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sincerelylaurel · 2 years

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writergram and originality: an opinion post

@mywordsricochet on instagram

hi and welcome! recently there’s been a lot of controversy in the writing community, and although i usually don’t post my opinion like this, i feel it’s a little bit necessary right now. i’ve seen hundreds of posts complaining about how the community has changed, and i agree. i’ve been around for over two years, and yes, it has changed. people change, society changes, everything changes over time. and i also agree it hasn’t changed for the better but i do believe it still can. our community isn’t “lost”, it’s just different. anyways, this post was originally going to be about originality in writing and the book market, but i realized that originality in the writing community is (almost) a bigger issue right now (or at least that’s how most people feel). so i’m finally addressing it because it’s affecting all of us.

plagiarism

plagiarism seems to be the biggest issue right now. plagiarism of themes, content, and ideas. first of all, plagiarism is never okay. however, i think plagiarism is a commonly misused word, and people have forgotten what it really is. plagiarism is stealing original work and claiming it as your own. if someone is reposting your content directly *and* claiming it as their own content, that’s plagiarism. if they made a post about the same topic, used the same source as you, used a similar format, etc, that’s usually not plagiarism. we need to distinguish the difference between plagiarism and inspiration.

nothing is original

this statement may upset you but it’s a fact. in the real world, everything is borrowed from something else. there has never been a completely original story. there has never been a completely original song or poem, and so on and so forth. everything is inspired by something else. you can’t create content (which was inspired by something else) and proceed to accuse other people of plagiarizing when really they were only inspired by it. isn’t it a good thing to inspire others?

themes

the number of times i’ve seen people accuse someone of copying their theme is insane. this is what plagiarizing a theme is: taking the exact same set of pictures and using the same format as their posts. this is what plagiarizing is not: using the same idea (for example cottagecore), coincidentally using one or two of the same pictures, or creating a theme that looks similar to someone else’s. if you have a dark academia theme, that doesn’t mean dark academia belongs to you!! you can’t own a color for crying out loud!! even using the same font as someone else is not plagiarism. if you copy their format exactly, then yes, but there are only so many pictures and fonts in the world and everyone was inspired by someone else for themes and content.

the “problem”

there isn’t just one thing that we can call “the problem”. it’s not just this one person or this one post. and no, it’s not just “those people who plagiarize”. i think the main problem is those people who get upset and offended by things they shouldn’t be upset over. falsely accusing someone else of copying your content is creating an incredibly harmful attitude in the community. having all these inaccurate accusations flying around everywhere is anxiety-invoking and worrisome to the rest of the community. moreover, i think we all can work on being more accepting towards others. you don’t need to call other people out all the time. which leads me to my next point ->

opinions

everyone has opinions, and everyone has a right to express their opinions. however, if they disrespect someone else’s existence, that’s not okay. homophobia, misogyny, racism, etc is not acceptable in our community. but most of the time these aren’t the things we get upset over. it’s minor things like which tropes are toxic and problematic (speaking of which, i don’t agree that an entire trope can be problematic. it all depends on how you write it). like i said, we need to be more accepting. opinions are opinions, you don’t have to agree with them, you don’t have to comment something harsh, you don’t have to post your opinions in the first place. if you know it’s an unnecessary opinion, keeping it to yourself helps keep the writing community a safe space for all of us. this is why i usually don’t post opinion posts (although in this case i feel it’s necessary).

in general

obviously i’m not going to call anyone out, but i know some people who copy content to the point of copying the faq highlight which explicitly states not to copy anything, including the faq highlight. like please. and these people are always the ones who make the quickest accusations, complain the most about content plagiarism, etc. i try really hard to remain calm and not say anything when i see these things, but maybe at this point it’s necessary to? i’ve always been one to avoid confrontation and conflict, which explains my “neutral” attitude, if you will. this is why i allow reposts if credited, and even if they don’t, it’s not that big of a deal to me. they liked my content enough to repost it, they usually have good intentions and are simply trying to help other people.

how can we make writergram a more safe and accepting space?

we need to start talking about this more. share ways in which we can make writergram a better place. i don’t know how many of you have noticed, but i’ve watched countless writing accounts leave because they couldn’t take it anymore. they didn’t feel safe anymore, our community became draining and harmful to their mental health. some of these people were my closest friends. the community won’t go back to what it once was, and it won’t fix itself overnight, either, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay like this forever. we each need to work towards this goal as individuals. you can help by: resolving conflicts such as plagiarism quietly without intentionally causing drama, being respectful and accepting of others’ opinions, being supportive of original content, and being a welcoming, accepting, respectful member of the writing community. this includes simple things such as reading people’s info/faq highlight, for example some (most) people don’t appreciate when you ask them for personal information, or randomly dming them and venting about your problems before asking.

in conclusion

in short, i think it’s not so much the plagiarism of content that changed writergram so much, but rather how people react to it. it’s so not necessary to encourage the entire community to hate on one individual because they did something that upset you. please realize the difference between plagiarism and inspiration. please realize the risk of posting your original content on social media, whether it’s a writing tip post or poetry or a wip excerpt. there are a lot of creeps on the internet and you cannot blindly assume that everyone is going to be respectful of your boundaries. you can’t gatekeep ideas; ideas are meant to be spread and expanded upon. be willing to apologize, willing to admit your mistakes, willing to adjust to other people’s boundaries. this is a team effort, and whether or not you think you’re a part of the problem, everyone needs to realize these things. if anything in this post offended you, you can either prove everything i just said by posting a hate comment, or you can be a decent person and respectfully disagree instead :) but nonetheless i hope most of you agree with what i said, i believe in the views i expressed and really hope i accurately conveyed what i meant to say. comments are open for discussion but please keep it respectful. if you got this far, thanks for reading the whole post <3

#writing #writeblr #writing inspiration #writers on tumblr #writing advice #writer #writing techniques #my writing #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

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moonbaby26 · 3 years

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Title: The Man from the Sky

Pairing: Loki x Goddess!Reader

Summary: You were a Greek sea goddess, just enjoying a typical day of nothing when a strange new god dropped into your land.

Warnings: None yet. There is smut in future chapters already written. Will post more soon.

Notes: I’m aware that what we’d think of as ancient Greece well predates who we’d call the vikings and their like cruising around the seas. This doesn’t take place at the height of the Greek pantheon worship, but old enough in human history that some men still believed in both sets of deities.

Chapters: Next Chapter Here

My Masterlist

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You dipped your feet a little deeper into the warm water as it lapped the edges of the rock you sat upon. The sea was calm today, and the wind gentle as the nymphs chatted around you about the usual things. A bit of gossip one had heard from a local river nymph, a new shipwreck one had found, status of a fish migration from another.

You wouldn’t exactly call it boring though, you specifically chose these more remote areas when you came ashore for this very reason. It was so much more unlikely for you to run afoul of mortals here, or even others of your own kind that you may not feel like putting on airs with at this very moment.

It was so quiet in fact, that you were considering getting up to go lay in the sand on the beach in a few minutes and enjoy a nice nap in the sunlight.

That was before the boom which echoed through the air all around you. Somewhat like thunder, but not quite as all the nymphs fell silent.

When nothing came after, you felt all their eyes then turning to you. Their voices piped back up soon enough, though the tones in them changed to all nerves now.

“Do you wish to leave, milady?”

“Could it be Zeus?”

“But it didn’t sound like him.”

“Is there a volcano nearby?”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know what it was, I’ve never heard that sound.” You finally said, though now looking inward to the land. You were at least sure that the sound was not of the sea. But you refused to give in to the nymphs’ skittishness too quickly. And without real reason to leave, eventually you all did start to relax again.

Yet then came the cries. “Goddess, mistress please!” That cry absolutely was from the land as you looked in time to see the river nymph you’d met earlier in the day now running from the tree line and down onto the sands. She stumbled slightly, just before reaching you where the sea met the rocks.

She was panting, clearly having run some distance as she continued. “I’m so glad to still find you here,” She bowed slightly, only because she didn’t know you well enough to realize you didn’t require this.

“What is it?” You asked simply, honestly more curious now than anything else. What could she have seen that would strike her so alarming? Any nymph worth their ilk would know every creature, every natural occurrence, all that existed within their lands.

“There is a man in the forest, he came from the sky!” Yet she continued quickly, sure you would only think of Olympus. “But I do not recognize him as one of your own family. And his clothing, he is not of our territory. This I am sure, my goddess. I watched him only long enough to see that he was very angry. I am afraid of his intentions here.”

A man? But not truly a man. Mortals did not come from the sky.

“An angry god?” You said, now standing as you then stepped down from the rocks. The forest belonged to Artemis truthfully. But being this close to the sea, you thought that the older goddess would forgive you this if it came down to it. She would rather the nymphs be protected you were sure from any childish acts of a god’s wrath that may now come into play here.

You had brought no armor, the possibility of battle so far from your mind when you’d come ashore today. But that didn’t mean you travelled completely defenseless. “Bring me my spear please.” You requested of the sea nymphs.

Though they were still anxious, they responded dutifully, one sinking beneath the waves before reappearing with the glinting weapon in hand. It shone a brilliant silver, sea foam still running off its blue spear tip as she handed it to you out of the water.

“Show me the way, and I will investigate this stranger.” You spoke plainly, hopping down onto the sands as you strode barefoot towards the forest, spear in hand. “We will keep our distance as best we can, we don’t seek conflict, understood?”

“Yes, milady.” You heard, the sea nymphs staying behind you as the river nymph moved in front to lead you upward, the sand transitioning to rocky soil and the sparse vegetation and trees beginning to increase as you climbed the hillside.

For the sea nymphs, you could hear them losing their footing here and there in the loose soil, themselves of course far more adapted to swimming the ocean’s depths at your side rather than hiking up into the forests.

You did hope you were not putting any of them in danger. But if you felt they truly were in harm’s way, you would have no qualms in telling them to retreat back to the water at once.

“Up ahead,” The river nymph whispered to you, pointing towards a clearing you could now see leveling off in the distance. But the opening looked so strange with the density of the other trees now around you.

“Was that always there?” You asked her, knowing something unnatural when you saw it, even when this far from the water.

“No,” She confirmed. “When the sky opened up, it carved out the land as well. He appeared when that force receded.”

“Understood.” You replied, though in truth not really understanding at all as you motioned for all the others to proceed no further. You’d never seen something like this. “I will go alone. If he should attack me, please return to the sea to seek help.”

They fidgeted, looking unhappy but not arguing your choice. “Please be careful, goddess.”

You nodded, but kept on slowly. You tried to remember what you’d been taught as a little girl about stalking and hunting on land. So many moons ago, running through the forests with Artemis and at times Pan, being mentored before returning to the sea to your father, mother, and so many siblings.

But the closer you came, the more you realized that the stranger would likely not notice any sound of light footsteps approaching or ground shifting. As you neared, you saw his form pacing back and forth in the clearing, seemingly cursing to himself in a language that was not your own.

Yet it still sounded familiar. Abruptly you knew where you had heard a dialect like this before. It sounded so much like those voyagers from the northern seas. The ones with their longboats and course beards, sometimes with hair as red as fire as they fished and sang and fought.

And he did look as pale as them as well. But with hair like black of night, and a frame far more slender than the burly mortals you’d seen rowing those northern boats along. And just as the river nymph had warned, his clothing confused you as well. Rich green robe, but with black and gold as well. It was wholly foreign and exotic to you in its styling, as was he.

When she’d said a strange man had arrived, honestly you had also expected someone older in appearance. He looked quite youthful to be honest, even as his brow remained furrowed and his fists clenched at his sides.

And just when you thought his feet may actually cut a path in the earth from his agitated pacing, he finally slowed, then stopped all together.

This is when you froze as well, knowing you now had a decision to make. Should you keep to your hiding, just to hope he should eventually leave in whatever fashion he came? Or should you reveal yourself to question his identity and purpose here?

“Done spying yet, or do you intend to actually do something with that spear?” A cutting voice spoke abruptly to your side, so suddenly that you almost lost your footing, shocked as the same man emerged from behind other trees only feet from you.

But you still saw him in the clearing as well, at least you did momentarily before the image of him there dissolved, leaving only the form now nearest you.

“You speak my language?” Was all you questioned instead of answer him though, as he had said those last words only in your tongue. You also kept focusing on backing away as you chose to keep a safer distance. He was some sort of illusionist at least then, which could escalate the danger here very quickly if he made you lose your bearings.

And he was starting to circle you a bit you realized as he began to walk again. But you willed yourself to keep your spear at a neutral position, rather than aim at him, still not intending to provoke attack if it could be prevented. You had no idea what other strengths he might have, and your primary goal was still to keep the nymphs from getting caught in any crossfire.

“Not all of us are so uneducated,” He snapped back at you, still in your language, though you could detect that foreign accent underneath.

You were not wholly unused to rudeness though, yet it had been a very long time since you could recall being spoken to directly in such a manner. It was more the bickering between others in the palace that you were sometimes forced to be party to. Which was only another reason you often favored the relative isolation of the mortal world.

“You need not be so offended, stranger. I only came to see who had entered our land, and to protect my friends if need be.” You answered as reserved in tone as you could.

“Then you have done your duty, girl, and can now be gone. I came here to be alone. If I was actually intending to plunder this wasteland of nothingness, your little cohort never would have made it back to you to begin with.”

You stared, a little coldness entering your eyes then. So that was what had given you away. He’d already been aware of the river nymph to begin with, and had been waiting for someone to return the entire time while leaving that illusion of himself still in the clearing as distraction.

And he’d actually referred to you as ‘girl’. Did he really think you just one of the nymphs then? It was hard to say if he was intentionally trying to goad you, or if he really was so unfamiliar to not realize you for what you actually were.

You straightened a bit, replying, “Insults to our homeland aside, I will leave you to this quiet then, if you should at least tell me your name. You are clearly not of Olympus, and we still have right to know who it is who traverses into this particular land of mortals which we hold sovereignty over.”

He scoffed, clearly wishing to not speak to you even a moment longer. But in the way his chest puffed slightly, you thought it was only pride then that made him physically incapable of denying his identity.

He actually moved closer to you as well, that agitation still rising further in his voice. “Little fool, you stand before Loki! Son of Odin the Allfather. I am god of mischief, prince of Asgard. Your witless mortals should count their blessings that an Asgardian should ever see fit to even set foot here!”

You didn’t know if you’d been quick enough to mask the true surprise from your face. You had already assumed him a god. But never...never had you actually laid eyes on an Asgardian. They never came to this part of the world as far as you knew. And was he telling the truth? Was he really a son of Odin?

This stranger’s arrogance aside, if he were a child of Odin, you knew your own father would be furious with you if you were intentionally insulting now. Asgard and Olympus had never had the closest ties, but you were not enemies either. Asgard was honored by the mortals of the north, and Olympus still honored by those of the south, though perhaps not quite as much as the true olden days.

It took real will, but you bowed graciously to him in return. “It is an honor to meet you then, Loki, son of Odin.” As you straightened up, in his eyes you could see he was trying to judge you as sincere or not. But you just continued smoothly. “As promised, I shall leave you to your thoughts then. But I would be unmannered to not offer my assistance should you need a hostess in your time here as a guest in our land. My name is (Y/N), daughter of-”

You hesitated only the briefest moment, “of the sea,” is what you decided on though. Unlike Loki, you preferred a little anonymity with strangers. You didn’t wish to be targeted just for your lineage.

And with that, you turned, beginning to walk back towards the beach, even as you finished talking. “If you should need me, you need only find the sea’s edge and call for me. One of our creatures will hear you soon enough and seek me out.”

But some odd part of you regretted not being able to see his expression as you left. You wondered if you only would have seen more disdain and condescension at your offer.

Regardless, he said nothing else and soon enough you were back on the sand, the nymphs chittering in a mix of horror and awe around you.

“Who does he think he is, speaking to you that way!?”

“Do you really think he’s of Asgard? Shouldn’t we alert your father?”

“Why would he even come here? He seemed so bitter. Do you think they cast him out?”

“I’d cast him out, with a dirty attitude like that!”

You looked to the horizon, just taking a breath. “I don’t think we need to rush and tell my father just yet. But I do know where I want to go now.” You looked to the river nymph briefly though, “Please have those in the forest keep a distant eye on him. Should he leave or do anything else of note, please let us know.”

You glanced back to the sea nymphs then. “The rest of you return to the oceans. I’m going to Olympus, to the libraries there. I want to find out more about Asgard, to see if he is who he says he is. I’ll return to the water soon.”

They all nodded, “Yes, milady. Please let us know what you find!”

“I will,” you agreed, just watching them dissolve back into the waves.

Were you excited perhaps? Or just very curious? Nothing interesting in this way had happened in ages. You were determined to learn all you could on this new arrival.

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The Olympians had been a little surprised to see you gracing the halls there. So many of your cousins had dropped in time and again to say hello, curious themselves of why you were out of the water this long and seemingly such a bookworm all of the sudden.

And you did read for days. All you could find on Asgard, on Odin, the Norse mortals, and their language. You found record that Odin had born two sons, honestly an oddly low number you thought in comparison to the many children of your own kings.

But there in these tomes, were those two names, Thor and Loki. Thor, god of thunder, amusing of course in comparison to Zeus, king of all, including lightning. But also Loki, god of mischief, just as he’d said.

You were surprised, but enthralled as you actually found a drawing of Loki within the book. Though not completely accurate you thought, you still recognized that type of clothing. The green and gold, and the pale skin and black hair with his icy blue eyes. You tilted your head a little, looking at the gold helmet he wore in the artist’s depiction, with long horns curving from it like those of a great beast.

Was he really a beast? Or just a too arrogant manchild? And why did you increasingly wish to find out?

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(Continued in next chapter here)

#loki x reader #loki fanfic #loki imagine #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #loki #loki fluff #loki fandom #marvel fic #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki x oc #loki x original female character #loki layfeyson imagine #loki layfeyson x reader

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lazyliars · 3 years

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The Quackity Meta: a Tale of Two Absolutes

More than anything else, Quackity wants control, and to never, ever lose his own autonomy. And that is why he despises Technoblade.

But wait, how is Technoblade a threat to Quackity's autonomy? Techno is all for individual freedom! He wants to eradicate the government so that no one can be controlled!

There's the question though... How do people exercise control within the framework of a video game like m/inec/raft?

“a person exercising power or control in a cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary way.”

Power on the Dream SMP cannot be translated one-to-one with real life power. In real life, yes, a government had infinitely more power than an individual, for numerous reasons. But on the Dream SMP, the government's power is always directly tied to the power of the individuals who are willing to defend that power.

Technoblade is powerful. This is not debatable. How he uses this power, historically, has been a mix of generosity and self-interest*, although primarily the latter.

Generously, He gains resources and then distributes them to his allies during the Pogtopia Rebellion, gearing everyone up and giving them a fighting chance against Dream. However, in the aftermath of Tubbo's being appointed president, Techno turns on them, swiftly and mercilessly. The moment that it becomes clear** that Pogtopia's interests don't align with his own, he crushes them with the aim to prevent them from ever recovering.

( *I use self-interest as a neutral term here. Everyone on the SMP is selfish to some extent – it doesn't make them evil, and in fact has been treated as a positive at times, as well as a negative.

**I want to note that whether or not Technoblade knew of Pogtopia's goal of reinstating the government is unclear. It would seem that from Techno's POV that he didn't know, or assumed that it was a minority who wanted another government. But on the other hand, no one was actively lying to him about their intent, and people like Tommy and Quackity made their goals very clear. Further doubt is cast on the idea that Techno had no idea when you take into account that he enchanted the Netherite armor in the vault with worthless enchants like Fire Res.

Ultimately, there's no way to know until it is confirmed by cc!Techno himself, and it doesn't pertain that much to this analysis, but I'm aware that it's a hotly debated topic so I wanted to address it.)

It can be argued that Techno's destruction of L'manberg, both the first and especially the second time, was necessary. It can also be argued that it was cruel and a disproportionate retribution against both culpable and innocent parties. Extant of these arguments however, how does it feature into control?

Well, we can’t talk about control without mentioning the most controlling force on the server and the other person on Quackity's hitlist, Dream.

Dream is a tyrant. I don't think anyone can really make an argument against that in good faith at this point. He ticks off every box, no matter how vague or esoteric. This makes the interactions that Quackity and Techno have with him very interesting.

Quackity despises Dream. He's one of the earliest adopters of the hating-Dream-train, to the point that some people have compared him to Cassandra, a priestess who was cursed with the vision of prophecies that would always be true, but never believed. And indeed, Quackity's apprehension of Dream comes in as early as Pogtopia, and grows at a steady pace after the fact.

But despite his rightfully calling out Dream's hypocrisies and his controlling tendencies, Quackity was largely ignored on this front, especially when the time came to exile Tommy and Quackity basically predicted the next arc – If they gave Dream this concession, they would never be able to get out from under his thumb. Flash forwards to the Green Festival, and the moment Tubbo hands over the discs, any illusion of nicety drops and Dream proceeds to destroy them, side by side with...

Technoblade has always had an amiable relationship with Dream. From their first proper interaction on the server being Dream giving Techno some hefty resources, to their snap team-up on Doomsday, they've had a smooth time, with some notable bumps.

Techno fought against Dream during the Pogtopia rebellion, but when it became clear that Dream was more invested in chaos than his other allies, Techno temporarily allied with him to summon the Withers and drive the nail deeper into Manberg’s coffin.

The only time Techno has really bothered to challenge Dream directly is when he came for Tommy in exile. Techno went to great lengths to protect Tommy, hiding him and distracting Dream.

He did give Dream the option to call in his favor and take Tommy, but there are arguments to be made that he did this more as a challenge – that Tommy is worth the favor. Again, we probably wont ever know.

The difference in their relationships with Dream is polarizing. It also reflects the difference in personality – Quackity is an aggressive, ambitious person, whereas Techno leans more towards passivity and caution. Quackity is looking for enemies to challenge, where Techno is avoiding them, people who actually stand a chance against him most of all.

Technoblade is an individual with extraordinary amounts of power. Others have pointed out that he is rarely challenged by other characters or the narrative, and regardless of the merits or flaws in that, it paints him as nearly untouchable. His being in the good graces of Dream only adds to this.

And like with Dream, the only way that people have been able to threaten Techno is when they work together. The Butcher Army, for all it's flaws, managed to capture Techno through numbers – with Tubbo and Fundy (barely) holding off Techno's blood rage while Quackity snuck off to take Carl hostage. And they would have gotten away with it too, if the other most powerful person on the server hadn't stepped in – both by pointing Techno to a totem of undying in the days before the attack, and by getting Punz to cause a distraction and directing Techno to the final control room, where he could escape with Carl.

So, if the most powerful person in the world can only be threatened by people working together, and the most common form of organization is by government, then what does it say about Technoblade, who wants the government destroyed?

People like Tubbo, Fundy and yes, Quackity, all benefit from organizing and working together. They all tend to be less armed, less ready to defend themselves, and completely unable to stand up to titans like Techno and Dream on their own. It's safety in numbers, but it's also control, and control is power.

Ranboo's insistence that Snowchester is a Government is interesting when viewed through this lens. Ranboo is another person who is insanely rich, and able to defend himself and his belongings consistently. Ranboo doesn't need other people to defend him – he's living with Techno and Phil not out of necessity for his survival, but out of need for connection with others.

This seems to be the main difference he finds with Snowchester, which has a more structured environment, geared to defend itself and it's people, if harm should come their way.

Which makes sense, considering it's founder, Tubbo, holds no earthly belongings, and Jack, another prominent member, has made a character trait out of losing his things every other day. The two of them have no conceivable way to defend themselves against people who are stronger than they are. But together, holding the keys to nuclear armaments, they can suddenly play on the field of gods.

The anarchist commune, despite having all members working together and being on good terms, aren't really an organization, they're individuals with common goals and interests. They don't need to live together to be strong, they're all already strong, they choose to be near each other because they want to.

Snowchester is not a government and has no ruler, but together, it's members hold power. They have sway in the world when they work as a collective, and most members have a vested interest in keeping themselves and each other defended because of this. Consequently, the “identity” of Snowchester becomes more prominent, resulting in the flag, the uniforms and the, well, identity.

(Now, the more perceptive among you might have noticed that I basically just compared Techno Phil and Ranboo to the ultra rich 1%, which. Um. Is a pretty serious comparison to make about in a block game rp?

And I wanna say that I don’t think this was necessarily intentional on the parts of either the CCs or the characters, and beyond that, it’s just one way of examining the text. This analysis is by no means the “Right” way to view the story, just a different one.

Regardless...)

Techno uses his considerable power to further his own goals, first and foremost. This is not inherently good or evil, it just is.

Contrast with New L'manberg's cabinet; Four people, pooling their limited power to further their shared goals. Not good or evil, just a way of exercising power.

But power is not static. Power is fluid and changing, moreso now on the SMP than ever before, and Quackity and Technoblade are fighting to define what Power means going forwards.

Techno is fighting for the status quo, knowingly or not. Individuals with power should lead the world, and those without should strive to emulate their betters. He destroys all forms of government, which strip away the rights of the individual in exchange for hierarchy and consolidated power within that hierarchy.

At it's best, this is a very freeing ideology, where nothing and no one can hold back the individual. The world is your oyster if you are willing to work for it.

But at it's worst? “Violence is the only universal language,” is the key phrase. Where does this ideology leave people who aren't strong? Where does it leave those who cannot fend for themselves? If Violence is the only universal language, then the weak have no means to speak.

Quackity is fighting to get a foothold for a contrary ideology – One that prioritizes words over violence and offers alternative methods of gaining and exercising control, such as through currency and conversation. Quackity has tried to varying degrees of success to implement this on the level of his own individual power, such as during the elections, but his attempts at employing this on a grand scale have all been short-lived.

At it's best, this ideology can uplift anyone, regardless of their strength. It encourages more communication, more commerce, and thrives under, you guessed it, strong government.

At it's worst however, it creates a brutally controlling environment. Where a few people gain absurd amounts of power through the complex machinations of a fiat currency, and are then able to use their sway and influence with governing forces to exercise power that they would never be able to hold on their own.

Again, neither of these ideologies are inherently good or evil. They both have flaws and benefits, and benefit no one more than perhaps Techno and Quackity respectively, while hindering the other.

Techno is benefited by anarchy because he holds incredible amounts of individual power. He is the strongest person on the server, he is rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and on a meta level, he's straight up good at the game. The current status quo puts him firmly at the top of the food chain, and this is most obvious on Doomsday, when he and the other two most powerful individuals (Dream and Philza) come together and crush the combined forces of New L'manberg. They are not meaningfully challenged in any way, whatsoever.

Meanwhile, Quackity is deeply hindered by the current status quo. He's not strong, he's poor, and he's vulnerable to anyone who wants to bully him with brute force. On a meta level, cc!Quackity just straight up does not play m/inecraf/t as much as some of the other people that on the server. (To be clear, I do not mention that as a criticism, just to contrast Techno. Neither of their levels of play are better or worse for content, they just add to the experience differently.)

On the other hand, in a government? Quackity “Law Student” HQ is suddenly on top. He's charismatic enough to debate with Wilbur “Can Talk His Way out of Anything” Soot during the elections, and come out of that arena smelling like roses. Back during the days of El Rapids, Quackity held his men back from conflict with Dream, and talked him into a corner of technical truths where Dream had to concede that he viewed El Rapids as an independent nation if he wanted to get involved with their conflicts.

And Techno, while he is brilliant and an English Major, suddenly loses a lot of his intimidation factor if he has to respect laws preventing brutal murder. Techno can certainly debate, but his go to conflict resolution is usually violence, and if you take that away, you take away the threat of challenging him. Because make no mistake, challenging Technoblade right now? Is suicide.

And this duality, this grey morality and clash of ideals, is why Quackity is my favorite character on the SMP. He isn't strong. The power he holds is tenuous and balanced on a knife's edge. It would make more sense for him to stay quiet, keep his head down, and if anything, try to change things from the shadows, where he'll be in the least danger.

But he isn't quiet. He doesn't just challenge authority, he challenges the authority; Dream, Wilbur, and of course, Technoblade.

And in all but one of those matches, he's come out with a concession from his enemy gripped between his teeth. He schooled Wilbur in the debates. He forced Dream to grant El Rapids Independence at a time when he hadn't done so for New L'manberg.

But he failed miserably when he challenged Technoblade. Quackity lost that fight in the final control room before it began. He lost the moment he formed the Butcher Army. He would have lost if he managed to kill Technoblade, and he lost still when he died.

He lost because he conceded that the only way to achieve his goal was through violence. He decided that the only way to establish himself and New L'manberg as powerful? Was to kill Technoblade. And he lost that fight and he always will. There was never a way that he walked out of that fight with the victory; Quackity lost the ideological battle long ago.

But not the war.

As of writing this, Quackity is in the process of introducing an economy to the Dream SMP, on Sam's initiative. There is no action I can think of that is wiser for him to take right now. Now, when Dream has been deposed and there's a vacuum in power; Now, when people are getting tired of endless violence and the loss it brings; Now, when people are looking for something new.

An economy is a direct challenge to Might Makes Right. Trading, supply and demand, politics. It offers a new way for people to obtain resources and a direct alternative to brute force; other methods to pay for slights and breaches of honor and etiquette. No more will pet wars be fought with iron swords and shields, but with money! A healthy sum of cash for the murder of Fungi!

If Quackity can get this system off the ground (and with Sam's help, he definitely can,) the stage would suddenly be tilted in the favor of not just Quackity, but the people who he has associated himself with most closely – Tommy, Fundy, even Schlatt. They're all business men, all scammers. This could be Quackity's world, and he's damn well intending for everyone to live in it.

We’ll have to see what Techno thinks of this - Quackity hasn’t made any moves to start another government, and an economy doesn’t inherently contradict anarchy. But it does hold a potential threat to Techno’s current power.

And as for Quackity? What will he do once he’s at the top? Will he finally become a true tyrant? Will he usher in a new age of equality and justice? Or will he eschew all of that in favor of personal riches. For once, the cards are in Quackity's favor, and we might get the chance to see what he does when he holds real power.

#Dream SMP #Quackity #Technoblade #Ranboo #Dreamwastaken #Dream SMP analysis #lazytext #long post #its done its done i did it its done #ive been working on this for THREE WEEKS #THREE WEEKS OF CHECKING VODS AND WIKIS AND AAAAAAAAAAAAA #If theres typos I DONT CARE #I LIVE MY LIFE AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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adiabolikpastel · 3 years

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Title: Nineteen Nuptials

Rating: PG

Word Count: 1,630

ღ Written for Yuuki’s birthday. Marking three years in the Sakamaki's care. Worried about the future, Yuuki tries to cope with the fears inside. While Kanato is never the most comforting, perhaps on this special night he can calm Yuuki's mind. ღ

Mun Yu: It may not be perfect, but I am so happy that I got this done in time! Please enjoy this turning point in the Kanuki ship!

☆+ ﾟ .+ .ﾟ.ﾟ｡ﾟ｡. +ﾟ｡ﾟ.ﾟ｡☆*｡｡ . ｡ o .｡ﾟ｡.o｡* ｡ .｡

The night was cool and crisp. Somewhat reminiscent of an evening in autumn, even though it was only June. School had been finished for some months now. With this past graduation, there was no one left attending school. Despite this, the Sakamaki manor was still rather quiet. Without school to occupy their time, everyone simply found something else to do.

Reiji had taken to spending time in the Demon Realm. He wanted to further his understanding of life there, planning to make the move one day. Leaving Rika (@silencieux-aube) to pursue her own career goals, though it was not as though they were always apart. Shu would join him on occasion. Surprisingly enough, once the two of them had finished school, they started to interact more. Though it was mostly still arguing, there seem to be this understanding of the future between the two - everyone else did not understand.

Ayato had all but moved out. Most of his time was spent out with Yuko (@pureblood-prey), though that was not surprising. The two of them had been together for a long time as well, and it was only natural for thing to continue to progress. After all, Yuko had long since graduated and was on her way to becoming a respectable Police Officer – despite her delinquent lover.

Laito had moved out the moment he graduated high school, and had been out of the house for about four months now. Yuki went along with him, to everyone’s surprise. They hadn’t really been back to see anyone, but perhaps that is because Laito wanted a clean break from the family. Every now and then he would reach out via text or upload a photo on social media.

Subaru was still around, he and Akumu made their day to day routines quite known. With it not being too long after graduation, Subaru was getting used to living his life for his own reasons. This was a rough topic for the youngest Sakamaki, but thankfully he had Akumu to help. Since Shu no longer needed him, Akumu was able to strictly focus on Subaru.

Which left Kanato and Yuuki, who were taking total advantage of Yuuki’s freedom from school. Unbothered by the ideas of the future, the two of them spent their days enjoying themselves. For the past four months they had done nothing truly productive. Kanato had even refused to go to any further schooling until Yuuki was finished with high school. Even now the talks of what to do next never really came up for the two of them. Though, inside, Yuuki was curious about their future.

What was it that Kanato wanted with her? Was there even a possibility for them to have a real future? As her birthday approached, Yuuki felt herself worrying more about her increasing age. While she would continue to grow, Kanato would stay young. What if she grows too old and he leaves her? Would there be a time when he would want to change her? Does that mean that they would be married? What does it really mean to be long term dating an immortal creature?

On the night of her Birthday, Yuuki stood in the drawing room, looking out at the setting sun. It had been now three years since she first came to live here. On instinct she began to reach up to her neck, searching to the choker from her mother, but stopped as she remembered it was long gone. How could she be so okay with all of this? After all, her mother died the day she was taken. Her birthday was nothing but the anniversary of it, and yet… she couldn’t truly bring herself to be sad.

Her mother had been such a kind woman. Always telling Yuuki to find the good in other people, no matter how awful their actions. Though through the years, it was hard to recall just what her mother’s voice sounded like. Even her initial anger towards her murder had started to fade, at least for that reason. Just what was it about these years that caused her to change so much? There was now this, disconnect from the world, which she couldn’t quite explain. Past or Future. It didn’t seem to matter if it wasn’t about –

“What are you doing?” Kanato’s voice stirred her from thought. His sleepy form stood in the door way, Teddy clenched in his arms, as he wipes the sleep form his eyes.

Yuuki looked at her keeper. This monster, whom had captivated her life – her being – for the past three years. Her every thought and dream, were about him. There wasn’t a moment that passed where a vision on him did not cross her mind. “You’re awake, Kanato-san.” She smiles, abandoning her spot by the window to move towards him.

“It’s too early… why would you be… oh…” Kanato stops as something seemed to click in his mind. “It’s tonight right… you are expected me to have something prepared?” He glares at the girl, the nerve of her, to think that he would waste time.

Yuuki shakes her head and simply walks over, moving to take one of Kanato’s hands, “Of course not, Kanato-san. My greatest gift is you after all, right?”

Kanato is visibly thrown off by her answer, a deep blush spreading on his face. “… Cheeky… I suppose I could be persuaded to do something special for you. Ah, but nothing stupid like you did before.”

Yuuki thinks for a moment, “… Kanato-san… do you think we could… just talk for a while?”

He looks down at his human, annoyed, “Again with these stupid request.” He takes his hand from her grasp and turns in a huff. “If that is all you truly require of me, I can spoil you a little.”

Yuuki smile and thanks Kanato. The two go back to their room, where Yuuki proceeds to talk with Kanato about her recent fears. Of him growing tired of her. Of age continuing to separate them. Her desire to be with him for eternity. Kanato mostly allowed for her to talk, having little to say in response. When it felt like she was done, he simply sat for a moment.

“Um… Kanato-san…? I… sorry if this all is catching you off guard I just… we’re finally at this point and I…” Yuuki hadn’t meant to get emotional, but she could feel tears start to sting her eyes. “I just… I don’t want to be without you and if… you ever got tired of me … or if I got too old - I…”

Kanato allowed Yuuki to cry for a while on her own. These were all things he had never thought about, yet here she was worrying over it. To a vampire, the idea of time is lost. Kanato has no sense of urgency, no need to worry about growing too old. So of course he would never trouble himself thinking of them in the case of his doll, whom he simply assumed would always stay the same. However, that wasn’t the case. From when she arrived till now, Yuuki had already changed, while he stayed the same.

Yuuki cried softly for a while, and the more she did, the worse she felt. Didn’t Kanato even care? Was he just waiting for her to stop? Why wasn’t he saying anything? The fear of his rejection was swelling inside, and Yuuki couldn’t bare it any longer. “Please say something Kanato-san! If you hate me so much then-“

Before she could finish her outburst, Yuuki felt herself moving against her will. The room shifted as she felt the soft plush of the bed against her back. Her eyes searched the room to see what happened, but ended looking upward. Kanato was looming over her, his head down, hiding his eyes from hers. She looked up at him, wondering if this was it. This was the moment he decided to be finished with her. Too needy. Too old. Accepting her fate, Yuuki simply musters a smile. She loved Kanato with all her being, if this was to be the end, at least it would be by his hands.

However, Kanato made no moves to harm her. In fact, Yuuki could feel soft trembles on against her shoulder where Kanato held her. Then, sudden drops of water fell into her face. “… You just decide that on your own?” His voice was tumbling, “All of these thoughts… why is it that I must think them!?”

Yuuki still could not see Kanato’s eyes, but she could tell that he was crying. Not like the usually does for attention. “Kanato-san-“

“You are my doll! I decided what becomes of you! Why do you worry about these things!? I have chosen you! Your life is not something you get to decided anymore!” Kanato finally lifts his head to look down at her eyes. His tone was stern but his expression was full of sadness. “You cannot think of leaving me! Not even think of me leaving you! You are my doll!” He yells.

Yuuki looks up at him. The millions of thoughts that once raced through her mind, now fell silent. With the biggest smile she nods happily, “You’re right! Kanato-san… I’m yours forever.” She laughs a little, still feeling like she could cry, but for a different reason.

The future may not be spelled out, but it didn’t need to be. Yuuki would be able to live her life, how ever Kanato saw fit her to. There was no need to worry about aging, schooling, or anything a normal human would. She belonged to a vampire. Her future was in his hands, there was no need to worry about where that might lead. For every path, led directly to Kanato.

#writing #kanuki #yuuki koishikawa #19th birthday

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muthaz-rapapa · 3 years

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HealPre Final Review: Not terrible but not entirely laudable either...

*sigh* Where do I start?

Well, one thing I’m pretty sure of is that COVID definitely affected production somehow. By that, I don’t just mean the show needing to go on hiatus, resulting in a shorter run compared to previous seasons. I’m also talking about any possible changes that might’ve been made to the original narrative, if there was one.

Much like how Suite’s story had to be altered in the wake of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster, I believe Heal underwent a similar treatment in response to the pandemic becoming more widespread as 2020 went on.

Especially since it dealt with health and nature, HealPre is probably the season that has come the closest in relevancy to real life events.

Frankly, that can be quite scary because this virus was and is still a fucking nightmare on a massive global scale. From that view, I can understand why the writers/producers would be concerned of the anime hitting too near home. At least for their main demographic’s (children) sake, maybe they were compelled to shift to something lighter and less edgier so that the kids could find some comfort and enjoyment in the midst of the world’s current crisis.

So I can’t fault Toei for that, if that’s really the case. Going through a pandemic is terrifying, infuriating and exhausting and UGH. We could use something that can help ease our worries or momentarily distract us even a little bit.

Though would it have killed them to dedicate one episode to the importance of wearing a mask or washing hands? (-_- ;;)

HOWEVER! Seeing as I am not a fragile child, I’ve still got several (oho~) criticisms to air out before I put this season behind me. This review isn’t particularly scathing but...there is a lot of discontent so you’ve been forewarned.

But first, let’s tediously review what structure means in Precure.

We all know that there are certain things that will forever (?) remain fixed in the series formula.

The plot is always going to be “magical girls fight evil doers threatening to ruin the world”.

There are plot points to indicate story progression but in reality, are put there to correspond with toy releases which are usually marked by these five: introductions, first power up, midseason Cure, second power up, and build-up to the climax + finale.

There is usually a specific message (a theme) to be told with every season and motifs (narrative tools) to aid in getting that across. For HealPre, the theme is “living is fighting” and its motifs are “health” and “nature”.

I left out “animals” b/c 1) it didn’t hold as much significance as the other two did, 2) animals are part of nature anyway and 3) let’s be real, it’s just a synonym for “mascots” which we already get every year. :P

Right. I’m probably forgetting something but for the most part, these are immovable pillars of Precure.

Story, on the other hand, has more variables you can work with.

Story is how you tell the plot, how you convey the message.

Precure, as a tv series, is unarguably carried by its main stars, the Cures. So it only makes sense that a huge percentage of a season’s success owes itself to how much of an impact its characters had on the audience as well as how effective their individual story arcs were as sub-plots tying back to the bigger picture (the message/theme).

Ideally, these arcs would shine the brightest in the filler episodes, where the plot (“good guys vs. bad guys”) is less of a focus so there is more space for personal development and growth.

Also, not all character arcs have to be directly related to the plot but they ought to be written well in order to support the overarching message (the theme).

Now, has HealPre done that? Has each girl’s story demonstrated a good example of what “living is fighting” means?

...nnnnnnyyeeee... look, even I can’t give a straightforward answer on that because while technically they did, by virtue of Nodoka’s observance in ep 44 recounting it as such, there’s also actually not enough to make it feel substantial from a viewer’s standpoint.

At least, that’s what I thought while watching HealPre.

With the exception of Nodoka’s, there was a lot of saying but not much doing to convincingly back the other girls’ arcs up. The fillers themselves were very weak, loosely composed in relation to the motifs and, if I may be so blunt, downright boring that if Nodoka didn’t phrase those episodes as things that counted towards the theme, I probably would put up more of a fight on disagreeing. so shoot me, I’m soft for her :P

And I know that sounds confusing right now but I will elaborate as I continue.

Before that though, to be utterly fair, some seasons keep their respective themes shrouded in vagueness until they’re given a more concrete form in words around the finale. So it’s not like we can do much except make educated guesses on what they really are. Most of the time, we’re just measuring everything against our perception of a standard in the fog. Or maybe that’s just me?

Nevertheless, you can just tell, y’know? By simply watching and observing the whole show, you can tell if the characterization, the development, and the outcome (essentially the content given) really live up to what the season claims is endgame.

So let’s go through that first then. The characters, starting with our lead Cure...

Nodoka being the only Cure in her team to have an arc deserving of the praise “exceptional” should come as a surprise to no one.

She was the most solid in terms of direction on how her story was going to proceed. Out of all the girls, her journey had the greatest connection to the subject “health”, repeatedly delved into it every time the spotlight was on her and fulfilled everything it seemed to promise from her debut in episode 1.

Her struggles on the road to recovery from a long-term illness and the strength she’s drawn from that traumatizing experience as well as her time as Precure did more than establish her as the strongest character in HealPre.

She has also rose to become one of the most memorable Pink Cures in the entire franchise (personally, I rank her in the top 5).

And it’s not hard to see why she’s earned such high regard in a lot of fans’ hearts.

The writers clearly worked a lot on her character composition to the point where she can pretty much embody the theme of “living is fighting” all on her own.

She came into HealPre fresh out of the hospital and full of earnest desire to make the most of her newfound freedom but she also wasn’t without knowledge on what hardship is. From there, she only got stronger, even when she was stumbling and trying to figure things out along the way. She grew more fortified in her beliefs on what it means to be truly live a healthy life.

She bravely defied the ones who attempted to take advantage of her and twist her cause against her. And she learned that taking care of herself is equally as important as wanting others to be safe from harm.

It was never about winning or coming out on top. It was about protecting a fundamental yet precious truth. That one thing any decent human being should never have to concede: the right to live well.

Honestly, Nodoka is absolutely inspiring all around, as a fictional character, a heroine and a normal everyday person.

Everything about her arc went satisfyingly right like it was meant to and the best thing is, we don’t need to question it because we saw how it all happened with our very own eyes.

I sincerely wished I could say the same for the others but sadly, they were just too flawed.

And Pegitan can throw flippers with me all day if he wants but as undeniable as the above statements are about Chiyu, her arc failed to leap over the increasingly mounting disappointment I had with every episode that’s been assigned solely to her.

Two of which weren’t even about Chiyu. One centered on Pegitan’s admiration for his partner and the other focused on her brother, Touji. Which, while nice to give to supporting/secondary characters, is a fat waste of valuable screentime and not what I’m here for.

It also didn’t help that the conflict of her arc (the indecision over choosing between two dreams) started really late in the game and was resolved so quickly within two episodes. There was no time for me to get invested into it, there was no powerful sense of conviction like how Go!Pri or Hugtto handled theirs and really, it just felt like Chiyu was only following what the script dictated for her rather than genuinely awakening to her own competitive passion towards track and field.

It was almost like it didn’t matter. Almost as if the writers procrastinated in thinking up something worthwhile to further her development...but then settled on grabbing an old idea off the shelf without refining it to suit Chiyu when they ran out of time.

This happened similarly with Minami in Go!Pri and Elena in StarPre, both of whom left me angry at how their arcs were executed. Yet theirs don’t compare to how pissed off I am about Chiyu’s. Because while Minami’s took a while to arrive, it wasn’t done poorly and linked back to Go!Pri’s theme well enough. And while Elena’s was over crammed last minute, at least it was unique to her character and had lots of potential ways to play out if they actually started it earlier on in StarPre.

Chiyu’s arc is like a discount version of the former with hardly any of the intriguing qualities of the latter. Sure, she had two early episodes that laid out the two most important aspects of her life (her family inn and her dedication to her sport) but after that, they weren’t brought up again until we were only weeks away from the ending. Y’know, just to fill up episode slots and meet the minimal requirement of saying they did give Chiyu some issue to resolve.

It was not engaging at all.

Furthermore, the fact that her arc had very little to no relation with either “health” or “nature” hurt my appreciation of her character somewhat. I just...don’t think her kind of story really matches with the central topics of HealPre?

...but maybe I’m being bitter about this all wrong and that’s screwing up my rational thinking on this matter.

Because Chiyu’s arc is valid under the logic of the overall theme, I would never say it isn’t. And again, character arcs don’t have to be close to the plot nor is it necessary to employ the “suffering builds character” method to make them interesting.

Chiyu always does her best every day. That’s sufficient argument on why her story does fit within the frame of HealPre’s premise.

Guess I’ll just have to wrangle my resistance into acceptance somehow.

...still, her arc could’ve been done so much better than what we were given. Chiyu at least deserved that much.

Next, Hinata.

Since the beginning, I knew she was gonna be runner-up to Nodoka for having the (for lack of better term atm) “best” arc because it was heavily implied that she has ADHD and therefore, immediately checked off the “health” trait. She was even more obvious about it than Nozomi was.

Difficulty paying attention, hyperactivity, impulsiveness. Hinata didn’t just display all those signs, she also showed how hard it was for her to deal with the downsides to them on a regular basis.

She kept apologizing and put herself down excessively for inconveniencing her friends even though they never blamed her for her condition. Got them annoyed a few times, yes, but didn’t stop them from staying friends with her and definitely didn’t make them hate her either.

Everybody was understanding of Hinata...except Hinata because she always took her failures to heart and considered quitting several times to avoid the crushing dejection of making mistakes over and over again.

She got better, though, and no one could have summed it up more heartwarmingly than Nyatoran with the encouraging words he gave her at the conclusion of her arc.

But it still feels like there’s a huge chunk of development missing between the start and finish. Or rather, it seemed like all of it occurred offscreen and we were only informed later that it did in fact, happen.

To recap, iirc, Hinata had around 5 episodes that focused on her (ep 9, 13, 23, 35 and 40). Ep 18 doesn’t count because that was a Nyatoran-centric filler more than anything.

Ep 9 and 13 did their jobs of introducing and highlighting the details of Hinata’s troubles while also suggesting she will eventually learn to overcome her insecurities. The ones after, though? They pushed those issues to the backseat.

In Ep 23, she had to share the (uneven) spotlight with Asumi. Hinata’s improvements were briefly mentioned but the majority of the ep went to teaching Asumi what “cute” meant and how to get along with puppies. I mean, I get that Asumi recently joined the group and bonding with her was mandatory by tradition. But since each Cure only gets a limited number of eps to herself, it would’ve been more beneficial for Hinata if she didn’t have to split screentime with someone else’s growth schedule.

Ep 35 is slightly better but not by a whole lot. Sure, Natasha was able to reconcile with Elizabeth which was very sweet and heck, it was the goal for that episode. But again, nothing was really done or addressed about Hinata’s main conflict. She tossed it back with the rest of her homework to deal with later. ahaha, a TroPre hint

Then ep 40 came to formally close the curtains on her story and apparently, Hinata screwed up lots of times since...whenever but she picked herself up every time after and kept on trying. Awesome. So WHY didn’t we get to see that?

I’m not asking for the impossible here. I’m not asking for Hinata to be cured or anything miraculous like that. There is treatment available for ADHD but it is not curable.

Also, forcing Hinata to find a way to get better at studying, the thing she struggles with the most, is not the solution either because that would only make her more stressed and anxious over her own disorder.

What I want is to see how she moved from wailing “I can’t do it! I don’t wanna! I’m so scared of failing so why bother?!” to determinedly declaring “So what if I failed 1 or 100 times? So what if I fail another 1000 times? What matters is that I don’t let that stop me!”

That confidence is not something that can be built up overnight. It’s gradual and it takes numerous tries to reach from where Hinata was to where Hinata is now.

Telling me she grew emotionally stronger can only allow me to believe so much. I need to actually witness the changes as well.

If it weren’t for that, Hinata’s arc would have been a lot more impressive. Shame.

Finally............... Asumi.

Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi... *sighs & drums fingers*

...she has no arc, ok? Seriously, what story is there to speak of, much less write a hefty analysis on?

A spirit born for the sake of Latte who just went along with the Precure ride because Latte didn’t want to abandon her duty. She made friends with those who aren’t Latte, extended her knowledge and understanding and gained valuable human experience during her stay on Earth. But ultimately, she will always define her entire existence around a puppy.

Nothing is more important than this puppy.

...... to be honest, Asumi not having a storyline isn’t what bothers me. It’s her lack of depth that does.

Hell, even the giant burger she ate had more depth than she did!

Oh, Asumi does have a personality alright. She’s consistently and unfailingly polite, utterly devoted to her raison d’être and in crucial moments, gives pearls of wisdom when the girls are in a pinch. She’s good.

But if that’s all she is, then she’s also painfully dull.

She has nothing to contribute to the discussion of health or nature, despite being created through an element of the Earth so you’d think she’d have an opinion of her own. At least worry about the planet that gave life to her as much as she frets over Latte all the time. But nope.

She shares the exact same face as Teatine’s past Precure partner so you’d think we’d explore that connection to see if it would influence or affect her in any way. But nope.

90% of the time, her role was just being Latte’s constant, fawning satellite.

Not only did that irritate the hell out of me but it just reinforced my stance that this type of character is one of the worst you can ever insert into any narrative.

Because if someone keeps reiterating how much they’re obsessed with this one thing and seldom talks about anything else without bringing their obsession into it... then what’s so special about them on their own?

You’ve practically surrendered the different qualities you could have had for worship of something else. That’s not a fair trade-in.

Asumi’s character is so packed with Latte-related stuff that there’s not much space left for anything that can be considered uniquely Asumi.

I mean, maybe it’s because I can never see myself or any normal person comfortable with living like that.

Living for the sake of being together with the one you love? Okay. But living with your whole universe revolving around that one thing? Making most if not all decisions based on this one thing?

No. That’s absolutely crazy, alright? Nobody with a healthy amount of awareness and self-worth would live like that.

And you can counter that Asumi’s just born like that. That she can’t help her origins because Teatine’s wish to protect her daughter is essentially what brought Asumi into existence so of course, her biggest concern would be Latte. At least, she wasn’t forced into it, right? As long as Asumi chose of her own will to follow Latte, it should be fine, right?

You can even use the fact that Asumi isn’t human. That she’s a spirit and we shouldn’t apply our human standards too strictly to her.

Yea, but those are feeble defenses in the face of her being a good main character, a good main heroine.

There are many ways to make a decent MC. The way Asumi was written proves she certainly does not possess traits that can classify her as true protagonist material. A protagonist has to be more than one amplified feature, which Asumi is not.

For the record, I don’t hate Asumi (she’s not interesting enough to generate a feeling that intense). I'm just severely let down because even if I don’t end up loving the midseason Cure for whatever reason, I can usually count on them to bring something intriguing to the table to dissect and analyze. At least I should find something to care about them.

Didn’t happen with her. :(

Oh god, I’ve been working on this post for days now and I’ve got a headache and with the baton pass happening in less than a few hours as I type this, I just really need to get it done and over with so please forgive me for speeding up through the rest, I’ll try to keep it as coherent as possible. NYARGH! (@_@ ;;)

Mascots.

Would you be surprised to hear that I’m not surprised that they were actually written very well?

Like I said early on, I suspected the return of fairy partnerships were going to improve the mascots’ significance in the story and, well, I was right.

This time, they didn’t just fill in the usual expectations of relaying exposition, serving as the Cures’ transformation devices and looking cute for the merchandise. The Healing Animals had to make progress on their own training to become doctors as well.

And they did through their relationships with their human partners.

It was a refreshing take on the mascot aspect of the series because the friendships felt really symbiotic. When the trainees arrived on Earth, they relied on the girls to help them perform their jobs as well as provide them with shelter, food, the occasional peptalk about their trainee status, etc.

Then as the story continued and they got to know each other better, the mascots were able to return the favor by giving support when the Cures needed it. Rabirin when Nodoka was frightened and confused about how to deal with Daruizen, Pegitan when Chiyu was having trouble choosing between two dreams and Nyatoran who made sure to always lift Hinata’s spirits up when she got upset at herself.

In short, they achieved their objectives of learning what it means to be good doctors by being there for their friends! How wonderful! :D

My memory for Latte is hazy, unfortunately, since she’s coddled by everyone all the time (can’t blame them, she’s friggin’ adorable! <3) but I’ll never forget how she stood firm on the battlefield to see things through, to fight for the Earth like she promised her mother. She started out so babie but showed us all there was enormous bravery behind her cute face and ugh, we should all be very proud of her! <3

The only major issues I had about the mascots were these:

1) Too many irrelevant fillers went to them. They only needed a maximum of two for their entire mascot group.

2) Latte kept getting sick even after she acquired a Precure partner of her own. I was hoping it wouldn’t hurt her as much as it did before Asumi arrived or that she would build up a stronger immunity but noooo, they insisted on torturing the poor pupper! T_T

Villains + Finale Battle

Not a lot needs to be said for the first part. We’ve had mediocre antagonists before. HealPre’s just happened to be extra annoying as they were despicable.

Which is worse because jerks you can just leave in the trash but assholes won’t stop harassing you unless you pummel them into their graves, set fire to their corpses and leave no trace of them behind! >:(

Y’all know who I’m talking about. Opinions on him continue to vary depending on who you talk to and if they’re avid fans of his face or not but whatever. The son of a bitch served his purpose and is dead now. That’s all that matters to me.

Anyway, the King was flat like his two lesser generals. He was neither intimidating nor distinguished enough in the brand of evil to really make us think of him as a serious threat and because of that, it ended up making the boss fight look like any run of the mill boss fight.

I know, they tried so hard with all that shiny animation but it just didn’t have that glorious sense of vindication that previous seasons (or ep 42) gave and I blame it all on this Rumiko Takahashi reject.

Also, this strategy was pretty useless?

They built it up like Earth was gonna sacrifice herself and die or something (she wouldn’t and even if she came close, deus ex machina would’ve kicked in to prevent that and COVID-induced caution too I guess).

But there were no signs of pain (well, that’s a relief) after absorbing Shindoi-ne and they really pissed King Byogen off more than they did any damage with the absorbed byo-gen power.

...so yea, this tactic was just to kill some time and budget, nothing more. Meh.

By the way, did Asumi eject Shindoi-ne’s pathogen out of her body yet or did they just leave it in there to bounce around until it eventually dissolves on its own?

Because that’s eww. I mean, it’s obviously not gonna hurt Asumi they can both relate on hyperfocusing their affection for someone so maybe the compatibility helps :P but still, ewwwww.

Fillers + Underused Motifs

In hindsight, perhaps HealPre didn’t exactly promise the content we I wanted about “health” and “nature” if their objective was to teach that any manner of “fighting” can count towards “living”.

......but fuck you Toei, you’re still cowards! >:/

Fillers will be fillers but it’s always better to try and make some of them as meaningful as possible. And they wasted the opportunity to inform an impressionable audience (during a very crucial period of our time, I must add) on a lot of things related to the HealPre’s motifs. Especially about the environment which for some ridiculous reason, they chose not to touch on for the main stretch of the overall story.

Proper hygiene, good diet plan and sleeping habits, regular exercise (already done by the girls a few times but could use another example), meditation, counseling/therapy (especially for mental health!), etc.

Real life pollution, climate change/global warming (IMPORTANT!!), deforestation, preservation vs conservation, endangered species, recycling, volunteering to clean up your community, etc.

These just came off the top of my head but yes, there’s more and no, I’m not saying that the writers need to cover all of them in extreme detail or replace the slice-of-life episodes.

But they should be able to mesh both serious and light-hearted together in harmony somehow. Like those fillers where the mascots saw people cleaning up littering at the park or that interaction with that arborist who taught them about wild animals and trees when the group went to visit a lake.

For health, maybe let the girls visit patients with chronic illness in the hospital or have them converse with a medical professional on some matter. Particularly if it’s got something to do with mental illness because stigma in Japan on those who are afflicted with such conditions is still prevalent and has caused a number of sad and shocking tragedies that could have otherwise been avoided if people didn’t have such outdated, judgmental mindsets.

That last part might be too dark for a children’s anime but there’s a lot more out there that is doable.

Do that without reducing it into a footnote, Toei. It is so necessary for your target audience to be aware of these issues at the age they are now. You have an almost 20-year old franchise to serve as a very effective platform. Make better use of it if you truly care about the message you’re conveying through your show!

Also, what the fuck.

The last episode was a mess. Why are you only mentioning this now when the season is already over?

This should’ve been brought up months ago!

All the things we could’ve seen the Cures done to protect the Earth without magic.

The excuse of “I didn’t know humans were so horrible!” is a shit one because everybody knows humans are deplorable trash when it comes to abusing the Earth. All the more reason why you have to persistently drill it into people’s heads that they should not be like those who don’t care or choose not to care.

One crack episode isn’t going to cut that.

God, I so want to unsee this ep just so I don’t have to end HealPre on a more sour note than it already was. *big aggrieved sigh*

Lastly (and this really is the end of my long ranting, I promise), the missing undisclosed lore.

There are few Precure seasons without a past lore of its own in the recent years. Is it a wonder, though?

Lore is mysterious and fascinating. If it involves a past Precure, even more so.

Sometimes fans might just hang onto a show because they’re curious about what happened before the main story. We’d never get the full tale of those adventures but at least, it’s fun to imagine the “prequel”.

Also, past Precure are just badass. Fact.

Strangely enough, we didn’t get that for Heal. All we know is that she was called “Fuu” and was very close to Teatine.

Hmm. Probably one of those changes caused by COVID interference cuz I can’t imagine the writers choosing not to tell her past in the original draft.

With all that finally off my chest, I’m ready to part ways with you girls until the next All Stars (Nodoka, I’m gonna miss you so much! T_T)

HealPre wasn’t the worst and it was nowhere near the best that it had the potential to be. But it’s passable. At least for those who loved it even with its flaws, I’m genuinely glad it was good for you.

For those who are thinking about picking it up (although why you would read this spoilery post before watching, I have no idea), if you’re looking for a standard magical girl anime to enjoy casually, then this is a safe pick. If you really want to invest your attention and heart into it, though? Then perhaps it would be in your interest to ask someone who saw it already to help you filter out the episodes that are worth watching. You don’t need to worry about the rest, they’re inconsequential. :P

Ok then! Thanks for reading as always, brave souls who have reached this point.

Stay healthy and safe out there and I’ll see you at the beach next week! Tropic underwater paradise here we coooooommmmmeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!! xDDD

#i rage quit two drafts and an outline before i got anywhere with this #now if you'll excuse me i gotta catch up on my workout and play pokemon and eat pho later #and catch up on the ccs manga #livin' the healthy life oh yea~#healin' good precure #cure grace #cure fontaine #cure sparkle #cure earth #hanadera nodoka #sawaizumi chiyu #hiramitsu hinata #fuurin asumi #rabirin #pegitan #nyatoran #latte

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redantsunderneath · 4 years

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I’ve Never Seen David Lynch and George Lucas in the Same Room at the Same Time…

The thematic parallels between David Lynch and George Lucas are something I keep coming back to again and again, but their careers and evolution have a lot of overlap too. They were born in the earliest Boomer cohort (George Lucas in May 1944, David Lynch January 1946) and had experiences growing up that were colored by the idyllic 1950s, but shifted into a distrust of authority structures that was common for many of their age cohort in the 1960s. They both came of age wanting to do something physical with her hands that felt creative to them in large grimy spaces - fixing cars for Lucas, and painting and installations with a fascination with organic materials, industrial metal, and rot for Lynch. They both fell into film because they were looking for something that satisfied their artistic bent (although film was never a primary aspect of her life to that point). They wound up making a handful of short films over a 3 year period, culminating in a longer short-film that would eventually get them noticed at roughly the same age (Electric Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB [1967] and the Grandmother [1970] for Lynch).

These films netted both of them a patron (Francis Ford Coppola for Lucas, the American Film Institute for Lynch) and started filming their first feature-length film two years after those films. They both got their biggest name recognition bump by films released in 1977 and pulled away from the power of the studio system in roughly 1984. Famously, Lucas offered Lynch a chance to direct what would become Return of the Jedi in about 1981 ( I prefer the story where Lucas does this by picking him up in a Lamborghini - I’ve heard a phone call version too, but it’s not as perfect) and Lynch answered something like “it’s your movie George, you direct it.” They both spent the mid 80s in movie jail, and although they took very different paths in general after (I’ve been emphasizing the similarities) there are still things that jibe in the history - they both reminded people of what they liked about them with a late 80s movie, spent a lot of the 90s on TV projects, did one project around classic radio, returned to theatrical notice around the millennium, all the while generally keeping their own council and disappointing a lot of fans.

There’s obviously a world of difference. Lucas is a left brained technologist who equated freedom with an owning of the means of production. Lynch is it right brained impressionist seeing freedom-as no one ever being able to tell you what to do, acting as a solo artist with collaborators who merge with his sensibilities. Lynch is a production lone wolf, depending mostly on people believing in him and funding him, and losing out in the popular consciousness by making uncompromising art that may not be what the audience wants, meaning funding is sometimes hard to come by. Lucas is like the Democratic party controlling the Congress and presidency - having total power but unable to turn that into what he really wants to make, somehow. The idea of Lynch selling his body of work to Disney is absurd.

But the correspondences in this are telling and help to explain the thematic similarities and divergences. Plus, the differences often relate to the similarities - Lucas identifies with corrupted controlling paternalistic power as a horror of inevitable capture of the individual by larger structures, while Lynch sees the corrupted masculine influence as an archetype, the call coming from inside the house, agency coopted by a collective taint in the universal pattern . But on some level these are the same thing - what is this person I am capable of becoming seeing as I am in control but yet not, doing horrific things? Lucas’ constant commentary on slavery is about hegemony and a systemic oppression he is complicit in, while Lynch has whole pantheons of beings that turn people into vessels that oblate the self and make them act on subconscious programming. Neither probably think the word neoliberalism too much but tend to communicate similar things about it is almost diametrically opposed ways.

The thematic similarities are rooted in a few areas that unpack in to a variety of subspaces which overlap – patriarchal structures as psychoanalytic dynamics (more Freudian father fixation for Lucas, Jung for Lynch), boomer generational failure as socio-first-but-economics-ultimately, the artist as in struggle with larger forces (largely of the self), and an eastern religious metaphysics that is American Christian in flavor. The major line of difference running through this is gender/sex/desire, Lynch being on main with a lot of spiritual overtones of sin, guilt, and “the fall” and Lucas finding this kind of guilt and sin as a secondary phenomenon that is mostly actively suppressed and unconvincing when it shows up; yet both wind up often finding physical consummation at direct odds with art in a gendered creation way (that also links Eraserhead to Age of Ultron and the original Frankenstein). Try doing a psychosexual reading of Howard the Duck sometime.

Lucas’ developmental through line is this: dude in love with 50’s culture but informed by 60s counterculture makes a movie where the young granola-ish revolutionaries win against the fascists in an effort to rewrite society but, having secured rights for “independent spirit” reasons now finds himself in control of something huge and immediately starts making art about boomer men becoming their controlling fathers and then moves on to movies where powerless freaks are the real focus. After a creatively fallow period, he comes back to make a sequel/prequel trilogy that is one of the most misunderstood complicated statements about people becoming what they hate as an eternal cycle at the level of the personal, the societal, the political, the spiritual, the artistic, you name it!

Lynch’s developmental through line is this: dude in love with 50’s culture but informed by 60s outsider/art counterculture makes a movie where the young artist struggles with the idea of a regular life, initiated by fatherhood, which attempts to destroy the artistic spark, after which he enters the Hollywood system and makes an artist as freak movie and a movie about plucky rebels conquering space authoritarianism (that the future of is books about that ending in messianic authoritarianism) and then disavows that system. He then proceeds to make art about subject and object as a supremely gendered thing, in a land that has fallen from grace, moving inexorably towards the idea of eternal cycle at the level of the personal, the societal, the political, the spiritual, you name it!

They both have an idea of the father-artist identified with the abject oppressed, under siege as figure, resentful from being kept from creation, over a career realizing that their “self” is the horrific villain of their own story. For Lynch, this is psychosexual, then spiritual, with a resisted toxic masculine urge to control and overwhelm, often in a violent way. It is the artist’s own urges that get in the way of making art, of desiring in the universe that has an unbalanced power structure from some far off echoes of an original symmetry breaking inherent to the archetypal gender dynamic. For Lucas, it is the realization that the artist in control has a tendency to become the controlling dad and sexual relations are inherently problematic in a political and spiritual way. Real art seems impossible if the artist has control, identifying with the downtrodden is a bit of a lie, happy endings can’t happen not because of the happiness bit because of the ending bit. For both, there is a fundamental flaw in the cycle, which is patriarchal in nature, but Lynch just approaches this much hornier.

The boomer part probably requires the most discussion, but the TLDR is that they are both are crawling out, through Vietnam, from the 50s social order, and grappling with how badly the 60s idealism failed. Lucas does this in the prequels as a big canvas critique of how the social revolution was co-opted by the generation not being able to see its own flaws, of not seeing the system taking over again, an Empire calling itself a Republic. An inability to look in the mirror and really see. The wisest oldest hippie is the only one who sees what’s happening, but is powerless as his apprentices are inevitably spit out, and the next generation has to be raised not by a skeptic but a true believer in “liberal” “democracy” (cynic quotes theirs).

Lynch is interesting here in that he most directly addresses this only in Twin Peaks, but we see more naked reflections, divorced of contemporary politics, in his other works. In Twin Peaks, Ben Horn is the Palpatine figure, who winds up a sweet old man buying off the harm his life’s work and progeny have produced while ignoring the poor and next generation personally. Jacoby the neutered, fried Yoda that eventually slides into Alex Jones territory (the canonical Boomer ethos in a nutshell – “what me” neoliberalism and change the world ideology going crackpot). All of Twin Peaks except for Fire Walk with Me is directly socioeconomically generational (Bobby Briggs becomes a young Republican in season 2, the mill, the trailer park), but the other works are full of class issues informed by Lynch’s age. From Blue Velvet’s suburban kid exploring his darker side by going to the poor part of town through a career of classist low-life encoding (Bob is a denim jacket wearing homeless person, all the covered in grime by the dumpster/trailer park characters, Ronette as the factory floor version of Laura, etc), culminating in Inland Empire and Twin Peaks the Return chronicling the fall of man as partially an (generationally specific in TP) economic fall into a unequal class defined world of needing an opening and leaving the house to labor as where evil is born. TP OS is about how boomers turned out just as bad, the Return is about how we inhabit the world of their ideological blindness.

All filmmakers seem to, at least to a certain degree, bring the question of creation of art directly into their work via distant or close metaphor. In Eraserhead and Elephant Man, Lynch values the spark of art which the downtrodden protagonist is trying not to lose. In Dune, the visionary with a big project that seeks to upend the system (but that we know eventually become something even worse) is a project that fell apart due to studio interference. Blue velvet is about the act of watching awakening something uncomfortable in us that is incompatible with normie life (it wouldn’t be weird to say it was about porn). Twin Peaks is about television, FWWM about movies, and all at least partially about closure being a death act in art. Lost Highway is about the artist tortured by desire, Mulholland Drive about desire being central to be eaten alive by the Hollywood system. Inland Empire is about filmmaking as a way into understanding the world on a deeper level (as is its unofficial sequel Inception) to cure its ills. All of this is art’s struggle against power, with an element of the major powers being subconscious forces that control us leading to desires that ablate the artistic impulse.

Lucas' projects have over time been about a young upstart independent filmmaker, losing his soul by becoming successful, and becoming the system, man. He then tries desperately to identify as really not the one in charge, until he admits to what he has become. He consistently dips back into filmmaking as an adventure or a good fight, but he has to set these in a time period before his birth. As in Lynch, having a child is equated with not being able to fulfill the kind of artistic destiny, but Lucas goes further in equating it to an excuse for why the powerful artist goes bad and needs redemption. He had a naïve or-is-it canny motif focused on the short inhuman outsider, often related to music or primitive settings (often with wooden cages) as a recurring thing for a while. These characters are often wise, or at least no filter tell-it, and are similar to the Elephant Man. This is a trope, sure, the wise different wavelength other, but there is also an identification of the artist at knowing and right yet impotent and a clue to the author’s metaphysical system.

Lynch is the mainline protestant in upbringing and very much influenced by a kind of proto-eastern religion (you can just say the Vedas for shorthand). Lucas is not very religious, but was brought up Christian, influenced by Christian symbolism and became interested in world religion as narrative via figures like Joseph Campbell. Hence, they both gravitate towards some kind of Gnostic Proto Christian, So-Cal zen, Thomas Aquinas “gets” Plato kind of amalgam, which informs their work. Lynch has veered towards an eternal cycle framework, and the very physics compatible idea of something in the past breaking and causing consciousness/suffering, through which we can achieve joy as a counter only through letting go of the self, and the recurrence of ruptures on all scales demonstrating a fractal pattern of hurt and redemption. Lucas also sees a big cycle, but it is one more of human existence as narrative that has a tendency to return, with a little bit of Nietzsche and movie eastern spirituality thrown in. Both believe in a recurring pattern that plays itself out in a way that is terrible, but hopeful, as the struggle is where hope derives from. Both have inherently Christian ideas and symbols in their work but lean back on non-Christian ideas that the Christian ideas have a history with. Lynch has his virgin Mary as the real Christ figure female angels that show up, while Lucas has turnt space Jesus.

Suffice it to say that the tree trial scene in the Empire Strikes Back and the lodge sequences in Twin Peaks are a very good place to start looking for how the two auteurs meet. Compare Anakin/Luke Skywalker to Mr C, look at the 90s turn they both made, register their seeing the “sleeper must awaken” of fiction being terribly fraught, compare the force vs. the universal field, the way their relationship status and partners carve their work into eras, and their continued existence as mainstream experimental filmmakers.

#george lucas #david lynch

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waeteeth · 3 years

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Location: The Woods Ft: @anemosofnyx, @mavenlockwood, & @phobetos

He doesn’t quite know how to deal with it, being around so much magic and yet...Jamie looks to Maven and then to the two oneiroi. He trusts Anemos completely, Phobetos he trusts to want to do right by Patroclus. It felt right to do the whole thing where he’d buried her, even if it was just for his own peace of mind. Maven was alive, well, she was about to be more alive, and she was right there next to him. He’s not really sure what he’s doing there aside from just being emotional support. “How long’s it gonnae take?” He has a hand on Maven’s shoulder, but he’s looking towards Anemos, they were older, he figured they had the most experience. Or at least he hoped so, for all of their sake.

This isn't the first time Anemos has assisted a vampire to return to their former state. There was a woman once, who approached them with Anathema, begging for release from what she had considered a curse. Though they had little interest in being of assistance to the stranger, it was the idea behind the ritual that piqued their interest — to touch a piece of their power they had never been capable of before on their own. It had only been proof of the fact that the oneiroi are more powerful together than they are alone. While they were never particularly one to help someone out of the goodness of their soul, it is for Patroclus and Jamie that they agreed to this request without complaint. The young vampire looks fidgety, out of place amongst the older immortals that stand around her, and the curious hazel eyes of Grace's features fall on her form for a moment, before redirecting to Jamie. "It'll be over and done with before you know it."

It's becoming very, very real to Maven that this is all happening now. It feels like they've danced around the topic for so long, it felt more like a daydream, a distant what if that might never come to fruition. But as she stands here in the forest, Jamie at her side, the reality is setting in. Either this works, or... Or she's a vampire forever. Or something worse. The thought in itself is frightening, that regardless of the outcome, the rest of her life is going to be decided tonight. Her arms cross against her chest, a subconscious defensive posture to protect herself. As long as she's been a vampire, she's felt so... Strong. Dangerous. The thing that goes bump in the night, not the one who falls victim. But right now, Maven can't help but feel infinitely small. "The sooner it's done, the better."

For this, Phobetos arrived as Yasemin- a comforting face that they had presented to the vampire in their first meeting. This was new to them, in all of their years they had yet to have seen this aspect of their ability: it required two oneiroi and a vampire who was willing, and it was an opportunity that hadn't presented itself to them until now. Dark eyes shifted to Anemos, and they did little to hide their hungry curiosity. The vampire's jaw clenched and the spirit studied her features intently, before reaching out an open hand for her to take. A comforting gesture, mortals liked that. "Nothing will harm you."

It would probably be considerably rude to tack onto that sentiment that Jamie wasn't going to let them hurt her. But he figured that wouldn't have Maven all that confident in the spirits. But he does turn to her again, offers a gentle squeeze to her shoulder. "I wouldnae let anythin' happen tae ye." Not again, not after last time. He gives her a slight nudge forward before letting go of her and stepping back, unsure how far he should actually go. He settles on a few feet and crosses his arms over his chest, just watching.

It's hard for her not to feel trepidation about this whole thing. There's a voice in the back of Maven's head that's screaming that this is too much of a risk, to back out now and run for the hills and just accept the fact that this is the way her life is going to be. Self preservation has always been a powerful instinct for Maven, something she has to actively shove down in this moment. Because despite how much the possibility of things going wrong frightens her, she can't remember the last time she's wanted something so much. She looks down at the oneiroi's extended hand, reaching her own out hesitantly until it grasps onto them, stepping forward into the small clearing they've chosen for this event. A cluster of braids fall over her shoulders as she turns to look back at Jamie once more, seeking comfort in his presence, before her attention returns to the spirits. "Okay, I'm ready."

They believe the human expression to be like riding a bike. Something about how, once you learn, you never forget it — except perhaps that's not entirely accurate, because it always felt more or less ingrained inside Anemos. It had been that way before, the last time they had done it all those years ago, and is the same today, as they stand in front of the two vampires. "She'll be just fine," Anemos offers in assurance, to both Maven and Jamie, though they're speaking to him. The oneiroi steps forward, closing the distance between themselves and the woman, gesturing with a toss of their head for Phobetos to follow in suit. "Just hold still. No matter what happens, or what you feel." This time it's Maven that they address. They place one of their hands against her collarbone, the feeling of cold skin beneath their fingertips.

Her hand in theirs is cool, and Phobetos looked over at Anemos for direction. Fingers close and tighten in reassurance, providing a firm grip as they wedge themselves between Jamie's vantage point and Maven- a last act of mischief, closed off with the lift of a pointed shoulder. Their other hand raised, holding the vampire's within the two, and they waited for words. It felt like something vestigial, like an unused muscle, the twitch of magic within them knew what to do but the spirit would not proceed without the other.

It's a lot to see, it's a lot to feel and he's never really felt comfortable in the presence of magic period. It's too unpredictable and she means too much to him for this to go sideways. But he can't very well sit there and pace and so his fingernails bite into the palms of his hands as he wills himself to just stay put. While he's curious as to how the whole thing even works, his attention is very much fixed on the youngest being there. He trusts both of the spirits, despite Hyacinth's warning, because he has to in the moment. Granted, he's watching over Phobetos's shoulders, the wee spooky shit had purposefully gotten in the way and he has half a mind to stalk a couple of paces to the left out of sheer spite. But he's determined to be unmoved for Maven.

It's time to let go of the human facade, to reach inside to the magic that resides within Anemos. Grace's hazel eyes give way to a bright blue glow, along with the runes on the palms of their hands, illuminating against Maven's skin as they grip the vampire. It's like tugging on a thread, pulling their magic forth to flow through them and out through their fingers, straight into the vampire. A purification, of the body and the soul, to restore what once was; cutting away at the threads that held the young woman in the clutches of Persephone, repairing the connection to Hecate that was severed in it's place. The goddess is not so choosy, unlike some, and does not reject the return of one of her own, the witch safely accepted back into the fold of her followers. It's a body coming back to life, a warmth blooming into Maven's chest as lungs begin to breathe again, and the pulse of a once dead heart beats underneath their fingertips. A second chance at life. And just like that... "It's done," they announce aloud, allowing their magic to recede from the witch and back into themselves, the illumination of the blue glow already beginning to fade.

There's one final moment in Maven's head where she thinks to turn and run, wonders if Jamie would hate her if she backs out now, but instead she stands firm. She doesn't like the sound of the oneiroi's words, the warning that accompanies them, but Maven nods her head regardless and grits her teeth. Phobetos still holds onto her hand, and she squeezes back tightly, wondering if they can even feel the pressure. Dark eyes focus on the one directly in front of her, and though she does not need breath, Maven still finds her's catching at the sight of their magic on display. And then she feels it. She doesn't know what she was expecting, for a body to be brought back to life. Strange isn't a fully accurate way to describe it, what starts as a tingling sensation spreading through her skin quickly turns to something more burning and rushing, a sense of vertigo that might've sent Maven to the ground were it not for the two spirits holding onto her. Her lungs feel inflamed and she can't breathe and she wonders if this might be death instead — if all creation feels like dying. But her body knows the steps, knows what it needs to survive even when her brain can't concentrate enough to think on it, air rushing into her lungs with one shuttering breath at a time. Her eyes are squeezed shut tightly, she doesn't remember when that happened, but it's better than trying to focus on anything else. And then, just as quickly as it came on, it begins to fade, pulling a deep gasp from Maven as she sways forward, unsteady on her feet. It's only then that her eyes reopen, startled at the lack of sudden clarity of the world around her, the dark shadows in the distance that she can no longer make out — a vampire no longer.

The magic had come easily, this was their birthright, something that Nyx had called upon them to do- and it was without an enormous amount of effort that strength bled between the two oneiroi and stripped away the tainted parts of the vampire's heart, stirring it to a beat. They were as fascinated with the process as they were with Maven's reaction, watching her face as she took in a breath, reaching forward to steady her. "Welcome back," they said warmly, watching colour bloom on her features again. "The living world, I hope it is everything that you remembered it to be, little witch."

He's felt it before, but it's different to experience it all before him. The oneiroi do their fairy godmother schtick and he hears it first, the sound of Maven's heartbeat slowly pumping blood again. Maybe it was the right thing to do it at this spot. They were saying goodbye to her vampire life and while he was still worried that this meant she'd be saying goodbye to him, Jamie feels nothing but relief she gasps for air she actually needs again. She looks unsteady and he takes a tentative step forward, hesitant for just a moment, and then he's striding towards the three. "Thanks." He offers Phobetos a nod but he actually reaches out to give Grace's upper arm a gentle squeeze. They didn't have to do this, he'll find some way to pay them back one day.

But then his attention is solely on Maven and throwing caution to the wind, he rests a hand on her shoulder. "Ye alright?"

The entire world is different. Like all of her senses have been muted, things she had become so accustomed to before suddenly taken away. She can no longer hear all the sounds of the forest around her, see anything further than the outline of the trees; like someone has thrown a sack over her head. Maven can only blink for a moment, as her mind catches up to what's happened to her body. "I'm..." She struggles for words, for thoughts, for a moment, but her eyes seek out Jamie as his hand lands on her shoulder. "I think so," she nods her head lightly. Tentatively, Maven looks down at her hands. She had almost forgot what magic had felt like, to touch it as she did once before, but she can feel it there, right underneath her skin. Like a child reaching for an object of comfort, she digs for the root of her magic, the flames that always burned through her as quick as her temper, until it sparks up through her fingertips. The mere sight of it provokes a startled laugh from Maven, delighted and a little bit disbelieving. It's been so long. A smile spreads across her face as she looks back and forth between Jamie and the two oneiroi. "Thank you."

They're less interested in the aftermath, truth be told. The former vampire holds little of their attention, nothing more than a witch again, as she wished. Anemos releases Maven from their grasp, head turning to look at Jamie as his hand lands upon them. They find him to be much more preferable company between the two. "No problem," they say blithely, as if the entire thing had been no more than a trip to the local store. "You should come by some time. So many people in this city are so boring. They don't know how to have any fun," they extend the invitation. Aside from the other oneiroi, of course — but now it's only themselves and Phobetos left of their numbers, and they cannot monopolize all of the other spirit's time. "Give Pat my love."

Phobetos watched as flame sparked up from delicate fingertips- was this worth casting immortality away? There were lighters that did the same work, but they were caught up by the joy in Maven's face, the catch of delight. It was curious, and inexplicable to them, but they dipped their head in a nod, allowing Anemos to say their piece and then leave. They stepped back as well, looking between the vampire and witch, before forming a small smile of their own. "I hope that you use this new gift well." Phobetos turned to leave, knowing all too well that they'd carry this fascination beyond the few moments it took for them to fade from view: they would watch over the witch, and see if she would truly be content in a life as mundane as Hecate's children's usually were.

He almost draws her into his arms out of the relief of it all. It does feel a bit like a weight has been lifted after all of this time, regardless of whatever the hell happens between them now, she's alive, she's okay. She's alive, she's okay, and he watches her with an almost critical eye. It had gone off without a hitch and that fact, combined with the fact that Anemos was so warm towards them, has him wondering if maybe the spirits can be trusted fully after all. He nods his thanks to them, can't help but smile a bit at the mention of Patroclus, before his attention is squarely back on Maven who seems estatic.

Jamie lets out a low whistle at the sight of the sparks at her fingertips. He can be uneasy about magic later, right now he's going to revel in things looking up for her. "Let's go home, Maves. Ye can light me a few candles." The grin he gives her is easy as the hand on her shoulder lightly claps it.

#anemos.maven.phobetos.01.#//oh boy i hope this makes sense

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jonthethinker · 4 years

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Alright, this is going to be a long post, but I like Critical Role a lot, so here goes.

Something to consider as the new CR Discourse boils over: fandom discourse is no substitute for activism, and if your emotions are so wrapped up in it that you feel enraged with a righteous fury or utterly devastated by a development in certain aspects of your favorite entertainment product, you may need to back away.

I understand what’s going through the heads of the people on both sides of this discourse. Critical Role feels like this safe place to feel a little less alienated and depressed about the world we live in. This is the same for many entertainment products. The people seem so open and fun and accepting, and we just layer all of these feelings and expectations on people we don’t have an actual personal connection to in real life, because we’ve spent so much time watching and listening to them and come to feel like we know them and are connected to them more that we actually are.

I get it. In this world we have very little in the way of actual power. Most of the power we have is what products we choose to consume, and so in a roundabout way, what you consume become a moralistic decision; you can be considered a bad person for listening to a certain podcast, or disliking certain characters, or having certain opinions on celebrities. We come to focus more on what people think than what they do.

There’s this quote by a civil rights leader named Stokley Carmichael I think about everyday that goes, “If a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it's a question of power.“

I have come to believe this is true about everything; racism, sexism, religious bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, classism. All the major problems of our world are caused because certain groups have power to dis-empower and harm others with little to no consequence. This isn’t because of the group they belong to, but because they have that power in the first place. It may be an unpopular notion, but I believe that if you went through history and reversed every power dynamic the other way around, you’d still have the same situation. If women had the power men have had for all of history, misandry and in this case matriarchy would probably be just as bad as misogyny and patriarchy are in our current world. The problem isn’t the group, it’s the power.

So you have these folks online, who in real life are probably alienated and exhausted and depressed and they turn to an entertainment property to make themselves feel a little better and make it through the day, and in this instance, it’s Critical Role. And because everyone’s morality is all wrapped up the products they consume instead of the actions they take, it is Capital G Good to watch Critical Role. I mean, they support the charity, and say the nice things, and seem so fun and genuine, and so they are Good.

But then a problem arises. One of the Cast says or does something that goes against what they like. Maybe this is another in a long list of things they have done that have been deemed Problematic by certain sectors of the community. And seeing as these people have so little power in their lives, to demand better wages at work, more consideration from the halls of power, more protections from the many harms inflicted upon them by those with more power, they decide enough is enough. They don’t have the power to change their material circumstances, but if they can join forces with enough like-minded people online, they can perhaps forcibly remove the Problematic Element through social pressure, or at the very least, harass the person they don’t like into one hell of a headache.

But alas, there are others in the fandom community, here to save the day. They too see themselves as Good for consuming the Critical Role product, and they may very well like this thing suddenly labeled Problematic. And you see, it can’t really be problematic, because they like it, you see, and they are Good People, who only consume the Good Things, and if some aspect of this were Problematic, it wouldn’t be Good anymore, and that, in their minds, is a flat out impossibility. The Goodness of Critical Role, and by extension their Goodness for liking it, is at stake. That just won’t do.

So this second group proceeds to scold and harass the other group in mass, bitterness seeps in deeper, trenches are dug, and a fandom is further divided, its members further alienated, and everyone hates everyone else just a little bit more. In one fell swoop, the world is a little worse, and a little harder to navigate, all because some well meaning folks wanted to protect what is Good by using the power they have.

Critical Role is a show made by well meaning, upper-middle class white professionals who live in the Los Angeles suburbs. They seem to have a lot of compassion for others, I wouldn’t deny them that, but they make this product to make money. That is what it is for. They may try to do some Good with it, but that Goodness is going to be shaped by their well meaning upper-middle class white perspective, and all the blindspots that entails, and at the end of the day, if it didn’t make them money directly or indirectly, they would stop doing it, regardless of the Good they could do.

This does not make them Bad, and I’m not suggesting so. We live in a Capitalist society. We all want to be able to live comfortable lives with our dignity intact, and under Capitialism, in order to do that, you have to make money. So that’s what they do. I have empathy for that motive. As I do for Critters who want to hold them accountable with what power they have to Be Better, as I do for the Critters who hold those Critters accountable with the Power they have, and so on and so on. We all want to be Good. I just don’t think this is how you’re really going to do it.

I don’t care what products you consume. There is no ethical consumption under Capitalism. You’re going to be hard pressed to find a product in the world that doesn’t involve someone being exploited or tricked somewhere along its production or consumption (and while you can and should seek out those that do the least harm where you reasonably can within your means, it is unavoidable under our current system to avoid benefiting from someone’s exploitation). As much as it hurts me to say this, it is almost certainly true for Critical Role as well. And that is a hard pill to swallow. Especially if you’ve based your entire identity on consuming the Good products, instead of the Bad ones. This is why I don’t care about the products you consume, I care about how you use your power, however big or small. That is what defines you. Not your ships. Not your faves. Your actions.

There is a real hunger to do good in this community. I see it all the time. Think of all the charity drives CR has handily met the targets of. That desire is real, and it’s beautiful. I am here simply to encourage another avenue besides online discourse for you all to act upon all those good intentions. There are many organizations and political bodies that would love your In Real Life support, that will simultaneously allow you to do good and build real connections with the people around you in your own communities, and start the delicate, difficult process of empowering the dis-empowered and holding the powerful to account.

And I know you may feel tired and beaten down, anxious and depressed, socially-limited and uncouth in comparison to what you imagine the members of these organizations to be. But I promise you all of them started out feeling the same way. It is through those efforts that you can truly do good instead of just feel good, and create a purposeful, meaningful life for yourself along the way.

It is through solidarity and cooperation towards mutual goals that we make this world more livable for ourselves and the most vulnerable among us, not bitter infighting and petty online squabbling. Maybe I come off as an a real ass for saying all of this, and for that I’m sorry. I don’t mean to or want to hurt anyone. I too just want to do good, and maybe this will help, in some small way.

Don’t forget to love each other.

#Critical Role

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enfpguy · 4 years

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BioShock Infinite MBTI and Enneagram — Booker DeWitt Booker DeWitt is the Main Protagonist of BioShock Infinite and the Secondary Protagonist of BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea. He’s part of two multi-verses so we’ll be segmenting this analysis into 2 parts. BioShock Infinite: The Main Story. Burial at Sea Booker: This takes place after the events of Bioshock Infinite with an alternate version of Booker. Dominant Function: Introverted Thinking BioShock Infinite: Booker Booker DeWitt is a prime example of an individual that’s driven by situational logic. His views throughout the entire game change drastically. At first, he’s introduced as a very cautious character who doesn’t trust his environment, but he immediately adapts to it. His main goal is to pay off his debt and to achieve that goal he must find Elizabeth and bring her to New York. As he embarks on his adventure, he ends up being caught in unique situations. Such as unknowingly entering the Pilgrim’s Rocket and being transported to a new society that exists within the sky. This alone would cause most people to freak-out and have a panic attack, but not Booker. Instead, he casually moved on as if nothing happened. He immediately then ran into another problem he needed to get baptized by Preaching Witting. He was unwilling but did it anyway because that was the only way into the city. After practically being drowned Booker runs into his first challenge and this is where we first see his TI function in action. He needs to get passed a locked gate to proceed on his quest. He solves this by trying a possession vigor that a hawker is offering free samples of. Booker quickly figures out he can use it on machines and uses it on the automaton guarding the door, therefore unlocking it. He then ends up accidentally entering a raffle and being forced to use yet another piece of unknown technology, the Sky-hook to protect himself from the officers who are trying to harm him. This adaptive style of learning is present throughout everything Booker does in Columbia, from trying new vigors to instructing Elizabeth where to best open “tears” so they can live another day. But that’s not all Booker also has other Introverted Thinking indicators. Such as suppressing his emotions, not because he’s unemotional but because he would rather stay level headed at all times to solve situations, this causes strain on his relationships with other people since FE is his lowest function. This especially affects Elizabeth, who’s quite a sensitive individual, and because of this they often butt heads. We have a lovely example of one of these situations. After rescuing Elizabeth from her prison, Booker lies and promises to bring her to Paris by stealing the First Lady Airship. Before they can do that they must go through the ticket station that leads to Soldier’s Field, this is where things get ugly, the receptionist stabs his hand forcing him to become violent which ends in the death of his assaulters. Elizabeth, experiencing death for the first time, becomes horrified and tries to run away. Booker catches up to a defensive Elizabeth and uses logic to reason with her. He explains that she’s an investment and that those men won’t stop coming after her so she has no choice but to leave Columbia. As the game progresses Booker becomes more comfortable with his surroundings thus starts asking Elizabeth more questions. Such as how do you make these “tears” or why does the Songbird always appear when he hears a specific melody. Before we get to the Burial at sea segment, I want to contest Booker being an SI-TE function user. The first indicator of not having SI can be seen in Booker’s poor attention to detail and memory, this occurs often he forgets about the actions he takes. For instance, the time he forgot he helped interracial couple at the start of the game or the time he forgot about Chen Lin’s tools and machines or the fact that he cares nothing for tradition, duty, or his experiences. Instead, he rather live in the moment. If Booker was a TE user, he’d share similarities to Elizabeth such as her love for facts, systems and seeing things in black and white. However, Booker sees the world in shades of grey, prefers to remain flexible, and follows his own internal logical framework. Although I can recognize why people would perceive Booker as a TE user and that’s because of his cautious and aggressive nature which makes him seem more rigid than he is. Next up we’ll be looking into his TI functional traits and examples within the Burial at Sea DLC. Burial at Sea Booker: We get to meet a unique version of Booker who uses the mentioned TI functional traits much more effectively here. Unlike in Columbia, this Booker doesn’t have a debt to pay nor is he constantly stressed by life or death situations we can see a more accurate representation of his personality. Even in a different environment, his core traits remain the same, and if anything they’re enhanced. Let’s look at some examples. During their adventures in Rapture, Booker becomes acquainted with Elizabeth and notices logical inconsistencies within her actions and speech. This causes him to question her intentions and ask about how she isn’t aware of Rapture's structural system. Such as the time she asks about Little Sisters or what are Splicers. This is common knowledge in Rapture and Booker knows this and calls her out for being a fraud. Elizabeth knows how Booker’s personality functions and evades his questions and manipulates him by using Sally as her leverage against him. Elizabeth also has many questions on why people take certain actions, and Booker always answers with situational logic. An excellent example of that occurs when retrieving the Shock Jockey plasmid. Elizabeth asks why Andrew Ryan imprisoned Fontane's men if he was all about the free market? Booker responds with “All those ideas lose their luster when the quarterly earnings come in and you find the other guy’s eating your lunch” Auxiliary Function: Extroverted Sensing Extroverted Sensing function is often associated with the one-man army trope or within over the top action heroes, and Booker falls directly into both those categories. He’s a man driven by action and can always adapt to every situation that comes his way. From learning how to use unfamiliar weapons and tools with ease. To blowing up blimps and escaping from a gigantic angry robotic bird. Booker definitely sees a lot of action. But the Se function is more than just action. It’s directly related to receiving information from the 5 senses accurately while other functions process that information at slower a slower pace. That makes Extroverted Sensing dominant and auxiliary users quite versatile with physical tasks, such as sports or surviving in a city full of religious fanatics who want to kill you. There are downsides, however, and we can spot many of these within our protagonist. SE users have a hard time with possibilities, unique ideas, or scenarios. Booker thinks the Luteces are absolutely insane and criticizes them for not living within the present but rather within the idea of possibilities. We can see this as fear when Booker discovers that Elizabeth could create “tears” which shouldn’t be physically possible, but as time moves on Booker becomes comfortable and curious with the idea of “tears” since he can interact with them. This makes Booker appear closed-minded, but that’s only because reacting to possibilities he never thought were possible. Another weakness of SE is taking information at face value. Booker doesn’t search for hidden meanings or symbolism within objects, people, or information like Elizabeth. Instead, he would rather be direct and pragmatic. Speaking of his pragmatic and direct nature, Booker often solves problems by doing he’s a kinesthetic learner. This is how he’s able to learn how to use the Sky-hook so quickly. The last example of Booker’s SE function will be an unhealthy one. Booker has three problems, he’s addicted to physical forms of risk-taking, pleasure, and escapism. This is how he got himself stuck in this situation in the first place. He was a well-known drinker and gambler before the events of BioShock Infinite. The reasons differ but, In Columbia’s universe, he drank and gambled to deal with the passing of his wife. In the Rapture universe, he just drank and gambled himself into debt for the pleasure which caused him to lose his adapted daughter Sally. Regardless of the universe, Booker will always drink and gamble. Time for a fun fact before we move on to Booker’s Tertiary function. The detective agency Booker DeWitt worked for is real and still exists today! It’s called the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and was established in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton. They were best known for foiling a plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, working as his personal security during the Civil War and hiring the first female detective in America. However, fame soon turned into infamy during the labor strikes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The efficiency of the Pinkertons prompted businessmen to hire them to infiltrate unions to keep strikers and unionists out of factories. To make matters worse, they hired goon squads to intimidate workers to prevent them from striking. Today the Pinkertons are known as the Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations, Inc and they’re of the oldest and most influential detective agencies in the world. Tertiary Function: Introverted Intuition Booker DeWitt’s use of Introverted Intuition is interesting, he often represses it to the point of it being an unconscious function because he doesn’t enjoy thinking too far into the future and prefers living in here and now. Yet somehow he’s constantly foreshadowing future events! Such as his dream of New York burning or Foreshadowing Elizabeth’s torture device that would brainwash her after she asked Booker why Comstock imprisoned her. Or the time Booker leaves Cornelius Slate alive and then claims that leaving him alive wasn’t mercy, Comstock’s men will capture and torture him. This ends up being true and Cornelius can be found mentally broken in an interrogation room in Fink’s jailhouse. Booker is either a brilliant detective who can deduce situations so fast that it looks like he’s predicting the future or his NI function usage is exceptional. Our last example takes place in Rapture after Booker collects the Old Man Winter plasmid. He stops Elizabeth after suspecting her of being a fraud and demands answers; She scoffs at him and lies. This causes him to predict that he’s being set up. Turns out he was right. Inferior Function: Extroverted Feeling Booker starts with an unhealthy usage of the FE function and slowly develops it throughout the title. At the start of his quest in Columbia, Booker remains disconnected from his emotions and closed off because he sees no reason to express them. We can especially see in Battleship Bay when Booker is trying to get Elizabeth's attention while she's dancing. He wants to leave Columbia so he can complete his mission, but first needs to stop her from dancing. At first he tries to be polite, then he tries using a more aggressive tone and finally he manipulates her by mentioning the First Lady Airship and how it can bring her to Paris. It’s an effective use of the FE function but used unhealthily. Booker lies to her for the first half of the game, telling her he’ll bring her to Paris, with the actual intention of bringing her to New York to pay off his debts. Or how he wasn’t able to empathize with Mrs. Lin at the loss of her husband instead he kept asking questions hoping she could give him an answer that would help track down her husband. As the game progresses, we can observe Booker loosening up and expressing his emotions in healthier ways by showing worry and care for Elizabeth during hardships. Such as the time where she killed Daisy Fitzroy. Booker recognized the look of horror in Elizabeth’s eyes, chased her down. He immediately attempted to comfort her by asking if she was okay and tried to relate to her feelings so she would feel better. Another example occurs after Elizabeth finds out her mother and the Luteces were killed by Comstock. She then says she’s just a specimen to be poked and prodded. Booker comforts her by letting her know she doesn’t deserve the stuffing she’s been through. Before we complete this segment, I’ll be mentioning 2 extra examples. The first one relates to FE grip that occurs when Booker realizes he’s Elizabeth’s father, he goes through a complete mental breakdown and irrationally wants to end it all. The second example is a moral example of FE. During the second half of the game Elizabeth and Booker run into a locked door that requires Lady Comstock’s finger print to enter. Elizabeth impulsively decides she will take it from her mothers corpse, Booker tries to stop her and suggests that it’s morally incorrect. But her decision is already made, Booker decides he will remove the finger for her. Our last FE indicator can be seen at the end of the game. Booker sacrifices himself to Elizabeth. He does this to stop Comstock from ever being born, Elizabeth takes him to Comstock's birthplace and Booker immediately realizes he’s both Booker DeWitt and Zachery Hale Comstock. He then allows the Elizabeths to drown him so she may break the circle. https://youtu.be/Dbjql-8coDw

#BioShock #BioShock MBTI #BioShock Infinite #BioShock Infinite MBTI #enneagram #mbti personality types #MBTI #complex character #Booker DeWitt #MBTI Booker DeWitt #BioShock MBTI Booker DeWitt #ISTP #ISTP 8w7 #862 #Enneagram 8w7 #Hero #father #Pinkerton #detective

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vincess-princess · 4 years

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ex malo bonum

behold, the dumpsterfire of a fic i’ve been obsessing over for the last week.

Fandom: Motley Crue Characters, pairings: demon!Nikki Sixx, demon!Tommy Lee, demon!Mick Mars, fallen angel!Vince Neil, Nikki/Vince, elements of Tommy/Vince and hints of Nikki/Tommy Rating: Explicit Warnings (please pay attention!!!): violence, non-con, drug use mention, alcohol mention, self-harm tendencies, suicide attempts, murder Summary: Vince thought he knew where fallen angels go and what they become. But he never expected to go through something like that. A/N: I’m not religious at all and my entire knowledge of Christian canon comes from Jesus Christ Superstar and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. I was making up lore on the go and I dare assume almost all of it is completely wrong. If you’re offended by this, please don’t proceed!

As always, huge thanks to @polska-tankietka for editing this, love ya!

Chapter 1.

Word count: 2677

Warnings (for this particular chapter): violence, suicide attempts mention, alcohol mention, drug use mention

“Did it hurt?”

“What?” Vince blinked and looked up from his shot of whiskey. He was already on his fifth, but was only slightly tipsy (must have something to do with the quick regeneration thing). The shitty bar where he was drinking himself into oblivion was dimly lit, and he had to squint to make out the face of a stranger standing behind his shoulder. The stranger’s voice was pleasant, but there was something… unsettling in it. Off-putting. Hostile.

“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” he repeated smugly. His hand crawled onto Vince’s shoulder and clutched it. A hot, blinding spike of something that felt like electric shock went down Vince’s spine, and everything became so clear he wondered how in the world he hadn’t seen it coming. In his defense, they were faster than he thought.

“It did,” Vince raised his head and looked the demon straight in the eyes, curving his lips in disgust. “A lot.”

The first was a car, a truck going down a busy highway with a very convenient pedestrian bridge over it. Vince figured out the right moment and jumped, his white Heaven robes flapping like wings behind his back. When he woke up they were no longer white, but a dark red, the color he would have assumed to be his blood if he had found a single injury on his body. But there hadn’t been any.

He had to change his clothes after that, partly escaping humans too curious for their own good, partly no longer wanting to be reminded of what he had had and what he had lost.

“Drowning your sorrows in whisky, huh?” The demon pulled up a chair and plopped down on it, his hand sliding from Vince’s shoulder down onto his arm and staying there, grazing over the skin with his claws occasionally, oh so carefully. Vince didn’t pull his arm away from the grip, although every fiber of his being protested to the touch. He could reach that one pocket of his jacket with another hand just as easily. “If I were you, I would celebrate.”

“You aren’t me,” Vince retorted indifferently, turning away from the demon and focusing on his almost empty glass.

“Not yet, sweetie.” The demon grasped Vince’s chin with his fingers and turned his head back to face him. Vince shook his fingers off his chin with clear revulsion. “What a pretty thing you are. You know that? Have you already come across the human concept of beauty?”

“No,” Vince said listlessly. He couldn’t care less about the small talk, but the demon’s intentions still weren’t clear to him and asking directly felt weirdly untimely.

“You will,” the demon promised, moving closer to Vince, almost breathing into his ear, and Vince couldn’t help casting a quick look over him. Despite the lack of light, the demon’s eyes looked unnaturally green. “They’re completely obsessed over it. Starving themselves to death, wasting their entire salaries on beauty products, painting their faces until they are unrecognizable, squeezing their bodies into uncomfortable clothes. It’s so much fun. How did you manage to get such a good-looking body, though? All the angels I met looked like middle-aged accountants at best. Heaven is really obsessed over its employees’ purity.”

“Random distribution,” Vince murmured and downed his shot. The demon waved to the barista and showed him two fingers. A few moments later two shots of whisky were sent their way.

The second time, it was the height. Vince stood atop a twenty-story building and looked down at the busy street beneath, and everything was so little and insignificant. He didn’t have his wings anymore, but he could feel the rapture of flying one more time.

Vince woke up in the hole on the pavement the shape of which resembled that of his body. He had only a few scratches and not a single bone broken. He kept touching those scratches for the next hour until they healed.

Last time there were no injuries. Progress.

“I’m paying, baby.” The demon pulled a wallet out of the pocket of his leather jacket and slid two dollar-bills the barista’s way. “Enjoy your downfall. Did you already get the concept of money? Those humans turned pieces of metal and paper into their literal gods. They’re ready to die for it. How many of them, you think, are ready to die for an actual God, like real Jesus Christ, nowadays?”

His name out of the mouth of this despicable creature was like a string snapping in Vince’s chest, badly cutting his insides. “Don’t you dare speak His name,” he hissed, jerking his arm away from the demon’s grasp and moving his chair farther down the bar counter. If his gaze could kill, the demon’s body would already have been sprawled on the floor under the counter.

“Or what?” the demon stretched out his hand and wrapped his fingers around Vince’s elbow again, dragging him back in place. The chair legs gritted across the floor loudly, and Vince felt like all the eyes in the bar were on them now. The demon’s claws, painted in chipped black nail polish, were digging deep into his skin, but this time Vince didn’t try to wrestle away from his grip. This creature isn’t worthy of your anger, he reminded himself. “You’ll tell him and he’ll punish me? Funny. He no longer needs you, honey. That’s why he got rid of you. Threw you out like a toy he got fed up with.”

“Shut up,” Vince bit his lip and looked away. Every word slashed his soul like a sword, leaving deep, bleeding, unhealable cuts. “Stop that. Just-“ too early, a warning flashed across his mind, but he shook it off. The demon was clearly mocking him, and Vince wasn’t going to put up with that. “just tell me what you want from me.”

The third time, there were drugs. He tried regular pills from the pharmacy first - he heard they can cause death when consumed in excessive amounts. He woke up in the public toilet of some fast-food restaurant, in the puddle of his own vomit, with people banging on the door and shouting. Then there were other drugs, which people buy not in clean, white pharmacies with smiling women in doctor’s robes, but in dark alleys and night clubs. People didn’t want to give it to Vince without money, and he could no longer use any of his previous powers, so getting them was one hell of a job. All of which was in vain, because Vince only got a short and sharp sting of pleasure across his body before descending into darkness, and then woke up, this time in a hospital, surrounded by dumbfounded doctors.

“Nothing much,” the demon smiled sweetly and almost gently tucked a stray golden lock behind Vince’s ear. The demon’s own hair was pitch-black and wild, framing the sides of his face and falling onto his forehead, but still not managing to hide the uncanny gleam in his eyes. “You’re a pretty little thing, and I like pretty little things. Let’s hook up, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Hook up?” Vince frowned, and the demon laughed sincerely.

“Sweet innocence. Don’t worry, you’ll learn. It won’t take long. You’ll enjoy it. It’s one of the things humans do all the time, to have fun or kids or both, or aiming for one and getting the other.”

Vince gave him a long, hard look, for the first time this evening. He foresaw that – well, not exactly that, but something of a kind – and the blade dipped in holy water was now warming in the pocket of his jacket, reacting to the demonic presence. Killing a demon was hard and usually disapproved of by the authorities – the privilege of killing belonged only to high-ranked angels, ones who could withstand the temptation of sin inevitably coming with it. It was even harder for a fallen angel devoid of the Lord’s blessing. But it was possible.

His human vessel was shorter and weaker than that of the demon. But he had the blade. He had the advantage.

“Checking me out, huh?” The demon traced his fingertips along Vince’s jawline. Vince didn’t flinch back. “I gotta say, I am extremely lucky with my current vessel. It gets me all the chicks.”

“My human form is male.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re pretty, you qualify. Blond too. Love blonds.” The demon grinned, his teeth slightly sharper than human’s, a little bit too many of them. Devil is in the details, Vince recalled.

“Why don’t you get any other human then? Why me?”

“Honey, what demon wouldn’t want to bang a freshly fallen angel? It’s not every day that we have visitors from up there. You reek of Heaven, blondie. There’s still a lot of it in you. I wanna know how it feels.”

The demon licked his lips, eyeing Vince up as though he wanted to eat him whole. Vince shuddered but didn’t look away. He wasn’t afraid of him, after all.

“Sweetheart, I’m not gonna wait for you to come to terms with it. Don’t test my patience.”

“What if I refuse?” Vince carefully moved the untouched shot away, barely brushing the glass with the tip of a finger. The demon didn’t comment on it, but his gaze lingered on the rejected whisky a little longer than necessary.

“Then there will be a very loud and unpleasant scene that will surely feature in every newspaper by the end of the day. I feel like you still don’t fully understand,” the demon leaned closer to Vince and almost whispered in his ear, “I will get you anyway. You can only choose how, by force or by your own will.”

Vince closed his eyes, suppressing the urge to grip the handle of the blade through the jacket. He knew, of course, that demons couldn’t be trusted with a conversation, let alone an agreement. He shouldn’t have answered him in the first place. On the other hand, in this case. the demon wouldn’t have left him alone and would have forced him to answer. He couldn’t get rid of him with God’s power – he was no longer able to use it, neither could he deal with him with the help of simple, brutal force. Because he, as any angel, was against violence in general, not because the demon was half a head taller than him and had claws and sharp teeth.

Maybe it was better to just submit. Maybe the demon would be too distracted during this “hook-up”, whatever he was going to do to him, and wouldn’t notice Vince pulling out the blade. Maybe.

Submit and just let him do whatever he wants? something whispered quietly to him inside his head, something the invisible presence of which Vince could feel but only now got to hear. So you would let the forces of evil run amok because you’re not supposed to beat them?

Yes, Vince cut the something off and turned to the demon.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “It won’t take long, will it?”

“It will take as much as I need, angel, and by the end you will beg for more,” the demon promised complacently and pulled him up from the chair. “Come on. My car is in the parking lot.”

“Isn’t that kinda… uncomfortable?” Vince raised his eyebrow, for a second actually trying to imagine two whole people trying to find enough room on the backseat.

The demon burst into laughter, but the grip on Vince’s arm remained tight. “That’s the point, baby! Quick and dirty, exactly what you angels deserve. Come on.” He headed to the door, dragging Vince along.

Once they were outside, Vince lingered a little to inhale crisp, fresh night air - most of the Earth smells were still new to him, and some of them were quite pleasant. The demon interpreted it differently.

“Nervous? Don’t worry, all virgins are. You at least will probably be the first fallen angel to get rid of his virginity so quickly. Some never even get to experience it.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re ugly as hell, haven’t you heard me? I’m telling you,” he turned to Vince and poked him in the chest, “I’m telling you, this vessel is gonna be your best asset on this Earth. Everyone likes beautiful people. It’ll make your life down here easier. Actor, singer, model, hooker – choose whatever you want. Oh, here’s my car.” The demon pointed at a black, relatively small car in the farthest slot of the parking lot. “Seems small, but I can assure you, it fits our needs perfectly.”

“Your needs.”

“Eh, stop playing Virgin Mary. Mary Magdalene had a much better time before Jesus showed up. The girl was going places.” The demon grinned at the sight of indignation on Vince’s face. They approached the car, but instead of opening the door the demon backed Vince up against it, grabbed his collar and pulled him into a sloppy kiss.

Vince didn’t get to know what it felt like. A belt wrapped around his throat and yanked his body backward, hitting his back against the car roof and pinning him down to it. Vince’s hands flew up to the belt, scratching on it in a fruitless attempt to loosen it, but the assaulter was strong, stronger than him. And a demon as well, because the mere touch of his hands sent another spike of hot, buzzing electricity down Vince’s spine.

“Hold him!” The demon who brought him here tried to grab his wrists, got a kick in the stomach and had to take a second to drag himself off the ground. The second time he tried to grab him Vince was prepared.

The demon gasped and recoiled, his hands jerking up to his chest where the blade was now buried, barely audible sizzling coming out from the wound. The one behind Vince’s back almost rushed to help him, loosening his grip, but was stopped by a fierce glare of then-green eyes, now a solid black. Instead, he grabbed a fistful of Vince’s hair and banged his head on the car roof so hard it dented - the head or the roof, Vince didn’t really understand, because the world blurred in front of his eyes.

The next thing he remembered was lying on the cold pavement, hot blood dripping onto his eyes. A stray lock was hanging in front of his face, all smeared in blood as well. His hands were tied by the same belt that had been wrapped around his neck. Two demons stood above him, both black-haired and tall, their eyes now pitch-black, both radiating rage so intense it heated up the air around them.

“Fucking bitch,” the one from the bar spit out. “Who do you think you are to use this?” he raised the blade carefully by the handle. It was still covered in his blood, which oozed slowly from the cut in his chest and stained his shirt. Apart from that, it didn’t seem to cause much harm. “You’re no longer the warrior of God, blondie. You’re the same as us now. Wanna see?”

He kicked Vince in the side to roll him onto his back and then drove the blade right into his shoulder. Vince thought he knew what it would feel like: he had tried cutting himself before.

He didn’t expect it to burn, the same way it did in the demon’s flesh.

The demons didn’t even let him scream out his pain. They put something sticky on his mouth and threw him onto the backseat. The new, taller one, whose face Vince hadn’t managed to make out, got behind the wheel, and the green-eyed one sat at the back with Vince, his hand gripping his arm firmly, claws digging into his skin and leaving deep red marks.

Vince didn’t notice the pain. Tears streamed down his face silently while he was frantically, desperately searching for that connection he had always had deep inside his soul, the connection to Him.

He searched, and searched, and found nothing.

#motley crue fanfiction #vince neil #nikki sixx #supernatural au #angel/demon au #ex malo bonum #motley crue slash fanfiction #tommy lee #(an honorable mention)#tw: alcohol #tw: drugs #tw: suicide attempt #tw: violence #please stay safe babes!#damn this fic just went and took over my life and i'm so for it #haven't written dark stuff in a while and damn did i miss it #vince is gonna suffer a lot #sorry baby :(#i still love you #my last updates got not so many notes and considering the number of warnings on this one there will probably be none #but please if you read it let me know if you liked it #this fic is important to me on some whole different level than wilwif #not that wilwif is not important: it is and just as much #just......they're so completely different #yes i will go back to wilwif once i finish this if anyone cares #i just need to get this one out of my system #anyway im shutting up #also will post it on ao3 #AH SHIT I FORGOT #tw: dubcon

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nbenrey-real · 4 years

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hlvrai watsonian interpretation concepts

okay buckle in folks because my hyperfixating ass CANNOT let this go and it’s a REAL fuckin long one with a lot of metaphysics nonsense referencing cyberpunk terms, vaguely cthulhu-mythos style reality perception bullshit, and of course a bunch of player-interaction-horseshit thats blatantly the result of undertale and deltarune metaanalysis. Alright, so:

HLVRAI is the result of three different realities on differing ‘Singularity Levels’- points of where an sapient entity reaches a threshold of awareness of levels ‘above’ them that their perception process becomes incomprehensible to their native zones levels- interacting in a domino effect thanks to one certain eldritch entities desire to give his Mixed-Singularity-Level kid a good 37th birthday party at chuck-e-cheese.

These are: Reality 6-3411, Reality P14Y3R, Reality 41VR41, and Proxy-Realities 814354.

Reality 6-3411 is where the entity referred to as Gregory ‘G-Man’ Goodman’s Species resides- a race of enigmatic creatures who regularly interact with lower Singularity Levels in hopes of uplifting them to their level, often incubating their young in those realities in order to better communicate.

G-Man is part of a team charged with interacting with Reality P14Y3R through pre-existing proxy realities, looking for promising candidates- during which he inadvertently began interacting with Reality 41VR41 to a startling degree. Details are fuzzy, but at some point he was graced with a child by a member of that Singularity Level, currently known as Tommy Coolatta.

Tommy, being born into a lower singularity level with no guarantee of reaching one higher, is difficult to care for properly without harm- G-Man made the decision to leave him in an area so he’d be raised by members of that level while G-Man watched from the sidelines for potential Singularity Level Increase- however, time can be hard for ‘higher’- entities to understand, and he didn't realize how long it really had been.

While his employers had a vested interest in Tommy’s case, by the time G-Man is made aware of the circumstances of Tommy’s increasing access to higher-levels of perception of time by his employer’s- beginning with ‘seeing fast’ when drinking soda five years before the Black Mesa Incident and slowly progressing from there- Tommy had been inadvertently trapped in one of those pre-existing Proxy-Realities and could not be extracted without assistance from an entity of Reality P14Y3R interacting with a ‘Player Avatar’ based on Proxy-Realities connected to Reality 41VR41.

Reality P14Y3R is one of many realities that commonly interact with a multitude of naturally-occuring Proxy-Realities, often being interpreted as works of fiction to entities from that said level or being created by those same entities themselves. Entities from this reality are capable of interacting with Proxy-Realities which are naturally occurring buffer-zones that separate this reality to those of it’s ‘fiction’ and vice-versa, making them ideal candidates for Reality 6-3411 to utilize in their machinations- detriments to those ‘Player Avatars’ that happen to be caught in the crossfire from lower Singularity Levels notwithstanding.

In terms familiar to those who played undertale? It’s you!

Proxy-Realities 814354 include a variety of shifting sub-realities, namely taking the form of Half-Life, a science fiction first-person shooter where an entity from Reality P14Y3R takes control of the Player Avatar Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at Black Mesa. Included in this reality are a variety of AI created by entities from Reality P14Y3R, of which a few begin to increase in Singularity Level.

The first to gain proper Singularity is an entity known as Benrey, who proceeds to gain awareness of Reality P14Y3R and subsequently reinterprets their world through that knowledge- they are in a game with a script, a world that is not real, death is meaningless and you will simply heal or respawn in time- the only point is to have fun and make it interesting for the Player.

Benrey quickly removes themselves from the games code, becoming something of an anomaly on their native level and a Netrunner of sorts on the P14Y3R level- they also notice several other AI with increasing Singularity Levels, chiefly among them:

Tommy Coolatta, an oddity that is almost entirely free of the script and has somehow imported a High-Singularity entity called Sunkist into their reality, acting as a companion.

Dr. Harold Pontiff Coomer, a hive-intelligence still deeply-entrenched in the script but with increasing awareness of the limits of their reality.

Bubby, a highly-divergent entity who largely lacks awareness but has almost entirely deviated from the script.

Darnold, an entity largely content with their role who nonetheless has some subconscious awareness of the nature of their reality & is highly deviated from the script.

Frozen, an entity who has knowledge of things from Reality P14Y3R but no self-awareness of such, apparently suffering some amount of confusion as a result but largely harmless.

Though somewhat limited in knowledge of other Reality Levels, Benrey’s observations of the behavior of their companions allows them to come to the conclusion that they need to continue the natural formula of their Proxy-Reality in order to keep their companions stable and potentially allow them to similarly break free of the games script and code.

Singularity Level changes tends to result in a certain amount of dissociation resulting from the sheer influx of information and perceptual changes, with young Singularities often becoming aggressive or depersonalized from emotions for a period- Benrey’s further reliance on the script as a guide while largely ignoring true interaction combined with interpretation of everything from a P14Y3R Level worsens this over time.

Combined with Sensory/Auditory Processing Issues and Aphasia, the resulting entity is confusing, eclectic, and esoteric at the best of times, with a habit of latching onto odd phrasing and obscure personal neologisms- making communication difficult to implausible for entities such as G-Man or Gordon who are unaware of Benrey’s intentions, habits, or goals.

Reality 41VR41 is a reality level that shares traits with a variety of media found in Reality P14Y3R, namely the presence of Black Mesa, Aperture Science, and various realities connected via proxy-node-networks. This is directly connected to Proxy-Realities 814354.

Included in this reality is one Gordon Freeman, an 41VR41 native, single father, and hard working scientist at Black Mesa that found himself mis-introduced to the Proxy Realities due to Metaphysical Similarity- the result of G-Man’s machinations to retrieve his son Tommy which simply caught him in the crossfire, a most unfortunate coincidence.

As a result of entering Proxy-Realities 814354, Gordon was transposed into the position of the Player Avatar that his unaware counterpart usually fulfilled, in essence becoming a semi-possessed puppet being influenced by entities native to the P14Y3R Level- a circumstance that Benrey was not fully aware and comprehending of initially.

Over the course of the events that followed, Gordon slowly became aware of the disparities between the knowledge of his perceived reality 41VR41, the Proxy-Reality he now resided in, and the increasing awareness of the P14Y3R Level which was influencing him.

Benrey also began to become aware of the discrepancy between what they knew of their Proxy-Realities and the apparent origin of this new entity- which combined with increasing subconscious awareness of aspects of their Metaphysical Counterpart in Reality 41VR41- resulted in an increase in Singularity Level that caused increasing disorientation.

Benrey simply fell back on following the script to compensate, resulting in Gordons own interpretations and increasing Singularity Level to create a feedback-loop of alterations to the Proxy-Reality and permutations of the Script- resulting in Benrey being defeated and subsequent disincorporation into the net for some time.

Post-Incident, G-Man continues to Monitor the group, his employers having become highly interested in such a complicated case and he himself feeling some amount of guilt over how much his simple plan of ‘let me put my kid down for a second for the reality level natives to watch them’ managed to make Tommy an orphan and royally fuck up so many young Singularities, an entire Proxy-Reality, and a 41VR41 native who now has a significant amount of burden to bear about his role in all this.

Gordon, now an Ex-Player-Avatar with some buried knowledge of the nature of the realities he interacts with and an increased Singularity Level, has gained access to some of the same abilities Benrey utilized- namely Netrunning, which he utilizes to purposefully move his AI companions between Reality 41VR41 and various P14Y3R-Level-Connected Proxy-Realities in order to assist them in reaching the Singularity Level necessary to function safely and adequately in his native level.

Essentially, Gordon purposefully puts himself in the position of being a continual Player-Avatar- in spite of the existential nightmare it is- because he wants to make sure his friends can go on to live lives outside of Game Scripts and Weird Transreality Horseshit. He just happens to choose to do so in a way that involves things like beating the shit out of cops and stealing money from banks, because fuck you i’ve earned this. I can have a little ultraviolence, as a treat.

Benrey meanwhile has reincorporated, now entirely free to act as a Netrunner and game as they please- however, given the status of their native Proxy-Reality as ‘decommissioned’, they’ve instead been booted into Reality 41VR41 as their new native-zone with the other members of the Science Team. This poses a significant problem for them, as they have no context of how to live as a non-proxy entity beyond vague recollections gained from their Metaphysical Counterpart and has no actual presence in said reality- they’re still kind of expecting everything to just reset and put them back.

Tommy- having found out that Benrey had been largely staying in the stops for the bus-lines that used to go to the Black Mesa facility when they weren’t joining in on heists or hanging out with him- proceeded to immediately take to waking up Gordon at 3 am in the morning for two weeks in a row because ‘its storming really bad and they don't have anywhere else to sleep mr. freeman and he gets so worried its so cold they don't know how cold works-’, resulting in gordon just saying fuck it and making Benrey join the Science Team household.

So now Benrey lives in the house Gordon had to buy for the science team to move in with him since ‘you all keep crashing at my place anyways and god damn it i can't leave any of you alone for a minute, bubby has started so many fires-’ and now feels obligated to keep track of the jackass because fucking hell, they don't even know how to microwave things, they’re going to fucking die. Which then promptly turns into genuine concern because jesus christ their memory is complete garbage how are they functioning like this.

Gordon largely splits his time between caring for Joshua, making everyone do things to encourage neuroplasticity like tangrams, dragging them into whatever Player Interactions G-Man says look promising, and trying to wrangle them so they stop utterly destroying the household minecraft server, come on guys, between benrey and bubby they’ve single handedly resulted in the banning of both tnt and all firespread, can you just chill- COOMER STOP PUNCHING THE GODDAMN HORSES.

Meanwhile Gordon's brother, John Freeman, laboratory office worker and part-time stunt-motorcyclist- who had been babysitting Joshua during all of this horseshit and was about ready to storm Black Mesa his damn self- has not a fucking clue what the hell is going on and why his brother is suddenly 200% more off the shits than normal, now in possession of a prosthetic hand, talking about video games controlling him or something, and in the company of an entire family of eldritch bullshit people who might be robots or something he’s not really sure???

#hlvrai #hlvrai au #watsonian au #frenrey #sort of #hlvraiposting #hlvraitagging #hlvraificing #long post #in the watsonian vs. doylist interpretations of any given canon #i am a hardcore watsonian #and thus i must write out my wild ass ideas on how things work in the in-kayfabe universe #also since this involves so many headcanons reinterpretations and off-the-wall concepts it might as well be an au #so it gets an au tag #just a fair warning #this is 2000 words #ignore anything thats ooc im gay and cant read

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paternosterlawgrp-blog · 4 years

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6 MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS TO DETERMINE HOW MUCH YOUR SLIP AND FALL CASE IS WORTH

How much is a slip and fall lawsuit worth? This is a question I hear often, but it isn’t a one size fits all answer. The fact is every case is different and every person is different, so there is not a universal answer. Fear not, though, because every case does have a number, and it is predicated on some very serious issues.

To determine what your skip and fall case is worth, the amount you will get at the end of the case, lets determine what factors we have to look at to decide what the outcome will be.

What is a Slip and Fall?

A Slip and Fall accident actually refer to several different types of accidents. One can literally slip and fall. If someone spills some liquid at the supermarket or big box store, for example, and the liquid causes you to slip, it’s a classic slip and fall.

You can also trip and fall. If you were walking through a Las Vegas casino and the carpet on the floor has been inadequately tacked down, or if there were some obstruction in your way that caused you to trip, this would be a trip and fall.

There is also an accident known as a Step and Fall. In Las Vegas, where you often have to walk vast distances to get from one hotel to another, we often see step and fall accidents here. Parking lots that have potholes where you can take a misstep or a broken piece of tile which just catches you the wrong way are step and fall injuries.

All of these accidents fall under slip and fall law.

What is Premises Liability Law?

Slip and fall accidents are a category of premises liability law. Business property owners, under Nevada law, have a duty of care to their customers and to the public. They are responsible for ensuring their businesses are safe. There should be no areas where members of the public could be harmed through no fault of their own.

Property owners must maintain their premises in a safe condition. In a store, for example, there should be no fallen objects on the floor or spilled liquid. In a hotel or casino, there should be no lumps in carpet that anyone could trip over. In rental properties, spaces should be well-maintained. There should be no low places where someone could trip on a sidewalk or holes or defective places in stairs where anyone could trip or slip.

Here in Las Vegas, we have some of the largest hotels and casinos in the world. Generally speaking, they maintain their properties very well. But problems do arise from time to time, and even they miss things. When this happens, they are in breach of the law because they didn’t take the best care in the public – your – safety. The breach in the duty of care means they were negligent in their duties as property owners.

It is the negligence that creates liability for an accident that occurs as a result of the breach of duty of care. If an owner can be proved negligent, and that negligence caused an accident which in turn caused you to be injured, you can bring a suit for a slip and fall under the law.

But what if the owner believes the premises are safe? After all, it is not unheard of for hotel owners, for example, to argue that their parking lots are completely safe, despite a large and uneven crack in it that makes tripping on it an inevitable outcome.

The law turns to a reasonable person standard in these cases. The premises can be deemed unsafe under the law if a reasonable person would believe them to be unsafe. Most reasonable people, for instance, could agree that a cracked and uneven surface of a parking lot can cause you to trip if you aren’t looking directly at it when walking.

What if the premises are safe, but some event or action occurs suddenly makes them unsafe? Couldn’t the owner say that they didn’t know the premises were unsafe because they didn’t check?

In that case, the law also turns to a reasonable person standard. A business owner is responsible for fixing and responding to events or actions that make the premises unsafe if a reasonable person knew or should have known they had become unsafe.

Part of the owner’s duty of care is to fix or remedy the situation within a reasonable period of time, as well. If someone spills something in a store, the manager or the employees should clean it up as soon as possible. They can’t wait a few hours, because the court are highly unlikely to consider that a reasonable period of time.

In addition, if a premises or location becomes unsafe, business and property owners should clearly mark the affected area as unsafe. They can place hazard tape, warning signs, or cones to alert anyone in the area that there is a danger and it is unsafe. Those signs you see in stores about a wet floor when they are mopping is to protect you and them.

Knowing this information, you are now ready to understand what the 6 most important factors to determining how much your slip and fall case is worth.

1)The Amount of the Full Damages

When you are injured by a slip and fall, the full damages you incur are a mix of things that need to be identified and valued. If you went to a doctor, the medical bills you have incurred (not simply what your insurance co-pay may have been) are part of the damages.

Beyond that, though, are the long term effects of the damage. If you are unable to work because of your injury, whether for a short period of time or a long term disability, the loss in income is a damage you have incurred. If your house has to be retrofit to accommodate you because of the injury, that is a damage. All of these are easily identifiable monetary damages you have incurred and will go in determining how much your case is worth.

2) Future Treatment Costs

If you have to continue seeing a doctor or medical professional because of your injury, even if you have mobility, these future costs should not be paid by you, as you were not the one that caused the long-term damage. These costs are directly attributable to the slip and fall case and are used directly in the determination of your cases value.

3) How Much You Have Lost by Being Injured

Lets use an example for this. Lets say someone who was a truck driver slipped on some icy stairs at a client facility when getting paperwork signed to off-load his delivery truck. In trying to save himself, he grabs the handrail, but the ice was there too. He slips and his eye catches the handrail, making the driver blind in one eye temporarily. This sounds like a terrible accident, but at least the driver can still walk, talk, and isn’t completely blind.

Driving a truck requires you to have vision in both eyes, so he can’t drive a truck anymore. This means the occupation he studied for and is getting paid to do is gone. If his livelihood has been impacted by this accident, the loss in income is something that can be quantified and needs to be taken into consideration for his case.

Although the example above is fictional, slip and fall accidents often have severe losses because of the injury, and a good attorney will fight to make sure you get what you deserve for those losses.

4) How Much You Will Lose in the Future Because of the Damages

Using the same example above, what if the driver was permanently blind in one eye. While he can work in the office, they can’t pay him the same wages as if he were on the road. Assuming he earned $60,000 per year on the road and will earn $45,000 in the office, the other $15,000 per year, with adjustments made for inflation and average increases in both roles, will be considered.

The subsequent loss in income over his working years will all be taken into account when determining the future losses for your case. Your attorney will do all the research for you to get you the most they can for your case, but they know how to make all this information highly relevant to the case and the courts.

5) Pain and Suffering

This one is the hardest to quantify, as it relies on every individual person’s state of mind. If you are wheelchair bound because of your accident, and your spouse can’t take care of you in that condition, causing a divorce, that is very difficult to handle emotionally. This falls into the pain and suffering category.

What if you suffer from phantom pains because of your injury for years (or the rest of your life)? There is nothing physically wrong and no doctor can help, but you feel real pain. This also falls into the pain and suffering pool.

Last example (I promise); what if your injury causes you to become depressed. How that makes you feel can’t necessarily be measured in dollars and sense, but you are still feeling some pain and suffering. This is all vital to your case.

6) Hiring the Right Attorney

If you are in a slip and fall injury in Las Vegas, NV, you have options of lawyers who can represent you. The streets and the strip are littered with billboards of attorneys all claiming to be the best. How do you know, then, who is really the best.

You want to choose a personal injury attorney who does nothing but personal injury law. You want someone who has represented thousands of clients in slip and fall cases and knows exactly how to win them and get large settlements awarded in your favor.

At Paternoster Law Group, we believe that nobody who was injured in a slip and fall accident should proceed in dealing with the companies who caused the injury without talking to a qualified attorney first. As experienced personal injury lawyers, we know the games insurance play to get out of paying what you deserve.

Don’t fall for their tricks. You deserve every penny of damages the law allows you to collect. Call our team at Paternoster Law Group Personal Injury Lawyers at 702-654-1111 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation to discuss your legal options. We are conveniently located in Las Vegas and can schedule meetings in person at our office, wherever you are, or via tele-conference. The sooner you meet with us, the better your chances of preserving your rights to recover the compensation you deserve

Source: https://paternosterlaw.com/slip-and-fall/what-slip-and-fall-case-is-worth/

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powerovernothing · 5 years

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Okay so ive been devouring you TKTEATA au and let me tell you its aborable, but as i understand it korbin went through the oblivion crisis , and i have this little hurt/comfort scene that i put all my characters through and it goes as follows " a little child comes up to the HOK and innocently asked them if they were a black smith, when asked why they would think that they get the answer of "because you smell like fire and brimstone it clings to your clothes"

Considering that both of these scenarios are actually rather similar with both of them dealing with instances where Korbin interacts with small and curious children, and I have been putting off the latter for quite some time – mostly because things in real life got in the way, and I honestly really want to apologize to my Mistress Sis for the incredibly long wait for those delicious feelings! – I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to actually combine these both together, and answer at the very same time!

Starting with, of course, taking a moment and personally thanking you for all the wonderful and fantastic support and attention that you’ve been giving my Oblivion Verse lately! I saw the massive amount of notifications through my phone, and I honestly turned completely blood red with happiness at the fact that you enjoyed it so much that you went on a supportive spamming fest!

It means so much, and I am so glad that you enjoy the things I write, and that you enjoy Korbin’s story and his interactions with his brothers. It means so much, and I just want to wrap you in the biggest hug possible! So, thank you, for not only enjoying my things, but also leaving me a wonderful message to get my creative juices flowing!

Now, with that out of the way, let’s get into both of these scenarios dealing with Korbin and the subject of interacting with children, shall we?

(*~*4K Words Split Between Two Scenarios Involving Korbin And Children Underneath The Cut! Tons Of Fluff, Angst, And Other Emotions Abound!*~*)

Throughout the course of my story, especially in the Revised Timeline where things are considerably better – for the most part, at least, Sheogorath’s influence in His Little Raven’s head aside – and Korbin has a chance to live his life with his older adoptive siblings at his side, he actually does interact with children quite regularly. Mostly, and with it referencing the question that Jonathan Crane’s Mistress of Fear sent me, through his time spent with the homeless and those forgotten and abandoned upon the streets of the Waterfront District of the Imperial City.

You see, considering that Korbin spent several of his young childhood yearsalso growing up on those streets, alone and abandoned just as well, he knowshow it feels, and he never wants to see those who are in a similar place sufferwhen there is actually something he can do to help improve and better theirsituation.

So, any of the money that he earns through Dark Brotherhood contracts – early on in the Revised Timeline, and directly after Bellamont’s death – or the work he does assisting the new recruits and everything else at both Lucien and Vicente’s side – seven months after Bellamont’s death, and everything that comes later in the aftermath of the Oblivion Crisis – he takes and uses to help support those on the streets.

He spends it on fresh food, warm blankets, simple weapons so that they might protect themselves, and anything else that might help keep them save throughout the long and difficult nights. Everything that he didn’t have when he was a child. He never minds doing it, always happy to present his packages to those in need, and always smiles and wishes them well whenever he does.

Sometimes he does it in secret, sometimes he interacts with those he helps, itjust all depends… however, in one instance where he was assisting those inthe Waterfront District, and he was in the process of dropping out somepackages, he suddenly felt a weight press against his back.

Instinctively he reached for the dagger that he keeps near his person, unknowing whether or not this was someone who could actually do him harm, but upon turning his head towards the direction of his attacker to cast them a darkened glare as warning, he found emerald eyes staring back into his own golden gaze.

Realizing then what he was mere seconds from doing, his hand quickly fell away from his blade, and his breathing hitched in his throat.

It was a child. A small Argonian girl; barely more than a handful of years in age, clutching onto his armor in a white knuckled grip, as she attempted to bury herself within the folds of the leather with a muffled whimper. She looked frail, disheveled, and absolutely terrified.

Shifting around, he pulled the girl back to arm’s length, and questioned with a gentle chuckle as to why she thought it wise to latch onto the first armor clad stranger upon the streets, and how if he had been anyone else, she would not have been even half as lucky.

He had meant it as a way to quell her frantic emotions, and focus her attention solely upon him, instead of her own feelings and the world around her… but it seemed when he finished speaking, she became even more afraid, and trembled like a leaf underneath his oversized hands upon her shoulders.

It was the direct opposite of what he wanted.

Shutting his eyes briefly, he sighed under his breath because of his misstep, and then reached to carefully cup the side of her face. As the girl reacted to his touch, he slowly raised her chin until their eyes met once again, and then began a very different set of questions in a far softer tone.

What exactly had frightened her in such a way, what he could do to take away the source of her fear, and most important…what would allow her smile to return.

It turned out, what had frightened her so incredibly was the fact that she was hungry, and she wasn’t thinking properly. She was hungry, and she had taken a chance to nab something fresh and warm to eat… however, in the process, she wound up getting caught by the owner of the meal – a very angry, very cruel, very frightening Imperial man – and he processed to describe in detail the things he would to her, before turning her over to the guards so that they might proceed to do the rest to worthless and pitiful thieves.

This alone caused Korbin’s heart to twist in anger, rage, and… familiarity. Because this is exactly the type of thing that he did when he was growing up – in fact, this is the very thing that landed him in the Imperial Prisons in the Original Timeline to begin with, which led to him meeting Uriel and everything that followed – and because of that, when the young girl was able to get free, and then start running in her own tears, and huddle herself against the nearest person she thought could protect her, Korbin proceeded to do that very thing.

He stood his ground against the cruel man, awarding him a swift punch in the face that caused him to fall to his knees, but he merely chuckled as the blood ran down the corner of his lips.

He reached for the dagger at his belt once again, but before he chose to act on every feeling he had, and how he had chosen to take it out on this man alone, he told the young girl to run and hide behind the nearest corner and cover her ears. And, when it was all said and done, he would come and find her, and make certain she was protected more properly from anything and everything that tried to hurt her from thereon.

In the aftermath of the man’s death, and once Korbin hastily cleaned himself of the blood of his victim and went and found the girl just as he promised… she latched herself onto him and saw him as a helpful giant that would keep her safe from the world around her. In a sense, think of it as the relationship between the Little Sister’s, and the Big Daddy’s of the Bioshock series.

She looks up at him, and she sees someone who is larger than life itself. Someone who is basically a hero, a Knight in Shining Armor, and someone that she cares about and knows will protect her.

Contrary to what you may think, he doesn’t instantly snatch her up and take her back to the warm comforts of Cloud Ruler Temple to introduce her to his adoptive brothers. Even though there is a part of him that truly wants to do that, and make certain she is cared for, he knows it would be too much of a shock. So, instead, he allows her to grab his hand, and take him to where she stays within the Waterfront District.

The young girl doesn’t speak much, she is hardly three years old in the human equivalent to her Argonian age, and mostly just mutters or whispers, thus she takes his hand with a small whisper of ‘Home’ and drags him to her special place. To the outside eye, it’s nothing special. A makeshift blanket fort that a normal child would have, but Korbin?

He is patient, he is understanding, and is absolutely telling her in many words how wonderful it is, and how pretty she made it, and asks politely if he can snuggle under the blankets as well just to be playful and make her laugh.

He always goes out of his way to leave her extra gifts, and small packages to keep her warm and protected, and in one instance where he does visit her the next time around… and the young girl has somehow managed to fall very sick because of the exposure to the elements around her, that is when he scoops her up and takes her back to the warmth of Cloud Ruler Temple.

She remains underneath his and his brother’s care for a short while, and they eventually end up finding her a proper family to adopt and raise her when it is time for her and her protectors to go their separate ways. However, if you’re wanting to know more about this young Argonian girl in more detail than what I mentioned in the above, allow me!

Her name is Me’elni, although her translated name would actually be Whispered-Melodies. She is four years old in Argonian, although that would translate into three years old when you do the math in terms of human years.

(I have an entire life span chart that I made for the different races of theElder Scrolls world when I was in the process of creating side characters forKorbin’s story, so if you ever want to see it for reference or just out ofcuriosity, just ask and I’ll post it up!)

She was born in Midyear 430 of the Third Era, thus making her Birthsign be The Steed in the Elder Scrolls world, and Gemini in the real-life Zodiac equivalent. She is incredibly short, around 3′8″, and barely comes up to Korbin’s thigh. As mentioned above, she hardly talks – as she is very young, and the world around her is terrifying, and no one was here to teach her how to speak properly – but when she is under the care of Korbin and his brothers, she is able to start speaking in single phrases and gives the boys special nicknames because of her time spent within their care.

Korbin’s chosen nicknames are either‘Tall’, from when she first met him, ‘Safe’ when she started being in his care, or ‘Da’ when she started becoming incredibly attached to him. Martin’s nicknames are ‘Glowy’, from his magic and the times where he entertained her through various light shows, as well as ‘Warm’, because of the way his magic feels to her touch. And for Lucien? ‘Pointy’, because one of the first things she noticed about him was his dagger, and then ‘Dark’ because of the way he tends to dress in his black robing.

Her design is based off of a red bearded dragon, and because of this, she tends to ‘poof out’ and hiss whenever she is overly angry, or whenever she is trying to look threatening to those that seem to be scary – yes, she hissed at Lucien, and he found it overly adorable as he has a weakness for young Argonians being a father of two in the past – and whenever she is incredibly happy or excited, she tends to stomp around or wave her arms back and forth. She also has an intense weakness for the tastes of blueberries and cannot get enough of sweets that are made from them.

She also has quite an ear for music, and in her adult life she becomes a lute player that travels with a band of bards. She never gets to the point where she is able to speak easily, or clearly, but she is able to weave music so nicely that she says everything she needs to through her songs. However, another thing I feel as though I should speak about in relation to Me’elni is that she… is actually the daughter of Runs-In-Circles in my Oblivion Verse.

I’m still currently in the process of working out every single detail relating to her mother’s history – as well as giving her a proper name one of these days – but I know for a fact that she had ties to the Thieves Guild at some point in her early life, and when she gave birth to her daughter, and tried to do whatever was needed to provide for her and keep her safe, she somehow managed to make her way to the Shivering Isles, and is unable to make her way out of the hold that he has on her.

But some part of her, is still very much aware of her past life, as even in her Mania addled mind, she still calls out to the daughter she wishes to go back to – whenever she runs around and screams ‘Nini’ over and over again.

Nini is Me’elni’s affectionate nickname.

Is that sad? Is that just a little too far over the edge in terms of angst? Perhaps so, but welcome to my Oblivion Verse, here are your free package of tissues, and please feel free to leave your heart at the door! In any case, I believe that about covers one of those scenarios, based around what would happen if Korbin befriended and temporarily adopted a young homeless girl… now to tackle the over scenario that you left for me, my dear and wonderful Lady La Luna!

Now, this one really made me start thinking about things in a more creative sense, I have to say! It‘s so very interesting, so very unique, and I honestly just wanted to try and give you a more in depth answer than what you were probably expecting!

Well, I mean, as you can see, I tend to go above and beyond in terms of details… but as for your scenario, how about I answer it with what Korbin would do in both the Original Timeline – the one in which the events of Oblivion take place without any massive change, and thus Korbin loses his brothers in the end – as well as how he would react in the Revised Timeline – where Korbin makes a deal with Sheogorath to reverse the timeline and rewrite the story so that he can save his brothers from their fates – at the same time?

After all, in both timelines Korbin is a very different person, and would have different reactions if a child suddenly came up to him and asked him this question and gave that reasoning behind it. So, let’s start with the Original Timeline answer, shall we?

In the Original Timeline there was a bit of a gap between the ending of the Oblivion Crisis, Martin’s death, and Korbin choosing to head to the Shivering Isles.

In the aftermath of Martin’s death, and when Chancellor Ocato came to Korbin’s – basically comatose – side as he knelt in front of the nearly formed Akatosh statue, and the remains of the shattered Amulet of Kings, and asked where Martin had gone, and why he was no longer present… Korbin reacted by suddenly standing to his feet, rushing out into the falling rain, and getting as much distance as he could before he collapsed down to his knees and screamed out in agony of everything that had happened.

And when he was done, and his screaming was finished, and his throat was raw? Then he simply started walking.

He got on the road, he headed southwards, to which would eventually lead him to Bravil, and numbly continued on until he hoped the road would finally give out at some point. So, in this scenario, let us say that Korbin actually went into and stayed at Bravil for a while before heading towards the Strange Door that would take him to the Shivering Isles. He is numb, he is broken, he is hardly feeling a single thing, and hardly allowing himself to react in any possible way that isn’t in bitter sadness.

And if a child came up to him? If a child tugged on the leg of his Shrouded Armor and innocently asked him if he was a blacksmith? I think that strange question would be enough to knock Korbin out of his daze for a time.

He doesn’t want to be rude, he doesn’t want to ignore the child, after all… for some reason this child wished to come up to him – the stranger who had, unknowingly to this child, lost everything and everyone he had ever loved – and ask him a question. So, who would he be if he didn’t take the time to answer? Thus, Korbin would kneel down, put on his best fake smile, and wonder why this young boy – let’s say boy in this scenario, as in the other it was a girl – is asking him something like that.

Does he look that messy? Does he look as though he’s been working with steel all day that he is sweating? Or is this child simply confused? And when the young boy answers him, and telling him that he asked because he smelt like fire and brimstone, and the scent has managed to cling itself to his clothing…

…Well, that would be enough for Korbin to make his choice to leave Cyrodiil behind him. If the fact that the scent, the memory, and the regret of what he had done within those damnable Gates of Oblivion still linger even after a week of traveling from the Imperial City to Bravil… then he needs to move on somehow.

His smile would falter, he would pet the boy’s head, and tell him that no, he’s not a blacksmith. He’s just a very dirty, very messy man, who has made so many bad choices that it’s about time that he did something to clean himself up.

And at first, his thoughts lead down a much more darkened road, to where he wishes he could simply find the nearest cliffside and end up reuniting with his brothers one way or another, but when he leaves Bravil and he sees a glowing door in the distance, that is when his choice is made for him, and the pieces start to fall into place.

But in the Revised Timeline? When everything is a touch better, and his brothers are alive and well, and he does not have the guilt he carries from his mistakes of the Original Timeline? He would be in considerable better spirits.

He would laugh with the young boy, asking if he truly looks that messy, and if he should consider leaping into the nearest lake to bathe himself properly! Is this why his brothers seemed to sneer at him lately? Because of the way he smelt? Dear sweet Sithis, he should do something about this, and stat!

He would shake his hair, playfully state that – oh no, now the young boy is just as messy as he is whatever shall we both do! – and then pick the boy up and spin him around for a moment. Saying that perhaps the two of them should head home to their families and get themselves a nice bath before they are scolded from their lack of personal hygiene!

And when the young child walks off with a large smile on his face, and hopefully a giggle to match that smile, he would return to what he was doing with a smile as well.

But for a more secret reason.

After all, he knows that the scent of Oblivion still lingers on his clothing, and possibly even on his own body, and perhaps that scent will never actually leave – no matter how many times he bathes himself or tries to wipe it clean. But Korbin doesn’t mind too much. Even though it is a reminder of everything he had tried to forget, every horror, every Daedra, every flame, or burn, or injury from the depth of those Gates, he takes it all in stride.

Because he survived those Gates. He survived the Crisis. He is alive, even when he thought he would lose his life so many times before, and his brothers are alive just as well.

All three of them are alive… and if the scent of Oblivion has to remain on him for the rest of his life somehow, then he will simply accept it, and look at it as a reminder of something better. A better outcome, a better life, a happier existence, and one where he will share with his family at his side. And honestly, all things considered,Korbin truly doesn’t think that’s all too bad of a trade~

…Oh, my goodness, that wound up turning out way longer than I first planned for it to be! Looking at my word count at the moment, it’s nearly four thousand words, and I am still in the process of going! I’m so sorry that this ended up being quite the ramble, and thus quite the read for you to sit through, but I loved both yours and my dear Mistress Sis’ question and scenarios so much, that I would have honestly felt so bad if I didn’t take the time to try and give you the answer that you both so rightfully deserved!

If you both managed to get through this massive read, then I mostly certainly want to applaud your devotion and desire to learn a little bit more about Korbin and his interactions with children!

My dear Sis, I’m so sorry that I took forever to get around to replying to your question properly, and I’m sorry that I kind of had to end up combining things together in the end, but I hope that you don’t mind! I hope that you like the young Argonian girl that Korbin partially adopted, as well as the scenario and information that I posted above about her and his interactions, and that it somehow managed to put a smile on your face!

I know that you aren’t that big of a fan of Elder Scrolls, but truly – and I’ve probably stated this so many times over in the last little while – your support and care for Korbin always warms my heart. I’m so glad that you like my boy, his story, and the things that he creates. I always cherish and adore your questions, and I look forward to answering the rest of them soon! Thank you again, darling!

And, dear Lady La Luna! Let me just say that it truly means a lot that you enjoyed my work so much! Seeing the wave of activity in my feed just made my entire night, and your support, your curiosity, and your questions means more than you will know, and I hope that my given answer for your scenario will be something that you will end up enjoying by the time you’re finished reading it over!

And not only that, but I hope the upcoming things that I have planned for Korbin and his tale with his adoptive siblings will be something that you will enjoy the further it goes on!

In any case, I know that this is long, and has been filled with tons of emotions on both sides, but I just wanted to say thank you again. You guys’ support, and desire to hear, learn, and know more about Korbin and his story is what keeps me going even when my creativity decides to take a break at times!

So, I appreciate, love, and adore each and every single one of you! And Korbin does just as well, I promise you that! Thanks again for the great questions, and the wonderful support, and until the next time I decide to ramble on about a silver haired boy and his silly siblings! Hugs and kisses all around! ♥

#lady-la-luna-of-the-omniverse #jonathan-cranes-mistress-of-fear #The Knight The Emperor And The Assassin~#Korbin Redd Related Things~#Is This Not Korbin~#Ponnie Rambles~#Long Post~#Very Long Post~#This wound up ten times longer than I first expected it to -- but considering that I haven't really had a chance to discuss Me'elni before #and I've been doing my best to create a fair amount of side characters to Korbin's story -- I thought it would be the perfect moment #to go all out in terms of details and just try and explain as best I could and hope that everyone who is reading it genuinely enjoys it!#So yes that's why it's incredibly long and filled with tons of feelings -- both good and bad -- but I really had fun with this reply #and I honestly hope that you guys have a good time reading it over!#I can't wait to tackle the rest of the prompts in my messages and get back into the swing of things in terms of original content #with Korbin and the boys -- as well as the rest of the side characters -- so I dearly appreciate the curiosity and the wonderful questions!#They're awesome and amazing and you guys are awesome and amazing.#Thanks so much again for sending these my way and thanks for reading this over!#You guys are fantastic and I love you all!#Kisses and hugs from me and the Elder Bros~! ♥

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blackosprey · 5 years

Text

I wanna fix the KH3 ending

[ @derekscorner @kirabook @echo-from-the-void I told y’all I was gonna do this and I finally did. Spoilers ahead i guess]

Analysis: The finale of KH3 has a lot of pacing issues and a lot of nonsensical events that don’t make a lot of sense even within the context of the story. These odd choices tend to be so jarring that I fail to feel much emotion over any sad scenes.

Proposal: tweak and rewrite.

Let’s establish a few things to set the context: first of all, the X-Blade is forged via conflict. Aka, people fighting eachother. Xehanort’s goal is to get everyone to duke it out until his weapon is complete. Second, Xehanort is an egomaniac and wants to ensure it will be HIMSELF who will control the X-Blade and... do whatever with it. (I’m still not 100% sure what THAT is even now)

Boss Rush I

- Get rid of the entire weird fake-out with everyone dying and rewinding time and Union X advertisement nonsense. (That whole thing was a ripoff of Ending E and UX has not earned that in the slightest.)

- Jump straight to Xehanort raising up that labyrinth and separating everyone so they can all duke it out. He needs those shards of conflict to forge the X-Blade after all. Scattering everyone ensures the Lights won’t overpower them before the weapon is forged.

- Things play out more or less like they did in the game at this point. Sora runs through, helps everyone defeat their opponents. The hypest moments like Terra and Roxas remain intact. Folks get reunited and it’s really nice. Oh yeah KAIRI DOES NOT GET KIDNAPPED.

Oh No

- Sora and co. manage to defeat all the Norts before the X-Blade is finished. They plan to do the “push Xehanort out of the world” thing. Now it’s as simple as 7+ vs 1 old man right?

- Wrong

- THIS is the part where Everyone Dies. Heartless tornado, whirlwind of Keyblades, point is they don’t manage to fight him directly before they all get destroyed.

- Everyone, of course, except for Sora. Who is extremely upset for understandable reasons.

- Why Sora? Well, Xehanort’s a sucker for fate, destiny, and all that grandeur, what could be a more fitting way to complete the blade than defeating what appears to the the universe’s answer to him? This kid who’s appeared at every turn to complicate his plans.

- That, and he knows for a fact that he’s not the strongest of all his friends, and he’s very emotionally vulnerable. Meaning, isolating Sora would lead to a fight he could very easily win. It’d pose no risk to his plan.

- He’s right. Saying that Sora’s distraught and out for blood is an understatement. He doesn’t scream and drop to the ground in surrender, he screams with FURY. It harms his ability to fight. Xehanort easily wins.

- Sora falls to the ground after taking a Goatblade to the chest. The last thing he sees is the X-Blade materialize in Xehanort’s hands as the true KH appears before the darkness starts devouring it like in game.

I Hear Dead People

- The Final World. This bit plays out more or less the same way it did in-game at first, Chirithy and all, bc I don’t really mind that bundle of sass. Sora pieces himself back together and is only able to do so because Kairi’s just barely holding him back from crossing into death entirely.

- Here, you could take a moment for Sora to actually process what just happened. He’s less vengefully pissed now and reality of everyone being gone is setting in. He might even be paralyzed by it. And, to top it all off, he died, easily too. Failure’s a hell of a drug.

- He doesn’t mope too long. Of course eventually he realizes Kairi’s just barely managed to give him a second chance, and he starts putting himself back together. Figuratively and literally.

- Once he’s done with fixing himself he needs to get back to the real world. Yes, he does want to use the Power of Waking to find his friends but there’s no time to do that and it’s much too risky- it has dire consequences whether or not he actually succeeds in reviving his friends and while time’s going by much more slowly here, it’s still flowing and Xehanort reeeeally needs to be stopped.

- Sora knows he needs to shove Xehanort out of the Graveyard. Wonders if he can do this alone. The voices of his friends resonate within. Think of typical “you are not alone, bonds transcend, etc” motivational corn. You’ll know what to do, may ur heart be ur guiding keyyyy. Staple KH Narm.

- Sora returns, much to Xehanort’s surprise but not necessarily his dismay, and proceeds to slam them both into Scala ad Caelum.

- (If you reeeeeally wanted some UX advertisement time, Ephemera and the other Dandelions could be the power that helps Sora yeet Xehanort right into Scala ad Caelum. Or something.)

Boss Rush II Final Mix+

- Scala ad Caelum plays out very much like it does in-game, with all the boss rushes. However, instead of having just Donald and Goofy in your party the whole time, your party changes with each “stage” of the fight. Members consist mainly of the “friendship trios” of all the games.

- I’m thinking BBS trio, Days trio, then Riku and Kairi plus Mickey.

- They’re very obviously not all there. They look kinda spectral and appear and vanish suddenly with each beginning and end of a fight stage. You get some opportunities for team attacks with everyone.

- Culminates with Sora, Goofy, and Donald in the very last battle as they are in canon. Complete with that last bit where it seems like Sora is KOd and gets shouted back to life by everyone.

We’ll Go Together

- Xehanort is defeated. I’m not sure how I’d want to alter that bit, I’m not even sure if I want to get into that, so if you didn’t like how he died, just replace it with however you wanted to see it. The important part is, Sora still ends up in possession of the X-Blade.

- He uses the X-Blade to return to the Final World and attempts to rescue everyone.

- If you want the story to end with KH2 levels of happy closure, you can say the X-Blade allowed him to mess with life and death without consequences. Everyone is happy, the end.

- If you’re ok with it not going that way, then meddling in god’s realm still has a pretty heavy toll. Sora rescues everyone but his tether to life is about to snap before he can get to Kairi. Whether he goes for it or leaves her, he can’t get her out.

- He promised he wouldn’t leave her, right?

- Sora follows Kairi. They embrace as they dissolve into sparks of light and vanish together.

- (Setting up the sequel where Kairi plays the Reapers’ Game to get her life and her boyfriend back dammit)

Sooooo yeah! That’s kind of how I’d fix things up while keeping the badass moments and main concepts introduced intact, while adding some logical character motivation and emotional weight.

#kh3 #kingdom hearts #sora #kh3 ending #xehanort #fanfix

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