#basically the 'how many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man

[plushie-lovey]

@ the anon who sent me the ask, I just wanted to say that I agree with everything that you said! I hope you don't mind me not publishing the ask tho, cause I'm trying to keep this blog as plushie related as possible. I'd rather not have too many discussions on those types of inappropriate things or people.

#thanks for understanding #but yeah basically all the points you made were valid and Im glad to see that there's other people who agree #people get mad when you knock anyone's kinks #but as professor oak said “there's a time and place for everything but not now” #amd that's the last Im gonna say on the matter #until inevitably another person on my dni list interacts and then I gotta make a new post calling thise people out #again *insert “how many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man!?” meme here* #anyways #viti shoosh

[qqueenofhades]

https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/743255237060689920/the-thing-that-confuses-me-about-the-dont-vote

The “don’t vote” left’s point is basically that, if Biden gets a second term, it’ll basically signal that “They’ll vote for us as long as we’re not Republicans, why don’t we do some REAL fucked up shit, if we can get away with it?” It takes the power out of the people’s hands and places it firmly in the party’s.

I can’t completely disagree with that, my caveat is that there’s no real alternative system or party in place, because top-down change is ineffective; a third party president has to contend with a two party congress.

Except no. This whole "Biden just wants to do as much fucked up shit as possible while not being a Republican, and if you give him a second term he'll do more fucked up shit deliberately to spite you" mindset is only possible as an interpretation if you a) deliberately and comprehensively ignore everything he has done to date, and b) you approach the situation with the maximum bad faith possible. Not to mention, the ultimate outcome of this Big Important Teaching Biden A Lesson is that Trump gets back into power and makes everything orders of magnitude worse, because he does in fact want to deliberately do evil shit to everyone and says so at every opportunity. There is not some magical happy alternative that springs into existence by not voting. If you choose this as a year to Teach Biden A Lesson, you are enabling Trump. Trump will be much, much worse. If you don't care about that, I still do not care what your Great Ideology is. You are not helping anyone and you are directly and irreversibly hurting everyone.

I made a post a few days ago wherein I mentioned that I want to assess Biden fairly, taking into account both strengths and weaknesses, but the rampant bad-faith, lying, misreading, misrepresentation, and open sabotage of him (especially by the online left; the GOP sometimes only wishes they were as good at turning Biden's voter pool against him) makes it really difficult to do that. My frustration with those people makes me just want to go "BIDEN IS GREAT THE END." I know he is a flawed old man (though by literally every account of a career spent in public service, he really does care about making the world a better place and any remotely good faith reading of his accomplishments thus far can see that). It is also very likely that he goes MORE left in a second term because he won't have to face the electorate again, he has always gone more left when pushed before, and he's not actually the scheming genocidal mastermind that leftist social media paints him as. Shocking, I know.

I know there are things in the world we don't like and don't want and want to stop, and therefore we blame our own president for not making it stop. But I have zero, no, none, absolutely none whatsoever sympathy for this pseudo-populist "WE NEED TO TEACH BIDEN A LESSON BY ELECTING TRUMP AGAIN, I AM VERY MORAL MUCH ACTIVIST" mindset. There's this funny thing about America wherein it is still (for now) a democracy. If Biden wins a second term, he can't run again. I would take literally anything these people said more seriously if they focused on developing their dream progressive successor for 2028 (and also figured out how to get that person elected and in a place to make real change) rather than cynically sabotaging Biden in the most consequential election year, again, of our lifetimes. If you don't like him now, find a way to make his successor a better option. Throwing a toddler tantrum and handing the country back to a senile, deranged, fascist, revenge-riddled, theocratic Trump HELPS. NOBODY. I still don't know how many times I'm going to have to say that, but yeah.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[captaincleverusernamehere]

I’ve decided to compile all of the out of context quotes from my current D&D campaign that we’ve collected up to this point (7 sessions so far) so here’s this mess:

- “I’m proficient in longswords, shortswords, longbows, and shortbows, so basically size doesn't matter to me"

- “I’m checking the rat traps for food”

- “Do zombies do fire damage? Probably not.”

- “If you aren’t prepared for this, go back to the Waffle House.”

- “What if we held hands on the way to 7/11 and I was a lizard and you were a zombie”

- “4 hp, no balls”

- “Okay but if its a bomb, why would it be moving?” “maybe it’s a zombie chihuahua”

- “You wake up at the same time as everyone else.” “AWW, I wanted to steal something- I mean, nothing.”

- “guys, im trying to sacrifice a rat tail to a god right now”

- “Do it in the voice or we’ll fuck- I MEAN WE’RE FUCKED”

- “How long does it take you to piss?? It’s been HOURS”

- “You don’t know if there are other things on the encounter table than zombies” “could be a pack of rabid chihuahuas”

- “Calorie free vegetables”

- “you both aren’t human, so it isn’t cannibalism…” <— they burnt a man to a crisp and were debating the ethics of eating him

- “pass the nyoom around the room”

- “If you blow a hillbilly…”

- “I’m gonna rizz up that robot dog”

- “Wider and shorter, that’s the puberty of your 40s.” “I think you mean your 70s.” “No it hits earlier than you’d think.”

- “I can deal with dick”

- “You should’ve been able to handle it!” “That’s what she said”

- “You’re like an antivaxxer but for gods.” “That’s just an atheist.”

- “I cant use Healing Hands can I?” “No you’re dead.”

- “I love Angry Dick”

-“We haven’t had anything else to eat except for rats and Jeramie!”

-“We’re not just a Waffle House, we’re a Waffle *Home*”

-“I have proficiency in animal handling” “Don’t fucking handle me, bitch”

-“Ignoring the two elephants in the basement, what will we do about the three other elephants arriving?”

-“I step in front of him” “so WHAT WAS THE POINT OF BEING STEALTHY??” “for the entrance!”

-“Lights are still blinking as this eight year old threatens this short man with a knife”

-"her name's bob or something"

-“Is his heart shrinking like the grinch?”

-"every time i speak i have such good ideas" "WHEN was the good idea???" "all of them"

-"you touch yourself and yell"

-“hey siri, can hedgehogs shoot blood out of their eyes?”

-“I’m not cold!!” “you’re dead, you don’t count!”

-“Mara, we’re not going home without her. We might go home without *you*”

-“What’s Irthir’s gender?” “Lizard.”

-“Oh! I’ve always wanted to read Crime and Punishment!”

-“ADD FLAWS!! YES!!”

-"I AM ILL WITH TYPHUS!"

-*Mission Impossible Theme 1 hour loop*

-"do zombies eat squirrels?"

-“DICK FUNKO AWAKENS FROM HIS SLUMBER!!!”

-“I step on the gas - where is Dick Funko?!”

-"as you are making this man into ground beef"

-"get in losers we're going to new mexico"

-"OLENT DO YOU WANNA LOSE YOUR DICK TODAY"

-"do you mind people touching your birds... a lot?”

-"Medea, i'm going to teach you the alphabet! you're welcome! your lessons begin tomorrow!"

(Part 1/ who knows how many)

#I love this bc with context it’s a beautiful retelling of the campaign so far #I’m so glad I make my players name npc’s; it begets nothing but joy #dnd #waffle texas failures #dungeons and dragons #dnd memes #funny #d&d #out of context quotes #dnd campaign #dnd party

[cerastes]

Top 5 FFXIV Boss Fights. Dungeon, Trial, Raid, Solo Story, whatever.

5. Hydaelyn. The ambiance, the music, the way her fighting style is equal parts divinity and adventurer, how she switches weaponry and basically just creates a fully complete and integrated experience of everything you've faced so far: Stack markers, spread markers, line of sight, add phase, DPS checks, radial AoEs, donut AoEs, she has absolutely everything. I'm a huge fan of integral test-type bosses, bosses that expressly are trying to test you on fundamentals and everything else you've seen and used at least once so far. 4. Tsukuyomi. Tsukuyomi will always have a place in my heart because it was in this fight that I actually enjoyed playing FFXIV for the first time; before Tsukuyomi, I enjoyed reading FFXIV, but I markedly did not enjoy the gameplay at all with very marked exceptions. The moment the music kicks up and Tsukuyomi starts pulling out the big mechanics, with lots of mobility, colors, coordinated play, and all of that jazz, it was legit the first time I kinda just woke up from Reading Mode and had to actually engage in the systems of the game, and what a wonderful fight to wake up during! 3. The Diablo Armament. Not only is it a really funny "HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON, OLD MAN" moment, it fucking slaps. The music is great, it's at the end of my favorite content in the game, you overcame a LOT of challenges to get to it, and now you fight yet another wholly unique boss with a lot of funny tricks up his sleeve. The first time I managed to fully dodge the Diabolic Gate -> Ruinous Pseudomen -> Ultimate Pseudoterror combo, I legitimately felt so proud of myself. 2. Warrior of Light. The reason I finally said to myself, fine, ok, I'll play an MMO, fine, was because I was jamming out to random autoplay in Youtube while doing something else, and then this absolute turbobanger starts going off and I'm like damn ok what the FUCK is this from, so I check, and not only is it FFXIV (which a lot of friends already played), it was apparently the theme of John Final Fucking Fantasy I himself? In his Amano design? So that made me REALLY curious and I committed to finding out What It Did. The fight slaps harder than the fist of an angry god and it has my second favorite moment in the entire game, when Elidibus basically summons a party of FFIV characters and hits me with "Mankind's first hero, and his final hope!" which lives rent free in my mind forever. 1. Lyon's second duel, in Zadnor. The last thing I did before I stopped playing was finish up 100%ing Bozja content, which meant defeating the 6 superboss 1 on 1 duels in Bozja and Zadnor. Of the six, Lyon 2 was the hardest and most fun. Learning his fight was a trial and a half, he is REALLY damn hard and demanding, but I consider it my greatest achievement to have beaten him, because holy moly macaroni those Hearts of Nature and the Caged Heart of Nature into Cross Bombs gets Very Intense to dodge all while maintaining rotation for the strict DPS check. Lyon is also a really cool character #TACTICSOGREGANG

If I can include a number 6, Dun Scaith, expressly due to Deathgaze Hollow. It's SUCH a mean fucking fight to open with and it's a fight in which you IMMEDIATELY can know Who Knows, actual comedy gold. I would also include my favorite instance bar none, Delubrum Reginae, but I prioritized single encounters over overall dungeons or instances.

#endwalker spoilers #anadvaneturerisfail

[msommers]

leave, education, kill, wish for riya, maeve and meredith!

muah i place kees on ur nose // oc asks: firsts

LEAVE: What was the first time your OC left home? Why? If they've never left home, do they want to? Where would they go?

RIYA — victor had been killed and she was ((sebastian voice) allegedly) framed for the crime and there were a few too many people eager to make an example of a mage/noble who wouldn't be let off easy this time, so her family broke her ass out of jail, handed her a bag of supplies and told her that she had to get the fuck out of the city until it was all resolved. she wouldn't have made it past city lines if she hadn't gone to beg bastian for help tbh.

MAEVE — when c- 🤢 when card- 🤢 when carden swept her off her feet, right into a carriage that would take her out of white orchard. she was excited about it at the time and later on in life would certainly prefer to never return to that place, but damn. if she doesn’t wish it had been under any other number of circumstances that helped her out of there.

MEREDITH — she has no memories of it because she was far too little, but almost certainly meredith’s first trip was to denerim when she was still a toddler because of some duty or other her father had to maintain. she was definitely one of those babies/kids that was great during travel and she got brought along to most everything because of it.

EDUCATION: What was your OC's first experience with school or education? Were they homeschooled? Apprenticed? Sent away to study? If they didn't have any kind of schooling, where did they learn about the world or pick up the skills they have now?

RIYA — answered xoxo

MAEVE — very basic lessons from her mother while she was still with her parents, learned the fundamentals of reading and writing because fanette couldn't stand the idea of her own child Not having those minimum levels but she also hated being the one to actually teach her. after her move to vizima, carden would have thrown all kinds of tutors her way so that she would be a Presentable and Proper Lady when he took her places. if there's one good thing that man ever did for her it was providing the resources to make her one of the most knowledgeable ladies around in his haste to up her intelligence score, i suppose. she also developed a very lovely handwriting style due to a particularly detail-oriented tutor. she absolutely could not stand the woman who taught her politics of the continent but no amount of complaining had her sent away smh

MEREDITH — she would have had multiple tutors and trainers i’m sure, being the daughter of the second most powerful family in the kingdom lmao. perhaps more lonely of an education than she would have liked as her brother was already in his studies and she wasn’t sent to learn with the other children in the castle, but she excelled nonetheless. i actually think she would have really liked the historian we saw in the cousland origin, old ass aldous who tutored the kids of the castle and surely taught meredith her histories aka one of her favorite subjects.

KILL: When was the first time your OC killed someone? How did they feel about it then, and do they still think about it now? If your OC has never killed before, would they? Under what circumstance?

RIYA — answered xoxo

MAEVE — we've stumbled across a rare maeve question i don't think has been considered, at least in default witcherverse. it would happen a few years into her time traveling with witchers, and likely while with one of them because that's when she's in the most danger (usually). she'd be fucked up about it no doubt. the panic to wash herself clean, the guilt over ending a life, the fear she could have torn apart a family somewhere, the stress of her own life being disrupted by a constant reliving of the entire event. you know, all that fun stuff she didn't sign up for. give it a few years and she'll probably still be sad about it, some amount of guilt will always linger because her heart is so gentle, but her own life experience and learning that of others will have helped her come to terms with it. (especially because it was likely in some sort of defense??? i don't see her just popping up on the kill feed for fun)

MEREDITH — when homegirl opened her bedroom door to find one of howe’s men standing there with a weapon drawn and she was forced into immediate combat. panic is all she felt then, and a rising anger the further she and her mother pushed into the castle during their search for bryce and an escape. she has never felt guilt for that first kill—or the dozen or so that came after it that night—because they displayed no guilt for the murders they took part in and showed no mercy in going after her next, but flash-forward some years and she feels a sorrow over it all having taken place. it wasn't fair to have such horrors forced upon a young girl who had done nothing wrong, merely had a father who perhaps needed to reevaluate his friendships more often 🤷‍♀️ sorry bryce that was uncalled for, you're already dead about it lmao

WISH: What's the first thing your OC ever wished for or wanted? Do they still want that, or have their desires changed? If so, what changed them? If not, how far would they go to fulfill their wish?

RIYA — i mean, for two decades i’m sure all her wishes were dumb as hell because she was a spoiled, sheltered girl. wishing her birthday celebration would be bigger than the last each year, wanting a new dress in the style of one she saw at a gala or smth, etc etc. her first genuine wish would have come during her time on the run, curled up next to bastian, wishing with a desperation that she'd never felt before that they could just go home.

MAEVE — any answer i think of is sad as hell. i imagine that the earliest thing she can remember wanting so terribly would be the approval of her parents because it always seemed Just out of reach. if she tried hard enough on the next task then she’d get the pride and affection she craved! surely that’s true!! it wasn’t tho, we know that. the only memory maeve has of her mother looking at her with pride was on that day carden took her away, which was a comfort for a few years while she still believed she’d finally done something good enough in their eyes. but then the “wait, she was just happy that i Sold To A Man for a fantastic price” reality hit and she’d do anything to forget that final day together.

MEREDITH — probably something cheesy like wanting to one day be like her father. the desire changed a bit over time, though not by much, spurned on by her witnessing too many moments of people being treated horribly because of how they were born. she wished to one day hold enough power and influence to make changes for good in the world, to care for others and make their lives better. historians and scholars are gonna debate for who knows how long about what schemes she enacted to take that power but like. it was right there. sitting out in the open. was she Not supposed to take it? c'mon now 🙄

#ch: valeriya de clairmont #ch: maeve sommers #ch: meredith cousland #i'm dropping the fattest F in the chat for bastian tonight these made me feel for him all over again lmfao #ya ya poor riya she lost her two best friends w/e #this guy was literally just trying to do good by somebody he cared for (while mourning his brother) and he got dead about it like bryce

[aquaticsoul]

on this fine munday, i'd like to share something very close to my heart. (it's sielu. big surprise, i know.)

i have been a musician since before i even started school. all my life, i've lived and breathed music. when i was eleven years old, i picked up the clarinet.

immediately, i fell head over heels for it. it became the main way i could express myself, the only way i could really get all my energy and thoughts out. as a physically disabled, autistic, ADHD child, it allowed me to connect to my peers in ways i never would have dreamed of ofherwise.

my clarinet became a part of me just as much as my eyes or my skin or my nails were.

i began teaching private lessons. i began writing music of my own. i began to think of what i wanted to do with myself, and that was music.

it was no surprise to anyone around me when i declared myself a music major in the fall of 2019, when i was accepted to my university. i dove all in.

i made friends. i took lessons. i went to recitals. i played in many ensembles.

and then, in february of 2020, i got carpal tunnel syndrome. i kept playing anyway.

in 2021, the pain forced me to stop being a music major. i changed to business, stayed in a few ensembles, and was ultimately devastated regardless that my bone disorder and bad connective tissues would continue to betray me as long as i played too much.

i pulled back a little. i thought i'd be fine.

and then came spring of 2023, almost a full year ago now. i sat in my clarinet professor's office, a man who i'd studied under for several years, bawling my eyes out as i explained to him that the left side of my jaw had stopped working. the doctors i went to all said the same thing: i was not allowed to play my clarinet anymore at all. this had happened basically overnight, yet... it forced me to quit.

all my hard work was gone. over a decade of dedication, practice, joy, and light were all suddenly ripped away from me.

concerts came and went. i did not play in them.

my social circle slowly but surely dissolved itself. they moved on without me.

i spent a year rehabilitating my hands and my jaw just to be able to function again. i spent a year relearning how to hold a pen, how to eat, how to smile, how to sing.

my clarinet sat in its case. dust began to gather on the top. i tried to avoid looking at it.

i received a text in late december from one of the few friends i still have, asking if i would play in her senior recital or if the wounds were still too fresh. she was writing the ensemble piece, so she was willing to adjust things if need be.

"you can play marimba if you want, instead of clarinet," she said, "because of your jaw."

i looked at my case.

i told her to write the clarinet part anyway.

and i went to work with the bare fundamentals. i did hours of frustrating long tones and pained popsicle munching. i built strength back into my face.

my skill level is still nowhere near what it once was back in 2019. i won't be playing benny goodman solos anytime soon.

but i played the hell out of my clarinet today during her recital approval, in front of that clarinet professor and a few other woodwind faculty.

we passed unanimously.

and he stopped me, just to tell me congratulations and that he's happy for me.

and... honestly, i wouldn't have been able to do what i did today if it weren't for sielu. i would have likely given up creative endeavors entirely if not for him. after all, i had nothing to pursue. i had barely any hope.

but i'd just made an OC who teaches music. i'd just made an OC that has the mindset i had all those years ago, back when music was for music's sake and not to get a score. i'd just made an OC for, really, no reason at all other than for fun and passing the time.

and it hit me, somewhere last year after the initial shock of my jaw, that music used to be home for me. it hit me that i didn't start playing music to be "good" at it. i started playing music just because i liked it. overplaying to injury was not good musicianship - it was just something i had to do in order to fulfill academic requirements.

sielu has reminded me of all the things i used to love. he got me through the hardest time in my life by forcing me to step back and shift my perspective. he's become so much more to me than just a random character.

and i kind of just... needed to tell someone that. i needed someone to know how much i appreciate the people who have been on this ride with me and how much i appreciate my followers. if you read this far, thank you.

it's a great day for music.

#dealing with the paperwork ; ooc. #injury tw #hopelessness tw #long post

[existentialqueer]

Tranny Bladder

In light of the renewed wave of transgender bathroom bills being pushed and passed, I thought I would share a relevant chapter from S. Bear Bergman’s Butch Is a Noun.  "I have a tranny bladder. You know what I mean, right? The amazing ability to go approximately forever without needing to pee? I am the person who leaves the house, has two meals with a soda and a glass of water at each, returns home eight hours later and finally pees, after having stood around several times, at least after each meal, trying not to look like a sexual deviant (you know, in the bad way) while hanging around the restrooms waiting for my date to finish up. I wait to pee until I can get to a "safe" bathroom, safe bathrooms being the kind in which I am not screamed at to get out immediately, where I am not followed in by the lurking-outside-waiting-for-his-daughter father looking to kill me slowly, and that I can use without an NYPD officer and an Army private on Homeland Security detail (just, you know, for example) being called in to look at my ID.    This mostly means waiting until I am no longer in a public place, and so I just wait. The years and years of waiting, and holding it, have taken their eventual toll, it seems. And so, like so many butches I have known, like so many of my trans-siblings, I have developed this miraculous ability to just... wait. I mean, we are also probably dehydrated. You do not see deviantly gendered people walking around with Nalgene bottles, getting our sixty-four recommended ounces as we go through our days. I am sure that somewhere there is an argument to be made that the trans community as a whole is a little cranky because we could all use a nice big glass of water.    It makes both my grandmothers crazy to the point of neurosis, by the way. They think there is something the matter with me (you know, in the bad way). They look at me with eyes full of the measuring, medical expertise that apparently comes with being a Jewish grandmother, and they shake their heads and quiz me like a six-year-old with an unfortunate habit of wetting myself.    Did you go? Do you need to? Are you sure? Did you try?    What do I say? No, Nana, I don't need to use the bathroom, and I will not for the entire forseeable future because I'm sure as hell not using a women's bathroom here in South Florida, which is populated entirely by slender blonde girls and elderly women with failing eyesight?    This is leaving aside entirely, for the moment, how angry it makes me to write about these things - drinking water, and pissing it out - as though they were not the most basic kinds of freedom, as though even political prisoners both here and abroad didn't have more and better freedom to drink water and piss it out than most of the transfolk I know do, or did at some stage. This is not engaging what it feels like to be quietly peeing in a women's bathroom and hear, after a knock at the stall, "Sir?" or pounding and then, "What the fuck?"    No matter how I pitch my voice when I answer, even when I use the most head-resonant and high-pitched voice I have available to me that doesn't make me sound like Flip Wilson on helium, I still have to open the door and show someone my ID and smile my beta-wolf smile at them, while the alpha inside me is tearing a hole in my chest trying to get out and teach them a lesson about manners and respect.    When I get harassed in the Ladies' room, or the cops are called, I can produce ID with the telltale F and add the story to my collection. Transgressing in the Gents can have its consequences, legal or chillingly illegal. Men's rooms can be more forgiving because the culture of a men's bathroom insists that men not look at the others in the restroom lest they be labeled fags. Most curious looks can be deflected with a quizzical but hostile glance that seems to convey the idea that a man looking at you as you enter might have some sort of queer gaze.    Transfolk wait for the day that they can use the restroom with members of their chosen genders without problem or comment, and swap pissing stories and methods like trading cards in the meantime. I have heard arguments made that bathroom experiences are the defining measure of trans-ness: have you ever had anxiety, apprehension, or problems using the restroom which corresponds to you assigned-sex-at-birth? Then you're transgendered in some fashion. It's not the worst idea I've heard.    The bathroom is where gender performance meets public perception with a resounding thwack, one that sometimes hurts and sometimes reverberates down my butch life in unexpected ways. It's where I have to make a public declaration and I can never be sure which one might match what people are expecting from me, and the consequences for being wrong are always so unpleasant, because the wrongness is so basic. I am wrong in the world, they're saying, wrong to have fooled them, to be a coyote among dogs and cats, to stand in gender's doorways and whistle, and they'll make me pay while my pants are down, if they can. When I use a bathroom in public, I piss with one hand on my belt buckle so I can make it into a weapon if I have to.    Tranny bladder is my saving grace."

#trans rights #queer #lgbt #butch is a noun

[lizhly-writes]

So in your knw orv reader au, how does he survive kdj?

Haha, well, this is probably a kind of basic answer, but I imagine that it’s actually pretty easy.  It’s true my memory is canon is kind of hazy, but to me, it rather seems that he needed some kind of rationalization for attacking Kim Namwoon.  Like, yeah, he really doesn’t like Kim Namwoon, but at that point, I think he needed an excuse other than ‘I don’t like him’ – which, yeah, was the actual reason, but not really good enough to kill a random teenager.  Now, if the teenager was 1) attacking him first 2) attempting to kill an old lady… well, that’s just justified, isn’t it.  Clearly, this nineteen year old is a terrible person, and it would be a crime to let him live on, huh?

Now.  If our Kim Namwoon wasn’t doing any of that?  I imagine Kim Dokja would have a significantly harder time trying to rationalize it.

So. Have something taking pretty immediately after this snippet.

A thin, white-haired young man in a school uniform stands at the end of the carriage with a tight smile and a body at his feet.  “Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “Was I really supposed to wait to die?”

Kim Dokja doesn’t even need to read the nametag to know that this is Kim Namwoon.

[ Congratulations!  Due to your willingness to act, the remaining time has been extended by five more minutes.  Everyone, shouldn’t you be grateful for this young man’s actions?  You should follow his example! ]

“Haha,” says Kim Namwoon, tilting his head to the side.  “Hear that?  I saved your asses.  Look, now you have five more minutes to think about if you’re really going to kill someone before you explode.  Congratulations.  Have fun!” 

“Have fun?” Han Myungoh, of all people, says incredulously.  “You just murdered–”

“Shit, I just killed a guy, and you still want me to sit through a lecture?” Kim Namwoon says.  “You think I’m in the mood for that?  What lesson are you going to try to teach me, huh?  Don’t kill anyone?  You’re kind of late for that, aren’t you?  Also, isn’t that kind of hypocritical?  Aren’t you going to need to do the same thing in, like, fifteen minutes?  But hey, I could be wrong!  Maybe you’re the kind of person who wants to lie down and die, is that it?”

Silence.  Kim Dokja can practically hear everyone thinking: ah, this high school student hadn’t said anything wrong, exactly, had he?  He was only restating the reality of the scenario clock ticking down before them.  Did you really care more about a stranger’s life than your own?

The passengers back away from each other, eying each other suspiciously, assessingly.  Was it really that hard, just to kill the person next to you?

“Now,” Kim Namwoon continues.  “I’m going to sit in a corner and think about what I’ve done.  Carry on with whatever you’re doing, you don’t need my input.  You’ve got a good fifteen minutes, have a nice long think about it.”  He bows, his military knife catching the light and sending off a small arc of blood like a message: I have a weapon, find an easier target.

Next to Kim Dokja, Yoo Sangah presses her lips together.  “Is this really what we have to do?” she says, almost under her breath.  “We really need to kill another person?”

“...No,” Kim Dokja says.  “There’s another way.”

…

“Hey, what’s up, Ahjussi?” Kim Namwoon says, voice manic as Kim Dokja approaches him.  “You look like you want to kill me.  Are you going to try?  It’s just, I might fight back if you do?  I want to live, after all.”

“...You didn’t have to do that.”

“Do what?  You mean, kill that guy?” Kim Namwoon jerks his chin in the direction of the corpse he left only a meter or so away.  “Didn’t I, though?  Tell me, how many grasshoppers were in that butterfly net?  Was there one per passenger?”

“...”

Kim Namwoon laughs raggedly.  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.  You’re really giving a lot of people false hope, aren’t you, Ahjussi?  You think that’s fun to watch?  Wow, isn’t that kind of messed up of you?”

He’s smiling broadly, manically, but his body language is defensive, eyes narrowed and wary.  It’s as if he really thinks Kim Dokja is a threat – like he thinks Kim Dokja’s the one who’s going to snap and kill him at any second.  

Kim Dokja thought of the Kim Namwoon from the novel.  When Yoo Joonghyuk had found Kim Namwoon, it hadn’t been until the end of the scenario.  This part of the plot, then, was undocumented.  Had it always played out like this?

Kim Dokja always thought he would sound a little more… insane.  Was that a later development?

#omniscient reader #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #kim dokja #kim namwoon #knw #kdj #normal orv fan knw #my writing #mine #everything

[cfs-melkire]

Dowdy

It would work like this, Deiter explained:

He would spend that first sun teaching Hakan the basic numerals, and he would label the different genres and categories by number. It would be up to Hakan to memorize those pairings of numerals and genres so that, if anyone were to ask him where they might find a given volume, he could at least ask them what sort of book they were looking for and deduce its general location from there. This would be sufficient in the short term, while Deiter went out and about for acquisitions. On those suns when there was no pressing need for him to do so, the proprietor would man the counter alongside Hakan and they would both mind the shop. Deiter would teach him his letters, how to read and write, and much more, provided they had no customers or clients to attend to.

Hakan was to reside onsite; there were a couple of bedrooms upstairs, and a kitchenette and office too. The Viera would have what had been the guest room all to himself, and they would share meals together – unless either of them went out or would prove unavailable, which was to be communicated in advance. Room, board, and education would make up the lion's share of Hakan's reimbursement. His wages would prove meager, but they would be enough to get by in an emergency if he saved up a little.

Deiter wanted to know if this was satisfactory; Hakan told him that it was generous indeed. Deiter was concerned that this was perhaps too much to ask of him; Hakan shot back that, for the education on offer, he was willing to bear any shame and undertake any hardships which the position might demand of him. Deiter wanted to know if they could get started right away; Hakan insisted upon it, but only wanted to know if he still had to sign the contract.

Deiter smiled and tore up the contract on the spot; startled, Hakan was slow to respond when the Hume held out a hand again and said, "A gentlemen's agreement ought to suffice for now."

They shook, and it was done. Then they got started.

Numerals were not so difficult, Hakan learned; they were simply a different method for representing a count, with a single symbol taking the place of many tally marks. Genres took longer for him to learn. Mythology was obvious to him, as was fiction in general once it was made clear that these were tales for entertainment. He was quite fond of "mystery" as a category. There were other topics, more practical topics, which were not so readily grasped: agriculture, masonry, calculus… he was delighted to hear that cuisine was a practical topic. He was stymied for a time by only a single subject: "law."

"Why do you require books on rules and customs of your own people?" he asked. "Do you not have elders, wise women and experienced men, to teach these lessons?"

"Sometimes, we do," said Deiter. "But not everyone knows an elder, and not every elder knows every custom, and some elders have grown so old as to be addled by age, and many elders are elder within their family, and not so trusting of strangers as to impart their wisdom. So we need the books."

Hakan stared at him in horror. "City madness," he said, with a shake of his head.

They finished by sundown, whereupon Deiter showed him to his new room upstairs. It was small, but it was the first truly private space that Hakan had known since his arrival in the city and for that he was grateful. Mister Lidenbok then excused himself, disappeared for half a bell – out onto the streets, if the creaks of the front door which "bookended" his absence were any indication – and returned with two fully prepared meals for their supper. This baffled Hakan, since there was a perfectly serviceable kitchenette, but he made no comment on the matter.

Evening came and went; come morning, Deiter set out as promised, leaving the front door propped open and leaving Hakan in place to mind the shop. It was then that the Viera garnered his first true appreciation for what it meant to run a specialty goods store: there were no customers. No one stepped inside that sun, no one except for one peculiar exception which came late. Oh, he could hear the locals shuffling and bustling up and down the street out front, could see them pass Lidenbok Books by, through the open door, without so much as a glance at the establishment. It was strangely infuriating; Raif's restaurant, the only comparison he could make, had never known such a drought. 

If this is the way of things, he thought, then our haste was uncalled for.

He busied himself by stepping out from behind the counter to browse the shelves. He tested himself by seeking out genres until he knew the exact spot for each and could stride from one to another by associating name to numeral to place. He squinted at spines, eyed titles upon their covers, tried to decipher meaning from the shapes of each word, paged through volumes in search of diagrams.

Hakan was so engrossed in his self-study that he registered the footfalls rather late, did not hear the woman breathing until she was near enough to see him and gasp, did not recall his purpose until he looked up into her wide eyes. Dark, he thought, a blue so dark that it was practically violet, and they were set in a dark face.

She was tall, for a Hume, of nearly a size with him. She wore a head scarf, as many women did here in the desert so as to shield themselves from the sun, but it was very plain, and so too her dress. Pants, too; shalvar was the local word when pronounced phonetically. Each article of clothing was drab, each a different hue of muted green or brown. So too her sandals. Only the satchel she carried showed any color, for it was a tan so bold as to nearly be orange. Her hair, which peeked out from beneath her scarf in tangled curls of raven black, she brushed out of her face as she gave a nervous smile.

"O-oh! So sorry, I didn't know anyone was… is Mister Lidenbok in? I don't see him."

He hesitated for a second, perhaps two. The he slid the volume he'd been examining back into its place, its home, and he turned to her. As he'd practiced last night, he clasped his hands together, bent forward a little at the waist, and gave her a warm smile in return.

"Mister Lidenbok is out. My name is Hakan, I am minding the shop. How may I help you?"

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2023 #hakan camoa

[sage-nebula]

Time for some hot takes™ about Sonic because it's been rotating in my mind since yesterday's bumblekast, and I'm hungry so it's an apt time to make a poor decision by posting unfiltered thoughts on tumblr (albeit unrebloggable because I might be hungry, but I'm not stupid).

The whole discourse over Sonic not killing his enemies is so mind-boggling to me on so many levels, both from the "why do you want him to take the easy way out" level, to the "it's really not that deep, he's a very easy to understand character so it's very obvious why Sega sees him this way" level, and also the, "the IDW comics have every single issue's script OK'd by Sega SEVERAL times before the issue goes to print, you can't say 'this isn't Sega's Sonic' because it IS Sega's Sonic, as in, the Sonic that Sega is putting forth right now at this very moment in time" level.

On the first level — maybe this is just because I grew up in the police state that is the United States, or maybe it's because I'm a naturally assertive-borderline-aggressive person, but to me, punishing a person for doing something heinous—whether it's punishment via incarceration or punishment via death—really is the easy choice to make. Like if I hear that someone has beaten a child to death, my first instinct is to want to beat that person to death with a baseball bat, or at least put them in a dark room to suffer for the rest of their lives. Does this make me a horrible person? Well, debatable—but regardless, my first instinct when I hear that someone has done something heinous is to want to punish them. I want to make them hurt, just as badly as they made that innocent person hurt.

And like, that's easy. I feel like for most people, that's the instinct, right? You do something wrong, you get punished. Only the social science says that this doesn't actually benefit society in any way. Incarceration is NOT effective at making society safer. The death penalty certainly isn't, especially when it comes to the fact that there are people who are sentenced who weren't guilty of the crimes they were convicted of. We know these things, and yet, the first instinct for many of us is still, "go to jail forever" or "die" when we hear about something like a man raping and murdering children.

So for me personally, on a logical level I totally understand why prison abolition is important, I'm against the death penalty, etc. But emotionally it can be so hard to not want to say, "except for . . ." because again, there are people who do truly heinous things. But if you are for prison abolition, or the abolition of the death penalty, you can't have an "except for." Either all people deserve civil liberties, or they don't. This isn't a thing you can go halvsies on. Because when you start drawing lines, then people start finding ways to finagle it so that the people they don't like cross those lines. Systemic racism, and how that is reflected in the American prison system, is a great example of this.

So to say, "well Eggman will obviously never get better and so Sonic shouldn't give him any more chances and should just kill him" — you're basically, imo, wanting Sonic to take the easy way out. Because it's SO EASY to just want to one-and-done it. It's SO EASY to say, "well he never will change, so why bother giving chances?" But the thing that's actually hard is saying, I know that he probably isn't going to change. I know that we'll have to teach this old man this lesson over, and over, and over again. But he's still a living person. And living people deserve freedom. So I'm going to give him that freedom, over and over. And I'll beat his ass when he uses that freedom to try to take over the world again, but I'll still give him that option. Because he's a person, and people deserve freedom, full stop.

Which brings us to level two, which is, Sonic stands for freedom in all forms, that is his BIGGEST thing. Like yeah, he's snarky and he cares about his friends and he likes to have a good time. But one of the driving points of his character from the very beginning is that he hates oppression in all forms. This is why he fights Eggman. Don't get me wrong, the fights are fun! But even if they weren't fun—even when he's very clearly not having a good time, like during the Metal Virus arc in the IDW comics—he still does it because he hates oppression and he wants everyone to be free. Free to do good, free to do bad—that's not his call to make for anyone else. His call is, "you're free to do what you want," and all the consequences that come with it.

Now of course, sometimes these consequences aren't good. Again, he has to teach Eggman the same lesson like a hundred times. Surge makes it clear she won't rest until he's dead. Metal Sonic won't override his programming to turn against Eggman any time soon. The Zeti will try to kill everyone if they come back, etc. The thing is, Sonic isn't saying, "my way is definitely the right way." The fact is, there ISN'T a universally right answer to this question, but even if there was, Sonic wouldn't be concerned with it. It's in numerous theme songs over and over again, but he thinks "it doesn't matter what is wrong and what is right," in terms of, whether people agree with his actions or not. This is why he's unbothered that Surge takes issue with how he lives his life (in the sense that, he doesn't care if she doesn't agree with him, but also he'd like her to be less murdery about her disagreement). All Sonic's concerned with is, do you have the freedom to make your own choices? Yeah? OK. That's it.

Now again . . . he's not twiddling his thumbs. He'll stop you from killing people. But as soon as the danger's passed, he peaces out. You can go on to make more bad decisions if you want. And he'll intervene then. But he's not going to take your freedom from you, either via jail or death. Because wrong or right, that's not who he is.

"But he imprisoned Erazor Djinn in the lamp and then threw the lamp in lava! But he killed Emerl and Biolizard and thought he killed King Arthur!"

Well, first off, I think there could be debate over how "alive" the storybook characters are. Sonic was isekai'd into books in those games. If you were isekai'd into a Mario game, and you stomped on Goombas, are you now a murderer? Should you update your tinder bio to say you killed people when you get back into the real world? Is killing Goombas while you're in the Mushroom Kingdom equivalent to killing a person who you meet out on the street in New York City? I ask these questions because I honestly wonder if that's where Sega's head is at on the storybook games—if perhaps Sonic acts the way he does there because to him . . . well, those "worlds" are just stories in a book. I don't know if that's the case, I'm just speculating.

The actual answer is that Erazor Djinn isn't dead though, just trapped in the lamp (though he still shouldn't be trapped but that's neither here nor there), with Emerl there was literally no other option, same with the Biolizard, and the actual Big Bad of Black Knight was Merlina and she didn't get deep-sixed by Sonic. At least according to yesterday's Bumblekast, those are Sega's official stances on those stories.

Regardless, let's suppose for a moment that there was a game from, I don't know, 2003 in which Sonic decided, "you know what, everyone sucks, I'm gonna go on a murder spree" and he did just that. Let's say that in 2003 Sega made "Sonic Murder Simulator" where you, as Sonic, went around killing people. That was back then. Right now, in 2023, Sonic isn't about murder, and he's not about imprisonment, because he wants everyone to have freedom even when he is personally fucked over by that, because to him, the freedom to do what you want, when you want, and how you want is the most important thing in the world. That's Sega's view on this character right now. It's not that deep, it's not that hard to understand, I honestly don't know why people are making up conspiracy theories that Ian Flynn is gaslighting this fandom, I really don't.

(But also, I honestly feel like there are some people in this fandom who just want Sonic to be Shadow. They want Sonic to kill bad guys. They want Sonic to be angsty about his past, burdened by trauma, and that's just not him. Like don't get me wrong, Sonic has been through some shit, but he's not the type to angst. He's not the type to brood. And he's definitely not the type to kill. If you want a Sonic character who is broody, reflective, traumatized, and willing to kill, the one you want is Shadow. He is right there. He has been right there for like two decades now. Go enjoy him, instead of wanting to make Sonic be him. It's literally what Shadow's there for, it's why he was revived.)

This is a long, unfiltered ramble that I might regret posting later, but either way I just had to get it off my chest. Especially the bit about "IDW Sonic is not real Sonic, he's not Sega's Sonic" because he literally is. Not a single micro-expression gets published in that comic without Sega's express approval. You don't have to like it. You can think that Sega is Ruining Sonic Forever. But to say that Sega's Sonic isn't in the comics is just batshit fucking ludicrous. Ian Flynn is not some criminal mastermind who's scheming to ruin your childhood or whatever. He certainly doesn't hate Sonic or Sega's vision for Sonic, because if he did, he wouldn't still be accepting work from them for this franchise. Whatever he does, and whatever Evan Stanley does, is with Sega's approval. Full stop. Like it or hate it, but at least take issue with the correct people, ffs.

Anyway, I need to go eat some mac'n'cheese now. Vent over.

#NONE of this is inspired by ANYONE i am friends with btw #if you are in a discord server with me - this is NOT ABOUT YOU OR YOUR THOUGHTS / OPINIONS #this is inspired by people who send things into the bumblekast and who post dumbass takes on sites like tumblr & twitter #not you. bc even when we disagree your takes are still thoughtful and not braindead #so i have no issues with you #and in fact hold you in high esteem ♥

[bloobluebloo]

Miyamoto making Ganon & bowser for the nes: they’re terrifying monsters.

Miyamoto redoing Ganon and Bowser for the snes: Bowser is basically the school bully, while Ganon was once a king of thieves who got too ambitious and greedy and became a pig demon.

Miyamoto while making Ganondorf and redoing Bowser again: Bowser has stubby little arms, jazz music and talks like a mobster. Ganondorf on the other hand is basically a more realized version of what he was in ALTTP, but with some fitting tweaks that cement him as an evil ass bastard with small humanizing elements.

Bowser and Ganondorf now: A single father and simp who causes problems for everyone else and a king who is the embodiment of “how many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?”

Precisely. Ganondorf has become the titular Nintendo meanie…though Ridley does give him a run for his money too in terms of cruelty.

#ganonthots

[scentedsoulducknerd-blog]

Twins

Harper was furious. How dare they hurt his sister? She did nothing to them.

This is an AU of Player's kids in the future.

All characters belong to the creator of Carmen Sandiego except for the twins and their mother. I don't own any of them.

Harper was furious. How dare they hurt his sister? She did nothing to them.

They were evil. Tiny demons, if you will. Although, not as evil as some of the people their aunt Carmen had to deal with.

Harper sat at his desk, looking at the red colouring pencil in his hand. When was the last time they saw her? It must have been at least a good few months.

He tapped his pencil against the desk, shaking with rage. The page in front of him empty, a blank space, mocking him.

They had been given an assignment, to draw someone that inspires them. The only problem was, he had a few people that inspired him and he couldn't choose which one of them he should do. His father, his mother, his sister or, his aunt Carmen. They all inspired him, so who to choose?

He didn't know what his father did exactly, nor did he his aunt, but all he knew was that his dad was amazing with technology and that he helped his aunt to change the world. One step at a time.

His mother was a writer, an author, and she created amazing stories for children and adults alike. All it took was a spark of imagination and the story flowed out like a dam breaking.

His sister, his dear sister, who had been put through hell and back because some arrogant people can't accept change. She meant the world to him, and he'd go to the ends of the Earth to protect her from any evil that came their way.

The teacher walked around the room, inspecting every child's drawing, as if he was expecting some Picasso level painting, because each time he laid eyes on one of the children's drawings, his eyebrows fell down into a crease, scowling at the child's drawing, almost disappointedly.

The teacher wasn't really a work of art himself however, and neither were any of his many 'paintings' that were hung up on the walls, each in a wooden frame.

The man had gelled black hair, although it looked more like he'd been whacked across the head by an octopus, with the amount of gel that was in his hair. He had dark blue eyes, that look more grey than blue at most times, and big, dumbo like ears. His face was covered in wrinkles, a sign that the man was indeed old. What was he now? Late fifties? Maybe sixties? Possibly seventies? And yet, here he was, still teaching a bunch of six year olds basic maths and showing them how to draw what most of them already can, stick figures. Honestly what was he expecting from them when he asked them to draw someone who inspires them? Hyper detailed realistically accurate  coloured version of the person? Come on.

He wore a two piece suit, both pieces black, and brown, freshly polished dress shoes. He also had a black handle bar moustache. He looked like he had been plucked out of one of those old films he had seen his parents watching, from the nineteen-thirties perhaps. Seriously, this was a school, not some grand ball thrown by the Queen of England, or another important figure of society. There really was no need to be dressed so formally.

Harper made eye contact with his sister and she smiled and waved at him. He grinned. It was nice to see her so happy. Suddenly, he heard someone clearing their throat, and he froze. Rosy's eyes widened as well, and she mouthed an apology at the fact that she had distracted him.

"Mr Bouchard, care to explain to me as to why, we are half way through our lesson, and yet your paper is still blank?" He heard the voice behind him ask. He winced, he really couldn't have drawn a line or something to make it seem like he'd done some work?

"I'm sorry Mr Williams but I've got lots of people that inspire me and I can't pick one." He replied, turning to face his teacher, eyes darting around the classroom, looking for a way to escape the patronising gaze of the man before him.

"If I do not see anything on this page," he pushed his finger down onto the page, crinkling it slightly. Even the way he talks is posh, "by the end of this lesson, then I will have to call your parents in. This is the fourth time you have not done work because you 'could not decide on someone'. It is really getting old and I am getting tired of your excuses Mr Bouchard."

Harper's eyes widened. They couldn't call his parents! They were already busy enough, and troubling them and causing them more problems over something as stupid as not doing a drawing was ridiculous.

"I'll have something down by the end of the lesson Mr Williams." He said, finally making eye contact.

"You better had. You do not want me to call your parents in because of something this simple, do you?"

Harper shook his head.

"No Mr Williams"

"Good. Get to it then."

He didn't have anything down. So, here he was sitting in the headmasters office, waiting for his parent to arrive.

Mr Williams was stood next to the headmasters desk, arms crossed. He didn't look very happy. Sat next to him was the headmaster. Harper was looking down, embarrassed, hoping this will be over soon.

"Mr Bouchard, I thought you had said you would have something down by the end of the lesson." Mr Williams remarked.

Harper looked up.

"I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't-"

"Decide on who to draw. You keep saying that, and look where it has gotten you."

"Now now, he feels bad as it is Mr Williams, you don't need to make him feel worse." The headmaster told him.

"I was gonna say I couldn't think of where to start." Harper mumbled.

"What was that young man?"

"Nothing sir."

The headmaster was a chubby man about the age of 40, and yet he was growing grey hair on the sides of his head and balding on top. The man wore a pink striped shirt, with blue suspenders over the top. Harper couldn't see the bottom half because of the oak desk between them. 

Bookshelves scattered the walls on either side of him, most mainly empty, with a few bits and bobs here and there, and some filled with books.

There was a knock on the door, snapping Harper out of his train of thought.

"Come in" the headmaster shouted.

The door opened. There were his parents. He made eye contact with his father and looked away immediately, ashamed.

"We came as soon as we could. What's going on?" He heard his mother ask.

"Mr and Mrs Bouchard, please, take a seat." The headmaster asked, or demanded.

His parents both looked at each other worriedly, and then proceeded to sit in the other two chairs there.

"What's all of this about?" His father questioned.

"Nothing too big, so there's no need to worry, Mr Bouchard. It's just about Harpers schoolwork." He reassured his parents.

"What about it?" His mother chimed in.

"It has recently come to my attention by Mr Williams here," the man in question raised his hand, "that Harper has not been doing his schoolwork and has been making stupid excuses as to why." The headmaster remarked.

"Is this true Harper?" His mother asked.

"Only my art work, mum. I do everything else! Plus, it's only happened four times, like, once a month or something like that!" Harper replied.

"Wait wait wait," his father waved his hands up and down, "you mean to tell us that you called us," he moved his hands to refer to himself and his wife, "to the school just because our son hasn't done what, four pieces of work? There gotta be a lot of other kids that don't do it either. I mean, they're six for crying out loud!"

"Parker." His mother warned, her voice low. She put her hand on her husbands shoulder gently and smiled at him lovingly, in order to calm him down, so there isn't a scene caused. 

The man's eyes widened. She never called him by his real name. It was always by his code name, Player. She really didn't want to make a scene.

"Yes. Other kids haven't done work as well and we'll be calling there parents in as well but Harper resists against his teacher so we've had to call you in first." the bald man told them.

"This is ridiculous" Player mumbled. His wife elbowed him, and gave him a glare. He rolled his eyes.

"How does he resist?" The woman asked.

"Uhh Mr Williams? How does Harper resist exactly?" The headmaster looked to the man.

"Umm... well... he gives me a lot of lip and doesn't participate in physical activities when I tell him to." Came his reply.

"There's a perfectly good explanation for that Mr Williams" the dark haired female said.

"And what is that explanation, Mrs Bouchard?" He said, looking down his nose at her. Judging by the stories he'd overheard from the twins on the playground, they were both reckless, adventurous and clever people. It was obvious that he didn't particularly like Harper, and because the two young adults in front of him were his parents, he didn't particularly like them either. They raised their child wrong. They should raise them to treat their seniors and their superiors with the respect they deserve. Harper and Rosy had none for him.

"Harper has been advised by his doctor to take it easy if he's hurting" the woman crossed her arms.

"If he's hurting? That's got to be the stupidest reason for a kid taking a break or not participating in activities. What is he? An old man like me? Because if I'm not allowed to get out of doing it with the students, neither should he." The man laughed and wiped a tear that came to his eye.

"Mr Williams! The doctor informed me of this and I have told you this as well. It seems you've forgotten though." The headmaster scolded.

"Forgotten what? That he" the man pointed at Harper. He looked down embarrassed. "shouldn't be doing Physical Education because he's 'hurting'?"

"No I informed you on why his legs hurt."

"And why is that?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Because he's an amputee." Player said to him. "He wears prosthetics. He's been to school with crutches before and a wheelchair. The reason he was told not to all the time is because he experiences phantom pain. Is that all you need us for, to mock our son for his disability and waste mine and my wife's time?"

"Even so, he still gives me lip when I tell him to stop making symbols with his hands to Rosy." Mr Williams was flustered at getting called out. Oh how he hated this family. He just wanted one reason to get one of the children in trouble.

"You mean when he's signing what you're saying so she can understand?" The woman asked.

"Signed? As in sign language?"

"Yes. Rosy's deaf and although she has hearing aids, she still needs a little help to understand because they don't magically make her able to hear." Player glared at the man. "Is that all?" He looked back to the headmaster.

"Is that all Mr Williams?" The older man asked.

"Yes" He grumbled.

"You may all leave now. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I thought we had a different issue at hand." He told the family.

"Thank you" both of the parents said. They rose from the seats, and Harper followed and left the office.

"Unbelievable" Player mumbled, shaking his head.

"Did I do something wrong?" Harper asked, looking up at his father.

"No Harper you did nothing wrong. Your teacher just forgot about you and your sisters disabilities, that's all." He patted his son on his brown hair. Harper grinned at him and he smiled back.

They walked to the inside entrance of the school where Rosy was sitting on one of the blue chairs, swinging her legs. When she noticed the door open she looked up and smiled.

"Is everything ok? Did Harper get in trouble?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.

"No sweetie, he didn't." Her mother replied.

"Are we going home now?"

"Yes we are."

She walked to the door and opened it, signalling for them to go before her.

As the twins were walking in front of them and talking amongst themselves happily, Player decided to make conversation with his wife beside him, who was holding his hand.

"It's a good thing Red didn't want to do a caper today huh?" He laughed. She smiled.

"Yeah, lucky us. Otherwise I'd be stuck dealing with that man on my own." She chuckled.

"I would've come as fast as I could if I had to help Red, but I'm assuming you already knew that, didn't you Iris?"

"Yep. You'd do anything for the twins." He glared at her.

"And you."

"Oh you can spare some love for me now too?" She put her hand on her chest. "I'm honoured." She teased.

"No I don't think I will anymore, you've taken it for granted too many times." He looked away, feigning offence. When he looked at Iris however, he couldn't keep it up and they both burst into laughter.

The twins looked behind them to see their parents giggling to themselves.

"What are they laughing at?" Rosy asked, turning to her brother.

"I have no idea. It could be anything really." He said.

"Yeah you're right."

The next day at school when Harper walked into the classroom he made immediate eye contact with Mr Williams. Harper looked away awkwardly, cheeks red and biting the inside of his cheek. He sat down in his seat and got out his blue pencil.

"You got taken to the headmaster's office yesterday, didn't you?" The girl next to him asked.

She had long curly black hair that had been tied into pigtails with red bobbles. She had a blue and black striped shirt, and black leggings.

Harper raised an eyebrow.

"How do you know that?" He asked.

"Yesterday. Mr Williams told you that you needed something on your paper or he was gonna get your parents. You didn't have anything by the end of the lesson." She told him.

"You were looking at my work?"

Her eyes widened and she turned red.

"Yes. I was." She muttered.

"Why?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I was gonna ask you about who you drew but then, y'know, you didn't draw anyone."

"Why did you want to ask me about it?"

"You ask lots of questions. I've been wanting to be your friend for awhile but I didn't know how to talk to you."

"Oh." He stuck his hand out in front of her awkwardly. "I'm Harper."

The girl just sat there looking at his hand.

"You're supposed to shake my hand hand and tell me your name after." He told her.

"O-oh. Sorry." She laughed awkwardly. She grabbed his hand and shook it. "I'm Frankie."

They both smiled at each other.

Mr Williams cleared his throat and began the lesson, narrowing his eyes and glaring at the Harper as he began to sign to Rosy.

"What are you doing?" Frankie whispered, after noticing Harper signing.

"Rosy's deaf so in lessons I sign what the teachers saying so she can understand." He whispered back.

"That's sweet of you. But wouldn't it of been easier if you were sat next to each other?"

"It would be, but Mr Williams sat us in these seats and when I tried to tell him he dismissed it."

"Oh"

They both went back to listening to the teacher again.

At break time, the students all filed onto the yard, going to their friend groups. Harper walked towards Rosy.

"Harper wait up!" He heard someone say. He turned to find Frankie running towards him.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Playing with my friend. Where are we going?" She said, like it was the most the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm trying to find Rosy."

"She's your sister, right?"

"Yeah, she's my older twin sister."

"Older? It seems like you're the oldest. You're always worrying about her and trying to help her."

"We take care of each other." He smiled gently.

"Take care of each other? How does she help you?"

"When it comes to my disability." He raised his trousers leg up and she gasped as she saw the prosthetic leg.

"Wow. I had no idea." She looked back up to him.

"That's kinda the point." He laughed.

They turned the corner to find Rosy sitting on the floor, with her head down. She was sobbing quietly, holding her ears. Harper and Frankie's eyes widened.

"What happened?!" He shouted.

She didn't respond. Harper crouched down and gripped her hands. She gasped and tried to escape until she looked up and saw it was her brother.

'What happened?' He signed.

"They ripped my hearing aids out." She whimpered.

"WHAT?!" He yelled.

Frankie put her hand on Harper's shoulder and gave him a sad smile. He pulled her hands from her ears, with much resistance from Rosy. Finally, he managed to keep her hands down and gasped. Her ears were bleeding. Frankie bent down to look and gasped as well. Harper's hand clenched and his knuckles turned white. They did this.

#carmen #sandiego #carmen sandeigo netflix #carmen sandeigo 2019 #carmen sandiego player #player #Carmen sandiego fanfic #fanfic #story #writer #player carmen sandiego #twins

[cuchillx]

When I was about 12 years old I had no friends, we had moved so the public junior high school that was around my area was a different one than my friends from elementary school went to. I was very lonely during those formative years, and I couldn’t fit with the people from my new school. My parents were too busy for me, so that’s how I ended up being chronically online at that young age - i would be in neopets, watching anime and just browsing the net. Additionally I drew a lot, every day, about everything I could think of.

Under the read more you’ll find a long story on my experience with horse riding. It has a sad ending, but it doesn’t involve any graphic details or narrations of any animal dying.

Somehow I convinced my parents to take me to horse riding classes, i was quite expensive so I’m surprised they accepted eventually. During the first days, you got to learn the basics of course, and you would get to ride different horses from the ranch to see which one you would be a good fit with. There were so many beautiful horses, tall and slim, some big strong ones, with pretty colors, warm chocolate tones, or white ones that looked out of a fairytale. I practiced with all of them and I thought it went fairly well

The trainer was this strict, strong-willed mayan man. He had many children and lived in the ranch in exchange for teaching people how to ride horses. The owner of said ranch was a rich lady.

One day, I was assigned this short legged horse with an opaque sand color on his hair and short fur. He didn’t look very graceful, and he was stubborn too. No one that took lessons there rode him, not even the owner of the ranch. The only one who did so was the trainer, as he had several years of experience with horses and he knew how to handle them well.

The horse’s name was Eddy, since he had an ‘ED’ imprinted on him, from a previous ranch he was in. I remember Eddy being the most difficult horse to ride - stubborn and mischievous, purposely trying to get me to fall from the saddle, ignoring my instructions and always pulling me. I am stubborn myself so I didn’t let me that bring me down, I would get up every time he sent me flying, or holding on as hard as I could with my legs to avoid falling. The instructor yelled at us several times and I felt the need to prove myself, trying to make Eddy’s character and my disposition work

At the end of the lesson the trainer told me Eddy would be my horse - I was so disappointed and annoyed, I didn’t like Eddy at all. I thought it was unfair. The rest of the people that trained there had beautiful horses assigned and I was stuck with Eddy

I didn’t complain though. I accepted it and tried to move on. As time passed I became really good at that sport. And since I went really early in the mornings (because school was in the afternoons), only sometimes my parents would watch me train, since most times they would nap in the car or do other things while they waited for me

The trainer was very loud and wouldn’t hold back when he scolded at me, he would always yell at me what I could do better while I was jumping obstacles and galloping with Eddy. He was that way with other girls too, but ultimately held back since they would show a lot of distress. It was completely fair, as I’ve practiced other sports where I wasn’t great and of course having the instructor yell at you felt awful - I can remember crying on different occasions. The horse trainer was definitely coarse, but somehow when I was practicing, it didn’t affect me as much as it did in other sports - I tried really hard to be better every day, I had so much frustration bottled up from my loneliness and bullying from school that I really trained until exhaustion. My trainer in spite of being very strict praised me a lot because of my grit and perseverance

Eddy was still this trickster stubborn little rascal, but it was now fun for both of us. I always gave him apples and cereals at the end of each session, and if I had time I made sure to brush him and walk him around the garden where he would eat grass and unwind. He would now push me around and ignore my instructions but followed by a humorous neigh. I would laugh too, and always tried again and again. Eddy and training were a source of happiness, I would sometimes get there feeling crappy about life but it was like Eddy could feel that and he was extra quirky and energetic, eventually raising my mood too.

We even participated a couple of times on contests, the first one I got so nervous I did a terrible  job - the order of the obstacles I was supposed to go through got mixed up in my mind and I didn’t do it correctly, leading to me being so stressed that I fell from Eddy. I cried angry tears and accepted that I was disqualified

The second time went way better, and we won second place. I even have the bow we won, and I was so proud of us. I don’t have any photos from that time, since unfortunately as I mentioned, my parents didn’t always have the energy to be there for me, and the few photos we had were on my dad’s phone that he lost. Those times however, live forever in my memory

One time we were trying a certain routine, and Eddy tripped - often times horses trip while you’re galloping, but it’s completely normal and you get used to this. They have 4 legs so if one trips they have 3 other legs to recover, not like us clumsy humans. I remember the first times it happened I would halt completely out of fear, but later on it was nothing to me

But this time it was different unfortunately, and I felt it right away - after one leg tripped I then felt a second leg trip as well, and right there I knew in a matter of seconds something was off. With the second leg came the third and finally we both fell. This is very dangerous because if the horse rolls on top of you you can die. Fortunately Eddy fell and because of the speed we had I was shot across the track and rolled and rolled until I came to a stop, covered in dust and sand. Everyone that was there expressed that once Eddy got back up on his hooves, he looked so worried and concerned trying to find me, his little human. Once he quickly spotted me, he galloped towards me and started sniffing me and pacing back and forth. I stayed on the ground for a while because I was very dizzy from spinning and confused overall

The trainer and my parents rushed towards me and got me on my feet slowly, trying to make sure nothing was broken. To their relief, it was that way and it was only a scare. They took me to the doctor just to make sure, and I was fine. They still took an X-ray of my spine, and that’s how I was diagnosed with scoliosis. Doctors said I would have to stop ridding horses since it was damaging my already crooked spine. I had to say goodbye to horse riding, my trainer and Eddy.

I don’t remember doing much of a fuss then, I think I was so sad I was completely numb, scared to face that one of my few sources of happiness would end like that, when I most needed it. This whole experience lasted about a year. Since I was avoidant of the feeling, I don’t think I gave a proper goodbye to Eddy, I tried to forget all about it and move forward. I had no one to talk to about how I felt.

I am now 25, and I feel so much nostalgia from thinking about this. I hope Eddy is ok, wherever he is. I hope that if he’s not alive, he’s happy in horse heaven with lots of grass, apples and fresh water. I hope he’s out there making his silly little pranks and being stubborn, just as I am. I know why we were paired up together, and I can’t be happier about it. I’m glad I got a chance to see beyond what others saw in him, and that I held on tight just to prove a point about myself, but I ended up finding so much more on the other side of things. And I feel very special that he also chose me too - no one got along with him like I did

Eddy thank you for being my friend, I needed someone like you and if I could, I would forget about the pain from not being able to do what I loved, and visited you every now and then to feed you, wash you and take you out for a walk. You are immortalized in my memories and you are forever my favorite horse.

#picrew #syrup speaks

[asitrita]

Hello there! I'm sorry for the random ask but I've been wondering: what got you interested in Spanish history?

I love your blog! It's very informative and it's always nice to hear historical events featuring Spain from a Spanish perspective :)

-Cheers!

Long answer because I just can't summarise even if my life depended on it.

First of, this was very nice of you. And I'm sorry I took a few days to answer. Thank you so much for your ask and sorry for the testament you're going to read next XD

Just to give a short version (long answer below), it was basically thanks to my History teacher at the conservatory, an English teacher (both him and the subject XD), and I must confess Hetalia also played a small but significant part in my liking for history.

--------o--------

In all honestly it was a process. I think it was actually my professor of "History and Evolution of Music" who first sparked the flame. Though his purpose was to teach us about the evolution of music since ancient times up to jazz and blues, focussing mostly on Medieval, Renaissance and Classical works, he would throw in pieces of historical information in his explanations. Mostly about the wars and battles Spain had against England. The ones we won, obviously (so most of them u.u lol). He used to talk very dirty about the English hahahaha But he actually had an English (boy)friend, who of course was also a musician and played the lute, and he invited him over one day and they would have discussions about composition none of us were actually able to follow XD. But I think what sparked my interest for history was the day he brought an actual cannon ball to classroom. After telling yet one of the many battles Spain took part in, he started complaining about how little did Spanish people knew about Spain's history, and even looked down on it. He rambled about how young generations knew nothing at all (as if he wasn't in his 30's and was already and old man lol) due to Hollywood and films portraying everything the wrong way, mocking the way everything in the big screen was about explosions and fire everywhere. So yeah, next week he came to class with an actual cannon ball and made a very graphic (and maybe unnecessary gory) description of all the possible wounds it could inflict to the person it hit, and all the damages it could do to a ship.

Then came Hetalia. Actually, yet again, it was really Spuk, but long story short, Hetalia did "brought to life" my interest in history which for a couple years had muted down.

And what finally made me love history (more precisely Spanish history, but I do find history in general interesting) was actually a teacher I had in England, in one of these immersive summer courses in which you go to a foreign country to live with a host family for a number of weeks, you have intensive English lessons in the morning and activities in the afternoon. This teacher had been living in Spain for 7 years in the late 80's and early 90's and he knew much more about Spain than I did. I was the only Spaniard in my class, the rest of the students were all Germans,Swish and Italians, so i guess I stood out a little bit more because he was familiar with my country. Thing is, he would mention stuff I didn't know about my own country. Usually in a positive light. And he actually told me off a couple of times I complained about my country's doings (for example, I was once explaining how foreign languages in Spain are not taught well and that's why we struggle with English). He disagreed and he actually was so convincing in his arguments (no, we did not have a shitty education system, teachers were not bad, nor were we lazy nor bad students, problem was somewhere else) that I actually changed my mind completely. Now, quite a few years later, I am still convinced he was actually right and I was just repeating the same things I heard adults around me say without really analysing the matter objectively. To sum it up, he thought of my country better than I did, not because I intended to think bad of it, I just had a lot of prejudices. And he also knew a whole lot more about Spain than I did, and I sometimes almost felt embarrassed by this fact. He spoke so nice of certain aspects of Spain's society and history and I could do nothing but nod and say "if you say so it must be right" cause I had no idea about it nor had ever even thought of it in the way he did. I think he was the reason I started getting more interested in Spanish history in particular. Yes, I previously had an interest a bit more focused on Spain because it was my country, but I wouldn't really actively research anything but in some very scarce occasions.

To be perfectly honest, I was always good at history. I've always liked legends, cultural stuff, myths, heroic epics, etc. Sure, history is more complex, but chivalric tales are a nice start XD I always had a soft spot for foreign cultures and always tried to link the dots. I have French family, and there's always a bit of bickering over historical and cultural stuff, so when I learned about the age of 5 about the Roman Empire I was all "oh, so French were Roman like us?" and had a Roman phase, so to speak. Thing is, though I showed a liking for historish and culturish stuff in general, I never liked history lessons. My grades in History in primary and secondary school were 10/10, but I hated the subject itself XD. I think I had to get out of school and have some non-school exposure and approach to history to actually learn to appreciate it.

#asks

[neyu-gnuv]

𝒅𝒂𝒅.

𝕗𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪 | 𝕗𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕦𝕖 | 𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖 | 𝕚𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘

i'm asian, and asian parents are mostly, tough

but i learnt a lesson long ago, to not complain

i know their intentions are just to make me the best i can, so i try

try to learn from mistakes, to follow their will, to satisfy my parents, to be “the best”

but seemingly, it’s not enough

basically, my dad is acting "abusive"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

first warning, his type of "abuse" has nothing to do with physical actions. i’m in good shape and can’t be better, but my mind isn’t the same. man, i wish it was

and i’m pretty sure out there among the millions of families, one will be like mine. and people survived, might not be the best survival chapters of their lives, but they surely did anyway. i have also seeked help from my therapy, so just a disclaimer, this is too far away from a big deal

but will i talk about it anyways? yes.

last weekend my mom was planning to go on a business trip. it was fine and all until she asked my dad if he would be able to drive her to the airport. believe it or not, he said no.

“he looked frustrated, frowning and all. and then he just coldly said, book a taxi” -mom, describing it to me and my sister

dad, tell me, was it just nerves and anger, or do you not view mom as your wife? my parents have been together most of their lives, and now out of all the things they could be, my dad chose to view my mom as a complete stranger? it does not stop with that.

my house got this good old tradition long ago, that us kids, when turning 10, received a duty of basically setting the table before meals and cleaning it afterwards. it’s not a hard job if i’m being honest, it’s just that it’s unfair. just for context, it’s planned that i’m supposed to do the job on tuesday, thursday, saturday and sunday evening. the rest are for my sister.

same day, evening. my whole head was hurting from braces. my stomach growling due to the lack of food (i was not able to eat much since my teeth hurt too bad). tired and blue (also knowing that it’s my sister's time today), i stood up right after dinner and made it to my room, where i slumped down on the couch, resting.

“where are you two girls? aren’t you supposed to clean up after dinner? didn’t i tell you not to stand up right away after meals?”

“it’s [sister name]’s turn today”

“isn’t it supposed to be yours?” dad said, who is now in my room, pointing at me

“i switched with her since i don’t feel good”

“no but it’s thursday”

“i already switched dad, it’s her turn”

“how old are you and still getting jealous towards your very own sister? stand up and clean the table”

aYo, what the fucking fuck?

damn i was angry, damn i was disappointed, and damn, i was savage. but i said nothing.

tears streamed down as if it’s the end of the world. my eyes fill with tears and i couldn't see straight. everything blurs into puddle of water in front of me. my head hurts. my mind fills with swears and frustration and simply a mix of all one could ever feel.

it is just fucking unfair.

and what’s more than an “abusive” dad? an old-fashioned one.

“If you keep acting and slacking like that, no one's going to accept you. your future-mother-in-law would yell at you, at your parents for not knowing how to teach their own god damn daughter” - my dad, now yelling, still pointing at me trying to hold back tears. actually, to produce more tears.

“be on your own and see, there are so many things that could be worse, that could go wrong. what are you crying for, what did anyone do to you?” - dad, yet still yelling.

i know it’s just straight up wrong and disgusting, but did i protest?

no.

and did anyone else do it?

simply no.

after that we just leave him alone and go for a walk. it’s still seemed surreal and wrong to me, but i'd gotta move on. i mean i’m not the first victim. i grew up listening to my father yelling on phones, yelling to me, to my sister or even my mom. oh and my grandparents aren’t exceptions too. i know right, how ungrateful.

i try to think about it as the way my dad is - a short-tempered guy who somehow shows his love through stuff like this. but isn't this way too far? he never hit us or show physical actions of abuse or anything similar. it’s just that, i feel wrong. and ik he should too.

i guess i'm just confused. one moment he's this funny caring father, the next minute he makes me feel uncomfortable to be around.

if you’re still reading, just wanna express some love <3

-neyu gnuv

#family issues #culture #personal story #father #dad #asian kids #asian #daddy issues #life #family

[arjaandsimoni]

First Day in the Field

A Remote Part of France

The far end of the Roche yard was a hub of activity, like it usually was before a hunt. Harlow and his forces were moving about quickly, making sure their information was getting spread to the right people. With them were Nessa’s security team, the Roche security force technically under her mother’s command proper still but as Nessa grew Ana took more and more of an ‘advisory’ role to let her daughter grow.

“Alright boys and girls look alive!” Harlow called as he walked along the crowd. “This is a big day! Young master Francis will be going on the field for the first time, as will our dear Patli, and that means what?” He asked, grinning his wicked grin as his team called back in unison.

“No fuckups allowed!”

“Damn right!” He chuckled, nodding approvingly. “We also have some freshies with our teams today, hell of a first day newbies. Try not to scare em off, we don’t make our money back on their training until after a couple weeks.”

Indeed, there were new faces in both teams. Despite their intense work the Roche kept their recon and security teams fairly small, quality over quantity and all that. Exclusively recruited from fields with the relevant skills already, picking candidates already somehow aware of ‘the other world’ to avoid wasting time teaching the basics.

Harlow and Nessa both surveyed their groups, each exchanging a bit of a smirk with the other as they easily spotted the new ones. Even those well used to the supernatural could feel overwhelmed on their first Roche mission, especially one as high priority as this.

“Hey, newbie.” Harlow grinned, grabbing the arm of a passing young woman, long black hair tied into a tight bun behind her head, bright green eyes going wide as she was grabbed, body stiffening like a board. “Report in, name and position.”

“Tatyana Ivanov, just joined the recon team, Sir!” She nearly shouted in Harlow’s face, making the man laugh softly.

“Soldier?” He asked with a smirk.

“Yes sir!”

“Great, first thing, don’t ever ‘Sir’ me. I work for a living, save the Sir and Ma’am crap for dealing with the family proper. Good response though. How long have you been doing this kind of work?” He asked, clearly not meaning soldiering.

The woman coughed softly, still not used to talking about these things openly it seemed. “I was raised by my grandmother, Si-... Harlow,” She corrected herself quickly. “She… knew a lot about the old ways, so I always was raised to respect them. Like I said, though, I was in the military… We were doing a scouting mission in the forest and these…” She shuddered, shaking her head to clear it. “We were attacked by creatures not of this world… I was the only one to make it out. When I reported what happened to the command I was told I had a new assignment and… here I am.”

“Must have served under commander Popov, he’s an old family friend. Tends to send us the ones he thinks has potential who get... exposed.”

Tatyana actually straightened up a bit, seemingly bolstered to hear she had ‘potential’.

“Well, welcome to recon.” Harlow continued. “You’re going to see a lot more ‘creatures not of this world.' Keep your head on your shoulders and do as you’re told and you’ll do well. Remember, despite everything weird these are still just recon missions at the end of the day, you were trained for this.”

She nodded, seeming to genuinely take his words to heart before pausing. “Sir… Harlow… a question?”

“Fire away.”

“You said save the sir and ma’am for the family… are you not a Roche? I was told you’re one.”

Harlow smirked softly at that, chuckling and nodding. “Lesson two, careful with curiosity. It’s a good trait for recon, obviously, but ask too many questions you don’t need and you might just get the answer, sure you wanna know?”

Tatyana gulped softly, but nodded.

“Good girl...” he grinned, reaching up to remove his sunglasses to reveal… nothingness, simply two small pools of inky black. A void where his eyes should be. “I’m a Roche, by name, not blood. I’m a changeling that the family adopted.”

“Oh!” The woman said a bit too loudly, blushing faintly. “I was not aware they… I mean I know they had a more liberal relation with the supernatural than most hunters but… I wasn’t aware they adopted them.”

“I’m a bit of a special case. I was taken by the gentry when I was a baby. Raised in Arcadia. I never knew my family, I think I might have been Polish before I was taken but…” He shrugged, putting his sunglasses back on. “I ripped myself out of the hedge still as a child and found myself ‘free’ running right into a Cheron Group outpost.”

“Oh…” she responded in a softer tone that time, clearly aware of them at least.

“Yea… Ryan and Ilsa found me a fucked up kid who’d been bounced from being a fae’s plaything to a lab rat and rather than just cutting me lose with a ‘good luck kid’ like most hunters, they took me home with them. From that day I made a vow… capital ‘V’ Vow, ya know? I promised I’d always protect the Roche family as if they were my own blood, and they made their own to raise me and treat me as if I was no different than any other Roche child.” He smiled softly at that, the normally cocky or teasing young man looking slightly melancholy as he remembered.

“So! That’s why I’m here, making sure you fresh meat don’t fuck up my vow by letting our dear Roche heirs get ganked on the field!” he said, clearly trying to move on from the emotional subject.

“Of course, mister Harlow!” Tatyana smiled, giving him a salute before moving to join the others. She paused, though, looking back. “In Russia we believe the fae aren’t all good or evil, they’re like humans. Some can be cruel and untrustworthy, yes, but others can be noble heroes… It’s nice to see that story is one of the true ones.”

Harlow smiled as he watched the woman go join the rest of the recon team, a rare moment of letting his guard down when he didn’t notice Nessa coming up behind him and slapping his back playfully.

“Nice group of newbies on my end, seems like they’ve got their shit together. You?”

“Yea...” Harlow chuckled, composing himself quickly. “Think mine are gonna make it too.”

The hunt had been carefully selected, a joint effort by the recon and security teams to get the most controlled environment possible.

“Uh, boss, with all due respect… isn’t this kinda… cheating?” One of Nessa’s new recruits asked, a young man with bright red hair combed and gelled neatly, bearing a tattoo on his neck of the RAF. “I mean… not to talk outta ranks and all but this is supposed to be a hunt, right? We’re securing a whole area, making sure there’s just one thing there, practically serving it up on a platter for em…”

“No no, it’s good to ask.” Nessa answered as she motioned for more of her forces to get in position. The field they chose was a nice open one, former farmland now public land. It wasn’t very commonly used, it took a good few weeks for reports of what sounded like a fairly mundane ghost to even filter through to the Roches. It was perfect for a first training hunt.

“This is a learning hunt, not a real one.” she continued. “This is about giving the kids field experience in a safe, controlled, way while still empowering them and making them FEEL like they did something major. As far as the kids are concerned, we do not exist. You and the recon team will remain hidden, only coming out if a threat is present… and even then I expect you try to remove it quietly first. Call it cheap or cheating or whatever... but this lets a pair of, may I remind you, literal children get their feet wet in hunting without running the risk of being ripped in half by a werebear. I’d consider that a good goal, yes?”

The man nodded softly. “Right, apologies ma’am didn’t mean to question things.”

“No, questioning is good, and now that you have your answer I hope that means you’ll be joining the rest of your team covering the south gate to be sure no mortals or unknown factors barge in.” Nessa smirked, patting the man’s chest playfully. “Dismissed, soldier boy, back to work.” He chuckled at that, nodding quickly before jogging to meet with the others, he and his team in civilian clothes, looking like hunters of the mundane sort who had made a small camp near the field to hunt in. It was a fairly common sight in the country, most wouldn’t think anything of it or want to bother them, good cover for them as their trained eyes kept watch for any real threats.

Harlow’s team was more covert in their positions. Having done the heavy lifting of study and scouting only a few remained on the field proper to keep watch, protected by ghillie suits and enchanted tools to make them blend into the field nicely.

Tatyana had chosen a more mundane method. A tree blind, covered carefully to hide the already rather petite woman as she crouched on the blind’s seat for stability. Only a detailed look would reveal the faint gleam of a rifle’s barrel sticking through the strands of the blind.

“Watch out! It’s coming right for them!” A voice called right in her ear, making the woman nearly leap out of her position but thankfully kept from pulling the trigger in her panic at least!

“Nice trigger discipline,” the voice continued in a much calmer tone…Harlow smirking at her playfully as he seemed to be balancing perfectly on a thin branch next to her seat…

“Mister Harlow! That is… you can’t sneak up on someone holding a sniper rifle!” She panted, recovering from her scare.

“No it’s actually very easy to, as I just showed. Tunnel vision, dear. Your entire world was through that scope, which meant you were one giant blindspot everywhere else.” He grinned, grabbing an apple from the nearby branch and biting into it. “Good job not winging Nessa or something though, woulda been awkward to tell Alice.”

“What if I did?!” She asked wide eyed, having not even thought that in that fear a stray bullet could have hit an actual ‘VIP’...

“I mean… then Alice would probably kill you...” Harlow answered casually as he took another bite. “Like I said, good job not.”

“With due respect, Sir...” she said, pointedly using that word this time… "Did you come here just to see if I’d shoot your sister’s girlfriend?”

“No… not JUST, no.” Harlow smirked, hopping down to sit on the branch as he did. “Also came to quiz you. Situation report, go!”

Tatyana rolled her eyes, quickly becoming used to her boss at least… "We’re awaiting the arrival of Lady Roche, young master Roche, and…uh… Patli? I don’t know her title…”

“We call her ‘little shit’ mainly, you’re fine. Continue.”

“Right, their ETA is about ten minutes from now provided good conditions. When they arrive Commander Nessa will meet them, explain the hunt, and she and Alice will supervise the young master and… little shit…”

“Good, good...” Harlow nodded, tossing his apple core over his shoulder, though it turned to dust before hitting the ground. "... and what is the hunt?”

“Locals reported a ghostly figure, not disturbing anything or attacking mortals but scaring local livestock and being… creepy I guess. The description matches a local legend of ‘The Smiling Knight’, a soldier from the Frank and English wars who was known for… obviously… wearing no helmet and always smiling even in the thick of combat. A harmless local legend, no reported dangers or casualties… unless you count English soldiers hundreds of years ago I guess.”

“We do not, serves those tits right.” Harlow teased, nodding. “Good, you’d be shocked how far just reading the briefings will get you. So, let’s try a little past the briefings. Got a ghost, not harmful but probably not great to have just messing around anyway, how would you solve it?”

“Solve it?” She asked, confused by the metaphor.

“Solve it.” Harlow repeated. “Hunts are puzzles. They have solutions, sometimes multiple ones. It’s not always just ‘kill the monster’. How would you solve this one?”

Tatyana thought about that seriously for a moment. “Well, he’s not harming anyone, but like you said it’s likely not GOOD for him to be around… In Russia many believe ghosts that linger too long can be driven mad and if he’s that old he may be at risk of that… Many ghosts have unfinished business, I would see about resolving that, if I can do so peacefully I would hope that would allow him to rest.”

Harlow nodded slowly as she spoke. “Not bad... So a peaceful rest for him, huh? Why? Why does this one deserve that, what’s he done or not done to earn that effort when it’d be easier to just banish him?”

“He was a soldier.” Tatyana answered softly, looking at her own rifle. “He was fighting for his people. Right or wrong, he died among comrades believing he was protecting his home. I don’t know anything about this war, frankly. Maybe he was the aggressor, maybe he doesn’t deserve it, but in his last moments he was far from home facing a foe he likely believed wanted to destroy his homeland and loved ones. He deserves at least a chance to rest peacefully after all that.”

“Deserves a chance, huh?” Harlow smirked, patting the woman’s shoulder. “You’re gonna fit in well here. Ease up a bit, being tense reduces focus.”

The helicopter arrived on schedule perfectly, the two children nearly leaping out before it was even fully grounded. “Easy! This isn’t a school field trip, this is work.” Alice called after them with a smirk as she climbed out, Nessa quickly striding up to meet them. The young hunters were dressed for comfort, Francis in a pair of baggy shorts and a loose shirt, his cane clacking on the ground as he got the lay of the land. Patli was dressed similarly, whistling loudly before taking a deep breath, smelling the air around her. “Ahhh it smells so nice out here!” The girl chirped happily.

“Alright kids, front and center!” Alice called, her and Nessa taking a decidedly more authoritative tone than their usual ones as they watched over the pair. “You are here to study the art of hunting, not sniff the air and pick flowers.” she said, throwing a glance with a smirk to Francis as she heard the boy crouching down to smell a patch of wildflowers. “Nessa?”

“Our job today is a simple spectral sighting...” Nessa picked up the speech, chuckling at her own alliteration. “Locals have seen a ghostly figure matching a legend of ‘The Smiling Knight’, an old figure of local history that seems to be harmless so far.” “Remember.” Alice continued. “We are Roches, not some common glorified mercenary hunter clan.” she grinned, sharing a playful look with Nessa as they both thought of a few examples of those… "Our job and sacred duty to France is to bring ORDER to both worlds, not to DOMINATE.”

“Correct you Roches, save that for the bedroom!” Nessa added ‘helpfully’, making Alice blush slightly and the younger hunters laugh.

“Anyways...” Alice continued, slapping Nessa’s side with her cane lightly. “As I said, we bring order, not dominance. We are hunters, not inherently killers, even of the already dead. Remember that being on the field at this young an age is a privilege, not a right, and one that WILL be revoked if you prove to have not absorbed your lessons deeper than ‘fight monsters and look good.' Are we clear children? We may be your nice big sisters in the house but on the field we are your superior hunters and you will listen to and follow my and Nessa’s commands to the letter or…”

“Archives until pension...” the pair answered in unison.

“Good kids.” Alice grinned.

Soon enough the pair were briefed and sent on their way, the unseen eyes of their family tracking every step as Alice and Nessa remained by the helicopter to allow the kids freedom and to watch their backs. This was meant to be a nice, simple, way for them to learn, but as any veteran hunter knows well even the most simple job can become a trial by fire with only a few strokes of luck.

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#fiction #modern fantasy #supernatural adventures #lgbtq