notice. (To be clear, there are some hiring managers who have nitpicky things they hold against people — the the person who scrutinizes candidates’ shoes or how clean their car is or so forth, but those people are outliers, not the norm. They’re also bad at hiring.)

The exception to this is if you’re applying for jobs that expect an unusually high degree of polish — like some types of fundraising, pharmaceutical rep, hand model, etc. But otherwise, your hands are probably fine.

5. Leaving a thank-you note immediately after your interview.

Is it okay to leave a thank-you card with the interviewers immediately afterwards?

Don’t do it! If you arrive with pre-written thank-you notes, you lose out on the whole benefit of sending a post-interview note. The point of the note is supposed to be to indicate that you reflected on the interview and are still interested in the job, and to build on the conversation you had. You can’t do either of those things if you wrote them beforehand.

Plus, it makes the note look entirely perfunctory — like “I heard I’m supposed to send these, so here, I’m checking that off my list.”