#but as they get progressively fucked up their appearance gets messier

[skysmadness]

i tried to write something as someone who hasn't written anything in a while and whose first language isn't even english

the premise is: aphrodite makes nico realize he's loved ft. friendship, family and love

here's a small snippet !

You would think that after a few prophecies and two wars and multiple close encounters with Death himself, the Gods would give their children at least a week of peace and quiet.

But of course not, it's the Olympians we are talking about after all, and the word "mercy" has just recently been added to their vocabulary.

(Thank you, Percy Jackson.)

Nico di Angelo isn't surprised to see one of them looking at him purposely while he's completely demolishing a training dummy, just a tad annoyed by the implications. Implications being: ah, they're gonna ask for something out of him and it's probably gonna be awful.

He has no idea who it is, nor does he want to know particularly. Maybe if he pretended he didn't see them, then–

"Oh, that isn't going to work."

Nevermind.

Nico sighed, lowering his sword and finally looking up. He couldn't exactly pinpoint who it was, since their form was… kind of confusing to him. It was androgynous at best, with freckles that appeared and disappeared on tanned skin like twinkling stars and curly, golden hair. Or was it light brown?

Anyway, they looked annoyed.

"This is your fault," they gestured to themselves, "and it's honestly frustrating me."

"Excuse me?" Nico furrowed his eyebrows. Gears were turning in his head, trying to get who exactly was speaking to him.

"Usually, I'd be thrilled about such an event, you know? Tricky, complicated feelings, the yearning – but it's honestly making me lose my temper, son of Hades. Especially when it's so obvious!"

The gears stopped. Of fucking course.

"Lady Aphrodite."

The grip on his weapon tightened. He didn't exactly have a very nice history with all things… Aphrodite. Meaning: love, but also and especially her son.

He doesn't notice it when she gets closer, her form even messier than when she was a few feet away. He takes one step back, making the goddess raise an eyebrow.

"If you're worried about what my son did, fear not," she waves a hand, "I don't condone it. It was quite barbaric, wasn't it? Accepting love is not an easy task and it shouldn't be imposed."

Nico looked at her pointedly, pursuing his lips.

"Yet you are going to impose it on me-"

"Yes, I am going to impose it on you."

Before Nico could speak, she explained herself, "look at me! I'm a mess because of you! Because you can't accept any kind of love that's given to you!"

Okay, now Nico was confused. "And that's bothering you… why? If I may," because, unfortunately, Maria di Angelo did teach him respect and also he didn't want any more trouble, "this is the first time we've ever met each other and I don't think it's particularly hurting you… physically speaking, at least."

"Of course it is!" Aphrodite countered, "Nico di Angelo, don't you get it? You're a mess regarding love, which is my expertise. Looking at you makes me…"

She makes a face. Nico doesn't like that face even if, somehow, looking at those freckles makes his stomach do a flip.

"Miserable, at best."

It was Nico's turn to be annoyed. Did she think it was easy for him? He was working hard on it, on himself. He was trying his best, wasn't he? Bit by bit, he was making progress. His friends told him so. Will told him so. Wasn’t it enough?

Yet she didn't seem particularly aggressive, just very irritated at whatever he was – or wasn't – doing, so he let himself lose whatever filter he tried to put on himself beforehand.

"Okay. So what do you want me to do? 'Cause frankly, I'm not really in the mood to be forced to do anything because it's funny for you to toy with people's feelings."

"I am not gonna make you do anything."

Her tone suddenly shifted, and it was so… soothing. It was warm, like honey, like a late-summer sunset, like the first rush of heat from a campfire.

It sounded like… Who did it sound like? It was so soft, accommodating. Whatever irritation Nico might’ve felt beforehand dissipated in a matter of seconds.

"I am going to make you understand. Love cannot be forced, yes, and it's our job to accept it and understand it as we like, in any shape or form – which is why, I will be helping you."

Nico, still stunned by the sound of her voice and how it managed to calm him instantly, managed to slightly tilt his head and squint. "Help me how?"

"Take it as a… blessing of sorts. I will make you see you're surrounded by love of all types, and I’ll make you recognize that you deserve it."

That was… awfully and strangely sweet.

She clapped her hands, "so that you can stop being such a headache!"

Ah, there it is.

"And what would this blessing be, exactly?"

"It will last one day," she raised her index finger in front of him, "you will be able to see how your feelings resonate with another. You'll see a light emanating from them which will shimmer in color based on the type of love that person feels towards you. You’ll get it once you open yourself to them."

"Isn't this just… kind of cheating?" Nico cringed. What if he learned something someone didn't want him to know? What if, somehow, what resonated was hatred?

"See, this is why you need it," she huffs, "otherwise you will never get it! A more vivid representation will finally make you less… blind."

"Anyways," a hand mirror magically appeared in her hand and she made a little ugh sound as she stared at her reflection. "That's all. You can thank me later – I need to get far away from you now or it's gonna make me go insane."

She smiles at him. She had dimples. "Remember, one full day! Make the most of it, son of Hades!"

When Nico blinked, she was gone.

…

Ma che cazzo?

#if you saw me post this already no you didn't #anyways ryu attemps to write fanfic !!! heyyyy #very excited to write nico speak italian #solangelo #solangelo fic #nico di angelo #pjo #ryurambles

[just-an-enby-lemon]

oh man i just saw your reply to my ask and it's really good, i know it is basically the same general plot outline but the details you described like the scene with the neighbor (who i had completely forgotten about. it's been a few months) and about the mother's current living situation and the description of the visit were so good and made it way better than my basic one, and actually made me a bit sad.

i found it interesting that you mentioned Ed "tugging at his hair" though since the original design doesn't have that, would you have changed his design from the original too? and how would you change the ending of the comic? i have ideas for that too (although i could not send them yet because it's a lot) but i am more curious about yours

Oh. Thank you. I still think yours was better but I'm glad I was abble to make you feel something.

About the hair detail what if I said I just forgot about his original desing? I shouldn't but I haven't actually read the full comic in a month or so and it really just escaped me for a second. The whole tugging his hair was because I was looking to the beta ideas for characther desings on the Arkham games and one of the notes added that Edward's hair should become messier as the game progresses because he tugs it as an OCD nervous tic and I just really liked it. But no. I would keep the original desing. Exept for the green eye make-up mimicking the mask and the weird mascara. I'm all for Eddie using make-up but they make it too Joker like. Instead I would keep a more tradicional green eye shadow with the glasses as a substitute for the mask (as he really wouldn't have the mask on Arkham any way) and maybe blurry it in an emotional distress scene. Besides that the desing is totaly fine. I really just hate the eye shadow thing and how during his scene with Gordon he looks like I do when I try to aply mascara because I'm not good with it.

About the end I have some vague ideas but nothing concrete. I think I would have made so the random man death have an actual valid motivation instead of it being an statement that he can kill without leaving clues (the fact he used that as clue for Batman to discover his intent is something that really drives me mad, the moment Bruce says that I though the plot twist in the end would be that Edward only thinks he isn't leaving clues anymore but nooo let's just ignore that he made Batman uncover his statement because fuck it). Maybe have the fact that the death seems random be that it wasn't part of the game (wich would relate to the wife's coment about how everything is game), maybe the guy was another person (an ex paramour or an ex teacher or an Arkhan psychiatrist) that Edward though could help him with his identity crisis but instead he just made things worse and Edward killed him in a dissociative episode so the end is about Bruce understanding Edward better and maybe not fully answer (as only Edward can) but actually offer an insight over why Riddler is what he is before sending him to Arkham wich would end his crime spree but make so Edward started to get once again obcessed with Bruce as he is the only person that understands him, the only person (including himself) for whom he is more than an enigma. Basically Riddler misanderstands everything and what could lead him to a redenption just drives him further on his obcession because while I think I could easily turn it into a redemption arc it doesn't appear to be what DC wants with this stories. (also can I say that for me the only reason Batman kills Edward besides Tom King weird obcession with portraying Eddie as math emotionoless Joker is because they wanted to recreate the ambiguiuty at the end of the Killing Joke where is implied Bruce may have killed Joker).

[askaniritual]

anyyyyyywayyy i thought that fic was great because it was rlly interested in providing context for bro strider without like. attempting to excuse him which i think is a compelling angle to take.

probably ppl who feel some type of way abt bro would not b happy w this intense focus on bro as somebody who was more of a teen caught up in addiction n mental illness/neurodivergence n perpetuating cycles of abuse than like. an out and out monster. but. i thought it worked. like for me “you had your reasons but you still fucked up” i think is the way a lot of ppl feel abt abusive parents. that being said i think saying that the three follow up stories more focused around dave n bro r “non-canon” is a little bit of a cop out n i have more opinions abt how dave’s reaction was framed but i also think the story very explicitly says that like hey this is the absolute kindest version of this narrative. i still would have been interested in seeing maybe a messier reconciliation but that is just my permanent addiction to half-solved bittersweet endings.

in a lot of the fic ive read where dirk has to deal w the bro of it all, bro is absent (or appears only in the form of a construct) n also it’s just like “this guy was a full on evil child torturer” which is fine! i’m good w that framing but i do think it tends to get played up for dirk’s self loathing like “see the contrast? dirk is so nice and trying so hard and bro is so evil and unrepentant”. again fine i think there’s interesting stuff there but i did like that this was very focused on dirk like. actually seeing pieces of himself in bro and understanding him and how bro ended up where he was and wanting so desperately to believe that bro could find some kind of redemption and in doing so dirk would also be redeemed in some way. i like the idea of dirk feeling like “yeah i fucked up and my friends forgave me but i’m not convinced i won’t do it again”. bc this provides both an interesting counterpoint to dirks narrative in the epilogues (which this was written contemporarily w) n makes sense as a progression from dirk of act 6

#allegory of the hive #abuse cw #fic reviews for nobody

[boldbrash-fandertrash]

Ignore me, unless I’m right in which case I fucking called it

So I was rewatching the episode for the fourth time and one I realized that Remus is much much smarter than we give him credit for and two I can generally predict how the rest of the story is gonna go.

We’re gonna have another aside video with Patton and Janus before the big season finale, and that aside is going to be one of the most important videos to the general progression of the plot.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the pattern so far, two sides who diametrically oppose each other being forced to work together on a problem they vastly disagree about, usually turning the small issue into something much messier than it ever would be and them learning something about themselves in the process.

Each pairing exists to point out to the viewer exactly what issues exist with each side that need some form of resolving, and the big unifying theme amongst them is “you’re not listening to me”. Roman and Virgil dragging Thomas across the cafeteria in favor of or agains him talking to Nico, Logan and Remus deliberately ignoring and working to undo the others work in an attempt to break Thomas out of the depressive funk he found himself in. Nobody is working together here. The only side to even remotely cooperate with the group was Virgil body checking Thomas into Nico, and it took him and Roman bullying each other and Thomas for an entire video to even get to that point.

Watching Logan and Remus interact, one, brought me immense joy and I will be chasing that high for weeks to come, and two, after an ounce of critical thinking was frankly painful to watch. Any critiques Logan offered to Remus were immediately discarded with absurdity and any critiques Remus offered to Logan were discounted as absurd.

During the obvious scene at the end with the Eyes™️, Logan claimed he wasn’t pretending Remus didn’t exist, but honestly, he kinda was.

The Dunce Cap Scene really accentuates this point. Logan pulls a holier than thou, why won’t you learn I’m always right, bullshit passive aggressive remark, Remus does his dramatic repenting student shtick, starts singing directly into Logan’s ear, and makes a kink joke. Literally the words Remus sings are “can’t fix this guy, all by yourself”. Remus is saying this inches from Logan’s personal face and even still the logical side ignores him outright, because of all the fluff around the message. Hell, in Remus’s introduction video, Logan likens him to a screaming baby on a plane, essentially saying “well eventually he’ll stop screaming so just bear with it for a while and you’ll be fine”. He’s ignoring Remus outright due to a preconceived notion and missing out on valuable information because of it.

The dunce cap scene indirectly calls back to learning new things about ourselves, where Logan is completely unreceptive to the puppet bit because of its perceived absurdity and absolutely refuses to acknowledge any potential the medium might have for learning until he physically cannot anymore.

Remus is capable of, and does often, make valid points and offers genuine critiques of shit happening in their lives. In Forbidden Fruit, almost every single line harkens back to some idea the other sides had been trying, and failing, to communicate to Thomas. “Good and bad is all made up nonsense”, “if you shared those musings with your friends i doubt they would forgive you”, “why deny yourself knowledge, say, knowledge of yourself” “people don’t like me much, Thomas, but that only just cause I’m honest”, “these sorts of things are only thought in the mind of a man who’s soul is truly rotten.”

Despite all of this, he is ignored outright because of his medium. Just like Logan is ignored due to his monotone cadence and large volume of content, just like Roman is due to his flair for the dramatic and artistic display of ideas, just like Patton is due to his playful and childlike nature, just like Janus is due to his perceived role as the Villain, just like Virgil /was/ due to his perceived role as the villain.

They all have become accustomed to being stepped on by the other sides because of who they are and how they communicate, and have in turn learned some less than ideal methods of being heard again. Logan yells and gets passive aggressive, Remus ups the fear factor for everyone around him, Roman shuts down anyone who tries to talk through bullying and raising his voice, Patton manipulates the others into feeling guilt and covers it up with a smile, Virgil whips out the tempest tongue and incites fear in Thomas, and Janus physically silences anyone in his way.

And here’s why I say the next asides episode is going to be the most important one developmentally. Patton and Janus are going to be forced to work together. Patton, who is in the midst of an identity crisis, and willing to listen to any new ideas provided they offer a valid solution to the shit he’s found himself in, and Janus, who knows a lot more than he’s willing to let on, who concerns himself exclusively with Thomas’s self preservation, and loves to talk when given the opportunity. Janus is gonna have a thing or two to say to Patton when they’re inevitably faced with their moral dilemma, and Patton is going to be in just the right mindset that he’s willing to listen. And Janus is going to end up being right, and the small issue they’re facing will be resolved, which will therefore strengthen Patton’s trust, and his openness to changing for the better.

Patton is goofy, and childish, and kinda ditzy sometimes, and because of that we as a fandom tend to overlook any of his moments that are anything but that, but we are not giving this man enough credit. When Patton sets his heart on something, he throws his whole self into it, and is willing to stand up for his beliefs in the face of extreme opposition, and would gladly do anything in his power to defend his family. Once Patton decides that he’s willing to grow, and if he believes that this growth will help put his family back together, nothing can stop him, and that will be absolutely crucial for the growth of all the other sides around him.

Whatever him and Janus discuss during their aside will absolutely give Patton the information he needs to help stitch together the rift between everyone.

I predict the next official Sanders Sides video is going to be the longest one yet, possibly over an hour long, because there’s a LOT of work that is going to need to be done, and Everyone is going to be in it. The big issue of “you’re not listening to me” won’t be resolved, but it will be acknowledged in a serious light by everyone. We won’t be getting any appearances from the Orange Side I don’t think, that would end up just complicating matters even more when each character is already incredibly shaky in their own identity.

Something less than ideal is gonna happen between Thomas and Nico, he’s gonna summon the initial three to deal with the matter but the other lads are gonna worm their way into the discussion, everyone’s gonna start screaming at each other, and Pattons gonna do something that stuns everyone else into silence (I’m guessing he’ll start crying, considering the start of season two was all about him repressing negative emotions and what better way to show character growth than to sob openly on camera).

Once everyone just fucking stops for ten seconds that’s when the apologies start. None of the sides are ever the first to apologize, we’ve seen that time and time again. Their desire to be in the right as well as their pride will always get in the way, however if someone starts the apology train everyone will eventually follow suit. We see that in Alone On Valentines Day, My Negative Thinking, Growing Up, Accepting Anxiety, Fitting In, Moving On, actually in pretty much every video where an apology actually takes place, once one person apologizes the other will immediately follow suit.

Patton is gonna be a goddamn mess, he’s gonna apologize to everyone in the room for anything he thinks he may have done to wrong them, and that’s gonna be what gets everyone to acknowledge all the shit they’ve put each other through, and the others are going to jump between trying to console him and trying to apologize to each other. They’re going to come to the unified decision that they need to work together more on future issues, the group is all going to offer up a solution and decide together on a remedy to whatever happened together between Thomas and Nico, and that will be that. Season three will be about them finding the balance between stepping on toes and being stepped over, while also working out how the orange side fits into everything.

Thus marking the end of my rant.

I started writing this at 2 and it’s now 4. I have to be up in three hours. I have an essay due at 3pm tomorrow that I haven’t started, but instead I typed up all this bullshit. I hope any of this made any sense, and I hope this is a suitable replacement for my emotions essay that’s completely untouched because chances are this is what I’m presenting to my therapist tomorrow. Wish me luck.

#sorry for no page break I’m on mobile #I’ll be fixing that in the morning after some well deserved rest #thomas sanders #sanders sides #ts sanders sides #ts spoilers #ts patton #ts Logan #ts roman #ts Virgil #ts Janus #ts Remus #ts theory

[serararku]

Eyes of Amethyst Finale

The tower groaned and rattled, throwing Thalen onto his stomach. The floor rolled like ripples over a pond before the room began to tilt and turn. He didn’t have time to think when the whole place began to collapse, and he watched helplessly as his prey and the woman slid down the ledge and into freefall! Osric had been watching from the base of the tower, eyes narrowing as he’d heard the gunshot. Already preparing to leap - he froze, the sound of the explosion and the ground shaking breaking his concentration. “Gods damnit, Thalen.” This was why he liked details. He quickly glanced over the structure - trying to figure which way it was likely to fall before his attention was drawn by a woman’s piercing screams.

He didn’t have time to calculate - the Dragoon crouched as low as he could go, planting a fist into the grass as he focused his aether into his legs. The dirt beneath his feet shot up with him when he launched himself high and far into the air, the wind hissing past as he aimed at a nearby tree. As soon as his feet touched the trunk he was airborne again, bouncing off the forest and skybound, heading straight for the falling woman. “URF!” The air was knocked out of her lungs when he managed to wrap an arm around her; in her panic she coiled her arms and legs around his body and squeezed for dear life. With a grunt and a turn Osric planted his feet against the tree he’d been rushing towards and drove his lance in to balance himself, quickly scanning for Thalen. Kiban rushed past with his maniacal laughter, but the Dragoon ignored the Strangler -- the bounty was of no concern to him. “Hold on.” He whispered in her ear, but she was too terrified to respond. The Gunslinger was dropping fast. He used his tail to twist himself upright, and was clinging to a chunk of stone in a desperate attempt to cushion his fall, but at this height…

His eyes darted to a hundred places in under a second, highlighting the path he would take to lead him straight to his partner. “There you are…” Osric adjusted his hold on the woman and pushed off the tree - ignoring the creaking sound it made as he focused on his target. The Dragoon didn’t go up, but forward, lunging head first into the lethal shower of stone, wood, and fire.

Osric’s feet landed on the side of a wall before he jumped again. Four steps down a wooden beam and he was gone. He tucked his legs in as he soared through a hole, his lance swatting away anything that could potentially harm or kill from the woman’s head as he landed on and clung to a spiraling and smoldering boulder. Then he pushed off again, weightless, sailing through the billowing smoke, flipping and twisting in the air like a dancing dragon. It was the first time he could cut loose in over half of a year -- he almost forgot what he was doing. Almost.

He wouldn’t be able to hold Thalen the way he had the woman, but it’d be better than letting the man continue to fall. He grunted as he made contact with Thalen’s falling form - trying to focus on manipulating the aether around them to slow their downward progress as he braced for an...uncomfortable landing. Osric landed in the grass like he was stepping off a six fulm drop, graceful like a strider floating on the surface of still water; he bent his knees and cradled the woman in his grasp, but nothing was broken or injured -- not a scratch. Thalen on the other hand was a different story.

“Fuck! Shit! Godsdamnit!” The Miqo’te landed hard on his feet and rolled down the incline to keep himself from snapping his ankles and shattering his knees. He lost control after his third flip, spiraling out to flop and slide the rest of the way. Yet despite his grunts and curses, he still wasn’t a piece of modern art on the side of a rock thanks to the Dragoon. He stopped on his back at least, so his face was at no risk of grinding against the stones beneath him. He slowly opened his eyes with a grimace just in time to see the rubble blown skyward from the explosion coming down on their heads. “AHK-!” He flinched when a rock the size of a brick buried itself into the ground between his legs, almost permanently removing one of his most precious tools for his most beloved vice.

“What was that about this being an ‘easy’ job, Thalen?” Wielding the lance with one hand wasn’t an easy feat - but the grip in his left was a work in progress, and the woman - who now stood behind him as he knocked away falling debris - was still in shock, unable to do much more than cling to the back of his armor. He shot an annoyed look over his shoulder as the last of the debris settled - before turning and guiding the young woman towards Thalen - waiting for the man in question to right himself so they could leave.

Thalen rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet. He checked his body for any serious scrapes or bruises, but thankfully Osric’s acrobatics saved him from being crippled or worse. “Yeah, yeah… least nobody got hurt, aye? Now where’s that bastard?” As soon as he finished speaking, both Thalen and Osric glanced over across the wreckage to see Kiban laying in the grass, his body twisted and broken, but he was still very much alive; somehow he survived that terrible fall, but it was unlikely he would survive til sundown. “Beautiful… now we just scrape 'em off the ground and-” SPLAT! A crumbling part of the tower slid off another rock and rolled over the Strangler like a boot stepping on a grape.

“You were saying?”

Thalen looked like a priceless vase just slid off a table right in front of him, and he was just out of reach to stop it. He stared at the red stain beneath the rubble, as the Twin Adder guards and the onlookers came rushing in. The Gunslinger was almost trampled over when they swarmed Osric, their deafening chorus of cheers growing louder in a fever-pitch. They clearly had front row seats to his double-rescue.

Osric’s eyes widened at the rush of people, taking a step back and holding his right hand out to give himself - and the woman standing behind him some space. “Easy - if you don’t mind. She’s had a bit of a day and some space would be beneficial.”

"Back up! Back it up!" The Deputy shouted out from behind the crowd. "Clear out! Give them some room!" The crowd continued to swarm the hero of Quarrymill, reaching out to touch his arms and shake his hand. "I SAID GET OOOUUT!!!" Like a knife gliding through a loaf of bread the masses split in half at the bellowing of the Roegadyn officer. A representative of the Conjurer's Guild ducked under Grand Talon's massive tree trunk arms and stepped around the Dragoon to check the woman for any wounds. Meanwhile the Deputy plucked Thalen off the ground like he was a vegetable. He turned to his assistant before grunting, "Search the rubble for any bodies. We need to get that paperwork started now."

"Uugh…" Thalen groaned, remaining limp in his grasp. "All in a day's work…"

"Kiban deserved the noose for his crimes, but if it weren't for the Warden's incompetence those civs would still be alive." Grand Talon nodded at Osric before his grimace returned when he gazed at the Miqo’te. "But what's done is done. Make sure this is the last time I have to deal with you and your recklessness, K'thalen." Without another word he dropped him onto the grass, turned his back on the duo, and began making his way to help his team identify the bodies.

"Never heard him so calm before…" Thalen sighed, rubbing at his shoulder. "Gonna be sore somethin' fierce tomorrow. No payment neither… but at least we saved the girl, aye?" He glanced up at Osric while he strained to stand, cracking his back with a wince and a gasp. "Good jumpin' by the way, Oz. Couldn't a pulled this off without ya. And… thanks for not lettin' me splatter. My next scheme'll be less risky for sure."

“Your next ‘scheme’? The company has plenty of work - couldn’t you take one of those jobs if you’re low on gil?” Osric crossed his arms over his chest as he took a step towards Thalen - giving the individual from the Conjurer’s Guild space to do their work.

He simply shrugged at Osric halfheartedly, like he always did. "Newbies been floodin' in recently, and there ain't enough solo jobs to go 'round. Plus…" Thalen paused as his ears lowered a bit; the telltale signs that a Miqo’te was undecided to reveal something personal. "Bah, 'nother story for 'nother day."

"Who… are you guys?" A timid voice called from behind. The woman they rescued was sitting on a fallen log, revived from her stupor but still clearly trying to process what happened today. She reached up and brushed her pastel blue hair away from her deep purple eyes, and her focused gaze darted between Osric and Thalen inquisitively. "You're not Twin Adder…?"

Osric turned around, giving a small bow in the woman’s direction. “No, we’re not. I’m Osric Slater - this is K’thalen Tia...we’re members of the Ashen Wolves.” She slowly blinked at him, appearing more coherent with each passing moment.

"I'm Coroh… Coroh Veldha." She gave Osric the faintest of smiles. "Thank you… for saving my life. I um… I don’t want to think about what would have happened to me if you two didn't show up when you did… I've never been so scared in my life."

"Gonna get worse with all this madness goin' 'round, darlin'. You outta learn to protect yourself… these'r some real dangerous times we live in." Thalen stepped to Osric’s side so he could get a better look at her. "Good job givin' Kiban that revolver I kicked over, aye? Woulda been messier if you tried to play hero."

The woman began to tremble as she wrapped her arms around herself; the adrenaline must be wearing off. "Are you adventurers? Bounty hunters? … mercenaries?”

Osric gave K’thalen a pointed look as he motioned towards the women. “It looks like giving the young lady your jacket for a moment or two wouldn’t be the worst thing...don’t you think, Thalen?” He turned back towards Coroh with a nod, as Thalen gave him yet another shrug before pulling off his weathered leather jacket. “Adventurers...At times I suppose we’re bounty hunters, and I did work with a mercenary company or two before I signed on with the Wolves.”

“Thank you…” She timidly murmured, almost disappearing under his jacket. “I wish I could be as brave as you guys… I might be stuck in this dead-end job for the rest of my life...”

Osric tilted his head. “What job is that?”

“Working here… at this mill.” Coroh gestured to the rundown town surrounding them, and the billowing smoke from the wreckage of that tower. “I just… push lumber through saws all night. I want… I want to be like you guys.” She paused to gaze up into Osric’s eyes. “You know… like heroes.”

Osric blinked, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “‘Heroes’ may be a bit strong.” He tilted his head. “Well - if this job is no longer meeting your needs, what stops you from finding another one?”

The woman opened her mouth to answer, but the words never came. Her gaze dropped to the ground and she fell silent for a long time, seemingly struggling to find a reason why she couldn't just leave. Thalen decided to clear his throat to break the awkward silence they were all trapped in. "Ain't nothin' gonna change unless you take charge, lass. Me n'Oz here… we didn't wake up one day n'just become adventurers. 'Slotta work… sometimes dangerous, sometimes scary. People die in this profession too… good friends and wicked foes alike. But there ain't no courage without fear. And if'n you don't chase your dreams, then…" Thalen gave Coroh a gentle and sympathetic smile. "You'll regret it for the rest a your life."

She seemed to light up a bit and sit up straight, but she was still slightly trembling; she would need some serious time off to work through this traumatic experience. "Thank you both again… I'll never forget your kindness!" Coroh lifted Thalen’s jacket off her shoulders and handed it back; turns out she wasn't cold after all.

"A pleasure." The Gunslinger turned to Osric to pat him on the shoulder. "Let's get outta here 'fore the Deputy decides to give us some trouble. First drink's on me."

Osric hummed thoughtfully, gaze shifting to Coroh for a moment. “Would you like us to walk you home before we depart?” His eyes narrowed as he felt the hand on his shoulder and turned to look at the Miqo’te man once again. “Are you sure you didn’t mean to say ‘drinks are on me’? After all - you’re not currently a stain on the ground - seems like that fact alone might be worth more than one drink.”

“I know a place nearby.” The woman chimed in, shooting to her feet. “Buscarron’s Druthers is only down the road!”

“Fixin’ to be a ramen and tap water kinda night…” Thalen could feel the last gil he had left burning a hole in his pocket, but the temptation to throw it away for drinks was too great to resist. “Bah… alright, alright. We kick it for a few bells, then I gotta head back. Deal?”

“Deal!” Coroh sang, looking to Osric for confirmation.

He nodded, waiting for the woman to turn and lead the way to the Druthers before pulling a small pouch of gil from his pocket and handing it to Thalen. “For drinks this evening....” He whispered in a low voice. “And try to save some of it for food. It should last you until the next decent job comes in.” Thalen blinked at the Dragoon, as his smile slowly returned.

“You know what, Oz? I don’t care what people say about you. You’re alright!”

---

Collaberino: @osric-slater-ffxiv​

[costcohotdogslut]

DAY 1

“Welcome back viewers! As we just saw before the break, our celebrity housemates have all entered the Big Brother House and have officially started the game. Will personalities clash? Are alliances already forming? Let go to the live feed to find out!” said host Julie Chen.

As the screen shifts to a view of the living room, we see all the castmates lounging around and getting to know one another.

“So this is it everybody, the Big Brother House! I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t wait to get the game started!” said Jake.

Met with some cheers, Miranda decided to speak up. “I know, right? And it’s crazy that we all pretty much know each other already!”

This was true. Seeing as how this was the first season of Celebrity Big Brother in the US, the producers decided to go with a cast of the hottest, youngest, most talked about singers and actors. Apart from Jennifer, who was a milf, and James, who they needed as the sacrificial lamb to go home first. Plus, there was nobody messier than an ex-Disney/Nickelodeon act, so this season was guaranteed to be a disaster (in the best way possible).

“Which is why I’m assuming you’re all going to be fighting over me! Naturally I’m the strongest player here, the best looking, I’ve competed on Dancing With The Stars, and would’ve made the finals if it wasn’t for that stupid bitch from Full House.” James gloated, an awkward silence amongst the housemates as they all just stared at him. “Now, if you’d all make your case as to why I should be in your alliance, I can start making some decisions!”

“Loike… this is litcherally the first time I’ve even heard of you, and you’re acting a little dodgy mate, know what I mean?” Charli responded.

“Huh? Whatever, don’t want some foreign bitch in my alliance anyways. Anyone else?” James asked, only to be met with a chorus of boos.

Truth be told, James knew he was laying the asshole-ishness on a little thick, but he came into the game with a plan; he was going to be the season’s villain! Everybody loved a villain! But judging by the looks he was getting from everyone, not even 20 minutes into the game… he figured that he would lay low for a while until they all cooled off.

“Whatever. If you guys need me, I’ll be in the gym.”

As James awkwardly left the room, leaving the other housemates stunned, Dustin cleared his throat.

“So… who’s up for some cocktails?” He asked, met with enthusiasm, of course, because he was Dustin.

After an hour or two of socializing, naturally everybody began to go their separate ways, heading to the bedrooms to claim their beds and no doubt start strategizing about the game.

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“A twin bed? Are you kidding me??” Sabrina exclaimed, tossing her bag to the side and sitting down with a huff. “If the producers seriously think I’m gonna sleep on this pile of fucking rocks, then they have another thing coming!”

“I hear you bestie… JAKE! DIEGO! Come here now!” Logan yelled out, his current boyfriend and ex-boyfriend running over to his beck and call. “I’m gonna need you two to push all three of our beds together, like, now. I’ll let you two figure out who gets to share with me and who gets the floor. In the meantime, I’m gonna go find Charli and Lorde, we’re all gonna have a group meeting.”

As the two males quickly got to work and the blonde knocked over a bedside table in frustration, they heard Victoria call out from across the room.

“Hey guys, look what I found!” Victoria beamed.

In its own little part of the house was a separate room decked out fully in gold, with a small seating area and a huge California king bed.

“Oh, so this is where my bed is! Thank god I didn’t already start unpacking.” Sabrina said, throwing herself back on the bed and letting out a sigh of relief.

“Uhm, I’m pretty sure this is actually me and Dustin’s bed. I let the producers know about our accommodations before we entered the house.” Victoria replied, causing the blonde to give her a look.

“Err, no it’s okay, I’m fine having my own be-“Dustin said before Victoria put a finger to his lips to shush him.

“Don’t worry honey, I’ll handle it. Sabrina, get off, you’re messing up Dustin’s side of the bed.”

“No! Why do you two get this giant bed to yourselves! That’s not fair!” Sabrina shouted, getting in Victoria’s face.

“Oh, but for whatever reason you think you’re entitled to it?” Victoria shouted back, Kendall trying to pull her aside to stop the fighting.

“Guys, I think this bed might be for me, there’s an outlet next to it and I need somewhere to plug in my CPAP machine.” Lorde said, suddenly appearing in the room alongside them.

“Oh, this room is nice!” Raini said, appearing in the room with Carlos and Max beside her.

Housemates! I see you’ve all found the Master Bedroom. There’s no need to fight over it, as you’ll all have the chance to claim it, so long as you’re the current reigning Head of Household.

“See? There’s no reason for you two to fight over the bedroom after all!” Kendall said, throwing an am around each girl before they shoved him off.

“Stay out of it, Kendall!” They shouted in unison.

“But what about my CPAP machine?” Lorde asked.

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In one bedroom, Logan, Lorde, Sabrina, Charli, Diego, and Jake were all huddled together in a circle.

“Now, I’m sure you can all figure out why we’re together right now.” Logan said, standing up above the others. “You see, I’ve decided that I’m going to take all of you to the final six with me!”

As everyone cheered, Logan cleared his throat. “Jake, could you go stand guard at the door and make sure nobody’s around? We need to talk business. First plan of action, who are we evicting first?”

“I vote Carlos. Physical challenge wise, I think he poses the biggest threat.” Lorde said, with Jake nodding his head in agreement from the door.

“We can vote Carlos first. But if it’s a mental challenge, then I think Raini poses a threat too.” Sabrina said, Charli agreeing with her.

“You both have a point, I guess we’ll just have to see how the first challenge goes.” Logan responded, pacing around the room with his hands behind the back. To the side, Diego sat quietly, a troubled look on his face. “What’s wrong Diego, you look like you don’t agree with us.”

“No, it’s not that Logan, it just that… this alliance… don’t you all think it’s a little obvious? I’m sure the others already expect us to team up, and I feel like they’ll try to pick us off one by one. I don’t know, I feel like we’re just setting ourselves up to be targeted.”

“Gee, Diego, it sounds to me like you don’t want to be in the final six, do you? If you’re just going to sit there and backstab us already, feel free to leave the room!” Logan scowled, pointing an accusatory finger at Diego.

“NO! It’s just that-“ Diego responded before being cut off by Logan.

“Save it. All in favor of voting Diego out of the alliance, say I!” Logan barked, the other four all yelling out a cheerful “I!”.

“Fine. When this alliance backfires, Logan, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Diego said before storming out of the room.

After a brief, awkward silence, Jake spoke up. “Soooo… does that mean we’re the final 5 now?”

Before anybody could answer that, suddenly a loud crash came from the nearby closet, with Jennifer falling out in a tangle of clothing and hangers.

As everybody glared at her, she let out an awkward chuckle. “Okay, so maybe I was eavesdropping on all of… that… but what can I say? I live for drama!”

“Cool. So… would you be interested in joining our alliance and being in the final 6 with us?” Logan asked.

“YES! Oh my god, I’ve been avoiding Kendall all day, I just know he was going to ask me that question any second.” Jennifer exclaimed, being met with open arms by her new alliance mates.

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Meanwhile, in the common room, the rest of the housemates, minus James, Carlos, and Diego, were all gathered together. Max, Aly & AJ, Victoria, and Kendall were all playing charades, with Victoria, his partner, screaming at him for his god-awful impersonation of an mime (why couldn’t he have picked something more obvious, like a toucan?). On the couch sat Raini and Miranda, who were playing scorekeeper for each team.

And in the gym, James and Carlos were both lifting weights, with Carlos being James’s spotter.

“I can’t believe it’s already almost the end of the day, and NOBODY has asked me to be in an alliance with them! Everyone in this house must be a complete fucking moron if they don’t see just how valuable I am to have on their side!” James, said, grunting as he pushed the bar above his chest up and down.

“Uh, yeah.” Carlos responded, half-tempted to let go and let the bar fall on his former bandmate’s chest.

Truth be told, Carlos would rather be anywhere but here. Him and James had only spoken twice since the indefinite hiatus of Big Time Rush, and he was shocked/upset when he saw him walk in the house as a fellow housemate. They had had a bit of bad blood due to… something, that had happened between them back in the apartment.

Carlos wasn’t stupid. Earlier during their workout session, James had asked if he wanted to form an alliance, and he knew it was only because nobody else wanted to be around him. But, before coming onto the show, Carlos had binge watched every season of Big Brother, and if things went as they usually did, there was much more of a focus on physical challenges at the beginning of the show, with the challenges becoming more mental as the show progressed.

So he would be in an alliance with James, at least for the beginning. At least until he could join a stronger one.

“Well, whatever. Looks like it’s just me and you against the house then, bro.” James said, pushing the bar off of him and taking a swig of his water. “So I don’t know about you, but I say we vote that british chick out first. Didn’t like the way she was talking to me earlier.”

“Charli?? Why? She’s not even a threat!” Carlos asked.

“Well then let’s evict Kendall! He’s fucking annoying, and I’m pretty sure he was watching me get dressed to work out.” James responded, Carlos facepalming himself as James clearly had no idea how to strategize.

“Let’s… discuss it when the time comes. Do you mind spotting me?” Carlos said, but before he could say anything else, another figure had entered the room.

“Oh, hey guys… mind if I be in here with you for a bit?” said Diego, also donning his workout attire with a towel draped over his shoulder.

“Uh, yeah, that’s fine.” Carlos responded. He had never met Diego before, but he had certainly heard about him before. When he and Logan had broken up, Diego was the first guy Logan had rebounded with, and from what he had heard through the grapevine, things had gotten pretty serious between them. For whatever reason, they had broken up, seeing as how Logan was dating Jake now (not that Carlos was keeping tabs or anything, Logan’s personal life was just VERY publicized on gossip sites and the tabloids). He was going to question why he wasn’t with the others, as he had been before, but he decided against it, seeing how bothered he had looked when he walked in.

“Nice to see a fellow alpha male in the house. The name’s James.” The taller male said, putting out his hand to shake, which Diego reluctantly took.

“Diego.”

“Well Diego, me and Carlos here were just doing a few reps, care to join?” James said.

And for the next hour, the three of them did, falling into a… somewhat comfortable chit chat. They mostly just talked about fitness regimes, and then outside projects they had worked on (none of the ones James had named off ringing a bell in Diego’s head). Diego, of course, droned on and on about the podcast he does on woodworking, even if the other two didn’t seem as interested. And Carlos talked about life as a now-married family man, and the struggles of managing a career and a billion-dollar enterprise alongside it.

Eventually, the three of them had all tired out, taking the time to catch their breaths.

“Nice work out, man.” Carlos said, James nodding his head in agreement.

“Yeah, we gotta do this more often. You know, I was thinking… three alpha males likes us, dominating the competition? We’d be unstoppable, and nobody would suspect a thing. What do you two say we form an alliance?” James said, the other two taking a second to think it over.

“Yeah… yeah that sounds good actually.” Diego said.

“Me too… but first things first, I think we oughta hit the showers.” Carlos responded.

As the three of them made their way over to the restroom, James stopped dead in his tracks.

“Just so you two know, I’m not gay, so don’t get any ideas in there.”

However, despite his disclaimer, the three of them did end up fucking in the shower, with James in the middle, Diego in the front, and Carlos in the back.

Looks like some of our housemates are getting to know each other pretty well. To see the exclusive footage and catch other behind the scenes clips, make sure to tune into Celebrity Big Brother: After Dark.

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Attention housemates! If you would all make your way to the common area, we are about to begin our first Head of Household competition!

As everybody got situated on the couches, the main screen lit up, with host Julie Chen appearing on the screen.

“Welcome, everybody, to the first Head of Household competition. To start things off, and to commemorate our very first celebrity edition of Big Brother, we’re going to be doing things a bit differently this time. Prior to tonight, we asked viewers to vote for their pre-season favorite housemate, so hopefully you made a good impression in your introduction packages.” Julie said. “The winner of America’s vote will not only be the first Head of Household, they will also be responsible for choosing the first two nominations tonight, with one of you going home. Because we haven’t implemented a Power of Veto just yet, these two nominations will be locked in. Now, is everybody ready?”

“Ready!”

“Perfect. Now, in a landslide vote, America chose their favorite housemate to be… Raini Rodriguez! Congratulations, Raini, as the first Head of Household, tonight’s nominations fall in your hands. Feel free to discuss amongst your housemates, and let us know when you’re ready to nominate.” Julie said.

“Thank you, Julie, and thank you America for choosing me to be the first Head of Household!” Raini said. “So, first off, I guess I just want to say that whatever happens tonight, I hope there’s no hard feelings amongst any of us. We were all chosen to represent the first season for a reason, and I know that it’s going to be a great season. ALL of us are stars, and the sixteen of us are absolutely all within the same caliber.”

“Except for James.” Charli said, causing a VERY loud and hysterical reaction from everybody. Aly & AJ were rolling around on the floor, Miranda was fanning away the tears forming in her eyes, and Jennifer couldn’t stop cackling!

“Guys! Guys! No, I request the floor, guys!” James sputtered out, not expecting for him to suddenly be the laughing stock of the cast. “I’ll defend myself a little bit! No! I’ll defend myself a little bit! Guys! Okay, okay okay okay okay OKAY!”

“BITCH! Sit your ass down and shut the hell up, bitch!” Kendall shouted, standing up and feeling the blood rush to his head as everyone, if it was even more possible, became more hysterical and on the verge of pissing themselves. It was as if he was living a real life episode of drag race, and everybody else respected him and thought he was hilarious! Victoria had actually ended up peeing herself a little from laughing so hard, meanwhile Max was scrambling to take a hit from his inhaler.

Sitting down, still feeling flustered from all the praise, Kendall crossed his legs to hide his very obvious erection, no doubt needing to RUN to the bathroom after the eviction ceremony to take care of his little problem. Seeing how bright red James was, and the superiority complex he felt over the male that he had worshipped all these years… he actually already took care of his problem. Well, one of his problems at least. He’d have to change out of his shorts and do a load of laundry, now.

Once things had somewhat settled down, and James was sitting in his chair, steam practically shooting out of his ears, Raini stood up.

“Okay Julie, I think I’m ready.” Raini said, taking a second to compose herself. “This may not come as much of a shock, as seen by the… reaction, all of us had moments ago, but the first housemate I have to nominate for eviction is… James.”

“Oh fuck this! Are you kidding me?” James said, crossing his arms as he sat back, beyond furious with everybody around him.

“Very well, Raini. James, that means that you are up for eviction and are at risk of being voted out of the house tonight.” Julie said from the screen. “Now, Raini, please tell us who the second person is that you are nominating tonight.”

“Before I say her name, I just want to say that I have absolutely no ill will against this girl. She’s a great person, and a fellow Disney colleague of mine, but I feel like her attitude earlier today wasn’t the greatest. The second person that I am nominating tonight is… Sabrina.”

“WHAT! Is this some fucking joke?” Sabrina exclaimed, as producers told her to sit back down and not cause any more trouble.

“Very well. James, Sabrina, that means the two of you are up for eviction. Before the other housemates make their way to the confessional room, you each have 30 seconds to state your case and explain to the others why you deserve to stay in the Big Brother household. James, you are up first.” Julie said.

Standing up with his hands in his pockets, James was clearly agitated, but did his best to force a fake smile for the others. “Well, what more can I say than that I’m a strong player, a great potential ally, and if you all decide to keep me in the household, I’ll give you guys a shout out on my patreon, maybe even give you a feature on an upcoming song! We can do a vlog together for my Youtube channel! Whatever it is you guys want, I’m open to collaboration.” Sitting back down and still forcing a smile, he definitely felt a lot better about his standing in the competition.

“Thank you, James. Sabrina, you’re up.” Julie said.

“If you vote me, a GIRL, out of the house over a GUY, then that means you’re probably misogynistic.”

…….

“Is that it, Sabrina? You still have twenty seconds to make your case.” Julie asked.

“No, I think I made myself loud a clear.” Sabrina responded.

“Alright then. Housemates, one by one, you will make your way to the confessional room to cast your vote, and then we will announce which celebrity housemate will be leaving us tonight. Going alphabetically, Aly & AJ, you’re up first.” Julie said.

One by one, everybody cast their votes.

Aly & AJ: “We vote James. We didn’t like the language he used to some of the women here in the household, and we think it’s time for him to leave.”

Carlos: “James. I know we’re in an alliance, but I can’t align myself with somebody like him, it will only affect my game.”

Charli: “James.”

Diego: “I’m sorry to say it, but James.”

Dustin: “James.”

Jake: “I wanted to vote for Sabrina because she was being a little mean to me earlier, but I forgot she’s on my alliance, so I have to vote for… James.”

Jennifer: “James.

Kendall: “Well… I was going to vote for Sabrina, but I don’t want people to think I’m a misogynist! Plus I think he saw me earlier watching him undress, and I’m kinda afraid that he might put a pillow over my face while I sleep! So I vote for James! >~<”

Logan: “James. I fucking hate him.”

Lorde: “I vote for James.”

Max: “I thought he was a cool dude at first, but he really showed his true colors tonight, so James.”

Miranda: “I have to vote for James.”

Victoria: “James. But I have a feeling that Sabrina has her eye on Dustin, so I’m definitely watching out for her.”

As the housemates all made their way back to the living room, the camera panned on both James and Sabrina, both looking extremely nervous as they awaited the results.

“Thank you everybody for casting their vote. After tallying the votes, we had a 13-0 unanimous decision… James, I’m sorry, but you have been evicted from the Big Brother House.” Julie announced.

“You know what? FUCK all of you, you’re all a bunch of goddamn losers. I didn’t even need to do this show, you know! And to think my own two allies voted me out too, what a fucking joke.” James exclaimed, the rest of the cast glancing around to see who the two people were that he was referring to.

“And that concludes tonight’s eviction ceremony. James, please make your way to the jury house, and we will see you once more at the finale for the final vote.” Julie said, as James stormed off. “That has been tonight’s episode of Big Brother, tune in tomorrow to see what else our housemates have in store from this. Also, be sure to watch the live feeds on Big Brother: After Dark, and watch behind the scenes clips on BigBrother.com. This has been Julie Chen, thank you, and goodnight.”

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Day 1 Statistics:

Head of Household Wins:

Raini: 1

Current Alliances:

Alliance 1 – Logan, Lorde, Sabrina, Charli, Jake, Jennifer

Evicted Housemates: 16th- James

[harringtonheartache]

Call It Fate, Call It Karma | Part One

Part Two

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Summary: Y/n is one of the Scoops Troop who finds herself in the underground Russian base, and ultimately ends up strapped to the back of Steve Harrington whilst facing imminent death. (Essentially Steve & Robin’s interrogation but the reader is in Robin’s place). 

Warning(s): Stranger Things 3 spoilers, descriptions of blood and violence, cussing

Word Count: 1,951

A/N: I am 100% in fucking love with Steve Harrington. The title is taken from a song by the same name by The Strokes, it’s cute, maybe give it a listen. Request more ST fics if ya want, Steve prompts in particular are appreciated :-). I love my chaos boyfriend. This is a part one! If you bitches want a second part tell me, although I will probably do it anyway because I feel weird leaving this story without a true conclusion. Okay enjoy. 

The next punch to her face hit the air with the sound of a popping balloon. Her hand gripped the underside of the cold metal bench, the cool surface stimulating a sense of relief against her warm palms. This was not the first blow she has received in the past hour, as her expression was painted with reds and blues to match the Fourth of July festivities going on elsewhere. She closed her eyes, tired of fighting a battle with the fluorescent lights that seemed to hang from the ceiling just to cause her discomfort. This was taken as an act of insubordination to the Russian man who crouched before her. He took her whole face in one of his large hands, insistent on holding her full attention. His finger pushed aggravatingly on her swollen eye, an action that heightened the pain in her face. He spoke to her in English, but not even the removal of the language barrier would allow her drained mind to understand what was said to her so sternly. 

Apparently whatever was spoken acted as a preface to a change of location. As her body began being dragged out of the small room, she felt a strange alleviation of fear. While she made sure to remember that they could very well be taking her into a kill room to rid themselves of her as a liability, she took comfort in knowing that one phase of her torture interrogation was over. Her legs followed her upper body limply, her front side facing the ceiling as a large man pulled her like a wagon by the arm. She pulled once against his grip, as if this feeble attempt would grant her an upper hand in anyway. As if it was nothing to him (because it wasn’t), he slung her across the floor in front of him. She slid a good amount, smashing into Steve like two children at the bottom of a sledding hill. 

Their bodies laid there for a second, like two corpses awaiting disposal. Exhausted and half-conscious, Y/n used her knees to turn herself around to face Steve. “St- Steve? Hey, can you hear me?” He was with matching bodily damage, although it was safe to say that he had it a little worse than her during the interrogation phase. Her fingers met his shirt for a second, and she got one tug in before she herself was pulled from the floor and sat in a chair. Her shouts of disapproval were ignored as if they went unheard. Steve was removed from the ground as well, and placed in a chair that met the back of Y/n’s. Being the only one of the two imprisoned who remained conscious, she yelled profusely in displeasure. Much to her dismay, the men funneled out of the room like penguins, leaving them alone for the first time since their abduction. 

“Steve, wake up. Steve please fucking wake up, please. For fucks sake! Steve wake up.” Her voice was strained and weak, matching her worn appearance. She had endured her share of beatings without any urge to cry, but it was in this moment she felt that straining in the back of her throat that was usually followed by tears. “Steve fucking wake up,” the volume of her own voice added slightly to her increasing panic. She stirred indignantly in her chair, hoping that her movement -in addition to her rasping voice- would be enough to steal Steve from his unconscious state. After a few minutes of this, she was rewarded with a sound from him. “Hmm? Y/n?” 

“Steve! Oh fuck, thank you. Steve? Wake up. Are you awake?”

 “Uhhhh uh huh,” he dragged out the “h’s” of his speech, still struggling significantly with being awake. She let out a relieved laugh, but still worried for his physical state. “Are you okay?” She asked. “My ears are ringing, and I can’t really breathe. My eye feels like it’s about to pop out of my skull, but you know, apart from that I’m doing pretty good.” Although laced with sarcasm, the exchange of full sentence-length speech was reassuring. 

She closed her eyes again, this time able to do so without being met with an angry hand to her face. An almost content sigh left her bruised body. “What about you?” He asked. “I’m, uh.. bleeding. But okay,” she told him. Now that he was awake, her mind calmed, and she gave herself a moment to take in the room and weigh their options. There were a few drops of blood notable against the pale tile, a detail that some might overlook. Despite the contrast of the deep red and polished blue, the blood did not look abnormal splashed against the floor. The nature of the room invited spilled blood as a decoration. She leaned her head backwards to rest on Steve’s shoulder, physical contact that was comforting to the both of them. In a moment of dumb concern, she worried about bloodying his work uniform with her face. This maybe a thoughtful fear, had the interrogators been just as considerate in preserving his clothing during his own beating. 

She lifted her head after a minute or so, recognizing that she’d better use her time wisely. While the situation was very much real, she could not picture herself meeting her end in the minute room she sat in, strapped to the back of Steve Harrington. Looking to her left, she counted six metal tools spread out on a tray, like something you would see at the dentist’s office. The first of those six items was a pair of shining scissors. An excited huff of air left her nose as a smile spread across her mouth. “Hey, look to your right. There's a pair of scissors. If we hop together, maybe we can reach them.” It seemed like a solid plan, and Steve was enthused to follow her direction. “Oh shit, yeah let’s try that.”

Two hops in and perhaps feeling a little too confident, a third jump knocked them from their triumphant state and landed them on that pale blue floor. Despite their situation, the cool tile felt nice on their burning faces once they were down there. A drop of blood that had been making it’s way down Steve’s neck had it’s path redirected, and now moved horizontally, painting him a necklace of red. When it reached the floor, it added another splash to the already bloodied tile, looking just as natural as the others had. 

Given the circumstance, cuss words were the only vocabulary Y/n felt were appropriate to spill. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” A fitting trilogy of words. She started off her next sentence with another word from her list of obscenities. “Shit, we’re really dead, huh?”

 “No, no, no, we’re not dying here. We will not die in an underground Russian base that we didn’t know existed twenty-four hours ago,” he told her in a manner that he hoped would convince both of them that it was the truth. Y/n longed to blindly believe him; to be able to take his word for it that they would survive the rabbit hole their curiosity damned them down would be paradisaical. How polite of childish wonder to dig a grave for you (and a friend!). 

“I admire your optimism,” she spoke to him slowly. She felt defeated in every sense of the word. A brief silence fell over the two, but didn’t last as Steve spoke again. “I am optimistic that we will get out of here, but while it still looks like we are facing inevitable doom, can I say something?” He wished that he could read her face, but he remained incapable of doing so whilst strapped to the fallen chair. His hands laid in tight correspondence with one another, although the wraps that held them together with his legs were a sub-concern in comparison to the hurt he felt in his face. His hair had dried significantly since it had stuck to the back of his neck with sweat in the room that he was beaten. It had still managed to frame his face without flaw, although a tad messier than before; it worked for him. Not even a severe assault hindered his hairstyle. He laid stiffly on the floor, still forced into sitting posture from the chair he was tied to. With his head against the floor, his side profile emulated an artistically tragic painting, one that used watercolors to detail the bruises and blood.

Y/n, with her back to him, felt the slight shift in conversational atmosphere with her entire body. “Sure,” she didn’t leave him in much anticipation. An aimless memory had risen to the top of Steve’s consciousness, like bubbles appearing at the surface of a boiling water pot. “Do you remember when you helped me pass senior year English?” Truly a bizarre event to summon to mind when faced with death. Nonetheless, she did remember this. She remembered in great detail. While many found their newly developed friendship a curious occurrence, their personal progression from demodog mercenaries to honest friends was a comfort to both participants. “Yeah,” she reassured him, prompting him to continue. “I would come home actually excited to study, because with you it was fun. I mean, we became friends because all of the end-of-world demodog bullshit, but it was nice to do something normal with you. And you know we’ve hung out a lot since then, and now we are back to our more life-threatening pastimes, but I guess I just wanted to tell you how much fun I had while it lasted,” he said, his voice honeyed. “I know I am totally throwing a wrench in my optimism facade but I had to say it because to be honest, I am not completely sure Dustin isn’t utterly lost in the vents right now,” Steve finished, returning to a more light-hearted way of talking.  

This monologue flared a laugh from Y/n, and one that actually wasn’t tinctured with delusion. “Thanks, Steve. Me too. I agree, it was fun while it lasted. It is weird that it took the end of the world to bring us together.” Another chuckle left her and spread to Steve as well. “Is that pitiful or just fate?” she posed a question. “I’m just going to call it fate,” he said, his voice airy and amused. Perhaps it was fate, or perhaps karma was instead more suiting a word. If they were in all actuality saving the world, maybe becoming close with one another was their compensation. To draw a line between inevitable outcome and simple cause and effect seemed unnecessary, though. “If it is at all a comfort, I have a little more faith in Dustin’s navigation skills than you,” she added, her tone conciliatory. 

Their wild cachinnation grew, but was cut short when the Russian men returned to the room. The two were pulled from the ground just as harshly as they had been thrown down. It was then that a syringe was presented to the two of them. The needle sticking out of the top end took the hostages right back down to reality; pulled them from their previous conversation that had acted as a rather effective distraction. It was that needle that put a new, sick thought in Y/n’s head: was it good karma they had acquired, or bad? Maybe they saved Hawkins, or maybe they messed with an entity they were to leave alone. Perhaps their relationship was a reward, or perhaps it was a punishment, for it would end cruelty in torment and death in this small doctor’s office of a room.

#st3 #st3 spoilers #stranger things #stranger things 3 #stranger things fic #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve x reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington reader insert #joe keery #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #robin #lucas sinclair #el hopper #jim hopper #joyce byers #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #will byers

[theguardianangel-fanfiction]

Once Bitten, Twice Dead

Summary: It’s been two years since the beginning, and only five days since Clementine met them. But somehow, things got so much worse, and Carver was just the beginning. [Season 2 AU/canon divergent. New situations, characters, etc.] Chapter 15: The Rescue Author’s Note: I’m back from hiatus! Wooo! [Main Blog] [AO3] [FanFiction.Net]

Clementine’s eyes snapped open the moment wheezing hit her ears. She threw her arm out to the side to keep herself from tumbling over, but then her gaze snapped right back to the source of the noise. In a panic, she rushed to back up as quickly as possible.

Pete’s back was turned to her; he was curled in a fetal position, head tucked close to his knees, as his wheezing and hacking increased. He shivered when he finally began to stop, and let out a slow, deep moan.

Instinctively, Clementine blindly reached around for the earlier discarded hacksaw, latching on as her rough palm came in contact with the dulled blade (and if it wouldn’t cut her skin, she thought, there was no way it would have cut through Pete’s leg). She switched over the plastic handle and held in front of her chest, which burned with hard, painstaking beats.

The ambulance went quiet and no sound filled the cold air. Outside the window, it appeared as though dawn was coming upon them. Pete ceased movement. Clementine’s mouth went dry. Her hands trembled as she struggled to move back while keeping her grip on the hacksaw; the handle was becoming more and more difficult to hold – her grip felt uncoordinated and loose. Her eyes darted around, begging for anything else she could use to protect herself.

If dawn was approaching, then they had been there all night. If they had been there all night, then that meant there was even less time left before… Clementine willed herself not to think about that. She couldn’t. No – she wouldn’t. Any second now, Pete would start coughing again, or sit up and wearily ask if she’d heard anything.

And then she heard it. Pete let out a small gasp for air. Clementine could see his chest moving; she watched him take in air, and then gulp it in like it was water. She let out a sigh, a mix of relief and worry. Pete was alive and breathing, that was the relief. But the worry was a different story.

Even in the dark, the skin she could see was strange. Pete’s once pale skin was tinged gray. Clementine had seen it before. A heavy feeling settled in her chest as she remembered Lee’s bite, and how his dark skin had turned a mottled gray color just before his death. His whites of his eyes had become yellow. His voice had turned hoarse.

A shiver ran down her spine as Pete let out a guttural grunt. A series of moans and grunts followed, obviously from agitation or pain. But even the noise was good hear; he was alive, making noises that made him sound alive, despite his fetal position.

Carefully, Clementine stood, her grip on the hacksaw handle increasing. She took a shaky step in Pete’s direction, brandishing the hacksaw defensively. Carefully, she reached out just far enough to push the tip of the hacksaw against his shoulder. Not enough to hurt, but enough to get his attention if he happened to be awake.

Pete let out a shriek-like series of coughs, wheezing, and turned over to face Clementine. At the sudden noise, she jumped back and the hacksaw clattered to the metal floor with a loud crack.

After nearly thirty seconds, the man’s hacking ceased. With trembling hands, he began to sit up; Clementine cautiously moved closer, keeping an eye on the discarded hacksaw. She crouched down to his level just in time to hear him speak.

“Dammit. I feel like ten pounds of shit in a five pound sack…”

Without any understanding as to what that saying meant, Clementine immediately knew it was nothing pleasant. Pete’s voice was hoarse and nasally. Deep, dark circles collected under his yellowed eyes. His sentence was quickly interrupted by a series of coughs and hacking that jerked his entire body.

Pete spat to his left and muttered, “Jesus…” He paused for a moment before quietly saying, “Stuck in this… can the whole damn day. You wanna hear something funny?”

Clementine sat up on her knees and noted Pete’s tone. She clenched her teeth and momentarily, again, thought of the approaching dawn and the hacksaw. Still, she had no other choice but to listen. But before she replied, he spoke again.

“I’ve been thinkin’ – and I don’t wanna die.” A maniacal smirk crossed Pete’s grayed face. He suddenly let out a laugh that quickly progressed into a coughing fit. “Never thought I’d be the kinda idiot to say somethin’ like that. But there it is.”

A few seconds passed as his gaze averted hers.

“I’m scared, Clementine. Jesus, I’m scared.”

Clementine said nothing. Her mouth felt like lead, and a steady thudding had already begun to fill her head. What was she to say to that? What could she say at all? She wanted to tell Pete he would be fine. She wanted to say that he wouldn’t die – but she knew he wouldn’t take it. He was smarter than that.

She was smarter than that.

“Clementine…”

She glanced up to meet Pete’s eyes, which were sagging and tired.

“Would you promise me to look out for Nick? I love that stupid kid… No matter what you think… He is a good boy…”

Nick. Clementine had forgotten Nick. He was out there somewhere, probably scared out of his mind. Maybe confused. Maybe he didn’t even know what had happened to Pete’s ankle. And if his earlier behavior was anything to go by… he wouldn’t take this well.

Clementine clenched her hand around her opposite wrist and averted Pete’s eye for a moment. She was no stranger to looking out for people. She had looked out for Christa after Omid’s death – though, arguably, their relationship was more symbiotic than anything – and she had looked out for Lee at certain times.

“I’ll look after him. I’ll do what I can. ” she spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

Pete laid his head against the wall. His eyes were beginning to go glassy, and though they remained open, and his breathing became shallow.

And that was when the knock – or rather the banging – came.

“Pete?” came the voice, followed by another bang on the door. “Nick? Clementine? Anyone in there?”

And just like that, a weight was lifted from Clementine’s shoulders. She recognized that voice. Luke’s southern drawl stood out against the growling of the walkers – though she realized a moment later that there was no growling.

She quickly stood up and made her way to the door, pushing away the boxes.

“Luke!” Clementine immediately pushed the door open and came face to face with Luke. His hair was messier than it had previously been, and he looked a lot more tired than he had previously.

Luke let out a breath, eyes widening. “Clementine – Pete!”

Clementine darted back to Pete’s side after glancing back. He was barely moving, breathing shallowly. Slowly, he began to turn his head to face Luke.

“Holy…” Luke tapered off slowly, mouth hanging open as he gaped. His eyes flickered down towards the bite mark on Pete’s ankle as all of the color drained from his face. Slowly, Luke reached up to his temples and latched his fingers onto his hair. “Shit… Pete…”

Pete could barely seem to open his eyes. He looked up at the younger man through half-lidded eyes and quietly spoke, “Luke.”

Luke was shaking his head now, and looked up at Clementine with a horrified expression crossing his face.

“What the hell happened?”

It was at that moment that Clementine looked down at Pete. He made no sound, no movement – Clementine peered back up at Luke, who had stepped into the ambulance, and shook her head, then looked down at her knees.

“Clementine – fuck… He’s gotta be…”

Just as quickly as she had met Pete, he was gone. Then Clementine looked back up at him, and out of the top corner of her vision, she noticed movement. It was the last thing she noticed before Pete lunged, hands latching on to her wrists – his feral roars and growls were entirely that of a walker.

A scream of surprise mixed with fear ripped from her throat as Clementine was knocked onto her back, knees connecting with Pete’s sternum as her back formed an arch. Panic coursed through her mind as she shoved against the man – doing anything she could to keep him from going straight for her throat. Luke didn’t react immediately, frozen as if he didn’t know what to do, but another shriek from Clementine forced him into action.

“LUKE!”

His hand immediately went for his back pocket, where ripped from it a handgun – his trembling hands seemed to barely be able to hold the gun straight. He hesitated for just a moment –

Clementine felt frozen as well, terrified out of her mind as she tried to fight the walker off; just as she had done with that horrible man yesterday – but Pete was bigger, heavier, and stronger, even as a walker. Her own screaming was joined with Luke shouting something she was unable to make out.

A deafening gunshot sounded out, a loud ringing starting up in Clementine’s ears. Her vision suddenly went red as blood shot out from the gunshot. Pete’s reanimated body went limp, and Clementine shoved him off in a panic, barely able to take in a breath. Warm blood splattered her face and her shirt; her heart raced and she could barely breathe and she wanted to scream –

But she still wasn’t bitten.

“Fuck! Clementine? Come on, kid, speak to me, goddammit!”

A steady ache was beginning to become apparent in her head. Clementine slowly looked up to see Luke making his way towards her – but she couldn’t take her eyes away from Pete.

He looked helpless. Blood poured from a hole in the back of his head, staining his jacket. A putrid smell of various body fluids was already making itself known in the small space. Clementine had no idea whether she wanted to vomit, cry, scream, or do all three in that short space of time.

Luke’s eyes were glassy as he made his way towards Clementine. His gaze was focused on Pete, who lay on his side; slowly, Luke shifted his gaze to Clementine and kneeled down next to her. He shook his head slowly and spoke in a low voice, “Are ya okay?”

Unable to get herself to speak, Clementine simply nodded. She looked up to the ambulance door, averting eye contact with Luke and pointed towards the noises of the quickly approaching figures: even more walkers.

“Th-there’s more.” gasped Clementine, nodding towards the outside of the ambulance.

Luke nodded and replied, “R-right – okay, uh –” He paused for a second before continuing, “All right – we gotta go. I’ll take ya back to the cabin –”

He offered his hand to Clementine, and carefully pulled her to her feet, though she was still shaky and her heart rate had not yet gone back to normal.

Carefully, the two left the ambulance, more than eager to get away from the nearest walkers, which were only a few feet away. Luke grabbed a hold of Clementine by the wrist to get her attention, and then nodded in the direction of the nearest trees.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said in between uneasy breaths, eyes still focused on the vehicle. Clementine took one last glance towards the ambulance – and to an extension, Pete. She didn’t know what they would tell Nick. What she would tell Luke. Or the others. She knew what they would think – she was dangerous. What was even worse was that another good person was dead, maybe even because of her.

A wave of dread washed over her as she followed closely behind Luke.

#twdg #twdg fanfiction #obtd fanfiction #chapter 15: the rescue

[pankopop]

(Dis)Content Creators

Youtubers, 2014’s lasting models of Harrasment, and how the internet is suddenly a lot more left than you’d think.

(Note: pardon the messy mishmash of Unicѻde characters here and there, I’d rather not be part of the witch hunt for masturbatory mass-debαting, and I find flying under the S.E.O. radar helps that endeavor.)

Recently, Јѻntroп’s been acting the right dick. He’s never been the smartest cookie, and it’s not his paid job to be the shining example of internet public figuredom. But people are kinda reasonably pissed about his “whats wrong about locking refugees out lol” tweetstorm of late. And a lot of it, I’m sure, is a kind of disappointment. There’s a lot of people out there who look up to him, know his life story, and I guess for some reason expected more compassion from him.

To be honest, this isn’t super surprising to anyone who’s familiar with the circles of the Youtube creators. While there’s lots of crossover, and some inevitable bickering here and there, you can roughly feel out the corners of the map.

There’s a contingent of mostly fairly funny and talented animators who met on Nҽwgrѻunds and ended up on Youtube (which ended up sucking for said animators). It’s a tremendous shame that the general humor of the group turned so obsessively toward “Fҽmιnαzϊ SЈש censorship” and anti-sheeple insular rhetoric. But nonetheless, they and Јѻn ended up being quite close knit, and yeah, of course he was going to be a bit emboldened.

Јѻn has always been a bit politically green – I remember him in a podcast (might have been one of the old TGS Co-Optionαl podcasts) where he was trying to defend his claim that people shouldn’t get mad about videogame representations of women, with a woman present. It was like watching a cat fight its collar. He was a consequence free child of the 2007 internet age where “rape” and “retarded” were words to throw out for shock effect. He ended up on rҽddιt, the magical internet island of lost boys who never grow up. Women aren’t oppressed, racism is over, yadda yadda.

In turn, a symbolic partnership with Sӑrgѻп of Ѧkҟӓd, a non-face of gӑṃеrgatҽ, was nothing special. It doesn’t take much to join in the circle jerk; tweet about cultish sheeple being racist toward MEN and you’ve earned yourself a seat.

Still, how dangerous can the partnership of such a pop icon and a chin stroking self-acclaimed genius of a cock get? How will this play out?

To be honest, I think it’s been playing out since it began. It got us into this political mess, and remains the swarming gadflies of twitter we know and love today.

MECHANISMS OF THE GATE

This cybercultural partnership between pop culture and the rҽichwing should remind us about the ways in which Gӑṃеrgatҽ still affects the current political climate, specifically in online spheres. Notably, it’s interesting to see the cultural attitudes remain the same. Even in the face of finding something absolutely ridiculous to defend, the urge to take the pseudo-philosophical discѻurse to fucking prove intellectual superiority™ is apparently too delicious.

During my Bachelor, I researched that 2014 pissbaby fiasco to death. I would work it in to whatever essay I could, and for a while compulsively hoarded every available peer- reviewed article on online-shittiness-culture I could find. Something I wrote a lot about when I was filtering through gӑṃеrgatҽ’s language was not only a unified lexicon of insult, posturing, and argumentation, but a specific frameworks and ideologies of rationality.

Almost all of gӑṃеrgatҽ was hinged on insisting on two things:

-Race doesn’t exist, it’s not a thing, so stop making it a thing. If you’re talking about race, then you’re using PoC as an argumentative crutch, and surely no better than a racist. Erasure must occur, because I don’t want to have to defend my view that whiteness is normalcy.

-Gender does exist, it’s binary, and all common-sense differences between genders are rooted in biological fact. For example, women don’t play real video games because their biological drive for empathy stops them from shooting baddies.

(Queerness, and expression thereof, are often side stepped. Usually lumped into the race category - “gay people have nothing to do with it”. Sometimes lumped into the gender category, as often non-normative heteromasculinity is seen as performed.)

Regarding race, it is an argument of who belongs. Regarding gender, it is an argument of who is superior. These tenets of social structure in the world of “whoever debates wins” are still smeared across the comment sections of the world today. It’s only been two and a half years. The people who felt empowered in the gӑṃеrgatҽ movement will hold these attitudes close. 

It appears to me that the biology-backed “common-sense” ideologies regarding gender superiority remain at wild play here. It’s a language of caricatures, and the SЈש is a woman.

The ideological transposition seems to go like this:

The woman, who lacks rationality, and is more prone to emotional outbursts of empathy. is not endowed, biologically, with the clearheaded, objective rationality of men. Therefore, even their empathy is comparatively feigned and weightless, and like the difference between a three year old crying over spilt milk vs. a grown man’s grievance over the death of a loved one.

The thing about worldviews like this is that once the first egg becomes a chicken, it doesn’t take long for the chicken to lay an egg.

Where maybe at first, the SЈש was a kind of woman, but types and tokens blur. All women become likely SЈשs. Women become SЈשs when they have a point that doesn’t align with a man. Eventually, the SЈש is just the woman out of line, refusing to virtuously lick the philosopher-king’s boots and parrot their objectivities.

But this accusation would be an affront to a gӑṃеrgatҽ-minded uberṃҽinsch! Pure sexism actually! Who’s talking about gender here!? We were only talking about how SЈשs are unreasonable! YOU’RE the one being sexist.

You can trace some of that same DNA of the Discѻurse™ around the refugee crisis. As soon as you reframe/move the goalposts of a racist problem to a Nationality problem, then you cannot by definition be islamophobic, because you’re not talking about humans anymore. You’re talking geography. Even though you did just totally say something incredibly racist, it doesn’t count cuz the tweet was deleted.

I’ve seen the term “Virtue Positioning” being tossed around recently. It’s interesting to note that as the subjects for debate get bloodier and messier and death counts become necessarily attributed to it, the goobermeinsch’s rebuttal is that empathy is sidestepping the issue. Who cares if people die, the important part is I’m taking you to town in INTELLECTUAL CHESS! WHOO! (It matters not that I will only frame the debate in ways where I win).

The positioning that’s actually going on is ideological frameworks of gender being set up so that the left is female, the right is male, and therefore the right wins. It’s what fuelled gӑṃеrgatҽ in 2014, and I guess the tactic’s effective enough to keep around.

“WHATEVER-DUDE” SOLUTIONS

What do you do when confronted then? I feel it would be pointless bringing this similarity up and leaving it hanging. If there’s been two years of resisting this harassment, then there’s gotta be some methods to employ.

When you’re asked to play house-rules calvinball, you know that you’re not going to win any medals. What can debate possibly hope to accomplish right now?

“Whatever dude. Have a good life.”

We are not here to debate. We are here to donate. We are here to protest. We are here to resist.

(DISCLAIMER: I mean, for god’s sake listen to the people who have legitimate problems and call-outs. Intersectionality is not divisive, it is the all-too-frayed twine that will unite people together, and everyone resisting would do well to strengthen our bonds with allies by throwing out our fuckhead perceptions about immutable goodness of the ego.)

The march does not halt to win over a “well AAAAaactually...” Your arguments belong with the demanding of accountability. Your energy should be spent doing what you can to help those who you can help. Internet progressives, just do your thing. Be there for the oppressed, and win the day - or as many days you can.

The Right’s not winning people over right now – when you get what you want out of a scam, you don’t hang around and try to patch up friendships. The thing about supporting and defending fascism is that before long, they turn you into an outsider. It doesn’t matter who you are, if your eyebrows are a bit too thick you’ll become a muslim. Your sexual deviancy makes you dangerous. Your chronic illness makes you a leech. Could just be a wrong place, wrong time. No matter how many boots you lick, they will step on you.

Sooner or later, people will see the trouble they’re in. They’ll convert. The Right’s numbers are always borrowed. Until that point, we’re gonna look real cultish to the cult. That’s how cults work: the world’s gone to shit and you’re the only “sane” ones.

YOUR HEROES ARE LEFT

There’s at least one silver lining to this cross-section of internet personality and this general craziness: a good majority of Youtube personalities know what’s up. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of people drop the apolitical guise. It’s not that they were centrists before - talking politics was just dodgy in the industry. But there’s a healthy amount of “fuck it” right now, and I’m happy for all of those sore, long-bitten tongues. I’m glad there’s enough of a contingent of generally older, 20+ viewers and consumers and patrons to send words of support and relief that their podcast hosts aren’t ทαzi sympathizers. There’s still a wall of sludge, but skins are being quickly hardened.

I’m most happy for all the kids. All of those 15 year olds who thought they were on the culture war’s hateful winning side, to wake up one day and their twitter feed is filled with distressed, active, and empathetic people. Marching and resisting.

Although it’s certainly not the entire story, a lot of these personalities are looked up to. They are the adults who “get” videogames, who talk about Anime and comic books – they’re 2017’s equivalent to the cool record shop owner in the 70’s who introduces you to punk.

I hope this “fuckit” storm shattered a lot of assumptions, and I hope that it spurs a reconsidering of the places where the good stuff on the internet comes from. (Hint: it’s not hatred).