#but im not gonna post any of the aide ones until the main is at least partially out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

autisticandroids · 3 years

Note

Okay so this was a while back but im preety sure you had mentioned an au of yours where dean is a serial killer and cas successfully stalks him but i don't think you talked about it more than that and i just really want to hear a bit more bc that idea sounds so tastefully fucked up

okay so. weeks later i finally end up answering this ask. it inspired this post btw. anyway spn is a show that's like. all about justifications, as i said in the post inspired by this ask. it's about having no choice and doing what you have to do. and like there is the phantasy embedded in it, a phantasy that is both indulged and punished. but most importantly it's justified. the monsters are super strong to show how brave our heroes are for fighting them, the main characters let out great wails of grief every time their lady loves are violently ripped from them (even though now they are free to do whatever they want), the narrative twists to show our heroes as correct whatever they do. the fantasy (of being allowed to enact violence, of being free from feminine "control," of being right) comes first. the material construction of the universe of supernatural comes afterward. whatever the fantasy is, the universe of supernatural will provide material conditions to justify its acting-out.

and what this means is that our protagonists, dean in particular, are constantly doing just horrific things, which in any other circumstance would be unconscionable. but the universe of supernatural provides justification for these acts. the point of my serial killer au which i think about so so so much is to ask the question: what if these justifications melted out from under their feet? what if dean was left holding nothing but a lie and the weight of everything he's done?

therefore, the premise of my au is such (under the cut because this baby is long):

john and mary winchester, in the mid seventies, joined a doomsday cult known as the men of letters. the men of letters were rather unusual for a doomsday cult, in that they believed that the apocalypse could be prevented by human behavior. this started as correct living, correct worship, yadda yadda, the kind of behavior and thought control that cults are known for, but with the justification of: if you don't do this, the world will end. eventually, this escalated to human sacrifice. the men of letters managed to untraceably kill two homeless people in the late seventies. but they eventually fell apart. however, a month after john and mary left the men of letters (mostly john's choice, mary still believed), mary died in a house fire. john took it as a sign from god that actually, the men of letters were right, and the world would end unless john himself did something about it. so he took some of the (intensely numerological) theology of the men of letters. and he worked out his own formula. and he applied it to the yellow pages. and started ritualistically killed people to prevent the apocalypse, with his two sons in the back of the car.

now, obviously, this is some kind of grief induced temporary madness on john's part, shaped by the mental abuse he suffered in the men of letters. but the thing is, once you've killed a couple of people to prevent the apocalypse. well. there's this thing called the sunk costs fallacy. john wasn't gonna question his own beliefs after that.

and he raised his boys to believe it, too, or at least he raised dean to. they didn't tell sam what they did until he was twelve, and sam didn't buy it, tried to call the cops on them several times but in the end, they always prevented him. eventually sam ran off to stanford, where he now lives under a cloud of guilt that he's too loyal to his family to rat them out.

john died a few years back of a heart attack, but dean is convinced it's because he messed up a ritual two weeks before it happened, so it pushed him further into this belief system.

dean's killings (and john's before him) are ritualistic and distinctive, obviously the same killer each time. but they happen anywhere in the united states, seemingly at random, there are inconsistent amounts of time between each one (sometimes as short as days, sometimes as long as years), and there is no particular victim profile. obviously, since our killers are following an arcane mathematical formula to make their choices for them, but the police don't know that.

castiel novak is an unemployed shut-in with a small inheritance which he's living off of, a cryptography degree, and an obsession with all things morbid. he spends most of his time on the reddit true crime forums, playing amateur sleuth. by complete chance, he happens to recognize one of the symbols frequently used in corpse displays by the so-called sioux falls satanic slaughterer (so named because the first time three of his victims were in the same part of the country, it so happened that they were all in sioux falls, south dakota. this was in the late eighties.) as being mostly only used by a little known cult group called the men of letters, which dissolved in the mid eighties.

he only notices this because, as a teen, he had a special interest in cults and fringe religious groups. the men of letters weren't a particularly notable or well known phenomenon; they were small, and a lot like every other cult that formed during the seventies cult boom. (no outsider ever heard about the human sacrifice; there were rumors, of course, but they were garbled, sensationalized, and mixed up with satanic panic fodder.)

(the men of letters' two sacrifices were nothing particularly romantic or fantastical. they first lured panhandler josie sands back to their compound with promises of food and a warm bed when she admitted she couldn't get a bed at a shelter, and was thinking of getting caught shoplifting just so she could be under a roof in the county jail. the men of letters' leader, a man who took on the name alistair, forced his inner circle to dress in the ceremonial black robes he had given them when he initiated them into his nearest and dearest, and which his wife had sewn out of old bed sheets and dyed black with home made oak gall dye. these robes still left black smudges on the wearer's skin occasionally if they sweated too much. josie was laid, bound, on the altar, a slapdash thing constructed over the course of two days from scrap plywood and a couple of milk crates. a rich red tablecloth purchased at macy's for $3.99 hid its ugliness and gave it grandeur. alistair attempted to kill the struggling miss sands by bringing a sharpened kitchen knife down on her bosom and piercing her heart, but, having never killed a human or even slaughtered an animal before, was unaware of the problem presented by the human ribcage. after rather ineffectually poking at the area beneath sands' bosom with his knife while she shrieked in pain and terror for about ninety seconds, alistair tried a different tack, and slit her throat, which worked just fine, and she bled out quite nicely. the second and final victim of the men of letters was a local vagrant named larry ganem, an older gentleman who walked with a limp. he was lured back to the compound in approximately the same manner as sands, but instead of being bound, he was fed stew laced with sleeping pills. even if alistair hadn't slit his throat, he wouldn't have woken up. it's actually arguable whether he was still alive at time of sacrifice; mary winchester (eight months into her first pregnancy), who, as a member of the inner circle, was in attendance, actually tried to take ganem's pulse as he lay on the altar (now covered by a different tablecloth; the red one had turned stiff with sands' blood and been subsequently burned) and found nothing, so it is entirely possibly only sands' death can be directly laid at alistair's feet, and ganem's is the fault of mrs. ellen harvelle, who prepared the laced stew. regardless, these two deaths are lessons in the nature of human evil: it is very rarely skilled, suave, or smooth. it's often slapdash, half-hearted, and just plain incompetent. but that makes it no less grisly. alistair may have begun to drink his own kool-aid, as it were, and escalated this far out of genuine belief that the apocalypse was coming and it was up to him to stop it, but it is far more likely that he sensed the imminent collapse of his little empire, and wanted to bind his subjects to him through the horrors of shared guilt, considering two lives a small price to pay for the continued loyalty of his inner circle. and the tactic worked: the men of letters didn't start to collapse in earnest until almost four years later. perhaps if alistair had continued the killings, the men of letters could have lasted for far longer, maybe even up until the present day. but it seems that alistair, a psychiatrist by training and unused to violence, simply didn't have the stomach for it. unlike, say, john winchester, who before his time with the men of letters had done a two year tour in vietnam, during which he had killed three living, thinking human beings with the american government's go-ahead.)

anyway. castiel is the first person, ever, to make the connection between the men of letters and the sioux falls satanic slaughterer. and once that connection is made, castiel begins to research the men of letters far more in-depth. and he notices something: the theology of the men of letters was intensely numerological, filled with patterns, significant numbers, and even spiritual equations.

castiel thinks of the seemingly random selection of the slaughterer's victims, and has an epiphany.

he cracks all his fingers, and gets coding.

six months. it takes castiel six months to discover an equation that could fit the slaughterer's pattern. it's complex, but also clearly based on several of the men of letters' holy numbers, and accounts for every single one of the killings. it also suggests that there should have been two or three more deaths scattered across the years, but more than likely those did happen, it's just that they weren't reported as part of the slaughterer's portfolio.

but much more importantly, castiel's model can also make predictions. there will be two killings, fifteen days apart, in a city seven hours' drive away, six weeks from now.

so castiel waits. and he books a hotel room. and two months later, he's waiting outside 217 oak street when a shadowy figure climbs up a tree and lets itself into the upstairs window.

dean winchester is feeling particularly all alone in the world when he breaks into maisey banks' home (217 oak street). his father has been dead for half a decade, and he hasn't spoken to his baby brother for twice that. it's not like this whole grizzly saving the world business makes him a lot of friends. so once he's done killing maisey (which is easy, she was ninety three and dying of cancer anyway. she doesn't even wake up when he slits her throat) and arranging her corpse in the appropriate manner, with prayers and sigils, he turns around. and sees a man standing behind him.

smiling slightly.

as he watches dean gut this old woman.

dean freezes.

the man takes a step forward.

"you're very attractive for a serial killer who's been operating since the eighties."

dean is silent.

"family business, is it?"

silence continues.

"i'm not here to report you to police. i'm just here to see if my algorithm worked right."

and dean finally breaks his silence: "what the hell is wrong with you?"

what's fun here is that dean knows (or rather "knows") that he isn't a serial killer. so he finds what cas is doing, this amoral serial killer stormchasing, morally repugnant. because cas has no way of knowing he isn't a regular serial killer.

there's also the fact that that cas proceeds to flirt with him. aggressively. and follows him back to his motel.

but the thing is that dean is all alone in the world. and as cas continues trailing him around, he starts getting, well, flattered. and feeling a little bit less alone.

it doesn't take very long before they fall into bed. even if cas is an amoral stalker with a fetish for what dean considers a distasteful yet necessary vocation.

so. they fall into bed. they fall in love. they make a little life together, in dean's big sexy car. dean tries to explain to cas that he's saving the world. that these people's lives are a necessary price to pay. and cas seems to listen.

of course, castiel doesn't believe a word of it. but he's found that he likes dean. really likes him. and he realizes that the collapse of dean's belief system would destroy him.

so he sets about becoming as complicit in it as possible.

even to the extent where, when dean is hit by a car and ends up into the hospital a day before one killing is meant to take place, castiel agrees to take on the job. (he doesn't actually kill anyone, obviously. but he does use his extensive skill with computers to create three fake newspaper articles which make it look like he has.)

but five years later, something goes wrong. really, really wrong. dean miscalculates the formula. and by the time he checks his work, the actual date of the next kill, as demanded by the formula, has passed. in fact, so have three others. and the world didn't end.

dean collapses. he hyperventilates. all those people. all those people. for no reason. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people.

cas seems totally unfazed. dean stares at him in shock. but cas just takes dean in his arms, and whispers in his ear: "oh, dean, i never believed in the equation. i love you no matter what you've done."

and dean buries his face in cas' chest.

#spn #asks #anonymous #abuse tw #violence tw

112 notes · View notes

hartrathaway · 3 years

Note

Hii I'm interested in Hartley's story but I know literally nothing about him except that he was Wally's gay bestie in the 90s, what's his deal? Do you have any comic recs for him?

HI IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!!!!!!!!

Okay, so really brief, his dealio is: born to ‘incredibly rich’ parents (we never get a specified ballpark, but Hartley states that he was ‘born with two silver spoons in [his] mouth’ if that helps context wise), Hartley’s deaf! His parents had him get cochlear implants when he was a child, which ‘medically healed him’. (His deafness has been treated extremely ablest by writers who actually remember he’s deaf, I need to warn you of this now.) He’s a music and sound waves guy, a former villain (it’s an on again off again relationship, but a lot of his character is defined by his time as a hero) and he’s very leftist. Gay best friend in the AIDS crisis turned Wally West from a midwestern conservative to a leftie as well. (Wally’s wife, Linda Park, was a major contributing factor, but we’re focusing on Hartley for this, so I’m gonna talk about him.)

I’ve got a mix of good reading from all over, so I’m gonna break this into sections, and do my best to describe which is which. (all my screencaps are from this website right here, because i do not own all the back issues and it would have taken much, much longer to do this post, and as such, some of them are not sized or formatted correctly) Click the read more if you’re interested! Please note: I am not a 100% authority figure on Hartley, and I know there’s a few stories I have left out (the story with Bart Allen’s first appearance is a good one that Hartley is in), but these are the gist of who is he, what he’s been up to, and what is the family drama.

So for New Earth (otherwise known as post-Crisis on Infinite Earths), is where Hartley actually becomes Wally’s friend, and is a hero! I’m going to focus on this section first. Unfortunately, due to being a minor character, a lot of stuff is broken into small stories, or things that are happening behind the scenes, so there’s no real issue x - y that’s gonna help much.

The Flash Vol 2 #31, #32 Quick summary: In issue 31, supervillain here is killing homeless people, Hartley has been helping these same people get up on their feet by helping them get squatter’s rights. They skip the fighting because a kid asks if they’re going to fight for a half hour and then team up, and go right to the team up. They get Linda Park in, supervillain ends up backfiring his powers. In issue 32, Wally, Hartley, and their pal Mason officially move to Keystone city. Hartley’s folks are in trouble while the three of them are trying to freeload (off of Hartley’s parents, his and his parents’ relationship is better now than it had been, for a multitude of reasons), Wally and Hartley rescue Hartley’s parents, we also meet Jerrie, Hartley’s sister, and all is resolved there. Yay, the family loves each other again!

(issue 31)

(issue 32)

The Flash Vol 2 #53 Special mention this is the issue where Hartley comes out and also has to inform Wally that Wally cannot tell who is a homosexual. Also Wally’s an IRS agent here, for shame Wallace. At least Hartley gets to cosplay Wally at the end, so that’s fun. Content warning for this issue specifically is some casual homophobia, just so you know that going in.

(issue 53)

The Flash Vol 2 #170 In 170, Hartley’s being contacted by his father to call in ‘a favor’ that Hartley owes him. The main plot line includes (one of) Wally’s ex(es) showing up, a former hero and teammate, Frances Kane, otherwise known as Magneta. A person has been found murdered at Keystone Motors, and supervillain Goldface begins rallying union workers (which seems to just be a poorly timed coincidence). The story itself (170 - 173) in and of itself is really fun, but I’m only going to talk about Hartley, or else I’ll be here all day.

(issue 170)

The Flash Vol 2 #174, #175, #178, #179 And here we get some drama! I’m grouping all of these together, since it’s all the same chunk of the story for Hartley, but since it’s the Flash, Wally’s center stage. In 174, the people who were living with the Rathaway family aren’t exactly big fans of Hartley. They know he’s changed his ways, he’s a hero now, but it’s just… something feels off. There’s loud music sounds, and bam! Suddenly Hartley’s there and oh boy is this gonna be a hot mess. In issue 175, we see some footage, and Hartley’s the lead suspect in his parents’ murder, considering that the footage has Hartley onscreen. 178 rolls up, and after Wally’s getting Gorilla Grodd taken care of (and that fight is a doozy), Wally gets to find out Hartley’s been arrested for the murder of his own parents, and Hartley confesses on-screen to his parents’ murder (Also Hartley’s got a beard now, that’s how you know he’s depressed.) 179 opens with Hartley being processed. Linda and Wally go to see him, and although Hartley confessed, he said “I think I did.” (emphasis is mine; in the panel Hartley says “I think I did.”) Joker? He’s got some Joker-fied people, and poor Hartley gets it too :( Hartley straight up nearly kills Captain Boomerang (it’s okay, Wally stops him), and surprise! Welcome back to Iron Heights Hartley. Gonna have a fun time :)

(issue 174; this is the least messy part of the panel, but it was intended to be that way)

(issue 175)

(issue 178)

(issue 179)

The Flash: Iron Heights Brief interlude from the main comic line, we’ve got a one-shot that’s taking place in Iron Heights. This takes place before Hartley gets arrested, presumably (since, y’know, they’re breaking in and all). Fun one-shot honestly, keeps me on my toes the whole time. Hartley’s a main character, and it’s less personal drama and very story driven. You don’t need this to enjoy Hartley regardless, but I enjoy it!

(The Flash: Iron Heights, which you can read here.)

The Flash Volume 2 #189, #190 189! Now we find out how Hartley’s parents were actually murdered! No spoilers, but we do get a prison breakout. This is where we get some origin story! Don’t read this first though, because you’re going to be spoiling yourself the plot of his arrest. In 190 we get more origin, including the way DC treated his deafness. (It’s ablest, and I’m still mentally grappling how you wouldn’t notice your child being deaf for two years, but okay Rachel and Osgood, you keep being bad.) The story goes on for now, with Hartley on the run from… well, everyone.

(issue 189)

(issue 190)

This is pretty much it for New Earth Hartley up until Countdown.

I don’t like Countdown at all. I’m much happier pretending that Countdown doesn’t exist (both because of how it treats Hartley for a multitude of reasons, and how Thad Thawne is treated leading up to Countdown). More happens with Hartley’s storyline in Countdown, but I hate it with such a passion that I wouldn’t recommend it at all. Countdown leads into Final Crisis, and I’m not a fan of either. However, should you wish to read and make your own opinions, here’s Countdown and here’s Final Crisis. Please note, Countdown’s issues are done in reverse order (so from issue 51 to 1, rather than 1 to 51)

And now I’m going to tell you the gospel truth:

I do like New 52 Hartley! A lot. Unfortunately, he’s not as much in the n52 Flash run as I would like (but I’m biased, as obvious by my url). What you need to know is that Hartley’s a musician now, like orchestra director, and he’s in a relationship with Barry’s boss, David Singh. (power move, honestly) Unfortunately, we don’t get a whole lot in the main line. Also at this point, the Wally West of New Earth hasn’t transitioned to the n52. Wallace West of n52 is an entirely different character, and that’s a whole other issue for another discussion. Wally West as we know him from New Earth doesn’t come back for a while. Wally and Hartley haven’t talked since before Flashpoint, and that’s a shame.

So read the Crimes of Passion Anthology he’s got please I’m begging you. The only downside is that the artist gave him a haircut.

(Crimes of Passion: Secret Admirer)

I haven’t read anything DCeased related, and while I know Hartley gets his time to shine and kiss David, I can’t tell you much beyond that. I’m pretty sure there’s other people who can tell you more, but it’s not me I’m afraid. (This is me saying guys, please tell me about Hartley in DCeased, someone tell me about my fictional lavender marriage husband.)

#Anonymous #ask #hartley rathaway #pied piper #pied piper dc #dc #(for my own records)#i'm biased and i hope the read more keeps the worst of this off of my followers' dashes #hope this helps!!!!

96 notes · View notes

classiccheesecake · 3 years

Text

i cant count but like i think Im having more sages in my au than what oot hasss but like ミ ᕕ(ᐛ) ᕗ idk if I mentioned but i like sages so like sages are a part of the au now ;v;; and I think a sage for each race is swag so this is what I have Delie Ravio Impa some random minish some random zora some random goron some random gerudo some random rito some random skull kid some random fairy :D okay post gets long so uh weeeeeee ٩(´•⌢•｀ )۶⁼³₌₃

okay okay uhhh so like theres two main like time key frames in my au kinda like oot where Time gets the master sword and everything went to shit same here Dream tries to get the master sword (and does an epic fail) Ravio gets killed aaa and Delie just goes poof since like before Dream and Ravio went to get the master sword Delie and Dream had a really heated argument but in a nutshell Delie was not believing that Dream was a hero and basically just being super in denial that there was a master sword (hm kinda sus miss girl) so Dream was like ight bet I'll prove it to you but Ravio is like uh prettyyyy sure you arent ready (at this point Dream has freed all the heros but he's still missing one orb but he doesnt know that dkjcnhfbgjhc) and that sets up the 2nd half of the au where its Dream searching for Ravio (hes somehow convinced that they made it out alive) and Delie so this is also the part of the au where Delie goes out and meets Impa :D and they both set out on a journey to find out wtf is happening (so like Delie also freeing the princess's spirits and finding out that hyrule was not just something her dad made up but was real woahh shocker ) okay uh Ravio next so I knowww that I kinda killed them off but dw they are actually vibing back in Lorule uh this makes total sense skljdhcbhcfnbg I just thought it would be cool if like the heros of lorule and hyrule like since they are reflections die at the same time and if one of them dies like earlier than expected they get reincarnated (so like mayhaps this explains why you can restart after a game over screen since ravio over there is just chilling and uh .. not dying xD) but heres the catch ravio did get reincarnated but uh idk i dont have an explanation they are young again and dont remember shit from their past life (like helping Dream or his quest) in their past life Hilda sent them to aid Hyrule and help Dream and that led to years of their childhood just wasted trying to find the hero of hyrule (dream honestly just hid in his cave so it made ravio's job just 100x harder ;v;) and when Dream uses Legend's bracelet to travel to Lorule and he finds Ravio in a just blissful state, they are living the life in the castle with Hilda ;v; he doesnt want to even talk to them since hes scared that he would resurface any memories but Hilda is like ik they are baby but you must take them and Dream is like no >:v they are happy here and hilda goes ik dumbass I wish they could stay here but they are sage and therefore is needed to go back to hyrule >:v dream : :v

so now you have to protecc a 8 year old child (yeah we time skipped a lottt aaa) and hopefully not invoke any memories of their past life or else you will feel guilty :D yayyyyyy also Dream did have a sister until she died D: but Ravio's sister didnt die cuz like unlike Hyrule who is drowning in shit, Lorule just be vibing and is chilling so ravio's sister is just waiting... for them to come back and she doesnt even realize that her older sibling doesnt even remember her ;v; (since aryll's name in spanish is april thats gonna be ravio's sister name gosh ik im so clever/j slkjdchbgjdhcnbfghducbfg) and alsooooooo instead of having like a lorulean ver of the master sword, why not swap the weapons and have a master bow and a light sword in lorule so Dream now has an even bigger to do list

Link's To Do List Updated Version

Find all ded heros ★ Git master sword Find Ravio ★ Find Delie Find Impa Sages are now a thing Find Master Bow and more incoming shit that gods will make me do I already explained like Impa's up bringing and she would like bring peace to both of the yiga and shekiah tribes while helping Delie reawaken like Ravio did with Dream uh ... I dont got much else for her at the moment xD MINISH SAGEEEE AAA they are so smol so imagine a feisty lil minish who would beat you the fuck up if it werent for the tiny size yet shes like the most emotional person Dream would meet like she would beat up your ass, then admire the sunset and cry in the same minute and she rides Dragonflies so like I have to name her Dragonfly isnt that epic aaaa shes like the tough mom love friend and would absolutely bake Dream pies aaaa she just saw Dream being super hungry and lost and led him to a minish portal and fed him once they got to her lil house and she helped him find Four's temple ik that apprently the rito came from like the zora further down the line so like what if the zora had a civil war and they split up one became the rito and the other started to become like the zoras you would find in hyrule and legend's time so we got a zora sage named Nelly and she is super into hylian stuff and glady lets Dream into Zora's Domain (which is just a swamp at this point since like the reason the zora are enemies in the downfall timeline are because of the lack of communication between them and the hyrule kingdom and since there isnt a kingdom now thats what the civil war was about, the side that still wanted to try and communicate with hylians is the rito and the zoras are the ones who didnt but this happened like over centuries ago so Nelly is just a descendant of those who fought) and they are super hyper about just meeting Dream saying how he is the first hylian is the first one ever she has seen and they just ramble about incorrect facts about hylians like "didya know that hylians can only run for short periods of time until they faint? my grandpa swears it's true! such lazy peoples" so Nelly gibs Dream some zora costume so that he can blend in and shenanigans ensue uh I got nothing for gorons or gerudo (aside from the fact that the gerudo's desert froze and you need the rods of seasons and the sage is a badass mother who gives Dream a shit ton of sweaters since that old poncho isnt doing anything) and the rito cant fly so the sage is a lil boy who is filled with rage and tries his hardest to fly, and I got nothing for fairyrn okay okay I actually think im super smart for thinking about this but instead of having a kokiri being a sage why not let a skull kid take the stage for once? :D okay so Dream and kid Ravio (o ye when dream looks for the sages its after the timeskip so ravio would be smol) and they enter the lost woods and get ambushed by the kokiri who are determined to legit burn Dream since hes responsible (not really xlkcfhbu) for so many kokiri and young children to be turned into skullkids since he let ganon take control of the lands like before he was born dkjhcbgjcd so the kokiri are just children filled with murder intent but they are like super kind to ravio and offer them tea and while some are restraining dream the rest of the kokiri are like "hey uhhh *sweats* dont look at that we are just playing tag! yeahhhh anyways wanna some cookies?" towards ravio and the burning is about to start until a kokiri stops them and its set up in a way that you would go oh she must be the sage cool but haHAHAH you were fooled for a sec cuz shes not the sageee a skullkid isss uh no idea how to introduce her just know that she starts with lost of angry towards Dream then comes to realize that its not his fault that she became a lost child and vows to help him and tada sage :D O also would like to mention that the kokiri and the skullkids have the same masks like the kokiri have the leaf mask like the koroks and the skullkids have the same leaves mask but they are more wilted so they both look unsettling but they are sweet

children ;v; also since the kokiri have been wearing masks for so long they dont have faces anymore kinda like their skullkid brethren but they decided to carry the burden with them uh yeahhhh thats all I have for now :D uh if you made it this far, I genuinely thank you and pls have this cookie :D!!

#im on like three hours of sleep and a hell lot of milk tea and I think that these are good sage ideas ;v;#hero's reminiscence #uh yeeeeeeee this took me like a hour oh gosh time went woooosh #idk what else to put here xD uh hello there lskdjnchcfnhubg

5 notes · View notes

lord-of-the-queers · 4 years

Note

So...I wish to hear the parallels.

OH IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED, HOW PLEASANTLY UNEXPECTED (/s /j)

Ok so I’ve seen too many posts comparing Thorin and Aragorn. I mean I get it?? But it’s surface level compared to Boromir and Thorin. The first is a given; both Aragorn and Thorin are lost kings. They’re also not the main protagonist (Frodo/Sam and Bilbo respectively) but they’re still pretty significant characters. That, and having dead parents is abt as far as it goes for me. (If anyone has any more im happy to hear them.)

However, Boromir and Thorin’s storylines and characters as a whole are so similar it’s crazy.

We’re gonna bulletpoint this bitch. Just off the top of my head:

Boromir and Thorin are sons of rulers. Now I know what you’re gonna say. “What’s Aragorn then, just some bum that everyone liked well enough to hand over the Throne of Gondor to? Did you not read the book at all??” Again, going back to the “lost king” idea. I know. But the thing is, Denethor and Thrain we’re still ruling over their people; a people that had once been renowned in Middle Earth for their might, majesty, wealth and knowledge but have since “sunken low” through some form of great catastrophe. For the dwarves of Erebor it was Smaug and the loss of their home and riches, for Minas Tirith it was decades of constant battle with the growing strength of Mordor. Both Boromir and Thorin lived through it (or in Boromir’s case, had been exposed to it his entire life) and watched their fathers and their people as this was happening. Aragorn has seen some of this, true, but it wasn’t as personal and the times when he did witness a part of it, he was really just a passerby. There’s emphasis put on the fact that the line of kings (of which Aragorn is a descendant) was broken well before his time.

Next, their arcs are very similar as well. Both, after watching the steady decline of their once might people, are made aware of a chance to restore it and end their people’s suffering. They go on long journeys trying to fulfill this goal (though aiding Gondor is more of a secondary goal in FOTR, it’s still a goal (Elrond, Aragorn and Boromir even vaguely make a plan in the books for Aragorn and Boromir to go to Minas Tirith, and it’s also part of the reason why Elrond agrees for Boromir to be a part of the Fellowship), and Boromir’s main motivation for even going with them in the first place). As the journey goes on, you can feel their sense of urgency to make it back. Thorin has a physical deadline, Durin’s Day, whereas Boromir knew the dire situation Minas Tirith was in and wanted to make it back to make sure there was even a city left to save. Although Thorin manages to physically make it back to his home in his lifetime, both die before their goals are completed.

Which brings me to my next point: their deaths play a big part in redeeming them. As we know, Thorin is overtaken by dragon sickness, which as we understand it is extreme greed beyond ones control. It’s interesting, because that’s also how we come to understand the effects of the Ring too. One could even go as far as to say that dragon sickness is like the effects of the ring, only less extreme at its end stages and being caused by different things. You see both Thorin and Boromir feeling the effects of that greed akin to illness early on in their journeys, and it appears to worsen slowly but steadily until the very end, when both seem to snap. Thorin does this by going back on his promises to the men of Esgaroth and being (partially but significantly) responsible for starting the Battle of the Five Armies. They even have a more personal episode with them and the main protagonist of their respective stories. Thorin, upon finding out Bilbo stole then gave the Arkenstone to his enemies, attacks him. Boromir attacks Frodo in an attempt to get the Ring in Parth Galen. It seems to be fleeting, because both also seem to snap out of it soon/immediately after. This also comes just before their deaths.

Once again, their death arcs are almost the same. Upon snapping out of it, they realize the wrongs they’ve done and immediately try to make amends, by stepping up and doing what seems right. Thorin does this by coming to the aid of Dain, the Men of Esgaroth and the Elves of Mirkwood, and providing much needed support. For Boromir, it comes by helping to search for Frodo. Then, by following and protecting Merry and Pippin. Both ultimately lead to their deaths.

When they die, they both have had time to think over their wrongs and prepare a sort of confession. In the books, it’s said Boromir was laying there dying “for no small amount of time” before Aragorn finally found him. Thorin was the same before Bilbo was lead to him. Then they give this final confession, stating their specific wrongs and begging for forgiveness. Aragorn and Bilbo do forgive them, and they give a final farewell before taking their last breath. Though both were tragic, they were crucial to their redemption.

Finally, their personalities are incredibly similar. (maybe it’s because of how similar their storylines were, who would have thought?) Boromir and Thorin are both very honor driven, having strong moral codes that guide their decisions. For example, in the book, part of what gets Thorin to not kill Bilbo is Gandalf reminding him of all Bilbo had done to help him get there the first place. I can’t remember specifics for Boromir off the top of my head, but I’d argue that it’s still very present in his character. Both have seen many battles. This links to their sense of honor. They also value loyalty. (This one is probably a bit of a reach, but they’re also distrustful of elves. I say this because of how Boromir is in Lothlorien, especially after Galadriel does her mental test thing with the Fellowship when they first arrive.) Both also are bound by a sense of duty to their people and their ancestors. You could say they also hold a deep sense of nostalgia and pride for the former glory of their homes.

Granted, they have their differences, but those dwarf (sorry) in comparison to their similarities. I should also note that this is just off the top of my head. I’m sure if I looked harder I’d find more. It makes me wonder sometimes if Tolkien made them so similar on purpose, or if it influenced his decision to change Boromir’s storyline from a traitor that sides with the enemy (like Saruman) to that of an otherwise noble hero brought down by an antagonistic element in the story.

But yeah. There you go.

136 notes · View notes

boethiahsboytoy · 3 years

Text

fuck it vyrthaal fic ch 1 its just a rough draft bc i dont have the attention span 2 edit yet so this means critique is not only welcomed but appreciated ! under the cut bc i dont want 2 fuck ur dashes (this isn’t vyrthaal-verse im gonna try n write out the whole dawnguard questline n post that First sorry if ur lookin forward 2 that)

In ages past and long forgotten, a mighty city conjured from ice sat safely in the mountains of a young Skyrim; glittering towers reached elegantly towards the sky as crystal-lined paths wound through the mighty buildings. Protecting the city was a noble family of snow elves. They were a reclusive sort, rarely meeting with their neighbors unless it was for business, and tending silently to the upkeep of their home. Among this family was an only child by the name of Vyrthaal, with eyes bright as the sun and skin as blue as the sky. He was an energetic lad, frequently seen running through the halls of his family’s home as he played, but shy, rarely speaking to anyone even in his family. Their nobility intimidated him, and somehow he knew in his heart that he did not fully belong with them, even at such a young age. But he didn’t mind. That much.

He got along well enough with his family anyways; he stayed out of his way and they gave him cold affection. Perhaps their disciplinary tactics were a bit too harsh for a young thirteen year old, but Vyrthaal knew not to complain. There was a great divide between him and his parents, this much he knew, but all in all he would have been content to live with them for a great many more years. But, whether fortunately or unfortunately, this would not be possible. Even one so heavily sheltered such as Vyrthaal would find it impossible to hide from the fact that his homeland was in grave trouble. Almost every day a new courier came bearing bad news of another far-reaching snow elven outpost. Colonizers coming in from the sea were overtaking their land, ousting snow elves from homes that had belonged to them for generations and slaughtering those who resisted. Fear did not show in Vyrthaal’s eyes at this news, but it was felt deep within his heart. And at night he curled up in bed, fearing he would not wake up again to see Auri-El’s light.

- - - - - - - -

“We can rely on the Deep Folk,” his father said one evening, and his mother scoffed. Her long fingers were in Vyrthaal’s hair, intricately braiding it. It was late, and he would have to undo the braids before bed, but it soothed both his and his mother’s nerves.

“Since when have the Dwemer cared for others? They are cruel, and snobbish. Besides,” and now her voice dropped, as if Vyrthaal’s sharp ears wouldn’t pick up her words, “You have heard what they do to our people. Lock them up deep underground, poison them, force them to work in their awful caverns. It is better that we refuse their aid!”

Vyrthaal felt a bolt of fear shoot through him, eyes widening as his ears twitched nervously. But his father shook his head. “That is only rumors,” he said, but doubt sat heavily in his voice. “They wouldn’t do that to us.”

No one in the room believed that. But what other options did they have? While their city was strong they didn’t truly have an army; just a few guards to patrol the area and keep crime to a minimum, or fend off the occasional wild beast that strayed too close. The prospect of making the journey to the Chantry of Auri-El was there, but was it wise? It was a long and difficult road, much too harsh for a child such as Vyrthaal, and who was to say they wouldn’t be attacked by the very Atmorans they were trying to flee? There was little else to be said, but at the end of the night when Vyrthaal retired to his room he still heard his parents discussing what to do.

Anxiety prevented him from sleeping well. It had only been about three hours into a restless sleep when suddenly Vyrthaal was awoken by a chilled touch shaking him. He sat upright quickly, meeting his mother’s eyes, and as consciousness rushed to him he heard the sounds of fighting. On reflex he turned to look out his window but was stopped by his mother’s hand on his cheek.

“Do not look, my son,” she whispered. And all at once he was pulled from his bed, led by the hand down the long flight of stairs to the main living area. But his mother made a sharp turn, tugging the young elf into a small hallway normally used by servants, and brought him to a blank space in the wall. There they met his father, who rested a hand on Vyrthaal’s shoulder and squeezed gently, before turning to the wall and muttering a strange incantation. Where once there was nothing now stood a door, shimmering behind a protective shield of magic. But Vyrthaal’s father opened it and he was rushed in by his parents.

“What is going on?” he begged to know as the sounds of fighting was muffled. They were now heading down a long flight of stairs, Vyrthaal lifting his robes so as not to trip. His mother responded.

“The Atmorans have found us.”

While fear nearly paralyzed him Vyrthaal pressed on with his parents, tears pricking at his eyes. “Where are we going?” His voice was shrill with fear and his mother’s reassuring squeeze to his hands did nothing to calm him. “What will we do!?”

“Hush, Vyrthaal. You will be safe.”

Vyrthaal was more than familiar with his father’s short answers that told him very little, but now it frustrated him. He was about to demand more answers when at last the stairs ended and a slightly breathless Vyrthaal was lead into an odd chamber. He could sense magic here. It was old and deep, and more powerful than he could imagine. It saturated the air and he shivered at the feeling. But it was calming. He looked up between his parents, who now seemed reluctant to continue. But at last, Vyrthaal’s mother slid her hand from his grip.

“You will be safe here.”

There were tears in her eyes as she knelt, hands on Vyrthaal’s shoulders. A kiss was pressed to his brow and he reached up to grasp her forearm.

“Mother-” he tried, but his father cut him off.

“There is no time for questions, my son. The Atmorans are here, and it is too late to flee. This room...it was built ages ago by our ancestors. It is stronger than any of our magic combined, and you will not be found here.” He led Vyrthaal to a heavy looking door carved from an unknown substance, but when they came close he could sense it was made of pure magickal energy. Being so near it seemed to make Vyrthaal’s very soul shrink back from the amount of power it contained. And as he approached it opened for him. He looked questioningly at his parents as it revealed a small, dim room—more of a storage closet in terms of size. “You will be safe here. It will only be for a little while, until we can muster our forces and drive the Atmorans away. Go, Vyrthaal. You will be alright.”

He didn’t want to. But Vyrthaal stepped into the room, turning to look at his parents. “What about you?” He finally asked, and Vyrthaal’s mother smiled.

“We will be safe. There are similar rooms for us.”

It was a lie. Vyrthaal knew it was. But he didn’t argue. Something in him knew that this was their only option. But it also knew that this would work. And when his parents stepped back to seal the door into place he didn’t protest. Only allowed the strange magic of the room work on him, making him grow tired. His eyelids grew heavy, but he kept his gaze on his parents for as long as he could until a strange, enchanted sleep took him. Vyrthaal slept now, undisturbed by noise and disarray, his mind giving him hopeful dreams of a bright future safe from invading Atmorans or scheming Dwemer. Vyrthaal slept as a battle raged on overhead, devouring buildings and people he knew all his life. Vyrthaal slept as Knight-Paladins gave their lives in a vain attempt to protect their race and innocents were slaughtered at the hands of men. And when the last Snow Prince was cut down, and the Atmorans brutally claimed Skyrim as their own, and what little remained of his people retreated to rot in the grasp of the Dwemer, Vyrthaal slept.

#my writing #OC Vyrthaal #once i get an ao3 account and i post it there ill post a link to the final ver on my oc blog #I'm Miraak and you're watching Disney Channel

7 notes · View notes

cruddyborderlandstheories · 4 years

Text

THE SEEIN’ DEAD MOD IS A BAND-AID FIX

gearbox locked zane’s lazy fix behind a paywall

tl;dr: for the love of god, the seein’ dead class mod should be what the seein’ red capstone is and vice versa. also. MORE SYNERGY. also i redesigned all of Zane’s trees and augments for more synergy you’re welcome.

is 1am and i don’t want tomorrow and im angry and thinking about borderlands so this seems like the perfect time to immerse myself in remaking Zane’s skill trees (for the 5th time). mainly because some of zane’s skills are still irking me and i’ve written extensive essays for the bl3 subreddit about the seein’ dead class mod and just playing around with zane’s skills in general, but i don’t think i’ve ever posted here before about it. so here we are. i notice i usually save lore/theories/characterizations for this blog and meta/balancing/gear talk for reddit. not sure why that’s a split for me.

now i’ve remade zane’s skills a number of times, but honestly this was all before the seein’ dead mod was released. then, instead of fixing his skill trees, i wrote a lot of essays about why that mod was a terrible bad decision on gearbox’s part (you can read one of the shorter arguments in a comment from 5 months ago here). I’m just gonna remake the skill trees now with all his current abilities in mind.this post really should be titled: ALL THE PROBLEMS WITH THEIR BALANCING DECISIONS

so imma just talk for a bit about why i love/hate the seein’ dead class mod.

Obviously it’s a god tier mod, and you see almost no zane builds without it, and no top tier, can solo m10 true takedown builds without it (unless ur like, the 1% of masochistic players, in which case i salute you). and while that obviously means its a good mod, it also shows the problems with all his other class mods and his skill trees in general.

They all kinda suck. and that wouldn’t be a problem, bc, hey, the seein’ dead mod is ez to get, just pop on over to the casino and kill a few baddies and they’ll drop like candy. Which is really awesome!

slight problem.

the dlc is locked behind a PAYWALL

now this is a problem because if zane was a top tier character BEFORE the dlc, and everything was hunky dory and people weren’t on their knees begging for gearbox to fix Zane, then him getting a new badass class mod wouldn’t be such a big deal. but the problem was this was gearbox’s solution to giving Zane a buff.

they literally locked a buff for a character behind a pay wall.

I recommend Zane is every single person I try to convince to play bl3, but i always have to add this like, commercial-esque asterisk. you know, terms and conditions or, side effects or whatever. *you probably want to get the seein’ dead mod if you’re looking at end-game play because unless you wanna struggle that’s his only viable play style.

what if they don’t want to buy the dlc?! for real...

There’s also the point that this class mod makes his (arguably) BEST capstone obsolete. so we have distributed denial which literally no one uses because its broken, double barrel which is always traded for seein’ red or more points in other skills, and seein’ red, WHICH WAS MADE USELESS BY THIS CLASS MOD

gsfdhjikdhgdaskjfhgaskdfjh

okay and it wouldn’t even be so bad

IF THEY DIDN’T CHANGE HIS ENTIRE SKILL SET BEFORE RELEASE

like they lowered ALL his kill skills, then they turned Seein’ Red into his capstone instead of Death Follows Close, meaning they nerfed Death Follows Close so it could fit as just a game changer. my poor boy was g u t t e d.

so, imagine this, everyone is reaching the end-game content of bl3. it’s a month or 2 weeks or whatever after the game dropped and people are finally hitting level 50. and moze/fl4k/amara are all killin’ it, and the zane players have to work their ASSES off to do like... 50% of that damage output (now, they did also eventually nerf the crap outta moze and fl4k but the point stands).

so instead of gearbox going: “oh... shit that pre-release nerf was an awful idea, revert the changes guys” they decided to keep him gutted and then they released what was, in my opinion, a kick in the nuts with the maliwan takedown (aka the antifreeze mod, alongside the spiritual driver) ahahahahahaha. what good times it was. (I say this sarcastically.)

man i remember people were soooo livid with that class mod release. well, both of them. zane mains were pissed off (for good reason). “yes, let’s make the people who are begging for a straight damage increase jump through MORE hoops (LITERALLY) for a pitiful amount of damage. oh, also, let’s give their 28 skill point build to the strongest character in the game for free and also make it 10x better”. because it was 10x better than violent momentum (driver didn’t have a damage cap) until they fixed both the spiritual driver and the violent momentum skill. it was the worst of times.

i will note here they did, around this time, let zane have stackable kill skills, but it was only 2 stacks and also it was still *incredibly* difficult to achieve stacks because zane just. struggled to kill anything. I still remember when i grinded the shit outta an antifreeze class mod and it took me over 20 minutes to kill Wotan my first time solo on m4. Not the fight UP to wotan. literally. just killing wotan.

then the seein’ dead mod dropped and i had. a fuckin. 15 minute decrease to my time on killing wotan (5 minutes!!!!). now i am not perfect, and i 100% believe i could’ve lowered the time even more. but that... that shows a VERY CLEAR problem.

they never actually fixed zane, they gave him a class mod that’s stupid OP just to make sure he could hang on next to the other Vault Hunters. it’s just a bandaid fix. you remove the class mod, and he’s back to pre-jackpot power levels (which will NOT hold up at m10, let me tell you).

all his pre-jackpot problems are still here, and that’s why people are not using any other class mod of his. I bet we could have some really fun builds with the conductor mod! but nobody will ever use it because it’s just... not even close to the seein’ dead mod.

So what does the seein’ dead mod do that makes Zane so good?

IT BRINGS HIM BACK TO PRE-RELEASE VALUES

this mod, plus Death Follows Close, brings Zane back to pre-release zane. and i don’t understand how gearbox isn’t putting two and two together and going “Oh.”

it also is a BETTER VERSION of Seein’ Red!!! something players could have had at, like, level 15, but instead had to wait until they hit a capstone! the capstone is completely obsolete at this point. There is nothing seein’ red can give you that seein’ dead doesn’t do but better. Getting that capstone is a w a s t e of skill points.

AND they locked this fix behind a pay wall!!! i cannot say that enough. you don’t wanna get the handsome jackpot dlc?? guess u don’t wanna play zane at endgame then. too bad, so sad.

have i stated that enough? because it still blows my fuckin mind. THEY LOCKED A CHARACTER FIX BEHIND A PAYWALL

djhdgakjhakjdah. imagine playing without any prior knowledge and being like, aw man i love this zane character. can’t wait to get to max mayhem end game like all my favorite youtubers and friends!! then finding out you gotta drop 15 bucks or whatever it is just to actually be able to play at max mayhem level. that is not a skill difference, that is A BALANCING PROBLEM MY DUDES. like. my favorite zer0 build was still viable without the story DLCs. obviously grog > rubi, pimp > lyuda, rapier > law but, it was still fuckin viable.

guh. gufhgufhsdgkfjsdh. it bothers me.

ok so there’s a lot i just went over: my main issue? is that by making Seein’ Red a capstone, they did nothing to make it an actual legit capstone. They definitely nerfed Death Followed Close to make it a gamechanger, but they never gave Seein’ Red a buff to move it from a gamechanger to a capstone. It was the same exact skill. Seein’ Dead is what Seein’ Red SHOULD be and that’s what angers the crap outta me. they locked this obvious fix behind a pay wall (AND a gear slot!!!!!) n ur probably thinking ‘but cruddy this WAS really nice of them to try and fix zane... they could’ve just let him be suuc’ and like, yeah, they could’ve, and it is good they’re TRYING, but also, they’re leaving the people who DON’T buy the DLC high and dry.

keep in mind i DO own the dlc. have the season pass and everything. IM STILL MAD!!!

Zane should be strong no matter what class mod the players want to use. Same with Amara, same with Moze, same with Fl4k. FFS, it is not that hard. CHANGE THEIR SKILLS!!!!!

so im gonna be taking the time to go over all of zane’s skills and shit just to put him more on par with the others (WITHOUT THE SEEIN’ DEAD MOD)

imagine the seein’ dead mod doesn’t exist for this. we’re gonna make a balanced character since apparently THAT’S TOO HARD FOR A TRIPLE-A BALANCING TEAM

first things first, the tree with the most fuckin problems:

Under Cover

oh god this tree is a fucking train wreck what the hell were they thinking. good god. my eyes. they’re burning.

not actually, but it still kinda sucks.

Action Skill: Barrier is fine. I would not add the ‘picking it up decreases benefits’ when Zane’s whole schtick is running around fast. You get the full bonus no matter what form it’s in. also, you can hold down the action skill activation button to deploy the barrier directly on yourself.

Tier 1: Hearty Stock is a trap. never get this. so dumb. no synergy with his other skills. Adrenaline is okay, but not really great during end game. Ready For Action is similarly okay. Just a very MEH start to this tree.

Adrenaline: Zane gains increased Action Skill Cooldown Rate. 10% per level, up to 50%. this shouldn’t be tied to his shields being full because if your barrier is down (cooling DOWN)... your shield is taking damage. c’mon now. THINK GEARBOX T H I N K

Hearty Stock: (maxed) Zane and his clone gain 5% magazine regeneration while an action skill is active. This skill stacks. In it’s original state, this skill is such a trap skill. for real.

Ready For Action: i mean, it’s fine. We’ll keep it. +30% shield recharge rate and -29% (why????) recharge delay

Tier 2: ech. Stiff Upper Lip is not that good. Brain freeze is what u really want. Rise to the Occasion is also okay.

Brain Freeze: keep the same.

Stiff Upper Lip: when Zane is damaged with a hit that would break his shield, he gains (max) +20% bonus gun damage on his next shot through the barrier.

Rise to the Occasion: Zane and his clone gain health regeneration. +5% max health/s. Not determined by shield availability.

Tier 3: `screams in confident competence` oh lawd. this skill is good. the accuracy thing is kinda laughable. i tell you, i always thought that zane was originally meant to be the sniper with the Under Cover tree but they decided to swap Zane and Fl4k’s skills. which is why Zane has soooo many accuracy buffs.

Confident Competence: fine the way it is. I would also add, since this IS a game changer, that the Barrier’s damage amp is now 40%.

Tier 4: ew. tier 4. Really Expensive Jacket is literally the only skill you might want to get and EVEN THEN. ugh. Best Served Cold is so pointless. and so is Futility Belt. YOU TAKE MORE DAMAGE WITH IT

Really Expensive Jacket: Elemental Status Effects have reduced duration (-50%). Additionally, Zane is not slowed by Cryo anymore.

Best Served Cold: Remove the cooldown. Buff up the damage at least 200%. Make it an AOE Brain Freeze. That is, the cryo novas stack and if overkill damage is high enough, enemies hit with the novas freeze. Kinda like a discount Frozen Heart.

Futility Belt: HA. Ahahahahaha. Ha. Zane gains resistance to non-elemental and cryo damage (+15%). Futhermore, after killing an enemy, Zane’s barrier gains additional cryo damage (+20%) for 8s.

Tier 5: is oki. My only real complaint is with Nerves of Steel. Like. Seriously.

Refreshment: god tier skill actually. Keep the same.

Best Served Cold: also keep the same. The only change I will make is this: resetting your action skills’ cooldowns counts as action skill start and end.

Nerves of Steel: The longer Zane’s barrier is active, the more stacks of Nerves of Steel he gains (a maximum of 15). For each stack, Zane gains 2% shock damage, 2% cryo efficiency, and 1% damage to frozen enemies. (why shock damage? cryo doesn’t do well against shields.)

Tier 6: *cries in the worst capstone in the entire series* WHO DID THIS. WHY. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU???

Distributed Denial: no. just. no. scrap this whole damn thing. IT DOESN’T EVEN WORK!!!! either fix it COMPLETELY or do something else. My recommendation? Whenever Zane throws down his barrier, his shield instantly begins recharging. If Zane’s shield is already full or recharging, enemies with no shields (or freeze immunity) that touch Zane’s Barrier for the next 10s are instantly frozen.

Augments: why the hell do i gotta place my barrier down when my entire fuckin’ character is about RUNNING. ALSO JUST AS A BLANKET STATEMENT: ALL THESE AUGMENTS WORK 100% EVEN IF HIS BARRIER IS PICKED UP. SO DUMB. a fully pointless restriction.

that last sentence immediately fixes Charged Relay and Nanites or Some Shite.

Redistribution: If his shields are full, Zane can sacrifice 50% of his shields to have his next shot deal 100% bonus cryo damage by holding F.

All-Rounder: Fine as is. Only thing I would add: whenever Zane melees an enemy, his shields are drained by 50% and his sliding augment is added to the melee attack.

Deterrence Field: Fine as is. But! I would add: whenever Zane sprints into an enemy, his shields are drained by 50% and slam augment is activated.

THAT WAY we can have both slam/sliding relics actually DO SOMETHING. because my god they’re so useless rn.

alright, moving on.

Hitman

Tier 1: is okay. nobody ever takes cold bore. ever.

Violent Speed: fine as is, but we’re taking it back to pre-release values. Max: 30%. can stack 2x.

Cold Bore: Zane gains (max) 20% bonus cryo damage to all shots fired while moving.

Violent Momentum: fine as is, but taking it back to pre-release values. 30% gun damage at default walk speed. Additionally, Zane can now shoot while sprinting.

Tier 2: my boy zoomer needs more fun.

Cool Hand: fine as it is. I would buff his base reload speed up to 20% and kill skill reload to 20% as well. 17 and 13 are such weird numbers.

Drone Delivery: fine as it is. Additionally, Zoomer’s base shots now take on the element of Zane’s grenade mod.

Salvation: fine as it is. I won’t mess with this bc life steal is messy business (coughs in grog)

Tier 3: hhhynf.fdsg.

Death Follows Close: Kill Skill Bonus: +30%. Kill Skill Time: +7s. Additionally, enemies targeted by Zoomer take 5% more damage from Zane.

Tier 4: these two skills are actually p dope by themselves. it can stay as it is. I would MAYBE increase the violent violence max buff up to 20% but that’s just me.

Tier 5: ahahahaha. this skill. just remember, we’re pretending Seein’ Dead doesn’t exist, so imagine how this skill looks next to calm cool n collected. so pointless.

Good Misfortune: Killing an enemy with a critical hit adds (max) 10% efficiency to Zane’s kill skills for 8s. This does not stack.

Tier 6: WE’RE GONNA MAKE YOU RELEVANT AGAIN BOO HANG IN THERE

Seein’ Red: Zane has a (4%) chance to activate his kill skills upon dealing gun damage to an enemy. Additionally, enemies targeted by Zoomer now take 15% more damage from Zane.

so why didn’t we make good misfortune the infinite action skill build?? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT CCnC IS SUPPOSED TO DO!!! why have 2 skills that do the exact same thing AT THE EXACT SAME TIER except ONE IS OBJECTIVELY WORSE!!!!!

what happens to the Seein’ Dead class mod if we’re giving its perk to this capstone? I’m so glad you asked. “Zane activates his kill skills when activating his action skills. Additionally, the kill skills activated this way have 15% more efficiency”. look how much better balanced that is!!!! that’s a class mod!!!!!!!!

Augments: these aren’t THAT bad, but they could be a lot better.

Winter’s Drone: Zoomer gains 20% bonus cryo damage to all shots.

Bad Dose: pump these numbers up. Fire Rate: +7% per affected enemy. Movement Speed: +10% per enemy. everything else is fine.

Boomsday: just make this more beefy. fr. It’d be a good choice if it were stronger.

Static Field: also fine. I would again give it better damage output, but that’s just me.

Almighty Ordnance: remove the build up honestly. Like i get the vibe and it’s really cool, but in combat it just DOESN’T WORK. maybe if Zoomer is targeting an enemy, he will unleash the missiles if they are above 50% health after 30s or something. I honestly think these should have a debuffing factor instead of a damage factor (you know, to not get in the way of boomsday). maybe something around 15%? the 1x per action skill activation thing would be easily subverted with CCnC with the changes we suggested, so it could work.

Doubled Agent

ahhh, Blane. Blue Zane. Love ya, buddy. One change: he prioritizes pinged targets. That way you can kinda get him to fight specific people. Also, lower the teleportation timer. pls.

Tier 1: actually p good. could be better, but its not bad.

Synchronicity: Zane gains 20% bonus damage per active action skill. While Zane has an action skill active, he gains a stack of Synchronicity. Max Stacks: 10. For each stack of Synchronicity, Zane gains 5% Action Skill Cooldown Rate and 2% Action Skill Damage.

Praemunitus: Zane and his digiclone gain (max) 30% magazine size.

Borrowed Time: For each action skill active, Zane gains 30% action skill duration. The longer Zane’s action skills are active, he and Blane gain a higher Fire Rate and faster Reload Speed, up to 20%. (the idea is you choose between this or synchronicity bc... either permanent action skills build or fast paced action skills build)

Tier 2: Donnybrook is fun. Fractal Frags is fun. Duct tape mod is a GODDAMN DISAPPOINTMENT

Donnybrook: fine as it is. I might buff the max numbers up to 20% gun damage and 3% health regen. But that’s really it.

Fractal Frags: Blane will periodically toss a grenade from Zane’s stockpile at his targeted enemy (cooldown: 20s). Kill Skill: Blane has a 45% chance to throw a free grenade.

Duct Tape Mod: this skill... why... No cooldown. NONE. Zane has a 1% chance to also fire a grenade from his gun. Kill Skill: This is increased to 15% for 8s (stays at 1% for the whole time, but the kill skill will increase by 3% for each tier)

Tier 3: Actually Quick Breather is one of my favorite skills. this can stay.

Quick Breather: Same as is. Additionally, Zane and his clone gain 25% Gun Damage after swapping places for a short time (8s). I really wanna promote swapping places. It’s really underutilized. they’ve ADDED stuff to this skill already!!! even tho it didn’t work until the next patch. BUT THEY SHOW ITS POSSIBLE TO ADD TO SKILLS!!!

Tier 4: actually a really good tier. a few minor changes.

Pocket Full of Grenades: Kill Skill: Zane gains (max) 15% grenade regeneration for 8s. If Zane’s grenades are full, any excess grenades are shot from his gun with 25% bonus damage.

Old-U: If Zane falls into FFYL while his digiclone is active, he can press the action skill activation key to destroy his clone and gain a second wind. When he does this, he takes the place of his clone. His clone will also drop a grenade when it is destroyed.

Supersonic Man: Zane gains increased movement speed for each active action skill: (max) 15% each. Additionally, teleportation is considered to be Zane’s maximum speed for its duration and 5s after.

Tier 5: oh god oh fuck oh god.

Like a Ghost: Oh god why. Zane and his digiclone gain a (max) 15% chance to ignore all damage while teleporting and for 7s after.

Boom. Enhance: actually a pretty swell skill. I would probably add Health Regen +3% per grenade tho. Blane needs help a lot.

Trick of the Light: bring back the shock damage. Zane deals 40% bonus shock damage for 7s after swapping places with his clone.

Tier 6: oh ngl I actually love this capstone lol

Double Barrel: Zane’s digiclone gains a copy of Zane’s current gun when it is deployed (and all the anointments work and he actually fires it like a reasonable person). Zane’s clone now deals damage equal to Zane’s base weapon damage. Upon swapping places, both Zane and his digiclone deal 50% bonus damage for 7s.

Augments:

Binary System: is okay. Kinda uhhh underwhelming tho. Buff up the damage and also maybe reduce teleportation time.

Schadenfreude: I like this one a lot. Zane’s shield is restored by 100% of the damage his digiclone takes and vice versa.

Dopplebanger: lower the waiting time. I get that u don’t wanna override the teleportation, but it’s really annoying. Buff damage and don’t make it dependent on action skill duration. If this explosion kills an enemy, the clone is reactivated with 50% action skill duration.

Which One’s Real?: I’ve never actually felt this work. Maybe for like 2 seconds? Make it work more like Zer0′s hologram or Timmy’s Jack clones or smth. Maybe give an activation cue? im v lost with this one. Enemies targeting Zane take 30% more damage from the digiclone.

Digital Distribution: 75% of the health damage Zane takes is distributed to his clone instead. The digiclone gains 5% Health Regeneration/s and sends out 3 [level specific damage] shock spikes to enemies that attack it.

literally all Zane needs is SYNERGY. if they can change a few skills, pump up a few numbers, and ffs fix the seein’ red/dead capstone/mod, they’d be in FUCKIN BUSINESS

but no instead

THEY LOCKED THE BUFF BEHIND A PAYWALL.

WHYYYYYY

#>:(#borderlands #im not redirecting my anger im legitimately angrey about this wat u mean #bl3 #zane flynt #but actually this is such a frustrating thing to deal with

25 notes · View notes

fuckyeahasexual · 6 years

Text

A complete guide to how the asexual community is NOT lying about the pathologization of asexuality and how many aces(even young ones)have had their asexuality tried to be“fixed” and “converted back to normalcy”

Trigger warning : Conversion therapy,abuse

As if the so called ace “”discourse””( which has till now involved aphobes and exclusionists comparing ace people to nazis,pedophiles,white supremacists,slave owners,homophobes, ,talking over ace WOC by white people, telling ace people AND kids to kill themselves,victim blamig and gaslighting ace victims of rape, putting extremely graphic sexual content into asexual tags and sending sexual content to ace minors and adults who are are suffering from sexual trauma even after they told them to STOP ) could not get any worse, we now have these pathetic excuses of human beings accusing ace people of lying about their trauma and abuse just so that they can justify their harassing of ace people.

Im TIRED of seeing these “”highly intellectual people”” keeps repeating bullshit arguments so im gonna make this post addled with appropriate resources and links to handle these two topics:

How asexuality is pathologized

Can the abuse and trauma ace people go through when people try to “convert ace people back to normalcy” and “fix” their asexuality really be called “conversion therapy”?

This is gonna be long,but i hope you will stick with me though this because im going to try as much as possible to make this as source-fuilled and educational for yall. So here we go:

1. Has asexuality really been pathologized?

Short answer,Yes. Many mental health professionals had consideredasexuality an illness throughout history.There are many articles talking about it.Up till 2013, indicators of asexuality like lack of sexual attraction,sexual fantasies towards other people, lack of interest in sex etc were basically classified as Hypoactive sexual desire disorder in the DSM which was revised just to include that all those indicators WOULD be considered as a “symptom” of HSDD unless a person self identified as “asexual” which wasnt much useful since not everyone(especially young people) might know that they are ace and can be pressured by their peers into going through the “treatment” for HSDD .They did the same thing before they removed homosexuality from the DSM.

Heres the long answer :

Throughout history , asexuality has brought out bigots to talk about how “unnatural” it is and how it obviously is a “mental illness/disorder” bc experiencing sexual attraction is always considered an inherent experience to almost all living beings.There are many medical and psychological articles either directly referring to asexuality as a disorder or referring its main indicators like “lack of sexual attraction,sexual feelings towards other people”etc as a mental disorder.

But the most well known instance of pathologization of asexuality is the HSDD (Hypoactive sexual desire disorder).It has been in both The International Classification of Diseases and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders both which are used by mental health professionals and psychologists to diagnose people.

There was a huge pushback against HSDD by asexual activists bc it categorized all indicators of asexuality like lack of sexual attraction,sexual fantasies towards other people and lack of sexual desire etc as a disorder.As a result, asexuality was officially given an exception in the DSM-V by stating that if a person experiencing all the symptoms of HSDD self ID’d as asexual then they wont be diagnosed with it.This seemed a good enough thing to do and acephobes keep bringing it up to show how “different HSDD is from asexuality” and how “The medical world has “”accommodated”” itself for the comfort of ace people” but this act and the whole concept of a “Hypoactive sexual desire disorder” are considered problematic and have been put through questions not only by ace people, but feminists and activists too . Heres why :

1. The person STILL has to identify as asexual to be not diagnosed.Asexuality still isnt as visible and well known of an orientation so if a person doesn’t know that they’re asexual, the DSM does no work to sufficiently differentiate between these “sexual disorders” and a sexual identity. so it could very well happen that someone who doesn’t know that they’re asexual is convinced by a therapist that they have a sexual abnormality that needs to be corrected(x) .Taking into consideration the fact that a lack of sexual attraction is still seen as a sign of “brokenness” etc , the aphobia ace people face from their peers,how sex is seen an inherent part of one’s relationship and the immense number of ace people who experience internalized aphobia, theres a higher chance of ace people being pressurized into lying about not being ace and being made to go through treatment of HSDD .

2. The asexuality exception is not included in the diagnostic criteria, but a different part of the text. The desk reference version, which is the smaller version most psychiatrists will use because the actual DSM is a monster of a book, only contains the diagnostic criteria. So, unless a doctor is very familiar with the update DSM, you could still be diagnosed despite identifying as asexual. (X)

3.The DSM is put out by the APA, an American organization and is not used internationally in ALL countries.The international appx. equivalent to the DSM is the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) where an exception of asexuality is NOT made like they did in DSM-V. So many countries where DSM-V is not followed are free to diagnose ace people with almost no repercussions.

4.There is till NO distinction made between HSDD and asexuality and all indicators of asexuality are still considered “symptoms” of HSDD. the DSM does no work to sufficiently differentiate between these “sexual disorders” and a sexual identity. so it could very well happen that someone who doesn’t know that they’re asexual is convinced by a therapist that they have a sexual abnormality that needs to be corrected(x) Just putting “All these signs are of HSDD unless a person identifies as asexual” is literally the same as saying “Being attracted to the same gender and/or being attracted to more than two genders is a disorder unless a person identifies as gay/bi”.In fact a very very similar thing was done to homosexuality in the DSM before homosexuality was deleted off entirely as a disorder.

5.Im not even gonna get into the fact that alot of people have pointed out how the big push to keep HSDD in the DSM came from the pharmaceutical companies who need this diagnosis to exist so thatthey can market a drug called Flibanserin and both of these thingshave been called out by both ace as well as non ace feminists bc studies showed it improved very little in terms of sexual satisfaction in its participants and has potentially big risks(x) and MANY women disinterested in sex(weather ace or not) were pressurized to undergo treatment of HSDD and use flibanserin bc of the misogynist belief that women need to put out more than care about their safety white taking it bc thats not the point of this post.

But just for yalls consideration : Just bc there is a disorder in the DSM doesnt mean that its legit.Female hysteria,homosexuality were considered disorders.As an amazing post here said : “until psychology stops operating in terms of “inappropriate behavior” and starts looking at patients’ experiences of symptoms as stressful and unpleasant, it will be an enforcement of ableism first and an aid to the mentally ill last.” . Unless someone goes through some trauma which make them LOSE their capability to feel sexual attraction and desire,i’ll consider any “disorder” which automatically assumes lack of sexual attraction and desire “unnatural”, as doubtful .

So yeah , asexuality still technically remains pathologized and ace people still are at a risk of being diagnosed and being forced/pressurized to undergo treatments which arent usually even that effective and have health risks associated with them.On to the next topic :

2.Can ace people call the trauma and abuse they went through when people tried to “convert ace people back to normalcy” and “fix” their asexuality “conversion therapy”?

First off, Read THIS And THIS. Now,

Short answer,Yes. Maybe they might not be under the threat of going through the EXACT conversion therapy which involves basically torture and is legal in like 36/41 states IN AMERICA but then again, so arent those gay people who didnt/dont/wont be living/going to those 36/41 states IN AMERICA but have/are/will be tried to be “converted back to” straightness by their peers.Any way in which non straight people are forced/pressurized to be converted into straight by so called “professionals” and “medical experts” counts as conversion therapy to me bc at the end of the day it doesnt really matter WHAT word you define it as when those trying to “fix” non straight people’s non straightness view those non straight people as someone who needs “fixing”.

Also, saying that ace people’s experience when their peers were trying to “fix” their asexuality isnt AS bad as what gay people go through when their gayness is tried to be “fixed” is…not a good thing to say.Trauma isnt a competition.Telling a person with a sprained leg that another person has a fractured leg doesnt make the first person’s sprained leg hurt any less

Heres the long answer :

Here is the thing.The most “well known” conversion therapy(and in aphobes’ case,the conversion therapy they keep bringing up to discourage ace people from calling their trauma involving attempts to fix them “conversion therapy” ) is the one which is legal in 36 or 41(The data keeps differing from diff sources) states in AMERICA ONLY and basically involves showing homoerotic images and videos to gay/bi people and inflicting some sort of violence/harm on them when them and/or their mind and/or their body shows any sort of interest on such images till they form an aversion to same gender attraction and other forms of torture.I described it as PG rated as possible but if anyone is interested and is NOT at the risk of being triggered they can read the whole process here(x).

Aphobes keep arguing that since no clinic advertises that they will “convert ace people back to normalcy” ,and even IF some ace person IS forced to undergo treatment of HSDD ,their experience doesnt matches the EXACT amount of abuse and trauma gay people go through during conversion therapy, aces arent “allowed” to call their experiences “conversion therapy”.Now , anyone with common sense and general morality will realize how bullshit this is bc aphobes are just putting their american centric rhetorics over ALL aces in THIS WORLD(bc they are ALWAYS considering the american conversion therapy)but i’ll still just prove how WRONG this argument is :

1.This argument is only AMERICA CENTRIC.Aphobes keep saying that since ace people dont go through the exact conversion therapy which is legal in 36/41 states in america,they cant call it “conversion therapy”.Now america is only one country.There are 193 countries in this world.The “valid”Conversion therapy is only there in america.But HOMOPHOBIA is there in ALL countries of this world.Now, If we consider aphobes’ argument as legit, then it would imply that any gay person who suffered through the trauma and abuse of having their identity turned into “straight” by their peers in any country OTHER THAN AMERICA CANNOT call their experiences “Conversion therapy”.That means all the gay people who faced torture in russia (especially in Chechnya)to be “fixed” cannot call their experiences “conversion therapy”.Gay people in Brazil and Jamaica who are tried to be “fixed” cannot call their experiences conversion therapy.I live in south asia,we dont even HAVE any special places dedicated to “convert” gay people.But there are many instances where gay people are hauled to the nearest “religious medical practitioners” who abuse and torture them for WEEKS to “cure” them.I guess those gay people cant even call their experiences “conversion therapy”.THIS IS HOW RIDICULOUS APHOBES SOUND.

2.Not every ace conversion therapy is caused by going through the treatment of HSDD : There are many ace people who have been told that it was their asexuality ITSELF that was a disorder and went through abusive therapies to “cure” it which led to some people ending up self-isolating until they ended up in a psych hospital and some people felt broken and alone after that(x).Many health professionals simply pass off asexuality as some symptomatic of deeper mental health problem and thus not every ace who might have been tried to be “converted back to normalcy” might have been gone through quite a rough treatment too.

3.Telling people that their trauma isnt “”really that bad”” isnt a good thing.Telling them that their trauma dosent really “”qualify”” enough to be considered “”real”” conversion therapy isnt good.Oppression and traumas arent a competition.The abuse and torture gay people go through during conversion therapy isnt gonna make the trauma ace people go through “better” or less severe.Telling women that “at least they arent being human trafficked and beaten by their husbands everyday like in middle east” isnt gonna make them feel better when they are catcalled or sexually harassed at work.If ace people are tried to be “”fixed”” by being forced/pressurized undergo “” treatments”” by so called “professionals” and “medical experts” , it counts as conversion therapy to me bc at the end of the day, ace people’s orientation is still being seen as “something to be fixed into straightness”.

So yeah, ace people CAN call all the abuse they go through to be “fixed” of their asexuality “conversion therapy”.Now that we are done, here are a few examples of ace people talking about their fears and/or experiences about conversion therapy which i havent provided already

If you really want to respect lgbtqa people who have gone through conversion therapy,try to make this world a better place for lgbtqa people so that their identity isnt seen as something to be fixed.Telling group of people you are bigoted against that they cant call their experiences of tried to be fixed “conversion therapy” isnt gonna do SHIT to help the community you think you are trying to protect.Saying that No ace person has EVER went to conversion therapy bc there are “valid proofs” is disgusting.

Asexuality IS a highly marginalized orientation and all your refutes against it WILL be debunked and shot down bc we have sources and real people’s accounts on our sides which is supported by many prominent lgbtqa organizations across the world.All aphobes have is bigotry and a bunch of followers who eat up whatever they say without applying any critical thinking skills to it.

#aphobia #tw conversion therapy #mod roma #ref #tw abuse #if you want this tagged with more triggers please tell me i will #i dont have time rn coz i gotta do something #imp

2K notes · View notes

anyhao-archived · 5 years

Text

1OFAKIND

9 member boy group

debut song: DUNK IT!

debut album: welcome to 1nderland

members:

mattie (16)

dancer, vocal, maknae, ‘02 line

energetic & hyper; cute & charismatic

still in school + incredibly short but still growing

drama queen & loves bothering RBF a lot

doesn’t speak any english despite his english (stage) name

the main advocate to get a cat. when they go to the shelter he doesn’t even bother going in the dog section. he goes straight to the cats and is literally the epitome of the “pls mom can we get him :(((” cliche while showing a cat to the CEO

he likes to joke that his only skill is cooking pizza rolls to absolute perfection. everyone knows that is a LIE but its funny so.

nathaniel (16)

dancer, rapper, speaks basic spanish, ‘02 line

mischief twin with mattie (though nathaniel’s a little eviler, and less hyper) the other members can’t leave them alone for a minute (like that 1 scene in community where the guy goes to get the pizza and a minute later the apartment is on fire) -- yeah.

calls the CEO “mom” jokingly until he slips up and means it

dropped out of school but getting his GED slowly. takes online classes and jack +suhyun help him

the first to volunteer for brightly colored hair (he gets the bright blue that vav’s ace had in dance with me)

suhyun (18)

vocal, composer, can play piano and guitar, born in 2000

soft, sweet and polite boy. well liked by everyone

he gives off the impression of being shy and quiet but he’s really not. he just waits for the right moment to roast someone. its not that he’s shy he just. really doesnt have much to say. when he does, though, everyone listens to him. more often than not its a quip at another member

speaks english pretty well, almost fluent

literal aegyo king. he looks so soft and sweet he’s already cute, but when he does puppy eyes and asks jaeyong/the CEO for something they immediately give in to him. he uses it for bad & selfish reasons, and refuses to do it on command (like on shows)

self proclaimed fashionista, gets irritated with the members when they purposely dress bad

the second to volunteer for colored hair (gets a dark red/burgundy)

haeyoung (19)

power vocal, dancer, 2nd leader, born in 1999

helps jack with choreographing

drama queen (part 2) always tries to one up mattie

even despite the rivalry to be dramatic, he LOVES mattie. he loves all the younger members, which is why he’s elected as 2nd leader -- to be an advocate for the younger members who sometimes perhaps don’t have the courage to complain to the hyungs

he loves dogs but animals don’t seem to like him.

one day he gets fed up with being ignored by daisy and dramatically falls to the ground in the practice room floor and whines about daisy hating him. one of the members kick him to get up but he refuses. daisy slowly comes over, as if sensing his distress, and licks him on his face.

to this DAY he maintains that he did not cry, the members are all slandering him! from then on, though, daisy sleeps on haeyoung’s bottom bunk bed with him

he’s recently got his driver’s license but no one likes to be in the car with him. he’s literally a mess and no ones sure how he got the license

he followed the hair color trend: a light, cotton candy pink color

he LOVES SPARKLES!!!! always asks for sparkles in his makeup. his aegyo skill is second only to suhyun. haeyoung always just. GOES for it. he’s less pleading and more cutesy high voice pitch. half the members cringe, and half of them love it. the one who seems to enjoy it the most though is jaeyong, surprisingly.

minchan (20)

vocal, dancer, and visual, ‘98 line

dumb and dumber with wooyoung. (minchan is the dumber) literally never knows what’s going on. tends to get lost, and if wooyoung is there, wooyoung’s lost too. jaeyong finds them and drags them back by their collars

though he’s mainly a vocal, he’s a wonderful dancer, too. he’s got (some) background in ballet, which makes his dancing perfect for this group

an amazing artist and incredibly creative. he designs their album designs and helps with photography. he’s also incredible at makeup and loves to do members’ makeup. sometimes he teams up with suhyun to give a full makeover to one of the members -- makeup, hair, outfit, etc. their victim is usually haeyoung or jack.

a dog person, came up with daisy’s name

he’s got light brown hair, and he makes sure to make it fluffy every day

he prides himself on learning certain niche skills. he’s first aid and cpr certified. he can also knit! he’s also the best cook in the dorm (not the only one, but certainly the best)

wooyoung (20)

dancer, rapper, knows basic english, ‘98 line

loves dogs & is best friends with minchan. he’s the dumb portion of the dumb & dumber duo, even though both of them really aren’t idiots

HIMBO!!! like he is kind of dumb (in a good way at least) and he’s the one who posts the most selfies. he enjoys stripping and ripping off his shirt

he likes to edit videos, and learns how to compose from suhyun. he’s the one members go to if they’re having tech issues.

somehow, he is a technology nerd but also a gym rat?? he’s THAT GUY who takes gym selfies and meanwhile jaeyong’s in the background with his shirt off lmao

he’s the actor of the group. if there’s an offer to be in a drama or whatever he’d be the first to be picked

also has background in dance! more street style though, like pop/locking or bboying. when he and minchan work together their dancing is beautiful. almost like art in its own form

BJ -- aka: RBF (21)

stable vocal, dancer, face of the group, ‘97 line

doesn’t like to be touched

dramatic, but not drama queen type. more like draping himself over pieces of furniture in silk outfits while there’s candles barely lighting the old room

has black hair that needs a trim, always wearing black clothes, bracelets, etc. (like the cliche emo in middle school in 2009)

what a fucking MESS! he’s always cheating during games and refusing to move/work out more than strictly necessary.

his stage name is literally BJ (their CEO thought it was funny, and he was always like ??? until jack told him what that means in English LOL and he’s SO SCANDALZIED! he’s that member who does a solo interview while the rest are off fuckin’ around. he does an entire vlive for this one rant. hes like, hey guys. now i know why you all laughed when i was introduced. jack told me what bj means in english! so im gonna change my stage name. i like the idea of letters. what do you guys think of rbf?’

‘you know what that stands for, too, right?’

of course! resting bitch face! don’t you think that suits me? nd thats how he goes from bj to rbf. their ceo thinks rbf is hilarious, too

he seems aloof but he actually has a lot of emotions. he tends to rant about anything, and jack’s the only one who rly listens to him.

he’s closest with suhyun, bc hes the only member who seems to understand him more than at a surface level. basically they’re a yin/yang type of friends

is very happy with his appearance. he likes being that dancer with swaying hips and lifting his shirt up. sexy dance!

jack (21)

rapper, fluent in english, choreographer, ‘97 line

closest with jaeyong (they were together at a different company before)

quiet, responsible, and well liked

makes sure all members are heard and understood. he also teaches them english (especially mattie)

basically: hes the long suffering mother type and lives in the bedroom with mattie and nathaniel to watch over the mischief twins

probably the most intelligent but doesnt act like it. kind of a nerd and wears glasses, but he’s ... well built. looks good. hes basically the “hot nerd” with flannel and beanies cliche

his only downfall is he’s extremely unlucky. everything he touches breaks or falls apart lmao. like, he’s the tallest member and gives off ‘rough’ vibes but. he’s constantly tripping, or falling down stairs. however the members know better than to laugh at him lol they’ve seen him angry.

‘im not angry. im just disappointed’ the rest of the group: WE ALL KNOW THATS WORSE!

maknae line (mattie, nathaniel, and suhyun) are constantly following him around like little ducklings. it comes natural to mattie and nathaniel, and suhyun just enjoys being there lol

jaeyong (23)

leader, eldest, main rapper, born in 1995

he’s got experience in the industry and leads the rest of the group with that knowledge. he debuted briefly at the previous company but disbanded early. he left the company with jack and now they’re in the new one.

main driver!! he drives all the members everywhere and its an ongoing joke that hes a chauffeur. however he’s got... a little bit of road rage lmao

GYM RAT! he’s jacked!!! he rarely shows his abs though, preferring to tease fans lmao however wooyoung keeps taking pics of him when he’s shirtless in the gym (both on purpose and on accident)

he’s also a bit cliche. if jack was long suffering mom(TM) then he’s the slightly detached but well meaning father(TM) ! not afraid to call out his members, but listens with an open mind. he’s a great mediator if there’s any issues within the group

though jaeyong is the leader, jack tends to be the one herding all the kids and making sure they eat. jaeyong is more about pep talks and being strong, giving great speeches, etc.

even though he seems like he’d be rough around the edges, he’s incredibly loving. in multiple ways. he teases, he rough houses, LOVES hugging the members until they cant breathe. he’s... also very susceptible to aegyo. like he cant help but be swayed. he will never admit it but haeyoung and suhyun’s aeygo make his heart race

#mtxt #okay anyway here we go #so ... enjoy my take on an original kpop boy group #literally it is soo long but. the dream was detailed #and i added a lot of extra info as i was typing #i put it under a readmore bc there's SO MUCH about the members #but there's actually a part 2 coming!!!#1ofakind #op #kg #mkg

8 notes · View notes

lovingloudly-archived · 5 years

Note

if you had to recommend some songs by queen for someone who had never listened to them or only know like one song by them,, what songs would you recommend? -🌱⭐️

ehdjrfghkdgdkjh AAAAAH this is v relevant (well queen always is to me but shh) cause i watched the rest of the rock montreal concert last night and cried during SONGS I HAD NO REASON TO CRY AT they just make emotional waah :,)

first off!! a couple of things to note about queen: they literally have a song that will??? never be surpassed in how popular and iconic it is, srsly. NONE OF US have any recollection of learning the lyrics yet when it comes on everyone in the nearby vicinity is like OH FUCK YEAH!!!!. another thing, queen is the only band where each member has individually written a number one single and i think that is pretty iconic so i’m gonna list these songs by band member because honestly KNOWING SOMETHING LIKE…. OH I DONT KNOW… A NOW Astrophysicist writing a song called fat bottomed girls….. yeah! and last thing, u may or may not know so many more queen songs than u think :))

ANYWAY YEAH THERE MIGHT BE A LOT HERE, LISTED BY BAND MEMBER AND KINDA CHRONOLOGICALLY/BY ALBUM (also genuinely i havent even heard all of their songs SO THIS MAY BE INACCURATE IN THE FUTURE BABIE)

* means my personal faves :D

freddie (cat dad, loved his husband jim hutton :D read mercury & me, u fools!!, literally can’t look at him in the 70s vs 80s and believe they’re the same, actually was v shy irl and finding that out made me feel ok abt being shy myself 🥺):*my fairy king liar (JOHN DEACON HAS THE SICKEST BASS SOLO IN THIS OK.)seven seas of rhyefunny how love is (CRIED THE FIRST TIME I HEARD THIS TBH)killer queenin the lap of the gods (AAaaAAaaAAAAAAAAAAAAH)death on two legslazing on a sunday afternoon*seaside rendezvous (feels like a summer boardwalk or carnival. ur gonna love it)love of my life*somebody to love (honestly thinking too hard about how many looking for/wanting love songs freddie wrote makes me SO emotional bc he really wanted somebody to love and then a year after he wrote it’s a hard life about the same kinda topic he met jim and they were together until the end :,) and freddie said in an interview that he had “found that niche he was looking for his entire life” and OHH MY GOD THAT MAKES ME CRYY)good old-fashioned lover boy*we are the champions (i can’t listen to this too often but when i do DEFINITELY OPT FOR A LIVE VERSION LIKE LIVE AID BECAUSE IT. HITS. MY HEART)bicycle race (freddie rlly just wanted to write a song about bicycles. and also don’t listen to anyone who tries to say this is about bisexuality oh my GODDD)*don’t stop me now (the happiest song on earth, according to science, IT CHECKS OUT!!! I FEEL SO MUCH SEROTONIN BC OF THIS. EVEN WHEN IT PLAYED THAT ACAPELLA BEGINNING AT THE END OF BO RHAP OHHH MYGOD) *play the gamecrazy little thing called love (inspired by elvis, FREDDIE COULD PLAY LIKE 3 CHORDS ON GUITAR AND WE LOVE HIM FOR IT)staying power (watch me put all of hot space on here. ITS A FUNKY ALBUM!)body language (LISTEN. I KINDA LOVE IT)life is realcalling all girls*cool cat (FREDDIE SANG THE FULL THING IN FALSETTO. DO U SEE THIS)*soul brother (HE WROTE THIS ABOUT BRIAN/DEDICATED TO HIM U GUYSS :(((( AND THEY WERE SOUL BROTHERS!!!!! ohmyodtheywereosulbrothrsrs)*it’s a hard lifepain is so close to pleasure (also composed by deaky!)the miracle (it’s credited to all of them but it says the main composers were freddie and john!)*breakthru (THE JOY OF THIS SONG AND HOW MUCH FUN THEY WERE HAVING ON THE VIDEO :(((( IT GETS ME EMO)was it all worth itinnuendoi’m going slightly mad*the show must go on (makes me cry too much to listen to it unless its SAD FREDDIE HOURS but when you think about how close to the end this was yet how fukgignhn incredible his vocals still were it’s so heartbreaking and admirable like waah i just :( love freddie mercury sm)

brian may (TALL. big hair. what is his routine tbh???, ASTROPHYISICIST?? THEY’RE ALL SO SMART. LOVES ANIMALS AND IS TRYING TO END BADGER CULLING. i’d offer him my life):keep yourself alive*doing alright (this was written before queen was properly formed and the band was still roger, brian and tim staffel, who also helped write it, in smile!)the night comes down (you can tell ESPECIALLY well in this song that the only time slots they could get at the studio to record was super late at night ksjfdgjkfdg)father to son*now i’m here (SOUNDS SO GOOD LIVE BECAUSE ITS FASTER AND JUST MORE ENERGETIC AND WAAH OH MY GOD CAN’T RECOMMEND LISTENING TO LIVE VERSIONS OF NOW I’M HERE ENOUGH)*’39 (um. the only song to exist actually! queen’s designated yeehaw song. jsut listen to it played live at earls court babie!! the story of the song is here and TBH LIKE. BRIAN WENT OFF AND CONTINUED TO GO OFF WITH HIS SONGS)*good companytie your mother downwhite man*we will rock youall dead, all dead*sleeping on the sidewalk (MY FAVE BRIAN VOCALS TBH)*it’s late*fat bottomed girls (:^])dragon attack (GONNA YEET THAT SOUND EHYEYEYAAH)dancerput out the fire (PEOPLE GET SHOT BY PEOPLE. PEOPLE WITH GUUUNS)las palabras de amor (depacito song.)*hammer to fall (I PREFER THIS SONG LIVE BUT STUDIO VERSION IS STILL. SO GOOD. THESE LYRICS??? ‘HERE WE STAND, HERE WE FALL, HISTORY WONT CARE AT AALL’ UHHHH!!! HEHEHEHEY HAMMER TO FFaaAAALL?)*who wants to live forever (dont TALK TO Me about this SONG ill cry i literally never listen to it its been months it makes me SO sad and how the music swells and ohh my god I CANTT.)i want it allscandal*headlong (just how cute they all are in the music video ALONE…. hoop diddy diddy… hoop diddy doo :(( wow)roger taylor (for some reason the fandom thirsts over him. its kinda just creepy. i just thinks he’s cute in a rat way and i love him AND ROGERINA see: i want to break free :)) also he said trans rights and as the wise jim hutton said freddie and roger were ‘clearly soulmates’)i’m im love with my car (OH YOU THOUGHT BO RHAP WAS THE WEIRDEST SONG ON ANATO????)drowse*action this day (oh sidenote brian and roger hated hot space and NOBODY IN THE FANDOM NOR ROGER’S OWN CHILDREN AGREE WITH THEM. IT SLAPS HARDDDDD)*radio ga ga (nothing can communicate my joy whenever i hear this song but like with a lot of other songs NOTHING COMPARES TO THE LIVE VERSIONS OF IT AND SEEING ALL THE PEOPLE DO THE HAND CLAPS LIKE :((( their power..)*one vision (yeah its by roger but ever wondered why the last lyric is fried chicken? jim hutton saying to freddie after the band were messing around adlibbing ‘u should leave that in’ AND THEN THEY DID. THANK YOU JIMOTHY HUTHICN)a kind of magic*these are the days of our lives (:()

ALSO AGAIN I HAVENT LISTENED TO ALL OF THEIR SONGS, SO THERE’S A LOT I’M LEAVING OUT DFJHKGFFKGLJ

john deacon (born august 19th 1951 :) and he rlly wants u to know it. his dream when asked was “wet.”, he likes cheese on toast, HAS A LOT OF KIDS, wrote some of the most iconic basslines in the world and is just overall incredibly bouncy and groovy. whether u call him deacy or deaky is up to u and then ur fate will decided by the disco gods)misfire (the general fandom agrees this is abt premature ejaculation. the song’s only 1:50 long AND IT’S MORE OF A FANDOM INSIDE JOKE THAN ANYTHING BUT REALLY.. LISTEN TO THAT SONG AND TRY TO THINK IT HAS MEANING THAT Isn’t That. again, JOHN HAS LIKE 6 KIDS)you’re my best friend (john was only like early 20s when we wrote this but it’s about his wife and :((((( wtf true love)*another one bites the dust (REALLY JUST LIKE. MADE THE BASSLINE FOR ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC SONGS IN THE WORLD. AND HE DID IT MULTIPLE TIMES???)*back chat (another similarly inside joke kinda thing in the album, THE GENERAL CONSENSOUS IS THAT THIS IS ABOUT BRIAN AHAHSHDSFHKJDF BECAUSE THE HOT SPACE ERA WHAT KINDA TENSE SINCE THEY DIDNT AGREE ON THE ALBUM BUT WE’LL NEVER KNOWWW)under pressure (ANOTHER BASSLINE FROM THE MAN THE MYTH THE DISCO LEGEND HIMSELF)*i want to break free (OH AND HE DID THIS SONG AS WELL UHH. EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU JOHN DEACON????)*friends will be friends (makes me so emotional :((( queen were a familyyyy :()

and bonus stuff:

LISTEN TO FREDDIE’S SOLO ALBUM ‘MR. BAD GUY’ I AM BEGGING U,,,, U WON’T REGRET IT IT’S SO ??? JUST LIKE SO FULL OF FUCIGNGN,.. LOVE SONGS AND IT’S S DANCABLE AND ALSO MADE ME CRY AND GOD. it was literally just remastered and rereleased THIS MOnth this is such a good time to listen to it,, pls… their solo stuff is so goodas for live performances definitely recommend live at the rainbow, rock montreal, live aid, hungarian rhapsody & wembley ‘86 HELL I HAVEN’T WATCHED MOST OF THESE MYSELF I’M TOO EMOTIONALLY SENSITIVE WHEN IT COMES TO QUEEN….. BUT I HOPE U LIKED THIS LONGWINDED POST :)

#anon #answered

6 notes · View notes

langst-wins · 5 years

Text

the last thing i'm gonna say about voltron, unintentional queerbaiting, and major s8 plotholes, and then imma shut up and let y'all be free from my long bitch ass s8 posts so we can get back to regularly scheduled klance fanfics & fanarts

yes, they queerbaited us with shiro as rep. not in the sense that he wasn't queer but in the sense that they hyped us up for his relationship with adam, made us think we were gonna see an adashi reunion, and we ended up getting like 90 seconds top of LGBT content over the entire series.

no, I highly doubt they did it intentionally. yes, they did admit they fucked up and apologized several times. yes, I appreciate the apology and I understand that they're human beings and people make mistakes and overlook things sometimes. like they said, they never meant to make anyone feel baited. they really thought they were going to get a good response. lauren called voltron a "learning experience" in the open letter to the fandom after s7. I think she meant learning experience in general ofc but I think she also meant they've learned how to and how not to do LGBT rep in a show.

but I will absolutely be taking any promises of LGBT rep from lm and jds with a grain of salt. i will absolutely be watching their future works from afar and not getting myself too invested until the series ends and I can watch it as a whole while knowing what to expect.

I dont think they MEANT harm but y'all...they fucked up. they know it, and they apologized. it shows maturity that they apologized in that open letter after s7 and at the final nycc panel, and again, I appreciate that.

but I would rather they have not said anything about LGBT rep, ever, and just let gay shiro be a nice surprise. then, the minimal rep we received would have been wonderful and a nice warm surprise instead of a huge disappointment. it was only a disappointment because it didn't live up to the hype they made for it. and I know the hype was partially due to marketing they had no control over, but it was absolutely partially them, too.

they didn't promise LGBT content in LoK and canon korrassami ended up being a nice surprise even though it was minimal. that was how they SHOULD have done shiro's sexuality if they knew it was going to be a small thing. I would rather they have kept their lips zipped about LGBT, not announced gay shiro ahead of time, and just it be what it was when seasons 7 and 8 came out.

again, I dont think the bait was intentional, but it was bait all the same.

you are not crazy or too sensitive if your feelings are hurt/you feel baited by this show. you are not a shitty person if you just dont trust them right now. dont let people tell you otherwise. it's okay to take a step back from their work and wait to see how their next show plays out before you get involved.

i really do love voltron, even though s8 was confusing af, seasons 1-7 were LIT. I enjoy bits and pieces of s8 but mostly it was a let down. not only because of rep, just because a lot of things didn't make sense to me and a lot of the problem solving just felt way too convenient.

like I feel like every conflict in the plot was resolved way too easily and/or in ways that didnt make sense. and I feel like most of the characters' futures in the credits didnt really match up to those characters personalities. specifically lance, hunk, and keith.

lance staying on earth with his family, spreading allura's message to carry on her legacy? makes perfect sense, valid af. lance becoming a farmer? not so much. I feel like he would have been better suited as teaching classes as a pilot instructor at the garrison or smth similar. altean lance still gave me whiplash and left me confused af but he looks so damn 👌👌👀👀🙌🙌😭 with his cute ass altean marks that I'm just gonna let that one go for the sake of aesthetic.

hunk becoming a chef? not ooc necessarily but I feel like he would have been better suited as a diplomat. y'know. ambassador to earth sort of thing.

keith aiding in recovery efforts and being a humanitarian (...alien-itarian...? idk). okay let's be real we all knew this edgy boi has a soft ass heart. I think hes just mature enough now to let his walls come down and not be afraid of caring ig. which is sweet and nice and all. but I feel like he wouldnt...JUST be doing that. like he would still want the battle and the adrenaline and the badass mf fight sequences. that's kinda his Thing.

shiro marrying a rando? I would have preferred adam to not die and them end up getting back together once shiro returned to earth. i just feel like there was no reason to kill off adam? shiro has already suffered so much, what was the point? but i'm not gonna hate on curtis bc we dont know jackshit about him and for all we know he could be a bombass dude. shiro looked happy tho and it's better than him being forever alone so I can hesitantly accept that ig. but on one condition and one condition only: their ship name must be shirts. if their ship name is not shirts then I dont want it

allura's death was pointless. i havent seen anyone disagree with this one so far. her life was full of suffering and then she died. like can we all just agree she was done dirty and it was entirely unnecessary.

dont come @ me with "you just dont like s8 bc your ship wasnt canon"

that's not it at all.

they could have made this season so amazing and still not have made klance canon. they could have left me disappointed in no klance but still happy because the finale made my heart go dynamite BOOM. I could have ended the last episode with no canon klance and still been smiling because the plot was bitchin' and the characters were all alive and happy.

but they didnt, so I wasnt. it just...wasnt a good season. it had good aspects, yes, but as a whole? meh.

season 8 was poorly handled. it really was. it had so much potential to end with EVERY character having a positive ending and still have an actual satisfying conclusion to the war. I know they wanted to show how heavy and serious and heartbreaking the war actually was, but you can make an emotional, heavy finale without killing off a main character and leaving her main character love interest lonely and grieving. like im sorry killing allura and leaving lance sad and lonely was not necessary at all to the plot it just flat out wasnt. they did those characters dirty and they did allurance shippers even dirtier.

allurancers cheered seeing their ship canon then had it ripped out from under them and my heart honestly grieves worse for my allurance and allura stan fam than my klance fam. they did y'all so wrong and i'm sorry it had to go down like that.

sheith shippers got fucked over when all that development and relationship and growth culminated into basically nothing in the final season. like as a broganes stan even i was taken aback by the sudden radio silence between them so I cant imagine how let down actual sheith shippers feel.

us adashi shippers? obvious. adam's death was not necessary. and dont tell me it was to show the heaviness and realness of death in war because vld does NOT have a track record of dead characters staying dead. they could have at least gave us some mild development with shirts (lmfao im so sorry but shirts) and let us see more of curtis as a character. like...literally just two 60 second scenes would have been nice. they could have easily fit that in.

us klancers got fucked over by unnecessary parallels to canon ships. they could have made it a cute platonic friendship in s8 and let us enjoy it and proceed to enjoy fanon klance without all those blatant parallels to shay/hunk that just left us confused. and the parallels in earlier seasons. like why did you have to make so many parallels to romantic moments and romantic tropes if it was platonic. why did you have to go and do that. what was the point.

s8 could have ended in such a way that shippers of every ship in the fandom were satisfied with the finale because their faves were treated right and the plot was fire. it had so much potential in the first half and could have been so damn good.

it wasnt though. the entire thing was so confusing and nothing about it felt like vld. It feels like a spin off or a reboot. I dont like s8 as a whole and I doubt I ever will. it might grow on me in time but I'll never fully like it, y'know. everything about it felt so tilted and off and just wrong.

but it really just be like that sometimes ig.

#i wont be responding to comments on this #feel free to send an ask w your thoughts #but no promise i'll answer it #klance #voltron #sheith #allurance #adashi #vld

77 notes · View notes

catastrothicc · 6 years

Text

when will i learn to write an intro post

hello friens my name is kit im 19 and i use them/they pronouns. i love the color GREEN as u can tell and im a cancer ..... i literally don’t kno who i am besides that so ! ey letz gO .... oh yea my timezone is mdt . bu ckle . ... .. . u p

fiRST we have rocky whomst some of u kNO bc he was That guy in paracosms anD created by the m ost crea tive admins iv’e ever seEN i got blessedt 2 play him and to play him agAIN in literally the most mentally straining au for any character .... paracosms verse ! x

i previously made an intro post for him here so i’m just gonna link it and walk away .. .. .... also his stats page still lives here !!! keeping in mind that he is no longer a drug ring leader ..... he recently discovered that his wHOLE LIFE is a LIE and that he’s a helpless robot stuck in hell with a bunch of other robots who want 2 murder him and every(robot)body he loves

find his pinterest board here , someday a whole ass playlist too

neXT we have minjae ... he’s my oldest character in this batch but that doesn’t mean i especially love him .... just means i’ve made him suffer the longest .... . . . tw: child abuse ( pinterest board , playlist 1 , playlist 2 )

minjae is in the main verse ! find him bullshitting through college and b-boying in the camden streets

he’s twenty-one and a virgo , born in busan , south korea

he found his way to london when his parents sent him away to study abroad highkey because that’s a big fancy thing in korea they can brag about and lowkey to get rid of him for as long as they can

his relationship with his family is ..... interestingly strained . his parents WON’T admit that he’s tiring as hell to deal with and how much stress he causes because they try their best to be supporting/loving parents but honestly minjae KNOWS how much they just wISH he was fucking gONE from their lives ( okay maybe not THAT intense but things rlly blow up in his head ) but he doesn’t even worry about it he just deals with the fact that he’s a terrible son

he was diagnosed with odd when he was eight years old, after his mom got tired and increasingly concerned with his disruptive and violent behavior

a few years prior , minjae’s biological dad left them and his mom kind of took it upon herself to try and make it up to him . that meant she was always careful around him and treated him as if he was fragile because minjae felt some blame that his dad left .

his biological dad did Not have any patience for his kid’s mental health , meaning he and minjae would fight often to the point of getting physical . basically minjae endured a lot of getting locked up in the bathroom kicking and screaming until his voice grew hoarse and the occasional ..... bad beatings .

he went to therapy with his mom for two years before entering middle school , around the time his mom remarried a nice guy who had the patience of a saint when it came to minjae , even after he repeatedly rejected him as a part of their life . eventually minjae managed to warm up to him ..... he just didn’t wanna admit he was afraid he’d abandon them like his bio dad .

despite the therapy he was still unstable and got into frequent fights . he was smart but he didn’t put it into any good use because he would rather fool around and disrupt the classroom at any slight chance . teachers .... hated this fuckass

theN high school !! A Whole Mess ..... he got worse and worse , and it wasn’t until he got expelled from his Second high school that he went back to therapy for anger management .

after months of sessions w/ his therapist he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder , which honestly explained Everything about his life . it explained his massive issues with interpersonal relationships , massive abandonment fear , massive moodiness , massive personality contradictions .... everythin g

he started b-boying because it was a way to push himself and let go of the anger without picking a fight with someone else ( altho he StilL picked the occasional fight .... highkey still does ) but he loved the control that came with dancing and how it hurt to push his body

he managed to graduate despite what everyone thought ..... and even a bigger surprise is that he went to college majoring in math ..... and an evEN BIGGER SURPRISE is that he went overseas to study which is like ..... quite a difficult and impressive thing to do ..... tho minjae just finds math the easiest out of academic studies bc “all u need to do is understand and follow a formula”

anYWAYS so his personality is generally very contradictory . he just has no fucking idea who he even is . thESE are from an old intro that i’m just putting here bc still tru:

being delusional w/ infatuation/love to the point of a fault vs running away when things actually start to go right with someone because of his fear of being abandoned by them

being so afraid of abandonment that he can’t stand being alone, always needs to be communicating with someone vs pushing people away when he feels like he’s getting attached because he’s afraid of abandonment

swinging between being horny all the time and being sex repulsed

intense mood swings !!! having the time of his life one hour and wishing he was dead the next

thinks he’s the best vs loathes his entire being

wants everyone to love him vs thinking he deserves being alone

incredibly charming and talkative vs distant and moody

loving/cuddly/goofy vs jealous/purposely mean/bossy

also never tell him its ok to text u bc he’ll give u notifications from Hell

dhwani mishra !!! honestly Bae . i’ve had her in my head for mONTHs and this is only the second time i play her rip . anyways say hello to this Hot Mom. tw: abuse , brief abortion mention

dhwani is from chicago , she’s 36 and a leo .... literally The Whole SUN

she grew up w/ a generally large family . two parents , three sisters and a brother . it was a full house that often became suffocating but she managed to survive her childhood and teenhood .

she’s extremely close with all her fam except her dad , bc they have always disagreed in almost everything and it’s just ..... awkward to be around him ?? she honestly doesn’t respect him much , even if she would never show him/tell him that . her dad had an abusive past w/ her mom , and dhwani still feels a lot of resentment that he would ever lay his hands on her in a violent way and mistreat her despite being the mother of his children . when she was a teenager , she would tell her mom to just divorce him but her mom was in a very toxic/old mentality and believed she would ruin her family and her children’s life if she did that .

probably nobody cared about this as much as dhwani .... she promised herself she’d NEVER allow someone to do what her dad did to her mom and was honestly so defensive with guys . little did she kno it was the lesbian raging inside her .

so because she had no idea what a lesbian was or that it was a possibility bc her household was not the type to really go into the topic of sex at all , she eventually got into a relationship with a guy in high school that she could actually put up with .... and got really disappointed when she was finally ‘ in love ’ because of how underwhelming it all was . her dreams about finding ‘ the one ’ were absolutely gone . she was like wtf why are people making such a big deal out of love when it feels like ...... kind of nothing ??

she became pregnant with his child which was completely unplanned and was such a huge turn in her life that she never ever expected . all this time she had been driven to start a career in chemistry and family would come way wayyy later , however she did Not want to give up her child ..... she was so torn about it but now she thinks not getting an abortion was the best decision of her life bc her little boy , one of her two little suns was brought into the world .

she paused her career to raise him w/ her now husband when she was 29 , and three years later became pregnant again , this time w/ her second sun , an adorable lil baby girl . things were already going downhill in her marriage before she got pregnant again , though , and she stupidly thought that maybe another child would help them but ... wrong ! her husband , the man she thought she loved , was turning out to be exactly like her father . she put up w/ him for as long as she could .... but it did just not work out . when her daughter was two and her son five , she divorced him and someway or another managed to pick up her career again .

she moved out with her kids into a small apartment , struggling with money and having to ask her parents for aid which wasn’t rlly good for her pride , despite that she and her mom were like best friends .

sHE made it to london by pure will after juggling her two children and working as a high school teacher , though when she got an offer to teach as a professor in a university w/ heR OWN LAB AND RESEARCH TEAM she could Not pass it up . the only problem was tht this job was across the ocean , and away from her family and everything she and her children knew .

still , she saw a brighter future , not only for herself but especially for her kids , so she packed up and said goodbye to the states .

she’s been teaching in soho for two years now and she still hasn’t really adjusted . it’s obviously a very different life than the one she had in chicago , but she’s very determined to make it work . also she’s recently discovering her repressed inner lesbian so hmu for plots !!! ;)))

shE’S a chemistry professor so ... @ any student connections hmu ... also any students whomst want 2 be on her research team A++

pERSONALity wise .... she’s a mess . she’s very lively and warm and inviting , but she is also extremely stubborn and unrestrained . you don’t agree w/ something she does ? Suck It . you have a stupid opinion ? Time to let u kno how absolutely wrong u are . she is NOT afraid of a fight . also she’s v scatterbrained .... there is so much on her schedule that she can barely keep up w/ so she’s never like ... calm . always going somewhere , always pacing places , chugging her coffee , carrying 789479 folders and books everywhere .

hER class is pretty much this vine

probably one of the least chill professors on campus in the best way possible . she’s so excited about chemistry and teaching her students . altho she is lenient and understanding she can also b strict af and doesn’t allow her kindness to b taken advantage of . rlly good at drawing lines .

also her children are her whole world and she loves to brag about them ... since she doesn’t get enough time w/ them at home she sometimes takes them to her lab on campus or they’re there being a mess during her office hours and stressing her out but she’s 2 fond of them to leave them w/ their babysitter .

oK so here is her v incomplete pinterest board ... expect a playlist Soon

lAST BUT NOT LEAST is santana !!! he is ... a solid trip . this is my first time playing him so i’m puMPED and expecting the worst of him fhuidshfiusdhg. tw: drug use , abuse , alcoholism

he is 23 , a Cancer , n from LA california like that red hot chili peppers song(s)

his childhood wasn’t chill at all . he grew up with four sisters and three brothers , so his parents never really had time for all of them individually . they were always kind of lumped together despite the differences in age . santana was one of the middle children so he got evEN LESS attention .

he honestly does not understand what his parents were thinking when they had EIGHT whole kids , because they were poor as shit . they lived in a tiny house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms , where all the girls would be in 1 room , the boys in the other , and their parents in th third one . you could Not catch a moment of peace in this household . they basically lived on top of each other .

his older siblings were very bad influences , and so were his parents . it was all tough love , so he barely received any kindness or special treatment and had 2 go to school even if he was dying w/ the flu and got hit Bad when he acted out even a little bit bc his parents were Not about to deal w/ any disrespect . he actually pretty much got hit for just existing bc his parents didn’t want dumb kids and santana was failing in Everything at school so his dad especially tried to beat it into him but really he wasn’t dumb he had dyslexia and no one knew or cared enough to find out .

still , they didn’t really respect their children enough to demand their respect . they would cuss all of them tf out and allow them little to no privacy so they all became rEALLY GOOD liars , and all of them learned to have each other’s backs but rlly this only lasted during their childhoods/teenhoods .

santana started doing really stupid shit during high school and once he got caught stealing wine from a grocery store w/ all his dumb little high school friends whomst were in possession of weed and ended up in juvenile prison for two years until he turned 18 . thEN while he was on parole he didn’t learn his fucking lesson and his parents/family were not supportive At All honestly it’s like they didn’t give 2 shits that he was in juvie they were just like ‘that’s what happens when you’re a goddamn moron’ so santana went out and did it aGAIN bc fuck parental guidance anyways

this time he got caught stealing a whole fucking car and in possession of not only weed but cocaine so he got locked up for 4 long ass years . honestly thought that he wouldn’t make it out but he rlly learned a lot in prison and he was used to getting no privacy anyways and just kinda dealt . the prison system he was stuck in Sucked so bad though like the guards were the Worst and he’d try to stay out of fights but Some Fucker would piss him off and BOOM he’d end up in the hole for a whole week .

hOWEVER if it wasn’t for being there he would’ve never discovered his passion of art and drawing . he got Really Fucking good bc he had nothing else to do but sit around and try to find anything to pour all of his pent up energy into and drawing happened to be his greatest outlet . would just sit for as long as they let him and draw his time away .

when he got out he went back to his fam but they were pretty much all split up . shit went Down while he was locked up and somehow his parents ended up w/ a giant grudge on their children and some of his siblings wanted to kill each other while others had just completely moved away to different parts of the states and had absolutely no communication w/ each other .

santana decided to fuck it and pursue his dreams of being a tattoo artist far from LA and just decided to move to a different country entirely .

Now u can find him giving tattoos in his apartment bc he doesn’t have enough $$$ to get a studio and while he Is training under a professional he’s not getting paid by them so he needs to make money somehow . it’s a secret that he’s tattooing when he’s not supposed to tho . Fuck the law .

personality !!!! he’s basically .... very chill .... perhaps 2 chill ....

even tho drugs got him some bad time in prison he hasn’t left them . still very 420 friendly and occasionally does the hard stuff . also loves 2 drink and party .

he’s irresponsible !!!! he feels like he lost a lot of his life in prison so he’s trying to make up for it and while he’s being more careful ..... he still loves 2 fuck shit up .

he gets way too comfortable around people way too easily . he thinks this is a trait he picked up in jail bc he rlly had no other option but to shower with a bunch of dudes and shit out in the open , so he’s very comfortable with his body and being in the nude in general . also a touchy guy , likes cuddles and appreciates hugs . random meaningless touches are a Habit .

he loves to hang and do whatever so if ur his friend chances are tht he’s hitting u up 24/7 to go do something . biggest extrovert there is . does not get tired of being in public / around people . also p flirty and gay as hell .

sO find his pinterest board here and i’m also in the process of finishing a playlist for him hopefully soon

thAT WOULD BE ALL FOR NOW !!! hmu and feel free to add me on discord ( a whole silly boy#2690 , kít (catastrothicc) in the group chat ) for plots and such !!!

#smoke:intros #smoke:ooc #⦁ — › OwO ᴡʜᴀᴛ's ᴛʜɪs? — ⌜ ᴏᴏᴄ ⌟#(#fiNALL Y )#( im srry it took this long )#( what was the build up it suCKS ANYWAYS )#( also ........ im not ashamed of an anime mascot )#( HFUISDHFIUSDHGIUH )#( i LOVE an angry boy )

7 notes · View notes

stuclyblrs · 7 years

Photo

hi everyone !!!! i’m a rising freshman at college/uni and thinking back on the college apps process i realized that i learned a lot that i would like to share !! i was successful with my college apps so im hoping i can give good advice✨

want to see more of this series? click here for the rest of the posts !!

the basics

tbh i personally loved going on campus tours !!! i think they are a very important aspect of the application process and shouldn’t be overlooked. a campus tour can easily make or break ur college list. additionally, if it wasn’t for campus tours, i would’ve never found the ~perfect~ school 4 me

scheduling - a lot of posts abt tours i’ve seen say to try and go when class is in schedule to get the campus vibe but tbh even if u go during the summer u can still get a good feel of what the school is gonna be like i only did my tours over the summer and u can still get a rly good feel based on the campus itself and the small number of students are there !

info sessions - if an info session is offered before the tour then please try and go to it ! they provide some of the basics about a school and often have a small q&a session with the admissions officer running it

the tour itself - if you can hang around the front of the group. this will allow you to hear better, easily ask questions, and possibly overhear someone else asking a question that you might not of thought of. just trying not to constantly invade your guide’s personal space or bombard them with so many questions that they can’t give anyone else attention

ask for what you want to see - idk whose idea this was but so many tours that i went on did not show a classroom which makes no sense since you are here to learn. if you do not visit a classroom or any other facility you would like to see (for me, i made sure to visit the main libraries), then ask after the tour if you can see one! i rly did not have a problem with this and most people told me where there were open buildings where classrooms could be seen. just remember that you still might not be able to visit certain locations as most university buildings only allow students to enter (it never hurts to ask)

with this being said, pay attention on tours for classrooms. while the tour might not stop in one, there’s a good chance you could walk by one so peak through the windows (if their isnt a class in session there - dont be creepy) so you can get a feel for what they look like.

why you should go - as long as time/money permit, then you should visit every college you can. like i already mentioned (and will explain later in this post), a campus tour can help decide if a school is truly right for you. going on a campus tour also shows demonstrated interest in school which can only be a positive when it comes to applying. the school will have on record that you visited there and then you automatically end up on their mailing lists (if you can’t visit make sure u sign up for the mailing list for this same reason). even if u have unofficially gone to a school hundreds of times do a campus tour

note taking

i didn’t actually see a whole lot of other students taking notes but i felt it was important in remembering details about the school and to gather information (if needed) for the why X school essay. i had a small notebook that i would write the important things from the info sessions, the feel/look of the campus itself, the vibe other students gave, the way the dorms/classrooms/cafeteria/library looked, answers to any questions i asked, or whatever else i felt was important. just remember to give your tour guide respect and pay attention to them more than your notebook

as you can see i took note taking very seriously

asking questions

this is super important as it’s the best time to understand what a school is like from an actual student. while they are there to sell u a school, they’re still gonna be more honest then info pamphlets

questions to ask

what made u choose X school among others?

this question is so !!! important !!!! i think this can help you grasp what kind of student fits w/ a particular school. if you end up with a tour guide who gives an insightful response, it can help reveal the values of both the school and the students. if u are like me and didnt have any top picks in mind beforehand or didnt rly know what you want in a school this can be helpful in understanding why people have their top choices and why they feel attachment to a certain school. additionally, if you are torn between two (or more!) schools when it comes to decision time, this can help u determine which school will be a better fit.

however, in my experience, many students tend to respond to this “i just had the right feeling when i visited the school” or some variation of this so you might not always get the best answer but try to get them to elaborate a bit more. for example, one of my tour guides was from london so i asked her why she wanted to go to school in america and what made her choose this school over other american colleges. while it’s not directly asking why X school i was able to get a more detailed answer to this question !

what are some unique traditions that X school has?

this ties into the previous question as it involves reasons for selecting one school over another but the main reason to ask this is for the “why X school” essay (i’ll talk about how to do these in a later post). not every school will have this extra essay, but many do so it’s important to be prepared ! this will give you content that’s more in depth and shows that you did research on the school

what’s the student body like?

are they super involved in service/volunteering? do sports function as the main social events? are people quiet and chill or major partiers?

while i talked about this in my post about researching schools, now is the best time to understand the ~vibe~ a school as. you should also observe other students around you and see what they are doing. you don’t need to ask the specific questions/similar ones that i listed, but make sure you get a general idea ! (unless of course you want to ask specifically about these things)

specific programs for your major

if you know what you would like to study, then ask questions about their specific program. (i did not know what i wanted to study, so i didnt ask these kinds of questions and unfortunately can’t offer much advice on how to ask)

ask about your tour guide’s major

if your major is not their major, they might not be able to provide much information outside of the general facts about it but ask about their major(s) ! i’m sure they’ll be glad to talk about what they are studying and it can give you a feel how the academics work in general about the school (especially if your major is within the same college/school @ the university b/c policies and whatnot will be very similar.)

@studywithanu has a guide on asking questions on campus tours written from their perpsective as a tour guide please check it out !

questions to NOT ask i can’t speak for tour guides on what they find annoying and what they don’t but just on the few campus tours that i went on i heard so much of the same bullshit questions (not trying to be harsh but some of it got to me). who knows, maybe some of these questions are only bad in my opinion but honestly i felt people could be using their time to ask better questions

what’s the difference between early action/early decision?

pal not to be rude but if u dont know this at this point then one props to u for not being completely obsessed with the college apps process as i was and two u have access to google.....it’s right there

but in seriousness, why waste your time on a generic question that can be easily found out and isn’t specific to the school you’re visiting ?? the purpose of the tour is to learn about one school not the application terminology. it amazed me how many different people i heard ask this

in case if u don’t know what the difference is i’m gonna tell u right here cause im feeling nice !

early decision - this is binding folks ! only apply ED if ur sure that your school is ur number one choice and you can’t picture yourself anywhere else and you’ll die if you dont go here. also u need to be able to afford it. the only way u can be let go of ur agreement is if the financial aid offered to you is too low (like way too low) and the cost will prevent you from attending college that’s it ! you can’t change ur mind b/c you think you like somewhere else better or somewhere else gave u larger scholarship. additionally, you submit your application (often november) earlier and find out about ur admissions status earlier (often december). note: some schools have ED II which basically is still ED, but you submit ur application at the same time as regular decision and you hear back earlier (normally february)

early action - non-binding ! apply to as many schools EA if you want. like ED, the application process is completed earlier and you are notified of ur status earlier too. unlike ED, you are not bound to any EA school and can wait to accept or decline until their deadline (may 1st is the majority for most universities). sometimes, a school’s EA might have a greater acceptance rate due the lower amount of students but the competition might be stronger so keep that in mind ! note: there are some schools w/ restrictive EA meaning you can only apply to that school EA and no others (you are not bound to admissions tho) this is most common in the ivies and generally you won’t come across it much.

what’s the average gpa/sat/act scores or what’s the acceptance rate?

again, why waste ur time on facts that can be easily googled and were most likely presented to you in the information session

this will make you seem uninformed and ill-prepared, which we don’t want. ask the best questions you possibly can !

how did you get in/what did u do in hs/what were ur grades

while i (thank god) never encountered this on a tour, i do know people can be very upfront with asking other studyblrs/appblrs these questions - maybe it’s just due to the anonymous feature on here but sometimes people are quite rude about asking these kind of questions

while i do not think asking someone with a study/appblr what their activities in high school is bad (as we are here to discuss these kind of things), the question “how did you get in to X school” needs to stop getting asked in general b/c guess what - none of us know which little detail of our applications made the admissions officer know you’d be the perfect fit for the school

instead try asking them about their current activities (gives you an insight on how the students are involved) and if they find the academics to be just the right level of challenging

anything that can be easily found on a school’s website

i know im basically repeating myself but if it can be found on the first few pages under the admissions section online or in any of their info pamphlets, then don’t ask it. it’s a waste of time - you want this tour to allow you to make an informed decision on if you should apply to this school. if you only go to learn stuff that you know is online (even if u dont know it off the top of ur head or haven’t looked it up yet) then what was the point of visiting at all ?

however, if you need more clarification about anything posted online (such as deadlines !) then ask away

is it right for me?

okay you’ve done all your research, visited all the schools on your list. now it’s time to ask are these schools right for me? should i apply here? there isn’t a right or wrong answer only you can determine if you should apply. since this is a bit more difficult to write clear-cut advice for here’s some examples from my personal experience

in case if you haven’t read my previous posts, the only factor i knew that i wanted out of a school was for it to be located in a big city, so all the schools i visited/applied to were in some major cities in the northeast. there was one school that i had high hopes for since it was located in the city but still had a traditional campus (hard factor to find in cities). however, upon traveling to this college, i discovered it’s on the outskirts of the city and a bit too far for my liking (i felt that if i attended i wouldn’t leave and explore the city daily, only on certain occasions if i felt like going out). additionally, i did not like the vibe the admissions officer that hosted the info session gave off. these two things were enough for me to say this is not the school for me, so after the info session my mom and i left and skipped the tour

when it came to the school that i will be attending, i only knew that it was my number one choice because of the campus tour. it was the last school i visited and while i had liked most of the schools i visited, i knew none of them were necessarily the “one” for me. they were all nice but my general reaction was just kind of okay i’ll still apply here onto the next school.... i hate that i can’t give a proper explanation as /why/ it was the right school (i always hated when my tour guides would say they picked their school based on a feeling), but yes i did have that feeling where i knew this was it. i could tell the students values aligned with mine, it was right in the city, it has an A+ study abroad program, strong academics, and more that i can’t put into words. if this doesn’t happen to you, do not be alarmed (tbh im surprised it happened to me) you don’t need to find the one for you to love your school. in fact, not having a dream school might be better b/c you can focus on your options logically and not get stuck on one school

a side note to this is my aunt always thought this one school was her top choice and that she had to go there but when she finally got a chance to visit, she absolutely hated it and later found a university that she loved (she still goes to football games regularly) don’t underestimate the campus tour !

can’t visit a school?

you still have several options to use even if you can’t visit somewhere (or even if u can these are still helpful)

virtual campus tours

youvisit - super neat campus simulation and some schools even have a virtual tour guide

campustours - also includes interactive maps

youtube channels

look for day in life vids, dorm tours, or any other content posted by students at the school + they’re gonna be more honest since it isn’t their job to sell u the school

school’s website/youtube

check the school website/youtube channel and see if they have maps or any kind of virtual tour

wow this was very lengthy so i rly hope this helps everyone ! if you have any other questions please feel free to send me an ask! my next post will cover basics to the common app so check back soon !

#appblr #studyblr #appblr18 #college applications #appblr 2018 #appse #this is so long i died making this #adkjcsjkd im prolly posting this too late for co '18 oh well #mine

14 notes · View notes

ramabear · 7 years

Note

can i ask how you decide on titles for your fics?

well, i usually try to go for something significant to the theme?? of the fic, if there is one. Sometimes i go for hints (coughBrotherhoodcough) and othertimes i’m just like “yeah whatever this sounds pretty” (shine and shadow, anyone?)

SIAOD’s kind of special bc the Main Portions have themes to their titles: ie: they’re the Significant Deaths (i bet u can guess what phlebotomy’s significant death is gonna b). whereas the intermissions and addendums mostly have things related to what’s going on so its easy to tell them apart (ie: cold one vs after hours, etc)

usually, when i come up w/ a fic idea, the title is part of that initial “what is this idea”--- for example, i have one fic i’m sorta working on that,,, probably wont ever b posted but the title of it is “give him an inch”-- referencing the saying “give him an inch and he’ll take a mile” because, you guessed it, the theme of the fic is giving in, bit by bit, until that whole mile is suddenly gone.

i try to keep my titles specific enough that i know instantly which fic and what it was about just by the title; because, as you may or may not know, i have files and files of these things and i need to know, at a glance, which fic was what. the only reason i shouldn’t know is if i haven’t read thru it in over 6months, at which point i’ll reread it and refamiliarize myself with it

this often leads to me calling a fic something different than it actually gets posted as: for a long time Aiding and Abetting was in my drafts simply as “the princess fic” i... dont actually know why it was called that anymore, (well i have suspicions) but i eventually renamed it for publication with a much more suitable name for the situation.

sometimes, to get extra fancy, i’ll have a theme for the fic and i’ll look for quotes that are based around that theme and then use that as a title: “held together by will” and “what we have done with what was left” are both examples of pulling fic titles from outside of my brain sources, although the latter was actually from a song that fits with the vision of that particular fic

but yeah, most of the time it’s with that first burst of inspiration about the idea- rarely do i come up with a fic title and then change it while i’m still planning it. i have done that, and recently actually, but most of the time the only title changes come when i go from planning to posting- if they happen at all.--- usually what i’ve initially come up with is what i go with, which is why i try to make it a good title from the get go

[sorry for such a long post but its late and im rambling and i rlly should stop looking at stuff online n go to sleep uwu]

[that said, if you ever want to know the specifics for why i chose a fic title or how i did it, i can usually remember and am usually happy to give the answer, barring any spoilers uwu]

#i also really enjoy clever titles #brotherhood was a clever title #i think i've a few others like that #aiding and abetting is also clever imo #i like to look at the list and just be like oh yeah #thats what this one is and thats what that one is #sigh i could talk about my fics all day #my ego is too much too much #rama replies #long post #Anonymous

3 notes · View notes

astudyinimagination · 7 years

Text

The Heir, Chapter 2

"Between Present and Past”

Chapter two of my WIP fic The Heir. Prologue can be found here; chapter one here; description here. Will definitely try to make a tags page for my fics in the future.

This story is off to a slow start in more ways than one, and there’s something I should say right now: there are a lot of flashbacks. There’s a lot of going back and forth between the present and the past—stuff in backstories unfold as the main story goes on. This particular chapter is flashback-heavy. (It also starts with a scene that I’ve already posted to Tumblr, so if you’ve already read that, you can skip over it to the next page break.)

Chapter rating: M.

Warnings: mentions of forced prostitution, miscarriages, still birth, generally birth-related ickiness, and marital sex.

There were many places in London in which respectable women, even of the working class, should never venture. But for the woman sitting at the bar in one of the seedier pubs she knew, respectability was the last thing on her mind. Not that she had to worry about her reputation, in her worn suit and bowler hat and fake moustache.

In a man’s world, pretending to be a man gave her a certain degree of freedom she couldn’t otherwise have.

She took a drag from her cigarette and sighed. Skulking aimlessly around taverns wasn’t going to fix her problems; she needed to get off her backside and on her feet again. Oh, come off it. How much bad luck does a person need to run up before they’re entitled to a respite?

A sudden commotion jolted her out of her sulking. A man shouting at a girl, in one of the corners of the establishment. She couldn’t make out what he was saying above the din of the place, but he was gesticulating wildly, and the girl was cowering… And there was the blow, across the face.

The woman dressed as a man surged to her feet and strode towards the pair. The girl was now crying, and as the woman got closer, she could make out the words. “Ned, please, Oi don’ want to!”

The man struck her again. “Yew’ll want to if I say! We need the money, an’ I’ve already made the deal!”

“No, Ned, please!”

The man brought his hand back for another blow, but it never fell. The woman’s grip around his wrist was as unforgiving as a shackle. The girl gasped. The man cursed and turned around to face the woman. “Wot the ‘ell d’yew think yew’re doin’?!”

“Acting like a decent human being,” the woman said coldly, belying the fire blazing in her gut, “which is more than I can say for you or anyone else in this sorry dump.”

“Leggo of me!” The man’s—Ned’s—eyes were red-rimmed, his face flushed; he’d clearly had far more liquor than she had.

“Leave this girl alone and I will.”

Ned turned back to his prey. “Oh, didja finally git yewrself a man?” There was something very ugly in his tone. “That why yew’re not wantin’ t’work with His Lordship?”

Terror shone in the girl’s eyes. “Oi swear, Oi ain’t never seen ‘im afore!”

The woman’s grip tightened, and Ned cried out. Standing at five foot eleven, she towered over Ned, and leaned in to hiss, “I have nothing to do with this poor girl, and I think you shouldn’t, anymore, either. Leave her alone.”

“The ‘ell Oi will! She’s mine! She’s my sister!” Ned gave a mighty pull, then, to free himself, and the woman clenched her free fist, driving a left hook into the man’s stomach. He doubled over, and she kneed him for good measure, letting go of his wrist and watching in satisfaction as he crumpled to the floor.

She looked up then at his poor sister, who was watching with wide, pale eyes. The woman held out her hand to the girl, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty. “Come with me.”

The girl hung back, afraid.

The woman sighed in frustration. “Come on! Do you want to stay with that—” she nodded at the figure on the floor—“for the rest of your life?!”

“Oi…”

“I shan’t hurt you, I promise.” The woman reached out and grabbed the girl’s hand, pulling her to the door, the other patrons giving them a wide berth. This was hardly the first time they’d seen this person dressed as a man land a couple of blows on another bloke, and they weren’t about to interfere. She had a justified reputation for being brutal, and better still, very few blamed her for it.

“Who are yew?”

The woman waited until they were outside, turned to her, and whispered, “Not a man.” Louder: “What’s your name?”

“T-Tess.” The girl probably thought her companion mad.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the woman said feelingly as she led the girl to a better street so they could catch a cab. Three blocks away from the pub, she let her Estuary accent slip. “I’m trying to help you. What did Ned want you to do?”

Tess didn’t even blink at the change in inflection. “‘E was gonna s-sell me services to His Lordship. S-said our family needed the money. We are poor folks, mum.”

The woman held down her suddenly boiling rage with effort. “Nothing justifies slavery, Tess. Who’s this Lordship you speak of?”

“Him what owns the buildin’ we live in, mum. That’s wot we all call ‘im.”

“What did His Lordship want with you?” The woman thought she knew, but she wanted to hear her theory confirmed, even if it sickened her.

Tess faltered. “Well… I… I’m pretty, mum.”

The woman had to take a deep breath. An outburst will not aid you. You can’t do anything about the brother. Help the sister. “Tess, you know that’s illegal, right? Selling you to this man to be his…”

“Whore,” Tess supplied quietly. “Sure it is, mum. But why would that make any difference?”

“You could go to the police.”

“They wouldn’t ‘elp the likes of me, mum. Wot would Oi go to them, for?”

It was true—unless the brother had written proof of his despicable bargain, the woman couldn’t think of a single thing the police could do about the situation. Not with the law as it stood now.

She turned to the girl. “Come home with me,” she said softly. “I can help you. I’ve helped other girls like you, girls with bad families, bad husbands. Just come. You don’t have to go back.”

Tess shook her head, a glimmer of pride in her eyes for the first time. “Oi won’t take no charity, mum.”

“Oh, it’s not charity.” The woman arched an eyebrow. “I’d expect you to work and earn your keep. But I think your dignity would be better served in performing the duties of a maid rather than becoming one in name only.”

Tess reddened. “Yewr ‘usband won’ mind?”

The woman stopped short. “...my husband has no say in how I live my life, Tess. He lost that right.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “‘Ow?”

“I know you love me, Godfrey. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. But I need you to look me in the eye, and tell me that you regret what you’ve done.”

“...darling… I do love you.”

“...I know. But that isn’t enough.”

“He sold his soul to the devil, Tess,” she said quietly, and whistled to catch the approaching cab—“and he didn’t regret doing it. Are you coming?”

The cab rolled up to halt before them, and she watched fear and hope fight for dominance in Tess’s too-thin features. Poor girl—she had probably never done anything so brave in her life, escaping her family like this. After a few seconds, she nodded slowly. “Yes, mum.”

The woman smiled, and helped her up into the cab. Once they had set off, she turned to the girl and said, “Please, Tess: call me Irene.”

Mary felt the urge and resisted it, braiding her hair instead. Even after three months, her hands wanted to lie over her belly, now empty and almost flat again.

This most recent attempt to have a child had proven to be not a disaster, but a nightmare. Mary had been twenty-seven when she first met John; she had already been old enough to qualify as an old maid. In the two years they had been married, they had tried again and again to have children, both aware that neither of them were quite as young as many newlywed couples starting families. John was seven years older than she, and he wanted children just as badly as she did.

She miscarried the first two. She had thought that nothing could match the crushing disappointment and sense of loss she had felt each time… but then she had conceived a third time. Then the baby had survived long enough to make her presence felt, to kick and somersault, and move to the sound of her father’s voice, speaking nonsense to her mother’s belly.

And then, after the most terrific and prolonged agony Mary had ever experienced, their daughter had died before she could draw her first breath.

“John, how is she? Can I hold her? What does she look like?”

“Oh… Mary…” The incredible look of loss on his face had answered her questions.

“No… no…”

“Mary, love… I’m so sorry...”

“No! I want my baby, John! I want my baby! Please!”

He had sat on the bed and wrapped his arms around her, not heeding her struggles. She didn’t want comfort; she wanted her baby… And then, over John’s shoulder, she saw the midwife silently wrapping up a tiny, bluish form in the cloth that should have been her child’s first blanket, and something inside her broke.

She didn’t remember the week following, not properly. It was a haze of tears, dreams both good and bad, and expelling excess blood and fluid and tissue from the pregnancy. Her body slowly working its way back to normal didn’t help her any, particularly the emptiness of her womb. The swelling of her breasts, filling with milk for her dead daughter, added another layer of misery.

She barely spoke to John, though he hardly left her side that first week. He was so gentle and caring, and one of the few things she remember clearly was wanting to shout at him. Wanting to demand why he wasn’t angry with her when she couldn’t give him the children he wanted.

Eventually, she started to move around the house again. Her friend, Kate Whitney, and her former employer, Mrs. Forrester, would come to see her. She talked more with John; not much, at first, but she did. The physical aftermath of the pregnancy finally ended, and she started to feel herself again.

Three months later, she still missed her baby, of course. She couldn’t think of the tiny little girl without crying. They’d decided to give her a name, one that they never would have picked otherwise as it wasn’t a name either of them favored, but it seemed appropriate: Angela.

By unspoken consent, however, Mary and John had tried to act normally again around each other, and by and large, it had worked. They were still deeply in love, and Mrs. Forrester said to cherish it: that kind of premarital infatuation did not always survive to the second year, let alone amid the loss they had already faced.

Sometimes, Mary would still feel empty, and her arms ached to hold a child who wasn’t there—she had only held her daughter for a few brief moments, and she still did not know whether that had been better or worse for her. She longed to have Angela back, alive and healthy.

What she sometimes felt but was afraid to really think… was that she still wanted to try again.

She had always been good with children. She had been a good governess; the Forrester children had adored her. She wanted to know the joy of having her own child, and she knew that John wanted that, too.

What is wrong with me? Why can’t I have a baby?

She knew there was no good answer to that; there never was. She could keep trying and maybe, someday, she’d have a baby. Maybe it would be healthy, and she wouldn’t be. Maybe she couldn’t have a baby at all. There was no way to know, and she knew that, which is why she never asked John. She hated few things more than his looking lost and helpless, when he didn’t know what to say or do.

Speaking of whom… Finished undressing for the night, he sat beside her on the bed and idly stroked her braid. “I missed you, last night,” he murmured.

“Mm, I missed you.” He leaned in to kiss her softly, and she returned the kiss as gently. “But I’m glad you went. You needed that.”

He grasped her chin gently. “Mary, love, I don’t need adventures.”

She smiled ruefully. “Yes, you do. It’s all right, John; you know I don’t mind.”

He sighed. “I know, but—”

She put a finger to his lips. “Shh.” Then she kissed him again.

He kissed her warmly back, his hand rising to stroke her hair. “Oh, my love,” he murmured against her lips.

She closed her eyes, suppressing the faint tug of desire she felt. “Sweetheart, not yet. Please.” Making love with her husband had become irrevocably tied up with the possibility of conceiving again, and the possibility of further heartbreak. “I’m not ready yet.”

He sighed—poor John, she could see his eyes how much he would have liked to continue. “Of course, my darling.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“John, it’s not your fault.” She lowered herself to the surface of the mattress and pulled him with her, quickly snuggling up in his embrace. “Someday, I am going to want you so much, I am going to be so wild with passion, and I won’t be able to care. I… I simply haven’t reached that point.”

John chuckled softly, but his hazel eyes were gentle. “Do let me know as soon as you do, won’t you?” He kissed her hair this time. “I love you, Mary.”

“I love you, John.”

“Professor?”

“Yes? Master Holmes, was it?”

“Yes, sir. I only wanted to say how very much I enjoyed this lesson. I’ve never seen anyone bring mathematics so vividly to life before.”

“Thank you, my boy. It is always gratifying to have an appreciative audience. What is your field of study?”

“Chemistry. It’s been an interest of mine since I was small.”

Pause. “Master Holmes, your eyes have been roaming my things since you approached my desk.”

“I beg your pardon, Professor; I was merely observing.”

There was an intense scrutiny in the older man’s dark grey eyes, not unlike Mycroft’s. “What have you observed?” When the boy hesitated, the man nodded encouragingly. “You needn’t fear censure, my boy. Go ahead.”

“You are a confirmed bachelor,” the boy started slowly. “You have no close family. You have passions not only for mathematics but also for science, philosophy, and history. You have not had this chair for more than a few years. You graduated from Oxford, but you must have had some sort of falling out with your alma mater, or you would not be teaching for her rival. And… you carry a sentimental attachment to your homeland.”

The man stared at the boy, then smiled and began to clap. “Bravo, Master Holmes. That was excellent.” An Irish lilt slipped into his voice, bringing full body to the slight inflections the boy had noticed earlier: “Correct in every detail. You will certainly go far on whatever road you take.” He held out his hand.

The boy shook it firmly, grinning. “Sherlock Holmes, sir.”

“James Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Mr. Holmes?”

Holmes looked up from where he sat on the floor, surrounded by coded letters and their decoded counterparts. “Mrs. Hudson! What are you doing still up at this hour?” His landlady was dressed for bed, a dressing gown over her nightclothes, and her grey-streaked brown hair hanging down in a braid. And she bore a steaming coffee pot.

“I was about to go to bed, and I heard you moving about up here. I thought you might like a fresh pot of coffee.”

He smiled tiredly, rising to take the tray from her. “Bless you, Mrs. Hudson.” He kissed her cheek, and she smiled.

“Will you be all right, then?”

It was a question she often asked when she knew he was going to stay awake through the night. He nodded. “Sweet dreams, Mrs. Hudson.”

Her smile softened. “Good luck, Mr. Holmes.”

“Thank you.” He would need it, and the coffee. He didn’t want to risk falling asleep; sleep would give him no rest, only more memories, and less kind ones.

He had to keep working.

#Sherlock Holmes #Irene Adler #Mary Watson #John Watson #Professor Moriarty #The Heir #Sky writes stuff

5 notes · View notes