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becomewings · 3 years

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The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’M FINE>

BTS Universe Story Highlights, pt. 1 / 4

» pt. 2

Introduction

BTS Universe Story, a mobile game published by Netmarble, was released on September 24, 2020. While the majority of the app is essentially a sandbox and engine for users to create their own interactive stories, it also includes official and canon BU content. The first eight segments were introduced between the release date and December 2020, gathered under the title The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’M FINE>.

“I’m Fine” is half of the I’m Fine/Save Me ambigram introduced in the Love Yourself era. Notably, all of the BU content available in the game so far falls between events of the webtoon Save Me (also called HYYH0 in its logo) and The Notes 1—chronologically, that is, while bearing in mind that time resets to the morning of 11 April Year 22 whenever SeokJin fails to avert a tragedy among his six friends. I want to assure anyone who is unable to play the game that you are not missing any new, major plot beats from the overall BU narrative. Instead, the stories provide more insight into the motivations and consequences of SeokJin’s decisions in the earlier time loops, as well as more depth to individual characters and their circumstances.

The goal of this guide is to summarize each of the eight stories and highlight noteworthy details, especially if they are not yet present in other BU media. Within each story (which I often refer to as an arc, due to their character-focused nature), episodes must be played successively, but the stories themselves can be played in any order. I will present them over a series of posts in the order they are listed under the <I’M FINE> heading. The Prologue and NamJoon’s arc are free to play; the rest are paid content. Please note that due to the app’s Terms & Conditions, I will not include in-game footage here. The images in this guide are sourced from the official trailers/videos and the live action MVs as appropriate.

Content warning: contains references to death, suicide, suicidal ideation, child abuse, domestic violence, blood, homicide, depression, trauma, PTSD

This guide contains major spoilers and includes references to other BU media

Do not repost, copy, or quote without permission

Game Mechanic

Before diving into the summaries, I would like to address the primary mechanic of the game: the user’s control of character choices at designated moments in the stories. It’s a primary marketing point that the player can influence the progression of the narrative, with a frequent in-app tip also declaring, “stories’ endings can vary depending on your choices.” The latter is not strictly true—and it cannot be true due to the structure of the game. Choices are presented within most (not all) episodes, but each episode is an isolated unit: episode 2 provides the same content regardless of what you choose in episode 1. Since the consequences of your decisions are not cumulative, each episode reaches the same ending, and each decision inevitably rejoins the “main” story path (effectively reducing the script size).

So what is the point of this mechanic? While the system is not nearly as complex as what major platform titles are capable of nowadays (I suspect due in large part to the story creation portion of the game), it does foster a sense of interaction with the narrative that isn’t present in static visual media like comics or film. The episodes with choices also have incentive for replay to discover the impact of changing a character’s dialogue or action. Sometimes the differences between the outcomes are inconsequential, but other times you unearth new details, interactions, or memories that are missing in the other path.

I say this partially in reaction to all of the comments and tweets I read for the game trailers and even Smeraldo Book twitter’s choose-your-own-adventure style teasers with The Notes 2 excerpts released last summer. Many users expressed excitement, through words or memes, about finally being able to give the boys the happy ending they deserved. I don’t fault anyone for wanting that happy ending—I wish for it, too. But no matter what the rather overzealous marketing has claimed, I don’t believe that the canon ending of BU is ever meant to be in the audience’s control. But I do feel that this mechanism fits the BU narrative. It echoes the “countless loops” SeokJin has experienced in an effort to save his friends, the choices he must make at every crossroad, and the butterfly effect those actions have on all of their lives. I think it is reasonable to interpret the simple branching paths in the game as alternatives SeokJin has explored across multiple loops in his struggle to find the “right” way forward. I’d love to hear if you have theories of your own!

Prologue

The prologue is a brief episode introducing SeokJin’s repeated struggle and failure to save his friends. He wakes up yet again in his bed on 11 April Year 22, the beginning of the time loop. After reflecting on the tragedies that keep befalling the others, SeokJin realizes that he has only tried to fix the problems he can see. He wonders: “Have I tried to understand the root of my friends’ misfortunes? How much do I really know about my friends? Maybe I was never brave enough to confront their real scars and the worlds they’ve been living in. But I need to do it. Because it may be the key to saving them all.”

How to Offer a Hand

In this story, SeokJin attempts to prevent NamJoon’s arrest after he gets in a fight with a rude customer at Naeri Gas Station, his place of work. The first episode opens on the night of 11 April Year 22 with NamJoon curling his fists, glaring as crumpled bills lie untouched on the pavement. (The money looks similar to the shot from the I Need U MV.) SeokJin reaches for his shoulder, but NamJoon shrugs him off and strides away to punch the customer who deliberately dropped the bills for him to pick up. The gas station owner runs over at the customer’s furious shouts and orders NamJoon to apologize. He refuses, and police officers soon arrive and charge him with assault. No one listens to SeokJin’s protests that the customer started it first. The man sneers as NamJoon enters the police car. “Do you even have money for a settlement? Hey, you’re done for.” NamJoon is sentenced to prison again, and SeokJin hears glass shattering before the loop resets.

Rising from his bed on the morning of 11 April, SeokJin reflects on his failed efforts so far. He has hit the customer’s car, called for NamJoon in the middle of the incident, and stopped the fight himself, the latter of which caused his friends to avoid him later. The fight has even escalated; the details are unspecified, but the audience is provided an ominous shot of SeokJin speaking to a police officer alone at the scene. NamJoon is not the kind of person who would normally respond to that kind of provocation with his fists. SeokJin realizes that he cannot merely stop the fight but must discover and fix the true cause of it.

With this in mind, SeokJin heads to Naeri Gas Station during the day and tries to engage NamJoon. This is their first time meeting since they both returned to Songju, although SeokJin has experienced it in many loops already. “It’s been a while,” he greets (as he does at the end of the Blood Sweat & Tears Japanese version MV). Before SeokJin can dig deeper in their conversation, NamJoon is called away by his boss. SeokJin enters the small employee break room which serves as NamJoon’s living space when he’s not at the container, hoping to find some clues about his friend’s life. SeokJin locates something bundled in newspapers. If the player chooses to open it, he sees a strange shard of glass inside that may belong to a car or motorcycle headlight. He continues on, finding the book Cosmos by Carl Sagan and a notebook. SeokJin hesitates over the invasion of privacy but decides to read it since he needs all the information that he can gather. The journal entries detail NamJoon’s daily life since returning to Songju: his work at the gas station isn’t too bad despite the occasional rude customer; he purchased a book and hopes to get more in the future; he picked up a second job at a wedding hall to help catch up on bills; his brother NamHyeon got in trouble again, leading to more expenses; and his dad’s health has worsened, with hospital bills after an emergency surgery rising to levels that the family cannot afford. SeokJin knew that NamJoon was the de facto head of household due to his father’s illness but was unaware that it was to this degree. He feels sorry for NamJoon yet is also impressed by his maturity, for NamJoon never writes how difficult his situation is.

NamJoon arrives and asks what SeokJin is doing in the room. If the player chooses to answer “reading” instead of “just sitting there,” SeokJin privately observes that the conversation flows more easily when they talk about books. NamJoon says he must leave and declines when SeokJin offers to wait for him there. SeokJin knocks over a pile of books along with money and receipts as he stands. He thinks it is unusual that NamJoon picks up the books before the money. The books seem to be more than a hobby to NamJoon, holding special meaning. Walking to his car, SeokJin wonders if it is pride or determination not to falter that keeps NamJoon from journaling his grievances. He realizes that money is a constant source of frustration and misery to NamJoon, and that’s why he can’t stomach being insulted over the customer’s dropped money. SeokJin’s new plan is to prevent NamJoon from picking up the money. He also calls Palgok County Hospital and offers to pay the patient bill for NamJoon’s father. Anticipating that NamJoon will be angry if he finds out, SeokJin says the payer is Songho Foundation.

That night, SeokJin returns to the gas station with the excuse that he forgot to fill up earlier. The luxury car arrives with a honk, and NamJoon hurries over to assist. He shakes with anger when the customer drops the money on the ground. “Why aren’t you picking it up? You don’t want it? What’s with that look? Pretty arrogant for a part-timer, aren’t you?” goads the customer. SeokJin intervenes. Whether the player chooses to have him advise NamJoon not to pick it up or to order the customer to pick it up himself, the end result is the same. SeokJin asks the customer, “Why are you harassing a pitiful part-timer?” The customer drives away, and something about NamJoon seems off. His face is expressionless, not mad or humiliated. “SeokJin, you…” He stops. “Never mind. Thank you for your help.” The words sound difficult for him to speak.

SeokJin believes that he has saved NamJoon, although this ending feels sloppy. He continues on in the loop to rescue JungKook and later YoonGi, but uneasiness plagues him. Though he meant to help NamJoon with his actions, SeokJin wonders if he hurt him instead. On 5 May Year 22, he returns to the gas station and follows NamJoon when he leaves work early. NamJoon enters a bookstore, and SeokJin sneaks in after him to watch from afar. He overhears employees talking about NamJoon, worrying that he might dirty the pages of the book he’s perusing. NamJoon is too absorbed in the book to notice one of them calling for his attention. SeokJin recalls a memory from their school days when he found NamJoon reading alone in their classroom hideout: he asked why NamJoon read so diligently, and his friend explained that he found it comforting to empty his thoughts of everything else while focused on the book. In the present, SeokJin wonders how he forgot how much books mean to NamJoon. He sacrifices some of his food and transportation budget to afford them, but they enable him “to endure the weight of the world he’s forced to bear on his shoulders.” After realizing this, SeokJin wants to apologize for carelessly sympathizing with the reality that NamJoon has weathered alone.

The next episode is from NamJoon’s perspective, revealing his excitement over being able to purchase a book for the first time in two months. He wants to buy two but can only afford one. The employee at the register sighs and asks why he leafed through a book he wasn’t going to buy. NamJoon apologizes, and she mutters, “So dirty.” He notices his reflection, clothes worn and smelling of gasoline, and realizes she’s talking about him, not the book. He tries to shake off these depressing thoughts, but he is still not accustomed to this treatment despite experiencing it regularly at work. As NamJoon begins to exit the store, the security alarm goes off. The employees demand to check his bag despite his insistence that he didn’t steal anything. Their certainty of his theft angers him. NamJoon allows them to look through his bag, and they are suspicious of the like-new book in it which he brought from home. One begins to call the police until SeokJin appears, vouching for NamJoon by saying he saw everything. The employees accept that the alarm malfunctioned and excuse their suspicions as a mistake.

Outside, SeokJin asks NamJoon if he is all right. NamJoon is thankful but wonders how SeokJin materialized right when he needed him. “How’d you find me here?” he asks aloud. SeokJin explains that he happened to notice him while walking through the neighborhood. NamJoon wonders if it’s because they said goodbye on a weird note last time. He thanks him and turns to leave. SeokJin calls after him. “I’m sorry. I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to upset you that day at the gas station. It was a mistake to have called you pitiful. If my rash actions hurt you, I’m really sorry.” NamJoon accepts his apology, believing it to be sincere, and says that things would have turned out a lot worse if SeokJin had not intervened. Thunder rolls overhead, and NamJoon uses the impending rain as his excuse to depart. He declines SeokJin’s offer of a ride and runs home, feeling his friend’s eyes on him.

Before he can settle down to read at home, NamJoon receives a call from his cheerful mother. She thanks him for paying off the entire hospital bill. NamJoon is perplexed and asks what’s on the receipt, since he didn’t pay it. His mother wants to leave it be, but he insists that they investigate so they don’t get in trouble or sued. She reads that the Songho Foundation is credited as the payer. NamJoon calls the hospital, introducing himself as the guardian for Kim YoungMin, but they can’t transfer him to the administrative department at this time. Disappointed, he looks up the foundation’s website, unable to recall why it sounds familiar. He wonders why a scholarship foundation in the city would get involved with him. Spotting photos of a recent launch ceremony on the site, he recognizes a few people: Songju High School’s principal, the familiar-looking face of the foundation’s chairman, and SeokJin. First, NamJoon forces a laugh, and then it’s difficult for him to breathe. He thinks that SeokJin really had pitied him at that moment. The only thing keeping NamJoon going is the idea of getting through life on his own strength. Why does he have to live like this?

The last episode opens on 5 May back in SeokJin’s perspective. He is confident now that he has saved NamJoon, although it occurs to him that a better alternative may have been to simply pick up the money himself instead of stepping forward. (This decision is enacted in a later loop and depicted in the Euphoria MV.) While reflecting on what comes next to save his other friends, he receives a text from NamJoon. “What’s your account number? I’ll pay you back for the hospital bills. I don’t need your help. I’ll handle my concerns on my own.” Heart sinking, SeokJin wonders how he found out. With a sense of foreboding, he tries calling NamJoon, but no one answers. SeokJin texts him back, pretending that he doesn’t understand, and tells NamJoon to call him. SeokJin’s second attempt connects while he’s gathering his car keys to visit the container. “That’s enough. Just send the account number over text,” NamJoon instructs. SeokJin coaxes him to talk for a moment, and NamJoon asks flatly, “Are you going to apologize again?” SeokJin attempts to salvage the situation, but his friend turns cold when he insists that NamJoon is misunderstanding and that he just wanted to help. “So, why? Why are you helping me?! Yeah, you’re always a good person. You’ve done nothing wrong and I’m the one misunderstanding.” SeokJin apologizes again. NamJoon refuses his request to meet in person. “No, I thought maybe there was a reason for everything you did… But I guess I misconstrued it. I’ll pay you back, so I’d prefer if you stopped contacting me.” Long after the call ends, SeokJin stands holding his phone, feeling that the glass is going to break at any moment. He wants to believe that it’s not over, but hope is slipping through his fingertips.

The episode finishes in NamJoon’s perspective. On 8 May and 9 May, he accepts part-time delivery work and reflects on his three jobs. Whenever he thinks he’s at his breaking point, he focuses on his new goal of returning SeokJin’s money. On 10 May, NamJoon wakes up to his buzzing phone and is called in to work. On a scooter, he passes by a bus stop and notices graffiti. (This is the same bus stop, with matching graffiti, that appears in the Highlight Reel.) Mesmerized, he wonders if it’s TaeHyung’s. As soon as NamJoon looks up, the scooter’s brake fails, and he crashes. The shattered glass on the cold pavement reminds him of the headlight shard and the kid who looked like TaeHyung. (So the piece of glass SeokJin saw in April was really a memento NamJoon retrieved from the scene of the crash in the mountain town, where the delivery boy whom he privately called TaeHyung died. This event is described in NamJoon’s 17 December Year 21 entry in The Notes 1.) NamJoon’s vision grows blurry, and the distant sound of an ambulance doesn’t come any closer.

The arc concludes there, but it obviously marks another reset for SeokJin. It is interesting to note that in this failed loop, NamJoon suffers the same fate that he narrowly avoided in the snowy mountain town before returning to Songju.

Please stay tuned for the next Highlights post featuring JungKook and YoonGi!

#armiesnet #networkbangtan #bangtanarmynet #armysource #dailybangtan #bts universe #hyyh #bangtan universe #bts universe story #bts universe story highlights #seokjin #namjoon #namjin #bts theories

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svpernatvralis · 3 years

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FENISHA LAVELLE is a 105 year old cis female vampire. people say they have a striking resemblance to camila mendes. they work as a dancer at delirium nightclub and are part of the conclave ( vampire capo ). people say they’re really ambitious, dauntless, & vehement, but unfortunately also calculating, guileful, & impetuous. why are they in invictus? well, they crave power.

henlo it me again! i hope u guys aren’t sick of me yet bc here’s my final ( for now, at least ) bb! say hello to my boss-ass bish gal fen! she’s sassy, classy and a lil badassy. she’s a rather feisty, fiery, ball of rage and anger who cba with ur bullshit tbh n she’ll tell u this too if u piss her off enough! she’s lowkey cutthroat and always out for number one, aka: herself. but, i mean, she does have some redeeming qualities and her hair is bomb af so that makes up for it all really, doesn’t it? basically that meme: ‘ she’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll punch you in the face. ’

fundamentals.

name. fenisha isolde lavelle.

age. 105, but appears around 23.

d.o.b. january 27th.

gender. cisgender female.

pronouns. she / her.

orientation. bisexual.

affiliation. the conclave.

rank. vampire capo.

job. dancer at delirium nightclub.

connections.

adoptive mother. monica lavelle. †

adoptive father. edward lavelle. †

adoptive siblings. lola, erik, & alec lavelle. †

significant other. n/a.

child/ren. n/a.

pet/s. n/a.

proficiencies.

spoken languages. english, & spanish.

negative traits. capricious, ornery, impulsive, guileful, & caustic.

positive traits. ardent, whimsical, intrepid, graceful, & poised.

strengths. great analyst, abstract thinker, imaginative, original, enthusiastic, open-minded, objective, honest, & straightforward.

weaknesses. very private, withdrawn, insensitive, absent-minded, condescending, loathes rules and guidelines, & second guesses herself.

appearance.

eye colour. brown.

hair colour. dark brown.

height. five feet, two inches.

weight. 54 kg.

miscellaneous.

zodiac. aquarius.

element. water.

house. ravenclaw.

meyers briggs type. intp-t.

alignment. chaotic neutral.

enneagram. type three.

temperament. choleric.

intelligence type. intra-personal.

the basics.

FENISHA ISOLDE LAVELLE — one hundred and five, vampire, dancer at delirium nightclub, + vampire capo for the conclave !

possible triggers : child abandonment, foster system, adoption, cancer, death, huntington’s disease, substance abuse, alcohol, violence, gore, blood, murder.

tl;dr. ok so for this gal, let's all give a big, warm welcome to sadness ( no, i was in no way at all inspired by salem from sabrina for that line ) bc boy oh boy, her life has been constant grief and pain, tbh. strap in for the bumpy ride, i'll give u cookies for compensation. OK SO, fenisha was abandoned as a baby, never did—and still doesn't—know her biological parents and she doesn't want to either, tbh. she bounced around from foster home to foster home until she was adopted by the lavelle family when she was eight. it was great! they were lovely people who made her feel at home. she loved them, they loved her back. in time, the older she grew, she began to resent the fact that her real parents weren't in the picture; believing she was always gonna be unloved and unwanted even tho the lavelle family did everything they could to make her feel the opposite. anywho, she fell in with the wrong crowd until she was sent off to an all-girls boarding school where she learned how to mellow herself a tad. but, here comes sadness again! at sixteen, her youngest adoptive sister passed away from cancer which made fenisha withdraw before, finally, acting out again. pressing the self-destruct button is this gal's speciality. did the pain stop? NOPE bc a year later her adoptive father passed away from huntington's disease. this time, she tried to bury her sadness, repress it and move on. for the most part, it worked. but still, she found herself gravitating towards her vices—things and people she knew were no good for her. drink, drugs, people, you name it. quickly, she realised that these things were no longer any good at keeping her dark side at bay: she needed something more, something deeper. thus, she began going down the road of petty crimes—stealing cars, smashing windows, theft, setting fires both metaphorically and literally. due to this lifestyle, she wound up entangled with some real shady folk who did ... even shadier things. most specifically, she started dating a real jackass who was violent and truthfully, a horrible person, really. fast forward a year or so and things took a swift nosedive when her lowlife boyfriend’s hands were round her throat and not in the kinky way. while she’d clawed at him and tried to fight him off, she struggled against his weight and strength until, eventually, all she could recall was waking up with a searing headache: the lights and noises just too much to handle. it wasn’t until she’d lost control to overwhelming bloodlust that she realised the truth: her boyfriend had turned her into a vampire. naturally, at first, she was horrified and it took her a hella long time to adjust but once she had, she kind of relished in her new life. once she got a grip on her nature, she joined the conclave and climbed the ranks where she now rests as a capo. all in all, she kind of digs who she is and what she is: after everything she's been through, she loves herself. it's been a long and winding road but fenisha finally believes that she's settled in her life now even if she is an overachiever who invests way more time in her job than she should. oop. tho she still refuses to let people in, her abandonment issues terrifying her to the degree that she feels that anybody she'd ever let into her life would eventually leave her in the end. *insert sad face emoji here.*

random extras.

nicknames: fen, nish, nisha ... spawn of satan >:-)

she loves art in every form: paintings, sculptures, music, dance, people, etc. she loves the freedom that expressing herself through these mediums gives her.

she’s ... experimental. she’s experimented with just about everything: hairstyles, clothing, drink, drugs, people ...

can be hella calculating and vindictive so do not cross her.

quite power hungry tbh.

she does have a shot at redemption but she doesn’t want it lmao.

she’s already been to hell so why bother trying to right her wrongs?

and boy, are her wrongs a century long list shkjsh.

high key is not above killing people who don’t do things her way.

doesn’t believe she’s capable of loving anyone.

she’s lowkey a perfectionist to the point of being ruthless, also cutthroat and egotistical.

if ya ain’t of use to her, then what the heck is ur purpose???

she can be ... aggressive sometimes and most definitely has anger issues.

dry sense of humour one million percent.she can drink any man under the table.

smol but fierce.

absolutely adores animals.

much prefers them to humans.

she’s quite adventurous and loves to feel the adrenaline in her body.

a bit meddlesome and a troublemaker.

always up for a good time.

outspoken and quick-witted with a sharp tongue.

is a tad theatrical.

really, she does what she wants to, when she wants to, without seeking the approval of others.

#invictusintro #pls give this demonic lady plots tyvm!

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mycophobian · 4 years

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Femboy Hooters - Rhink

The two men both were browsing their phones after their afternoon meeting. Sitting on opposite sides of a smaller round table in comfortable leather couches. Link had his slim legs crossed. It always fascinated Rhett how the man could sit comfortably like that. Link always sat in weird positions, it almost had a femininity to it.

Rhett like to browse reddit and twitter, oftentimes stumbling upon memes and occassionly some more inappropriate fandom related things. He likes researching and digging deeper into things, so naturally he had read a fanfic or two. Or three.. actually, he had read so many at this point he could no longer count them. But he didn't really talk about this much. It was mostly for the jokes.

There was something about that portion of fans of theirs however, the ones who shipped them, that made him feel comfortable in coming to terms with his will to explore sexually. It was like he could do it without the effort - and most importantly, in silence.

The bearded man had stumbled upon memes of Hooters before. He wasn't by any means involved in the fad culture of the internet but he just couldn't help but get weirdly attached to this concept of male maids at a Hooters restaurant. Alot of the art was of incredibly feminine boys in the classic Hooters outfit. Ofcourse alot of them were of furries, he didn't quite understand them. But the art was oddly hot regardless.

As he once again scrolled by one of these 'Femboy Hooters' memes, he locked his phone and looked up at Link.

"Do you remember the Hooters restaurant incident the summer of 98?" He asked with a light giggle.

Link chuckled back. "What? Yeah? How on earth did you just come to think of that all of a sudden?"

"It was so bad man."

"I'd appreciate if we didn't bring this up at all. Let's just remove these memories."

"It was never my thing anyways."

Rhett knew Link always got off going to a Hooters restaurant, but they didn't do it once more since that time. They both got thrown out. Rhett however was never into it even if he really tried to. Link was visually uncomfortable bringing this topic up. "I grew up, I'm ashamed and I wished that day in particular did not exist. I get it's fun and silly to talk about man, but please drop this." Link swallowed.

The tone and tension shifted in a second. "Did you see about-"

"Yeah, yeah." Link interrupted him. He knew exactly what he was aiming at. The newly opened gay Hooters restaurant.

"Internet is crazy man. People made a GoFundMe for this."

"Whatever man. Just drop this."

Rhett knew Link always became uncomfortable about male sexuality in general. He decided to drop the subject.

"See you on monday then." Link waved goodbye with the carkeys in his hand.

"Take care." Rhett replied before entering his own car. He took a moment to check his phone again. He looked over his shoulder and around him as if someone could potentially be spying on him. Jessie and the kids were going on a trip this weekend and he wasn't following. This was a perfect time for him to relax.

He tapped on his phone, putting something into google and opened up maps. He placed the phone on the holder infront of him and drove off. He passed by the Femboy Hooters restaurant and inspected it from a distance for a couple of minutes before actually making his way home.

At the McLaughlins it was quiet and empty. Not even Barbara was home with him. He enjoyed the silence sometimes, it helped him with regaining energy. For now his thoughts were consumed with fantasies about the Femboy Hooters restaurant. He tried to gain courage enough to actually have a night out for himself. The bearded man was resting on top of the sheets in the king sized bed. He could hear the clock ticking as he just stared into the ceiling. Rhett knew that if he were going to the Hooters restaurant he needed to do so discretely. If even one person recognises him, that meant the whole internet would soon do the same. To be fair he had no idea what impact that could have on his career, but he decided not to dwell on that.

It was close to 7pm and Rhett just came out of the shower, drying his dark blonde locks. He trimmed his beard, brushed his teeth and dressed up. He was ready to leave, putting on a brown leather jacket.

After about a 40 minute drive he parked the car outside of the wooden building on the lot. A big orange neon sign graced the front of the building. He exited the car and hunched insecurely as he approached the entrance. He stopped at the door and took a deep breath before actually opening and going inside. It was almost fully seated, he found a table that was a bit aside and sat down by it.

His heart was pounding. He took a moment and checked his surroundings. Attractive men in the same Hooters outfits that he could remember. Many of them looked very feminine. The shorts were tight and short and they all wore white crop tops. Surprisingly there seemed to be men and boys of various ages. Some seemed to be 18, and some over 40. He could already notice that there were more diversity in this restaurant than in any original Hooters.

The tense man was still hunched at the table. Sure Rhett was excited but he was also incredibly insecure. Something that one maid must have noticed as he approached Rhett's table.

"Welcome to Femboy Hooters, sir. I'm maid Jaden. First visit?" The curvy, extroverted boy smiled sweetly at him.

Rhett just nodded slightly and couldn't for the life of him keep eye contact with the maid.

"Don't worry, honey. You'll soften up after you've tried our special wings." The boy winked at Rhett.

Rhett looked up at the very pretty boy briefly before flinching his eyes immediately as if he was doing something illegal. It was a pale man with long, straight, ginger hair and thick lashes. "I-I'll take one of those, then." He replied.

"Sure thing! Drink?" The boy was posing while writing in his notes.

"Uhh.. I'll just take a sparkled water."

"Anything else?"

"I'm good."

"Great! Just 15 minutes, honey." The boy bowed quickly and smiled warmly at Rhett before leaving.

Rhett exhaled and rubbed his face. After what felt like several hours, a different maid approached him. It took a little while before he could actually look at the man's face, but he could already see this person was both taller and tanner than Jaden.

"Good evening, sir. I'm maid Charlie." The man introduced himself while placing the food on the table. "Sorry, I had to stick in for Jaden, sir. I'll be serving you for the rest of the evening." He chuckled and smiled.

Rhett furrowed his brows and his eyes twitched as he heard the voice. He grabbed the menu infront of him in an attempt to hide behind it. "Mhm." He mumbled.

"Enjoy your food sir! How's your experience with us so far?" The maid rested on one leg and leaned a bit to the side.

Rhett did not answer. He was sweating cold.

"... wait.. Rhett..?" The maid, who turned out to be Link, broke his femboy character as he saw his best friend.

Rhett stared into the menu, then looked up at Link in disbelief.

"What on earth are you-? You work here?!"

Links face flushed red. "You visit here?!"

The two men just stared into eachothers eyes before Link was abruptly pulled away, being needed in the kitchen. He looked back at Rhett a couple times before disappearing. Rhett's cheeks felt hot. He eyed the food that was just served to him, but he couldn't bring himself to eat it. His apetite was completely lost at this point.

He rose, placing a hundred dollar bill on the tray before walking out of the restaurant and made his way back to his car. He grabbed the wheel and stared down on his lap. After a couple of minutes he drove off.

The tension in the studio on monday morning will be different.

#rhink #fanfic #ficlet #femboy hooters #my work #my art

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mentalisttraceur · 4 years

Text

The funny thing is the whole feeling of powerlessness/impotence at correcting/mitigating wrong cognition isn't even that objectively true anymore.

When I have it in me to put in the work, I can do okay at convincing people if I get a good starting point, I do a good job at not letting human interaction spiral in ways that would make convincing impossible, and I can do a good job at maintaining a human dynamic such that convincing isn't necessary.

With most people anyway, most of the time. Some people just push enough of my buttons at the same time, or cost me more of the relevant coping resources, or both. Sometimes I'm just not up for it.

In the last year or two I feel like I have regressed a little, but I can't quite tell why. I think because it's easy, comfortable. Maybe because I've been more honest with myself about my mind being this way ever since I reverse engineered my root insecurity, the self-awareness or emotional acceptance or deeper introspection and acknowledgement of it might have formed some sort of feedback loop? Not sure.

Anyway: Also, certainly as an adult doing fairly well in life in modern society with the privilege of living in fairly safe areas, I have very little to materially fear from people being wrong.

But that's the thing with insecurities, especially ones formed early in life and reinforced repeatedly. They're like weeds. They dig deep. Their roots go all the way down, down through all your layers of accumulated growth and experience.

They try to regrow, because they self-feed: they shape how we interpret and model the world, all of our deeper undercurrents of habituated below consciousness cognition are usually wrapped around them like vine plants, so they predispose our mind to fitting everything in a way that validates and sustains them.

And often to interacting with the world in a way that will recreate them in ourselves and others.

Why? Isn't that bad for the person or something? Sure, except evolution doesn't care about what's bad for the person if it also reproduces the actual selectable units. Humans are not individual selectable units. Genes, memes, and cognemes are.

Insecurities reproduce like any other organism.

So an insecurity that formed in childhood operates by activating interpretations and feelings which made sense back then, in childhood, or whenever the insecurity formed. Deconstructing it thoroughly, realizing it isn't maximally adaptive anymore, that's just the start.

The whole soil has to be torn up, every tendril of the insecurity root system ripped out, every bit of soil it touched scraped up and ruffled and mixed and spread out again.

But the problem is that they provide pretty much the entire skeleton, the entire structure upon which we operate. It is impractical to tear it all up, and along the way we will find a lot of what feels good and right and adaptive.

Anything good and right and adaptive can be reinvented from different angles, from different starting points.

But how many mistakes can we afford to reintroduce into our lives? I've been in the process of doing something like that for about three years now, and in many ways, I am a better person, but in some ways, I'm worse. Maybe less ethical? Not sure. But certainly I'm kinda more intentionally of a dick to people sometimes nowadays, more willing to take certain exploratory risks with the feelings of others, and most importantly, I'm less altruistically and empathetically motivated than I used to be.

And that's just from uprooting some surface stuff, work that began before I even discovered the empiric definition of logic, let alone the raw experience prediction analysis that followed from it, let alone my personal root insecurity that I reverse-engineered from that.

So certainly we can't all just do the kind mental wholesale excavation and rework that I am talking about, and those of us who can, still have to do it somewhat incrementally.

But while we do, the rest of our mind still retains the patterns, the shapes, the predisposed flows of the pervasive insecurity root system.

Aside: the more I understand this, the more I find myself feeling some resentment towards the people who just didn't have to deal with this. Who had just the right fucking combination of upbringing that spared their mind from ever developing these extensive, thick, hard insecurity root systems.

Like brain plaques or like tough connective or scar tissue in meat. Some just have less of it. And the people who have the least seem to be successful in ways that I despise not just because it is just such a profound reminder of how utterly unfair the world is, but because they don't even get what they have or what they're missing, they lack a fundamental understanding of how bad life and internal experience can be, and yet they have success in certain ways essentially thanks to their ignorance, thanks to just sheer dumb luck. They miss out on one of the key likely preconditions for being as ethical as possible, get an invisible unrecognized leg up in acquiring the tools needed to have the most ethical effects possible, and then have such a cripplingly limited perspective that they don't even get what the other people are missing.

[There was more here, going more negative and unfavorable, but I'm just going to snip it.]

Ever since I stopped being meticulous about keeping my cognition tightly ethical, this kind of stuff gets more free reign, and that's probably not a good thing, but we're exploring, so it's fine. I can probably roll it back if I decide it to be for the best.

Maybe. We'll see.

Either way, no matter, I will gradually crack everything they acquired, I will absorb their power just as I do that of all other cognition, eventually. Already am. Slowly getting there, internalizing and habituating all of the relevant cognition and humaning skills.

Anyway, back to the point:

Insecurities, and the cognition entangled with them... I think they have a way of reestablishing themselves, until completely resolved. Old habits require conscious effort and prolonged persistence to break. It's not that if you stop you'll definitely just completely relapse. It's a slow, gradual thing, it reclaims territory in the mind slowly. Once you are good at it, you can put in a few days work and set it back for months, maybe even years.

And the improvement, of course, tends to snowball. A mind that gets far enough from the original insecure cognition will eventually start naturally sustaining more security and confidence fostering cognition.

But remember the whole truism about mastery taking 10000 hours? Well, your brain has spent at least 10000 hours mastering the cognition that underpins your mind now. Probably much longer.

The closer to our root insecurities we go, the more true that is. The roots started before any flickers of your earliest conscious memories, that I'm fairly certain of.

So it's not that I am actually powerless and impotent when someone is wrong - it's that my mind reflexively reacts as if I am, as it learned to back when I was, any time I don't immediately see a clear way to rapidly fix a mind wrong in a way that's too close to home.

#tag later #link later

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 6 years

Text

J.B.B.

Bucky x Reader

Content: Fluff I guess

Warning: There may be a body bag somehwere in here

Word count: so much that my editor on the phone said it couldn’t take it anymore. so...sorry about that.

PS: This is just experimentation. Is this a one-shot or a series, I don’t know that yet, but if it does get some attention, I’m definitly writing smut for this one. *sharp exhale* About time I stepped deeper into the water.

MASTERLIST

^J.B.B., ^Part 2, ^Part 3, ^Part 4, ^Part 5, ^Part 6, *Part 7, !Part 8, ^Part 9, ^Part 10, !Part 11, ^Part 12, Part 13

"How can you love someone like that?" You looked at your recently made friend, Gina, from work, thinking whether to invest your time in all the possibly great explanations or to stick to the shorter version of it. "Because loving is far easier to deal with than hate. Hate makes you feel bad." You scrunched your nose as both of you walked past the poster of the Frankenstein remake as Gina rolled her eyes at you. "You do know that's not true, right? Commitment sucks babe. It sucks real hard." You giggled as her curls bounced so gracefully even as she moved her head in colourful disgust. "I don't know, man. I've never really found anyone 'relationship-worthy' yet." "Really?" She sounded surprised, "How many people have you dated?" You shrugged your shoulders and raised your hands in approximate gestures, "uhh...two." Gina stopped in the middle of the street and looked at you, her head tilted in question. "Girl, what is a beautiful woman like you doing in your free time if not making out with someone?" "Hanging out with a crazy friend," you responded nonchalantly, breaking into a smile on seeing Gina's surprise turn into her signature smug face. "Alright you cocky angel. Looks like I'll have to play your wingwoman. I'll be taking details on Monday. Bye babe." You waved as she crossed the road and skipped towards her home while you walked straight ahead. You turned towards your street, bumping into a wall. "Oof!" Or so you thought. You tried to find a footing as your legs retrieved from the huge structure standing right in the middle of the sidewalk. And of course, you failed miserably, landing on the hard tiles with a sad groan while your groceries spilled everywhere. "Apologies, ma'am." A man at least six feet tall, with a built that could put all Greek Gods to shame, kneeled before you, bringing forward his right hand for you to sit up and began collecting the scattered plums and putting into your paper bag quickly. You were not able to get a good look at his face covered under a cap. But you did not miss his sharp jaw or his long brown hair playing near his neck. You would’ve never stopped looking at him had he not turned his clear ocean eyes back at you. "Sorry, I uhh didn't see where I was going," you apologised, too embarrased to look at him, and moved towards the bread loaf lying beside you. You picked up the loaf to find what looked like a journal. It didn't have anything written over it, just tiny initials on the inside of the cover page- J.B.B. You turned around to find your groceries neatly standing in the paper bag with no sign of the human form of the Alps. You turned again to look around the corner. No one. No sign of even the shadow of a man. Just a lingering scent of his, letting you know that you hadn't dreamt it. Putting the journal in your bag with the thought of returning it to its owner, you started walking to your destination, with a really interesting incident to overthink about for the day.

Your neighborhood didn't have much to speak about except the different hues of white on every apartment and an abandoned building right opposite the one you had begun calling home. The rent was cheap, thanks to the abandoned heap of bricks in front of your apartment-that for some people was too much to look at- and the facilities were good. You'd found a job of an assistant manager at a local bookshop that was, for you, unusually large and filled with content you'd never even heard about. Gina worked in the maintenance section for the 'limited copies' and 'local history' area and your curiosity had been the reason you two had met and bonded over your love for all the pages that smelled old and dusty. Your apartment was small- the door taking you straight into the hallway with a couch and TV that was at one foot distance from the kitchen, that stood opposite your bedroom- but you'd made it pretty cozy for yourself. You went straight into your routine once you were home. Keeping your belongings on 'the chair' in the bedroom, you opened the bathroom door while putting on a playlist according to your mood- randomizing when you felt daring- and came out of your clothes to get under the shower. Today the mood list was sensual and the water pressure was strong. You liked it cold, sometimes lukewarm when the cold European winter made you miss home. The shower would be followed by making dinner and snacks- the latter being the supper for cats and kittnes that would visit you or the ones that had inhabited the building opposite yours. Their company was the best. They loved anything and everything you brought for them and they ate it till there was nothing left or they experienced food coma. You wanted to keep a cat but your apartment was too small-according to you- and you'd rather they have their freedom than be cooped up in a small space for the entirety of their life. You picked up the basket full of mildly roasted bread smothered in butter and all the Tupperware containing milk and your dinner along with a small mat and made your way to your little friends. "Aah! No wonder they've been crying so loudly. They must have smelled the delicious bread." "I still don't know how they do that Mr Kline. It's like an inbuilt clock that tells them exactly when I'm home." "They do, actually. But for them it's less of a biological clock and more of a 'Y/N has come home-let's party' clock upon hearing your arrival." Mr. Kline was the handy serviceman of the building. Even though he was a reputed professor of world history at the local college, he preferred to be simply known as the building's caretaker. You hadn't understood why a man as wise as him would chose to work for a building he practically owned with his husband and not be standing in a lecture hall somewhere talking about all the knowledge he had gathered in half a century. His well-kept golden brown hair and his soft personality towards the people he liked made him look younger than he was, never giving away the sass and the wisdom that was kept at the edge of his tongue for the ones who thought they knew it all. He'd been the one to recommend you for the job at the library and you made sure to thank him this wonderful man with whatever little unpopular knowledge you could share with him about your birthplace. You shared a greeting with him as you left the building and crossed the street towards the unkept one. The building, like any other in this town, was quite sturdy. It still had wallpapers over the corridors and stairs from the previous owners. Almost everything was intact- the stairs, the apartment doors, nearly all the windows, even some punk rock poster wall in one apartment. Some walls had been grafitti-ed on with memes and uplifting messages, others had weird symbols drawn on them. Some walls had been taken down on various floors for whatever had been the plans for this place before they were dropped. So, yeah, nearly everything was intact. The only thing that you knew was not, was the heating. You climbed up to the second floor and turned to the apartment space to your left. The places where the walls and door were supposed to be, had been taken down on both sides. It was nearly an open space except for the bedrooms and bathrooms. Turning on the working lightbulb in the apartment space you announced your presence. "Hey my little furballs!" You were met by half a dozen of meows and tails standing straight up in the air on seeing you. The cats and kittens, cuddled into each other over the heating pad Kline had put up for them, got up and came over to you, rubbing themselves with your legs and purring. One of them, with black fur that shined blue under the lights like a clear night sky, stood up on his two feet and looked you with his big green eyes before meowing loudly. "Yes, Panther, I've got your buttered toasties. Come on, Nina. You too, Sakura." Everyone looked at you with the same curiosity as you put down their share of milk and bread in a line. You watched them eat and drink with such excitement in your heart as you opened your dinner and sat down on your mat. You were about to dig into your vegetables when you heard a tiny creak from the wooden floors. You turned around to look at the dark space opposite to where you and your furballs were. The apartment next door was only lit by the glow of street lights from the sidewalk outside. Only silence clad the darkness there. You were about to go back to your dinner when a reflection in the window of that apartment caught the corner of your eyes. You turned back but there was nothing there. Alright, Y/N, you thought to yourself, you've been coming here for quite some time now and nothing like this has happened before. So there is definitely someone or something here. You stood up, your hand slowly moving to your back as you took careful steps towards the space next door. Moving your grey T-shirt up, you felt the cold metal side on your fingers before they found the wooden handle and took out the knife. The cats were too busy in their food to notice you enter the space next door. The floor creaked as you moved in. This apartment was covered in yellow wallpaper everywhere with patterns of what looked like green coloured plants. The kitchen counters had gathered dust everywhere except one tiny spot at the side that faced you. You positioned yourself and hovered the edge of your right palm over it, finding the similarity in the imprint on the dust. Someone was here. And they had been watching you. And the only places where they could have disappeared to were the cold outside through the sealed windows or behind the bathroom and bedroom wall. Everything rational inside you told you to get out of here. And like any person outside a horror movie, you heard your reasonable brain and slowly backed away from the who or the what you could not see. "The building looks empty boss." You heard voices, moving around below you. "Go look upstairs. I don't want the body to be found before at least a month." Fear eroded your senses for five seconds. Just as the sixth came, you gathered yourself and removed your shoes- thanking whatever force made you buy these no laces loafer looking things- and went across the space to turn off the lights. You could here footsteps approach the floor below you. "This one's empty t-oh look, there's a punk rock wall here!" The cats looked at you in confusion as you frantically looked around for a place to hide before turning back to the only wall standing there staring at you. "Fuck," cursed under your breath. "Okay, okay, I'll check upstairs but I'm telling ya I want something like that in my room too." Oh screw it, you thought, running on your toes towards the door standing in the wall with your hand tightly gripping your knife, I'd rather be scared by a ghost than end up in a body bag. Quietly opening the door, your entered inside the room and closed the door cautiously just as the footsteps announced themselves on the floor. "What the hell? Where the walls at?" You jumped at hoarse voice reverberating throughout never letting your eyes leave where you came from as you moved away from the door. "Well, I'll be damned. Look, boss, there are little furries purrin' over here." Oh no! The cats! Oh no your tupperware you idiot, your brain shouted, so much for being cautious. A pair of footsteps thumped up the stairs making you move further back into the room and wanting to dissolve in the wall behind you. And that's when you noticed the wall closet. "John, there's food here," a deep voice hissed. "Yeah the cats gettin' hungry." "You thick bamboo of a head! There's plastic everywhere. Look! It's warm. Someone's here," the cold voice declared. It didn't take you more than ten seconds to open the closet and climb inside. You had your shoes huddled close to your chest with one hand while the other had the knife at ready. "Check that fucking room, John!" You tried to steady your wavering breath, inching away from the closet door that had tiny slits letting in the already filtered light coming from the window. Your back came in contact with the wall in a single step. The space was smaller than you'd thought. The curses grew louder as reluctant heavy footsteps came near the bedroom's door. Suddenly your senses noticed a vague familiarity around you. Like a blink-and-miss memory. Your mind walking away from the danger lurking outside and entering this dark square space, noticing a scent. A familiar scent. The one you'd come in contact with this morning. The wall behind you getting warmer in your back. Chilling electricity passed throughout your body at the realisation as your defense system took over and tried to turn around, only to me stopped by a pair of strong, ripped arms wrapping themselves around your mouth and your hand that held the knife. "Shh shh shhh." You heard a familiar voice whisper in your ear before both of you heard the door click open. "Yello'. Is there anybody there?" You froze at the creepy voice that called out from the entrance of the room. "It's okay I won't hurt you. I promise," the man behind you persuaded, "I can't say anything about the men outside." Your arms ached at the position it was being held at but you did not want to move it for letting the shady men outside know about your presence. And as much as the claustrophobic space was killing you besides a complete stranger, you didn't let go of your knife. The stranger's breathing was frustratingly normal as his chest rose and fell behind you so languidly. His heart beat too never showed any signs of panic whatsoever. "I'm taking away my hands now, okay?" Came a pleading whisper of a question. You nodded just as a tear fell off from your cheeks onto the back of his palm. His body remained motionless behind you, never feeling the urge to move away from you, if there was space to move away, that is. "I'm sorry," he muttered under his breath as he loosened his grip around your mouth calculatingly, his fingers grazing your lips as they moved away. The other hand, gloved, just left your arms as if it wasn't putting any effort in keeping you from stabbing him. "Hey boss!" The loud voice made you jump, making the man behind you grab your waist gently as he whispered, "Move behind me." You shook your head, turning your knife, making it graze along the skin on your wrist while your thumb rested on the top of the handle. You had one way of getting out of here and you were not compromising it. You could have sworn you felt his breath get stuck in his lungs in surprise at your choice. "What?" The 'boss' entered the room as well. "I think we can dump the body here. The cats can eat 'em up and no one gon's ta know." The tensed air inside the entire room went silent for a moment as three humans questioned the sanity of the fourth one. "Keep talking like that and I'll bury you too, John. Now come with me to the basement. No one's going to go there anytime soon. Faster John! We are not getting paid by the hour by that Russian!" The footsteps receded downwards and you waited for a moment to let go of your breath and move towards the closet door when the arms still wrapped around you stopped you. "No, they're still here." The whisper now turned into a mumble, allowing you to hear his actual voice. Nearly five minutes passed when the warm body towering from behind you finally shifted, letting go of your waist. "Okay they're gon-ghh" You drove the knife through his thigh and dash out of there, nearly breaking the closet door off the hinges, never looking back at the door, the cats, the tupperware, stopping only when you had climbed up two storeys, opened your apartment door and bolted all latches. Your breathless state and the nausea caught up as the rush receded, making you fall down on to the ground.

It took a while for you to collect your thoughts as you got up and stared outside the window overlooking the building you'd just run out from. The same windows that had lit up the dark space stared right at you, sitting in silence until you saw a shadow move. The vibration of your phone forced out a small scream. By the time you turned back, the shadow had disappeared. "Hello?" You tried to smoothen out the tremble in your voice. "Hey Y/N, quick question- beer or whiskey?" "Huh?" "Pick one." You looked back at the window. "Uhh...Whiskey." "Nice! Netflix or Local Cable?" "Uhh...I don't... Gina can we do this tomorrow?" "..." "Hello?" "Are you with someone right now?" A cold pain ran through your heart as your eyes went back to the building, searching for shadows. "N-no." "It's okay, darling. We'll catch up tomorrow." "Yeah." It took you a while to finally look away from the building and draw up all the curtains in your house and double check all the windows. Turning off all the lights, you picked up a knife from the kitchen and took to your bedroom, planting it under your mattress- just in case- before allowing your body to melt down into the sheets, smacking your head in frustration at the fact that this was not what you had planned to overthink about while going to bed, knowing full well you weren't going to sleep that night as well anyway.

What you did not know was that the world's deadliest assassin had seen you cross the street to enter the leftover of an apartment building with your hands full while searching for his journal. He'd followed you inside from the backdoor and had curiously but cautiously seen you from the shadows as you mingled with a bunch of stray cats. He'd tried to move closer to get a good look of this smile you had on your face when the floor gave away his presence, making him turn around the corner and into the room. He'd expected you to give up on searching the source of the noise like any rational human being who knew fear would but he'd seen the pair of scruffy men enter the building from the window, with a huge suspicious duffel bag that he was too familiar with. He was about to warn you when he felt your light footsteps approach the door, making him retrieve into the closet. Standing still as you searched around for a place to hide had been difficult for him. He could see the fear in them as you hugged your shoes close to your chest while the knife was kept away from your body like someone who knew how to use it but only for defense. What had been more difficult was the wave of panic that seared through him as he saw you open the closet door and stand right in front of him, your heated body touching his. The familiar slight scent of sweet oranges filled his nostrils as your hair brushed his stubble. He could feel himself relax as his senses started taking your presence in. He had seen you go stiff for a moment and he knew. Without wasting any time, his reflexes took over, wrapping his arms around you. He had felt your tear on his hand, wanting to apologise as many times as he could once you two were out of this mess. He had felt your heavy breaths waiting to get out of the closet. How he wished to help you calm down. And as soon as the threat had passed, he had wished to apologise and ask for his property back before you stabbed him in his thigh and ran away. For a flash of a second his anger had known no bounds. But something changed. Just as he saw you standing in the building opposite him, looking out in his direction, his anger broke, giving way to something new. He took out the knife from his leg and sat down beside the cats, who looked at him with pure judgement in their eyes. "Mwerr," Panther said angrily while Sakura meowed in question. You had left quite a deep cut in him. He estimated it may take the entire night to heal and had slumped down into your mat. "I'm sorry," he whispered into the air around him. He felt the pain. He felt your knife in his hand. He felt a smile creep onto his face after ages. "Brave gal."

The alarm made your sleep deprived head pound in frustration. You got up and welcomed the warm morning sun rays until last night's incident crept back into the bed with you. Pushing it away, you moved up and to the door to go and tell Kline that you wanted to get your door locks changed. As you opened it, you were welcomed by all your Tupperware, now clean and neatly stacked up at your doorstep with a note. I apologise for yesterday. Here's your property. I hope I can have mine back. I’ll wait in the City Park for you. -J.B.B.

^J.B.B., ^Part 2, ^Part 3, ^Part 4, ^Part 5, ^Part 6, *Part 7, !Part 8, ^Part 9, ^Part 10, !Part 11, ^Part 12, Part 13

Taglist:

@greenarrowhead @magiclolipopqueen @choke-me-sweet-pea @classy-swiftt @smexylemony @hazzastyles2471 @lokis-lady-death

(Send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged. Feedback is forever welcome.xx)

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hahanoiwont · 6 years

Text

superhero au!

Superhero au.

Virgil is a supervillain a la that post about grad school villains. He started out doing it for extra credit but he also needed the cash for student loans...that shit aint cheap yo

so he’s a small-scale “”””supervillain””” mostly making a nuisance of himself by stopping traffic, doing minor vandalism in costume, and sometimes kidnapping notables for like an hour before realizing he can’t keep a plant alive and should not be in charge of a person (’you’ve captured me!! what are you going to do???’ ‘eh i mean you’ll probably get rescued soon, my powers aren’t really meant for long-term kidnapping and I don’t wanna have to take care of you. you think i want another mouth to feed? nah. hey wanna see a meme?’).

(if Sleep exists in this au he’s a common kidnapping victim. son of the mayor or smth. Virgil has learned to hold up a starbucks before kidnapping him tho. not worth it if he can’t bribe him with sweet sweet caffeine. they p much chill for a couple hours until the hostage negotiators come)

basically, Virgil’s not a big enough deal to get shut down permanently. regular cops usually take care of him well enough without superhero involvement. he gets his extra credit for villainry and sometimes some cash from a shadowy organization via crow or some shit. he’s not sure how they know where he lives or what exactly they’re paying him for but hey, more ramen money. whatever gets food on the table.

On the other hand, Patton is a hard-working police officer who really should be in any other job. He’s just too nice for it. But he gets a lot of the suicide calls or emotional trauma stuff because he’s just so damn good at making people feel safe, and no one else wants to do those calls, so he stays on the force. He used to be an EMT, too, which is really helpful. He rooms with Virgil and Logan and Virgil’s weird cousin.

He pretends to be unaware of Virgil’s extracurriculars because he can see that Virgil needs the money and is too proud to ask for help. He does help him patch himself up when necessary and sometimes thinks about going back to his own ‘night job.’

(he used to be a superhero but quit that and EMTing after he realized how much it was draining him physically and emotionally and how deeply unhealthy the whole thing was. credit to Logan for that) He thinks he’d feel better knowing Virgil’s already spoken for as an archnemesis by a hero who won’t seriously try to hurt him. He seriously worries that Virgil will catch the attention of an edgy ‘shoot first and angst about it but make no attempts to fix the mess you’ve made later’ heroes, and he’ll end up in the hospital or worse.

but also, Patton needs that work/life balance and he just can’t maintain it while hero-ing. and Virgil knows what he’s doing, right? he’s a cautious guy. So Patton just tries to be on call when he notices Virgil’s got the first aid kit out or when he talks about ‘evening plans’ (fuck’s sake dude we all know you don’t go out for fun).

For his part, Logan wanted to be a biochemical engineer, but right now he’s taking some time off school. His powers are probably some sort of sensory (?) and he doesn’t fully understand them himself, mostly bc he likes to pretend they don’t exist. but he was getting splitting headaches at school and he just couldn’t go on. He does online courses when he can but he feels really ashamed that he couldn’t do grad school/college, which he was supposed to be good at. He was planning on staying with Patton and Virgil until the end of the lease and he doesn’t know what he’ll do after that.

But then one day Virgil came home freaking the fuck out about something and asked to talk to him, and guess what, he’s got this crazy ‘supervillain for extra credit’ idea. Someone’s got to make sure this fool doesn’t get himself killed. And Patton’s got into police work, and Logan doesn’t want him to go through compassion exhaustion again, and really none of his dumb housemates can take care of themselves (he loves them tho). So he does mad science in the broom closet to try to give Virgil something of an edge over any hero whose attention he might catch and helps him hide his villain-ing from Patton and tries to figure out what he’s gonna do with his life on the side.

He comes up with this crazy graph that shows the optimal balance of super heroes to villains in a healthy society (not enough villains=not enough active heroes when something really bad goes down, as it does every few years, somehow; not enough heroes=obviously bad). He keeps an eye on superpowered activity in the city.

Sometimes he thinks about getting active himself, both to preserve order and balance (if you’re the villain [ie Virgil] you can control the collateral damage to your plots, but if you’re the hero and your roommate is the villain you can both work together to provide for both of your needs [extra credit, enough good hero/villain balance, and safety of roommate] without actually harming anyone...but for either he would need to be able to use his powers effectively and he’s still kind of in denial), and to keep Virgil from getting his fool ass killed, and to keep an eye on Patton while Patton insists on running right into every single superpowered crime scene. In the meantime, he frets over numbers and helps Virgil write coded emails to his grad board about his ‘’’extensive’’’ villainry.

It’s basically like a resume except you have to convince the people involved that you’re super evil.

Logan is good at resumes.

All three of them are plugging right along and Virgil’s actually getting his student loans paid on time with enough money for food and rent besides (one day he even takes them out to eat and they Do Not Talk about how he got the money to do that), and they all think maybe he can do the villain thing for a few more years and then get out of the game forever, when Virgil’s weird cousin gets caught doing some shady-ass stuff.

Turns out he’s in way over his head with some sketchy folks, owes a lot of people money, and used Virgil’s name for half of it. Virgil is in sudden desperate need of more money than he can get through legal means and, of course, Refuses to tell anyone about/ask for help with his predicament. It is strongly recommended to him by his academic adviser that he step up his supervillain game or show up at the bottom of a river south of Manhattan.

Virgil freaks the fuck out and proceeds to dig himself into an even deeper hole, suddenly going for much larger schemes, robbing banks, being less obsessively careful about collateral damage with each plot because he just doesn’t have time to and he’s too desperate.

Cue Roman.

Roman was literally just going to the bank, innocent of all wrongdoing and Not Picking a Fight because he swears this new move is gonna work out, he’s not gonna get arrested to aggravated assault or unauthorized use of an unregistered superhuman ability (it was self-defense! and defense of others! he was rescuing people!).

He happens to be at the bank when Virgil is robbing it. And, well, Virgil isn’t gonna hurt anyone, but Roman doesn’t know that. He ties his shirt over his face to hide his identity and superheros it up, saves the day; Virgil runs away pretty significantly battered but not permanently injured or caught. And now there’s a new superhero in town and Virgil suddenly has an archnemesis. Just what he was avoiding. Great.

Meanwhile, Roman is shocked to learn that he’s being applauded for saving people for once (as opposed to like. arrested) and graciously accepts his new title. Hey, being a superhero could work! He said he was gonna try something new in this town and he will! He’s gonna save the day!

The two of them happily counter each other day after day: Virgil’s getting enough publicity as a villain that his grad board is happy even without him doing any genuine harm, he’s staying one step ahead of the shady figures that come looking for him by name, Patton has made contact once or twice with the new hero and used his office reputation to become Roman’s primary police contact, Logan thinks Virgil is bonkers for all the new levels of villainy he’s doing but he has to admit this is the most alive he’s ever seen him; Roman is enjoying the fame and adoration of being a hero and he’s been cast in a musical and life is looking up for everyone.

But Roman also works in a coffee shop to pay the bills (three jobs. so tired.) and there’s this stressed-looking student who keeps coming in with bruises and sprains and one time he broke his arm in what Roman is absolutely certain wasn’t an accident, and he talks on the phone with people sometimes that really seem to distress him, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy, right? A little guarded, sure, but he’s polite and he tips well and what kind of hero would Roman be if he didn’t at least try to make friends with this troubled but charming young man?

So Roman introduces himself to Virgil in their civilian identities and the two of them are friendly! free coffee here, book recommendation there, on slow days Roman will sit with Virgil and they’ll just chill for a while. Each of them quietly considers the other his friend, but Roman is Concerned about how Virgil is so fucking jumpy, keeps getting these calls that he claims are from his academic adviser but honestly what kind of adviser would be so terrible to talk to, he has all these bruises that show up continuously and his excuses are all plausible, realistic, and backed by evidence provided by Virgil himself, but something just doesn’t seem right.

So when Virgil mentions that his cousin suddenly moved out in the middle of the lease and he needs to find a new roommate and can he post a flyer in the coffee shop? Roman jumps at the opportunity. He’s been renting one room by the month in a shitty part of town and this is a hell of an upgrade, and also, maybe that nagging in the back of his head when Virgil shows up battered will go away. (maybe if he’s there no one will hurt Virgil. what monster would bring deliberate harm onto such a genuinely nice, snarky guy, wonders the superhero who brawls him on the regular)

He’ll have to keep his superhero-ing on the DL from his new roommates (though he’s thinking about telling Virgil, because Virgil seems like he can keep a secret and Roman really wants to have someone to talk to about this), but unlike Virgil, Roman knows how to use strategic stage makeup to hide bruises and minor imperfections. Also, his villain must be kind of weak, because he never seems to do too much damage? Sometimes Roman thinks he doesn’t really want to be a villain, he’s just kind of sad and lonely, like Megamind. Thoughts for another time.

So now, in one apartment, we have:

Patton, former EMT; former superhero of respectable fame; currently a cop assigned to Roman’s superhero persona and also any calls involving emotional competence; knows Virgil is a supervillain but pretends not to; responds immediately to all calls involving superpowers in case it’s his deeply misguided roommate and he needs help;

Logan, one accident away from becoming a super-something if only he could figure out what; provider of Virgil’s biochemical defenses for when superpowers alone are not enough; helping to cover both logistics and material needs for supervillainy (also created Virgil’s outfit because you can’t do crime in a hoodie you heathen, no one will take you seriously, Virgil had to talk him down from including a necktie); searching for his place in life; not entirely certain why Virgil is stepping up his illegal activities but not happy about it; currently househusband to all of his roommates;

Virgil, extremely stressed grad student; villain for fun and profit and mostly because he needs the money to not get murdered; a bit of an adrenaline junkie; really staring to get into this villain thing but he sometimes wishes he didn’t have to be the bad guy; definitely feeling hunted by shadowy entities and organizations and trying desperately not to bring anyone down with him;

and Roman, the hero. who is beginning to think he and his villain might have been friends, in another life.

It is both a sitcom and a shitshow of epic proportions while everyone tries to hide each other’s secrets without letting ppl know what they know, Roman comes clean to Virgil and Virgil freaks the fuck out about it, Patton frets about everyone and everything until he’s stressing himself sick, Logan makes chemical explosions in the broom closet and the whole block is evacuated every other Tuesday and they all have to pretend not to know about it, Roman wants to get a dog and also for Virgil to get out of whatever abusive relationship he’s Clearly In, Virgil wants a nap, Patton wants a nap, they all want a nap.

What I’m saying is: Superhero au.

@stella-scriptor another one for you, buddy

#virgil sanders #sanders sides virgil #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #i really wanna write this but it would be so damn long if i did #seriously do tell me about any and all superhero au's though i love them #please i need more superheroes #play with me in this spaaaaace

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violetsystems · 3 years

Text

#personal

It was a productive but discouraging week for the most part. I received my second dose of the Pfizer shot on Wednesday. I felt a little more exhausted than usual but I’m fine. Thursday I had a message in my inbox on LinkedIn about a job. Two or three weeks ago I had applied for another job which was seen but no reply. The offer sounded interesting so I replied and they asked to schedule a phone call. So this was to be the first human interview I’ve had since ten months or so ago. The recruiter’s prescreening went pretty well. The first call. Which means there were a total of about three or four calls in a two hour span. I’ve interviewed a lot of people over the years but never really had the reason to interview myself. That happens when you are consecutively employed for twenty years. So while I am a little rusty, this occasion I had a particularly good opener for a classic question. What drew me to the job in the first place? I had a nametag tucked above a cabinet from 2014 that I had forgotten about. It was from when I attended a lecture by myself about Abenomics and the rebuilding of Japan after the Tsunami. It was at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. It’s pretty tight security in that building. But in 2014 they let a malcontent like myself in there. At the time I was doing a lot of work which LinkedIn now categorizes as “human rights.” Mostly volunteering for local organizations like Japan America Society of Chicago to attend these lectures and even helping run a Korean fest with a chamber of commerce after work. I did all this alone. Mostly to network and meet new people. This is back when I thought meeting new people was the answer. The answer in the interview was a lot shorter but it impressed the screener enough to finish the call and send me the scary forms to fill out. Then there was a call back. “I’m so sorry we forgot to talk about wages.” That really wasn’t my fault. But that is always the hardest part. The job offer was a six month contract and not salary. So I quoted my current hourly rate which was seemingly too high for the recruiter. So they quoted low. Which worked out to be about half of my salary last year without benefits. I still had interest. It was remote work but I’m literally not very far and fully vaccinated. I told them on the first call I had a zero trust office network set up for my consulting. Then the tone started to get weird. I had sent a 2020 resume because it was the most relevant. That did not include my current consulting business. The woman on the second call started to dig deeper after the salary question. “Can you tell me what you’ve been doing since your last job at the school and why you didn’t include it on your resume?” I explained that I formed a LLC back in later December and have been working for smaller clients freelance. She asked me to edit my resume and add this. She wanted it within the hour so she could “sell me to her hiring manager” properly to be considered for an interview. I did so. A third call. “Can you add specifically the types of computers you supported?” That was in there. A request to fill out more scary forms for the federal reserve. A fourth message. “Can you add specifically the types of computer you supported at your old job as well?” It was then I thought something was extremely fishy. So I apologized and rescinded my offer. Then I spent most of the rest of the day feeling like a failure. Discouraging but productive.

I woke up the next morning to an email in my professional inbox from another person at the recruiting agency. It was legal in nature informing me I had the option to file a EEO form. This is tied to equal opportunity insofar that by signing it, the recruiter must by law share with their client all the names of applicants that they screened and probably why. Do I expect any justice? Not really. I don’t know that I would have even been selected if I got the chance to interview. It is a federal job after all. The point is that in the eyes of a hiring manager at a recruitment agency, my resume did not seem strong enough. If learning through failure is apparent, I shudder to think if I didn’t start a company back in December what my next interview would be like. That is if I even get an interview. I was reading this morning that HP and HP Enterprise are being hit with a class action for age discrimination. There’s a lot of reasons for this. But particularly when it comes to the money game, people fresh out of school are easier to leverage. Whether it is tax breaks for hiring new grads or simply cheaper salaries with less experience, the agenda is simple. Save more money so CEO’s and shareholders can get a bigger piece of the cut. Meanwhile, America’s answer is that it is the perfect time to start your own business. Then compete with huge sprawling mega corporations and recruitment firms that have galvanized the employment market with their magic show of balance sheets and deductions. I’m qualified to do a lot of things which is great. I just bought a drone so I could use the SDK to learn Python and UI design. These are great things to add to my resume for 2021. But the likelihood of being employable with no debt to speak of is like kryptonite to the job market. Much less the fact that my entire professional network is scared to admit I’m alive in fear of them being blamed for favoring their job security over friendship. I was very lucky to be where I was at when this happened back in July because of the CARES act. I just finished the personal nightmare side of my taxes from that year on tax day. There’s still my business to do. Which if anything I’m more qualified to do these days, it’s your accounting. Add those skills to the resume stat. Along with all the computers you supported since before you were born. Twice. It still does not matter. And this is where I hit this insane brick wall. I try to be acknowledged and useful. I try to be employable and valuable. And I am treated in such a shitty and abusive way that I’m starting to wonder if I’m better off behind closed doors. I have money. I have deductions. I have time on my hands to organize my life so I don’t spend unwisely. I have a roof over my head with a verbal agreement at best. And I have been living in the oblivion of no one wanting to admit fault or praise since July in varying degrees of comfort. I’ve had people stalk me in the street because of the companies I’ve invested in like they’re the fucking mob. I’ve gone through all of this alone while people have peeped over my shoulder. And I’m supposed to think the law is on my side in a city that shoots thirteen year olds point blank in the chest with their hands up. If I know one thing, it is what I can rely on. And mostly that has been my own instinct, wisdom and prudent decisions. And I know where I’m at at the end of the day. Pretty much at the end of my rope with the whole process of being ignored and treated like some joke. Then there’s people who see me in a different light. A different hue of the spectrum. Easier to read than my resume after it’s been edited fourteen times that’s for sure.

Things are extremely broken. Living in a neighborhood and a sanctuary city sometimes you look for the places that aren’t. Regardless of feeling useless and unemployable, there are times when I feel valued. Times when people in the street follow me around more so in solidarity than fear. People who want to be free to express themselves and look the way they feel. People who don’t want to lower themselves to mediocre standards just to get ahead. People who want to walk around without being judged by people who never critique themselves. As fucked up as everything is, there’s another side to this coin. People do get what I’m about. That meme about people going to your hood or block and never hearing about you? You try that shit with me and you are in for a history lesson these days. There are no shortage of people in Chicago who will tell you all about me. Some of it is skewed. Some of it is nostalgia. And then there’s people in this neighborhood who know all about stuff I haven’t told anyone. Like I don’t sit on the weekends talking to my friends about who I like or who I think the world of. I don’t really have the luxury of trusting many people in my situation. And yet sometimes when I walk out to get groceries or pay the bills, someone is there to say it without even saying it. That people just get what I’m about without me having to say anything. Besides three paragraphs on the internet every week or so. The reason I don’t fuck with people. The reason I keep to myself. The reason I don’t really care if you get me or not. That confidence is something infectious. That after all the fucking shit I’ve been through I keep it real regardless. Every year some troll has to prove me wrong and fails. Every failure proves a very clear point. The problem isn’t me. I’m not invisible. I’m not hard to understand. I’m not a liar or a traitor. I’m literally just existing here while people size me up. Nobody has asked my name or my agenda. Nobody really has had enough of a human conversation to pry it out of me. I’m an only child. I grew up lonely and learned how to survive on my own. I also learned begrudgingly to stand up for myself. It doesn’t mean I don’t like society or am anti social. How the fuck can I be anti social when everyone can’t stop talking about me in public? I understand people are antsy, paranoid and fatigued because of the pandemic. But some of us have literally been rolling through this warzone for years. I’m supposed to feel humbled and privileged to be so lucky to have survived? Fuck you. The number one thing con artists try to do is fuck with your confidence. Because we all know better by this point. America is not working. Specifically we can’t when we’re overqualified and a threat to the natural order of whatever corporate scam is going on these days. The one thing I know is that people with actual money got richer this year. Stocks, 401k’s, CEO salaries, tax breaks, and whatever else you throw in there. If I learned one thing from starting an actual business, it’s that the books are overcooked for a reason. Not that mine are. Years and years of shady deals are hard to cover up. Donald Trump took a loss on his business for years and evaded taxes. I’m technically what they call going concern. But there aren’t many tax breaks for me as a small business. Nor is there much money coming in other than what I can hustle out of the market or royalties. Did I mention I’m royalty? Not in the Prince Harry sense of the word. But I do hold the sword and shield up for feminism in America. That much we’ve learned by now. That and the glass ceiling is harsher for women than it is for me. So maybe I’ll sit this one out and let the ladies take control. In that I know my work is worth something. Just consider me interning for the movement at the moment. And make sure you sign that contract in bright pink because I’m not really paying attention to anything in the red. As far as the federal reserve is concerned, my finances are in the green. <3 Tim

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littleandroidwrites · 4 years

Text

a lydia ball paragraph of the self

sometimes you ask your littlefamily to send you memes and then you ignore the memes they send you and you write about something irrelevant instead and that? is the least valid thing you can do. thank you

Lydia liked dating Zeke, because Zeke did whatever he wanted and sometimes whatever someone else wanted too, like the first night Lydia had met his band and someone had ended up suggesting they steal all of the stop signs on the block and he had said, I’m down.

They hadn’t ended up doing that. Their manager had come out of his room and briefly had the chance to open his mouth before they were all booing him.

It wasn’t the concept of causing mayhem in traffic that got Lydia going, not at all, but the idea of being adventurous? Lydia used to think that she was adventurous. But it turned out that “adventurous” to the type of person who’d ended up engaged to the guy she started dating in middle school was actually more like rotating one of five activities that were pre-existing in a very safe, very sheltered routine. Every once in a while she’d wake up early on a Sunday morning and say, let’s go feed the ducks in a way that made her feel very wistful and spontaneous. And Dmitri had always said yes and looked at her like she was very wistful and spontaneous.

The thing was though that he was a fucking theatre major and he ended their relationship in a letter after over a decade together, probably because she had never been adventurous a day in her life. Or because she didn’t know how to cook or because she didn’t have a real job or because she refused to clean the shower or the oven but never actually admitted it because she just always swept up and did the dishes first so that it seemed like it was Dmitri who wasn’t pulling his weight. It really could have been lots of things. None of which Lydia would have thought about before the letter, of course, but these sorts of events tended to make you reflect.

They also tended to mean that you couldn’t afford your exposed brick loft apartment anymore because you’re only a painter and your fiancé had been covering most of the costs for the last few years if you were being honest with yourself.

Her parents had tried to insist she move back in. Lydia knew it wasn’t out of obligation – even though her parents were definitely good people who did good things entirely out of obligation – but because they adored her and loved her and missed her when she was away for more than three days. And it was very tempting to go from being babied by Dmitri back to being babied by her parents and continue this never-ending being babied cycle, but it was occurring to Lydia truly for the first time that at some point someone was going to drop the baby ball and she was just going to be a hopeless adult in her mid-twenties incapable of taking care of herself.

So she’d gone room hunting. Surrounded by boxes sitting on her very new very millennial futon (which she’d told everyone was a millennial decision but was actually the outcome of trying to move the old bed base for ten whole minutes before crying because she couldn’t lift it by herself and Dmitri had picked it out anyway and she didn’t even have the number of a moving truck and how was she supposed to know how much that would cost did people haggle she’d probably pay more than the moving guy asked for just because she’d want him to like her even if he never saw her again was that pathological she hadn’t been to a counsellor in a couple months her parents would pay but there was nothing more narcissistic than paying someone to hear you talk about wanting to be liked but she didn’t want to put that on her friends you know in case they stopped liking her god was she a narcissist), she had very maturely sorted price lowest to highest. Her favourite result was one crafted in a missed connections style.

f4whatever i have a room. you need one you don’t like having loud parties late at night. i have lots of wine to share when i’m stressed i cook. you eat it and tell me it’s good you can be a liar as long as it’s the nice kind. 2 bed 1 bath. you will not mind that i have fifteen bottles of lotion i don’t use i will pretend to be your scorned girlfriend if you have someone over you don’t like i’m desperate and you must be too

So she lived with a girl called Eve now. Eve hadn’t mentioned in her ad that if Lydia didn’t leave her bed for three days she'd bring her pastries at the end of the day, but she did it anyway and that was the kind of discretionary effort Lydia imagined everyone would want in a roommate. Eve did mention once that her sister was a psychologist once though, which she had followed with so she legally has to listen to me complain. It reminded Lydia of when you’d go out with a friend who couldn’t afford to eat anything so you’d pretend to be full halfway through your fries and say something like it did not occur to me until this moment but these will go to waste if you do not eat them right now!

One afternoon when Eve had texted to say that she’d be home late (which was nice, having someone who made you privy to their schedule, that was maybe one of the things Lydia missed the most, when she’d pretend to be put upon at 8pm at a paint and sip and say to her friends oh I have to let Dmitri know I’ll be home late and she’d roll her eyes like she didn’t do it just to get the 8pm-9pm me misses 8pm-9pm you text back), Lydia had decided it might be nice to cook for Eve for a change. She’d started off with a pinterest search for good dinners easy but had quickly been overwhelmed by the sheer number also there were all these advertisements in between the dishes for active wear and exercise programmes which felt exploitative. So she’d decided to open up her grandma’s special recipes box.

Lydia really could not stress how little interest she had in cooking. But the first time she’d ever seen this little tin box with cursive recipe cards organised in alphabetical order, she had wanted it. Her grandmother died when she was only three, so she didn’t actually have any memories or her or her cooking or cooking with her or even her wrinkly old face outside of photos she’d seen but she treated this box very much like it held sentimental value. There was something sentimental about its lack of sentimentality.

Anyway at random she’d picked a casserole and spent way too much on ingredients and when she got halfway through the recipe she realised it took four hours in total which was really a lot of time for one dish but it was too late and she was hungry and she wanted to impress Eve. So after she put the dish in the oven she cleaned the kitchen, which she had made a mess of, and actually the casserole was ready five minutes after Eve walked through the door which was perfect.

Except that it was not perfect because the casserole was bad.

“Grandma would be so disappointed,” Lydia lamented, balancing a cucumber on her fork and inspecting it, forlorn. The whole thing tasted overwhelmingly of too-tangy tomato paste and had taken on the sad watery quality of the cucumber. She felt this must be a metaphor for something. Four hours of her life plus however many hours of preparation and anticipation just to be left with a disappointing show of two fruits that really should have been vegetables.

“Or,” Eve had said, her phone pressed to her ear, “Maybe this is exactly what she used to make, and she just didn’t have taste buds. No shame in — Hi, can I please place an order?”

It had taken a little to get to like Eraserhead’s music. At the first gig she went to she was surprised to find they sounded like that, but she figured if she was dating the bassist of a band she should really like his band. So Lydia had started by listening to chaos-adjacent music that she did like, like Friday I’m In Love by The Cure, and then she’d listened to a little more of The Cure, and really from there it was just a modest sidestep to learn to like music from people like The Clash and after a few more hops and jumps you basically fell into Eraserhead’s music. When Zeke had asked her at the next gig what she’d thought, Lydia had said I like that it’s music you kind of have to work for? It’s like real art, and after a second Zeke had nodded like he agreed but privately Lydia kind of thought he didn’t agree.

That was the thing that she enjoyed about a relationship that was just a little over twelve days old instead of a little over twelve years old, though. Nobody really expected her to dig deeper and ask Zeke if he was just agreeing with her because he didn’t agree and that was a harder conversation. Nobody really expected either of them to owe each other anything and so all she’d done was finish her drink and kiss him.

#i DID write though #DID I LIE ABOUT THAT???#ch: lydia #self para #reread some of her old threads and i was like bitch you really are useless! love you bitch! let's see if you still are!

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emilielouizides-csm · 5 years

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“I’m a man and...”

Over the past couple years I’ve noticed an increasing trend online, particularly on Instagram, where certain women will post memes that lump all men into one negative category. I haven’t always had positive experiences with men - I had a scary experience with one man in college, I get catcalled at least once a week and just the other day I sat in a cab on the way home with a driver who preached that Rihanna being beaten by Chris Brown was her fault because she allegedly cheated on him - but I have enough good guys in my life to know that not all men deserve to be bashed for the gross or violent behavior of some men.

In an effort to celebrate the good guys I went to a barbecue with a selection of printed out memes from an article titled 25 Memes Men Probably Won’t Find That Funny, a lipstick and a mirror and I spoke to six different men about the spirit of man-hating language online and how it makes them feel. I sat with the guys individually and asked each of them to read through the memes and chose one that resonated with them. They openly shared personal stories with me about why the memes affected them. To conclude I asked each of them to provide a counter statement to the meme beginning with the words “I’m a man and...” and write it on the mirror in lipstick.

-----

First I spoke to John about the meme below.

John said, “I think [that meme is] quite accurate in a sense of if you’re not on top of everything and acting like you’re super into everything it’s a pressure and it kind of feels like it’s a reflection of how invested you are in the other person? So that, in my opinion, it’s not just about women, that’s about relationships in general. So [a personal] example would be a difficulty in communication. So an ex-girlfriend that I was with and being able to talk through our problems and although we kept trying to have conversations about stuff and talk things through we kind of kept on resorting back to the same sort of thing and it was very matter of fact. Literally like that [meme], “We should break up.” “Why?” “Because it’s not working.” “Alright, okay, why is it not working?” and actually, you had to break through a bit more to get to the root of the problem.

Jon’s response to the meme is the following: “I’m a man and I’m a person too.” He went on to say, “We’re not just, you know, freaks of nature, although you might think that we all just think with our penis or whatever and we’re devoid of emotions, we completely aren’t; that’s normally why we get into relationships, because we’re thinking with other things as well.”

Our conversation finished with Jon saying that he had never put his words into a physical format and that writing on the mirror with the lipstick felt “quite empowering” and that he “enjoyed expressing it through this medium”. Going forward he would want to “continue with conversation, talking about it, particularly with loved ones or people I care about because I think they’re the people you want to feel safest with.”

What struck me most about Jon was that he agreed that the meme he chose reflected his relationship with his ex-girlfriend accurately. I know Jon but not well enough to know how he was going to react and I think I was expecting an immediate defense rather than an acknowledgment of how the meme was in fact true, but just missing some additional context. What I learned about Jon is that his approach to talking through problems is matter of fact, and that just because he is this way doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. I think his statement of “I’m a man and I’m a person too” is supported by the depth and care he took with our conversation; it was all very human and raw and it was my pleasure to speak with him.

-----

Next I spoke to Robin. We initially discussed the meme below.

I started by asking Robin about the most negative thing he notices women saying online about men, categorically. The following words are his. “Categorically, I would say lifestyle. I think they go with guys’ lifestyles whether they’re sort of...athletic lifestyle or a work lifestyle. I think women sort of know what they want, which is nice, but then I think they drill down on that so hard that they create these personas of what they want in a guy and it reflects that way.

Emilie: Do you think they do it so much to the point that the guy might not even--

Robin: Exist. Yeah.

E: Because I feel like a lot of guys -- and there are some memes here that kind of say, one in particular being this nativity scene one. I think like, when girls have ridiculously high standards...

R: They limit themselves.

E: They limit themselves so much to the point that they seem to confuse their not meeting someone who correlates with their standards with “there must be no good guys.”

R: Yeah, they confuse it. And they’re not willing to give someone a chance sometimes.

I went on to ask Robin to confirm if the referenced meme resonated with him. He said it did. When I asked him if he thought any of the memes did actually portray men accurately he pointed to a different one. Here it is below.

It was important for me to clarify the context in which Robin felt that this meme was accurate. I asked if he thought it was accurate because he sees women doing this in real life. He said yes so the accuracy for him was more based on women’s behaviors than men’s. Based on seeing this meme and being affected by it he went on to share an experience he had with an ex-girlfriend.

“I was dating a girl. I met her at a Christmas festival in London in 2017 and my phone was dead so I went old school and got a pen and a bit of paper and gave her my number and I got back later and I had a text when I put my phone on charge and it was great! So I thought I’d ask her on a date and then we dated I’d say for about...ten months? At one point I was like, okay she’s amazing and I was like right, I’m at the stage in my life where I will give my all at this and I’m ready for it and at points she’d just shut me down and ignore me entirely. She’d go from talking to me like every half an hour and me ringing her to see if she’s okay and then the next day her just ignoring me for like a week and I’d have no reason for it and I don’t get it and then she at one point was like, “when are you going to ask me to be your girlfriend?” and I went, “how am I getting this?” and then about a week later I asked her and she said yeah and then two weeks later she goes, “I can’t do this anymore” and I went, “look, I’m really confused by this because you’re saying you want all of this and then the next minute you’re just ignoring?” and then when we stopped it was just because she shut down and didn’t speak to me ever again and I was like, I don’t get it, have I done something wrong? Have I not done something right? I’d rather them just say this is the situation, I’m not into it right now or I’m just not feeling it. Fine. I’d be happy with that.

E: It’s so much better to be rejected--

R: And know about it! Than not to be given an explanation. Your mind just wanders and you just think...

E: You drive yourself crazy.

R: Yeah, you do. I think it goes both ways, being a guy or a girl, that sort of feeling that someone can...like that says, you know, “you catch feelings for someone, you block them.” That feeling for the other person makes them confused and makes them wonder is it something they’ve done? Should they change something [about their self]? That socially is becoming a big thing, people changing things and there’s a big thing about mental health now with under 30s. I think people are going through that.

Robin’s response to the second meme is the following: “I’m a man and give us a chance. There is something inside us you might fall in love with. Okay, we might not be every ticked box in the world but we’ll try to be.”

The conversation between Robin and I finished with him telling me that it felt nice to put his words in writing and be photographed with them. “It’s quite a relief...it is a little because you never really do it. I don’t, personally, but I’m quite an introvert. I don’t really express feelings so it’s quite nice to actually do it. Puts a smile on your face to actually go...this is something you actually think.”

I asked Robin if he felt like he had been able to express himself creatively and he said, “Yeah, definitely. Yeah, of course. Putting it in this kind of perspective kind of makes you think more out there, sort of go into what you’ve thought, especially seeing all the memes. You kind of go, yeah, it’s happening. So yeah, it’s good. That was good. I liked that.

My conversation with Robin put a smile on my face. I so appreciated his willingness to speak vulnerably, openly, candidly and honestly. The most fascinating thing about Robin to me was the fact that he called himself an introvert and told me he doesn’t really express his feelings. But in reality, he first connected with a past girlfriend by going old school and writing his phone number down for her on a piece of paper. I see that as a very bold, sweet, romantic and extroverted thing to do. When he shared details with me about how the relationship took a turn for the worse for him even though he may not have explicitly expressed his emotions using words like sad or hurt he did say that his ex-girlfriend’s actions left him confused and with a wandering mind. That was enough for me to understand how affected he was. At the end, Robin intelligently cited current mental health issues and verbally expressed relief after completing the lipstick and mirror exercise. Robin may have said he doesn’t express his feelings but I never felt the need at any point to dig deeper or ask for clarification. Based on all of his wonderful qualities that came through in our conversation, he is the perfect example of someone who deserves a chance.

(I’ll be adding more conversations with other men to this post)

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fourteenacross · 7 years

Note

For the fic summary meme: 'We Get The Job Done', Lams.

This is a sort of detective noir pastiche, but since I know me and my obsessive need to research, if I were to write it, it would lean heavy on the pastiche. It would have a sort of 1940s/50s flair and the vague trappings of that time period, but there would be a long author’s note at the beginning about how this was supposed to be half-farcical and not necessarily period accurate.

Alexander Hamilton is a private eye trying to establish himself in a city that seems to be full of equal thirds lowlifes, aspiring good guys, and people who want nothing to do with any of it. He was a promising young patrol officer under the old Police Commissioner, George Washington, but after Washington retired unexpectedly, his successor made it clear that he was no great fan of Alex’s. After two months of desk duty, he got sick of the inactivity and corruption and quit. He thought he could get more done on his own then by working under Commissioner Adams, who was barely hiding the fact that he was taking bribes from half the crime bosses in town.

He set up his own office with the help of John Laurens, his partner in every sense of the word (yes, this is established relationship, because it’s my bread and butter), a former public defender who now spends most of his time and his father’s money working with Alex after quitting his own job for similar reasons. (Though not necessarily in a similar manner–John’s exit from civic employment involved his fist and Assistant District Attorney Lee’s face.)

So, that’s all in the past. At the real start of our story, it’s been about a year since they started this venture and business has been…okay. They have a steady stream of clients, mostly the ignored and underserved, people turned away by the more expensive PIs. Alex is a sucker for a sweet face and a sob story and is willing to take on clients who can’t exactly pay them their day rate. Plus, John’s not hurting as far as money goes, and while Alex might have spurned his gifts and help at the start of their courtship, he’s pretty much living in John’s penthouse when he’s not sleeping at the office at this point, so money’s not necessarily a huge issue. They have a good reputation for working tirelessly until the investigation is complete, getting results for their clients and then helping them with their next steps. (John swore up and down when Alex bailed him out of lock-up after he punched Lee that he was never setting foot in a courtroom again, but it turns out he’s a soft touch for a sweet face and a sob story too–he’s usually quick to offer legal advice and representation to their clients who need it.)

They’re doing okay, is the point, getting by, but Alex is sure they’re just one high profile case away from notoriety, from a steady stream of actually profitable cases, more high-profile legitimacy, and maybe the ability to hire someone to do the paperwork they both hate so much. That case walks into their office in the form of George Washington, Alex’s former boss. Alex is sure it’s a social call, at first, until Washington admits that he’s there on business: his ward has been kidnapped.

Alex and John are both shocked–they knew Washington’s ward, an orphaned French aristocrat who went cheerfully by his surname, Lafayette, and passed more than one boring police charity ball drinking in the corner with Alex and John. Washington tells them that he’s been missing for a week, now, and the ransom came yesterday–he’s to bring a sizable amount of money to a particular warehouse in three days’ time. He’s sure that someone from the force is involved, so he’s hesitant to go to the police, but he trusts Alex and John. He’s willing to pay well, too–half the ransom demanded by Lafayette’s captors if they bring him home unharmed.

Once Washington leaves, they get to work. Alexander is positive that Thomas Jefferson, his one-time fellow officer who’s been promoted to Head Detective under Adams, is behind it. He’s always been a little too interested in Lafayette and discussing his French heritage. John reminds Alex that he blames Jefferson for everything, from corruption in the police force to his expired milk.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not guilty,” Alex mutters, but rips out that page of his notebook and starts fresh anyway.

Their first stop is Mulligan’s, a bar downtown known for its scandalous clientele. It’s just seedy enough to attract the upper echelons of the crime world, but just legitimate enough to be safe for uptown trustfund rebels looking for a thrill. The owner, Mulligan, knows everything about everyone’s business and is always willing to throw Alex and John a bone, thanks to a few personal cases they’ve solved for him. Mulligan admits he hasn’t heard much, but Jefferson, Adams, Deputy Mayor James Madison, and a few other suspicious parties were in last week in a private room. He sends them to talk to Maria Reynolds, the waitress who was working that room that night, for some more information.

From here, the rest of the story is them hunting down leads. Maria tells the that the men assembled that night kept talking about the “package” being delivered to the warehouse district in three days’ time, but they think she’s acting suspicious, so they add her to a list of possible accomplices. They talk to Lafayette’s girlfriend, who doesn’t remember much about the night he was taken, except that one of the men had a silver-tipped cane. Jefferson sometimes uses a cane as an affectation, so Alex is fucking over the moon and John tries to reign him in, but things keep making him look bad.

Blah blah blah, a bunch of other leads that I would put a lot of thought and careful plotting into that would make it look more and more like Jefferson was the one who did it, but he’s obviously the red herring here. Along the way, they keep crossing paths with Angelica Schuyler, another PI who’s on a different case that keeps intersecting with theirs. Eventually, at the urging of Angelica’s sister and secretary, the three of them sit down to talk about their different purposes and suspects and such.

It’s during this meeting that things start to become clear. Angelica is working on behalf of Maria Reynolds, who thinks that her abusive husband is cheating on her. She wants evidence, which would give her grounds for divorce. But James Reynolds seems to be involved with something deeper (although he’s also totes cheating on her), which is what Angelica has been digging into. He’s been having a lot of meetings with people at town hall after hours. Town hall is where the police headquarters is located, which is why she’s been looking into Jefferson and Adams, since they seem shady as fuck.

Eventually they put enough pieces together that they are SURE that Jefferson and Adams must be behind this. Alex has Washington set up a fake ransom drop and he, John, and Angelica go to the warehouse early to try and intercept the delivery of Lafayette.

Except that “package” they intercept isn’t Lafayette. Jefferson and Adams are there, sure, but it’s drugs that they’re smuggling in, not Lafayette. They tie Jefferson and Adams up and confront them, but they claim to have no evidence as to where Lafayette is. Alex throws the cane thing and a few other seemingly obvious “it’s Jefferson!” bits of evidence at them, but Jefferson refutes them–his cane isn’t silver tipped and he has a passing familiarity with whatever other evidence, but the only reason he does is because his best friend, Deputy Mayor James Madison, likes them. He also uses a silver-tipped cane when his various illnesses are flaring up and making it difficult for him to move about easily.

So, then it’s a race for the three of them to get to Madison before he figures out the ransom drop was fake and does something to Lafayette. They get there just in time and save him and Madison does some “and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!” monologuing at them, explaining that the whole thing was a ploy to discredit Adams and Jefferson, while also seeking revenge on Washington, who wronged him for plot reasons. Something something, bringing them down would disgrace the current mayor, Madison would come out strongly against him and become mayor in his place, blah blah blah power, whatever. Also, James Reynolds was working for him, thus going to Town Hall, etc.

So, case solved, Lafayette returned to the Washingtons, Alex only slightly annoyed that he wasn’t right about Jefferson being behind everything (but mostly overjoyed that he was being arrested for something else), etc. The boys are flush and hire Angelica’s other sister, Eliza, as their secretary, leaving everything open for a sequel where something something the boys get kidnapped and Eliza does the sleuthing, everyone lives happily ever after.

The end!

#not writing meme #enigmairi #alexander hamilton #john laurens #lams #hamilton #fic by me #sort of #this one is really plotty #but i promise there would be a lot of making out in it

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magifurem-blog · 7 years

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and then the complete opposite: alternate ending + emily died with danny's mum

meme ; send ‘ alternate ending ’ for a drabble on how my muse would be different if something in their past was altered. status ; no longer accepting

NOTE: trigger warnings for: death, injury, child abuse, murder, hospitals, and probably some other things i’m forgetting. this is not a fun story.

how long james lays there, pinned between the twisted remains of the passenger seat in front of him and the door, pleading with his mom and emily to wake up, he isn’t sure. all he knows is that everything hurts for a long time before it all goes dark.

when he wakes up again, he’s in a strange bed in a strange room that’s too bright and smells like soap and his dad is dozing in a chair nearby. when james makes a small noise, remembering what happened, his dad surges to his side, pulling him into his arms like he hasn’t since he was a baby and james tries to pull away until he realizes his dad is crying and it’s scary because he’s never seen his dad cry. so instead he buries his face in his father’s shoulder and asks where mom and emily are and tries to understand why that makes it worse.

there doesn’t end up being a funeral service. mom doesn’t have any close family, dad explains at the burial, but james isn’t listening. he’s staring at the little bird carved into the stone slab with emily’s name on it and wondering what should’ve would’ve been on his.

being at home hurts too, because emily’s toys are still in the living room and the den still smells like mom and his dad starts drinking the alcohol that used to only be for special occasions.

a funny thing happens his father drinks. he calls james downstairs and talks to him. tells him the opposite things than the doctors and nurses at the hospital told him. that it was his fault his mom and emily had died, that they’d still be alive if he hadn’t begged to go see that magic show in the park, that it should’ve been him who died and them who made it out. james believes him, tears spilling over his cheeks, because his dad’s never lied to him before, because of what he sees in the eyes that match his own: pain, hatred, so much rage. he yells at james when he cries, tells him to grow up, and when he can’t, his dad hits him hard in the chest and james hides in his room the rest of the night.

he goes back to school, pretends not to hear other kids whispering or notice the weird way teachers talk to him now. like cops talk to criminals on tv. like he’ll blow up if they say the wrong thing. he starts failing his classes and that makes his dad angry and he calls james stupid and asks what the hell he thinks he’s doing and when he pushes him down he hits the coffee table and scratches his arm all up. in the morning his dad makes pancakes and apologizes and makes sure james knows that everything that happened has to be their secret.

one day he comes home from school and finds their house in boxes. almost everything’s packed away and separated into two piles: the things they’re taking with them, and the things going into storage. james sneaks as much as he can into the ‘take’ pile but there’s only so much he can do without his dad noticing and in the end the only things from his mother he manages to keep is a few books.

sitting in their new home, a grimy little townhouse further into the city that never seems to get warm, the only time james feels okay is when he digs out his shrike tapes and watches them in the middle of the night after his dad passes out. sometimes he rewinds a trick a dozen times, trying to see what he’s missing, where the trick really begins. sometimes he pulls out the deck of cards with half of them missing that he got for a birthday a few years ago and tries his best to follow along. the first time he manages to duplicate a trick he makes a noise of surprise so loud he almost rouses his father and forgets for the first time in almost a year that he’s supposed to be dead.

he’s thirteen, a week into middle school, when he gets beaten up at school for the first time. it’s so different from when his dad hurts him because they don’t even seem mad at him. they attack him because they enjoy it, not even because he deserves it, and that simple fact enough enrages him enough that he fights back. he loses, of course, a diet consisting of only the occasional school lunch has done little in helping him bulk up or even keep up with his peers in terms of size, but something else happens. he finds he likes fighting back. that rush of righteous indignation makes him feel almost like a whole person and so he embraces it, even as it ends up with him sitting in the office day after day, a new scrape or bruise to add to his collection. what’s better is that it provides an viable excuse for the other marks across his body. ( well, most of them. the place where shattered glass had dug into his back and a cigarette burn on the back of his neck wouldn’t pass as bullying souvenirs. )

it carries over, that desire to fight back. there comes a point where it follows him home. when he has the nerve to think that his mere existence doesn’t warrant being pushed down the stairs or bottles aimed at his head. when he has the nerve to think asking for dinner shouldn’t be some unforgivable sin. the beginnings of resentment sew themselves into his chest, and when a shove down the stairs results in an injury that almost paralyzes him and his father’s sale of his pain medication leaves him writhing in agony, half starved to death for a month, that resentment blossoms into hatred.

he fights back. he’s no match for his father, and retaliation only makes it worse, but he’s nothing if not stubborn and he’s got nothing to lose and so he seethes and lashes back, even if he always ends up a groaning mess on the floor with the taste of blood behind his teeth.

when he’s sixteen, he manages to black thomas’ eye. the satisfaction at the pain he sees flash across his face and the dark purple mottling above his cheek the next day almost makes it worth the sickening crack of his right arm beneath his father’s boot, the scream that wrenches out of him when his foot twists, the way he has trouble moving his fingers.

the next morning, he stifles down noises as he shoves his swollen arm into the arm of a jacket and goes to the library. he looks up splints and how to treat a bone the best he can, having long since given up hope of a doctor’s visit. it brings tears to his eyes to put in a homemade splint that afternoon, and he’s clenched his teeth so hard he fears they may break, but the pain clears his head enough for him to make a decision. as quickly as he can manage with one arm, he empties his schoolbag and fills it with the few clothes he owns, steals the money stashed in the pantry that his father doesn’t know he knows about, and runs.

six weeks later, and he’s no more starved than usual. no more beaten up than usual. he’d planned to do magic, in the few late night desperations in which he’d planned his escape, do street shows for money, but with his arm… well it’s impossible. and when, after the swelling and redness has gone away, his right hand picks up a tremor that sends his cards spilling over his lap or revealing the trick accidentally, he gives up that fairy tale. ( years later, a court mandated doctor and psychiatrist will argue over the cause of said tremor: nerve damage from the untreated break or a psychosomatic response to trauma ) it breaks something in him to do it, like he’s betraying something deeper than himself, but survival is all he knows and so he teaches himself instead to pick pockets, to convince passerby that he just needs a couple dollars for cab fare to get home before curfew or his mom and dad are going to be so worried.

he manages to make it almost a year before that tremor in his hand gets him caught. he gets cocky, tries to put the wallet back when he’s done with it, and ends up thrown into a holding cell. he’ll never admit it, but pressed against the wall in the corner of a cell, he sleeps better than he has in a long time. it takes them until morning to figure out who he is, apparently the school had filed a truancy report, then a missing persons one.

when he asks if they’re going to force him to go back to his dad, he’s unprepared for what they tell him: his father’s killed two people, knifed them in a barfight, is in the midst of his trial. james thinks he should’ve seen it coming, thinks he should’ve stopped it, thinks, yet again, that it should’ve been him. they stick him in a foster home for the time being, but adjusting after being alone for a year is nearly impossible, and all it takes is being called the son of a murderer once for him to run again.

he leaves chicago for the first time in his life then, there’s too many people looking for him, too many people too close. he hitchikes and walks and steals the occasional car or motorcycle, starts going by danny and works westward in search of new opportunities and faces that don’t know his tricks.

he finds himself in vegas fairly quickly. he may incapable of magic, but he’s still skilled enough with cards to cheat without detection. he gets an ego though, gets bold enough to be noticed, and it doesn’t take long for him to go from a blip on paulie attanasio’s radar to working under his employ. he starts off catching fellow cheaters in return for a cut of the table, but it doesn’t take long before he’s involved in the planning of bigger, better scams. ( what can he say, he’s always had a knack for logistics )

they come on the radar of the fbi, and he watches dylan rhodes trick and weasel a confession out of willy mears with something like amusement, already planning his escape. something else happens though, some robbery by a bunch of magicians, danny thinks the word with venom, and the heat vanishes for awhile. until it comes back and he’s arrested by an agent fuller.

he turns state’s evidence without hesitation, and is put under witness protection as a result, though it only takes about a month for him to slip the marshals monitoring him. he becomes again a nomad, never staying anywhere longer than a few weeks.

two years. he survives for two years before he chooses the wrong target and ends up with a bullet lodged in his chest, bleeding out in a new york alleyway, with the roar of people celebrating new years in his ears.

#♢ ┊┊ how this trick is done. —— ⸢ ᴀɴsᴡᴇʀᴇᴅ ⸥#equesv #cw: death #cw: child abuse #cw: injury #cw: murder #cw: alcohol #[ this is fine ]

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kaaras-adaar-a · 7 years

Note

1-5 salt meme~~~~

Munday Asks: Salt Edition

1. How salty are you feeling right now?

Not very, lol. I’m just tired as all hell, tbh. So I’ve just kind of got like 0 tolerance for shit right now.

2. What are your unpopular opinion(s) of the fandom you’re rping in?

I think the biggest one I will cover down below, because it’s something that actually really irritates me that seems to be all the rage. For now, I think I’m going to cover the whole reblog karma thing. Look, we ALL want memes sent in to us, I get it. When you post one and you get absolutely zero notes, it SUCKS, it makes you feel like crap and like nobody cares. But please know that NO ONE is entitled to send you something just because you post it.

Tbh, when I see people winging about it all the time, it’s actually a really fucking huge turn off for me. It comes off like you’re a super sook and tbh I don’t want to deal with negative manipulative and passive aggressive people on this website. Sometimes I don’t send memes because I’m TIRED, because I don’t like/care about that meme, because I don’t know your character enough. It doesn’t mean I don’t like your muse, or I don’t want to RP with you. Sometimes I don’t send it because I’m at work, and no thanks to time zones, by the time I get home, you’re all in bed and I’m tired as fuck, and I just want to relax, and the moment has gone for the meme.

I’m getting really sick and tired of seeing people constantly winging about people reblogging memes from them and sending zero back. NO ONE is entitled to send you anything. That is NOT why we are here. Stop trying to guilt trip them and coming off like nothing but a winging baby. It happens to ALL of us. You’re not being left out, maybe the meme just sucks and no one else is as keen as you. After being in this community for 2 years, it still even happens to me, probably more regularly than you think as well. I’m sure as shit not going to complain, because I’m well aware that it just may not suit my followers or I posted it at a more quiet time of the day or something.

I really just don’t like the whole mentality of reblog karma, it makes me salty to even see people practising it in their rules section. I’ve had far too many negative experiences with it, and seeing it posted in someones rules actually makes me feel like noping the fuck out. Rping is about being chill and having fun, not feeling pressured to send in something because you want to reblog the meme for YOUR muse and not someone else’s.

It’s not to say I don’t understand the concept of what reblog karma is TRYING to do. I get it. I REALLY do, but no, I will not be FORCED to send something in if I’m not feeling it, and then have someone vague blog about me or some shit because I reblogged and didn’t send them something. This is MINE and KAARAS’ blog, not yours, and we will damn do what we please. And if I don’t feel like sending in a meme, then I won’t. Full stop.

3. What rp trends are you so over and can’t wait for it to die?

That one fucking theme that like 87% of RPers seem to have in this community. I’m sorry, but I have a HUGE (well not THAT big) monitor, and tbh, it looks like absolute horse shit on my screen. I have no idea what you’re trying to accomplish with all of that negative space, but it basically resets the background and looks hideous as fuck for me. Also, it’s become so goddamn unoriginal, that I now look at it and don’t even want to READ your character. I pretty much look at your theme and go... nope, and backspace.

It’s come to a point where it’s this theme that is for the cool kids or some shit. I really don’t know. The first time I saw it, I really liked it, and it was very original, but because someone very famous in the fandom happened to use it, I feel like all the newbies think that it’s some kind if IN with the cool kids now to have this one theme. All it screams to me is “I’m unoriginal” and honestly, I take one look and I’m like no thanks now. Which SUCKS because hey, you might have a really cool muse, and here I am being a shallow cunt because I can’t stand that fucking theme anymore.

I know that sounds harsh as fuck, because look, you may just REALLY LIKE THAT THEME, but for me, I’ve seen it SO damn much that I’m absolutely OVER it, and tbh, I’ve met maybe 2-3 people who were actually really good Rpers out of the fucking 40 I’ve seen with this theme, so... yeah, it doesn’t exactly have a good track record for me.

Seriously, when I open up to your page, I REALLY wanna see some original content. I want to see and get a fell of YOUR muse, not the 35 others I’ve already looked at with that same fucking theme... Blah, this makes me a shit person but whatever. Keep your theme if you like it, don’t change it because I don’t like it, it’s your damn blog, lol. I just really can’t fucking stand it anymore. XD

4. Have you ever made a call out post or wanted to?

No, I haven’t. And yes, some part of me definitely, absolutely HAS wanted to. In my whole internet life, the only time I’ve ever had to make a call out post was because someone was refusing to pay for commissions that had already been drawn over on dA, so I warned the community about it. That was because they were rightfully stealing an artists time and yadda yadda, you get the drift.

As for Rping? There’s only been one instance where I’ve wanted to REALLY warn my close friends about a particular Rper, but I’m not going to be that guy. For one, I’m not going to make it public, I’m an adult, and chances are that soon enough their colours will shine and people will get the idea. But some people might really enjoy Rping with them, and although I can’t stand to see that, I’m not going to have a cry about it. We’re all here to have fun, and some people have fun by Rping with these people that we may consider toxic.

It takes something VERY extreme for me to ever want to do something like this, because I’m fairly chill and don’t really get in any drama, so...

5. A ship everyone in the fandom you’re in loves, but you can’t stand?

Sorry (not really sorry because I have nothing to apologise for) everyone, but I really can’t stand Doribull (Dorian x Bull). I’m never going to have a go at anyone and be all ew gross, and no, it’s absolutely NOT because I am one of those weirdos who thinks their relationships is abusive in some dumb arse way *eye roll*. No, I simply just don’t like their chemistry.

I think that they are excellent fuck buddies, but I don’t really see them ever truly being deeply in love with one another. I feel like it’s infatuation, all fun and games and flirting and annoying each other, but nothing deeper than that.

So yeah, as a banter couples, absolutely, I can dig that, but not as a deeply in love ship. Tbh, I MUCH prefer Dorian and Bull with the Inquisitor. That’s a really in depth and loving relationship. To see the comparison between them, yeah... I just feel that Inquisitor relationships are far more loving and real chemistry than Dorian and Bull.

I’m really fucking tired guys, and reading this makes me look like such a shit house of a human being, but honestly... whatever. My tolerance and gives a fuck level is like minus 100 right now because of my lack of sleep for the last month and just everything else going on so whatever.

#ooc #asks #reply #meme response #(( prolly gunna lose followers over me being salty but oh well... ))#angeliamaritudinem

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kittujella · 6 years

Text

Unraveling the anti-cellphone campaign

If you’ve tried to research something online in the last few years, you may have come away with more questions than answers when all was said and done. Competing news articles, blogs, Facebook groups, and seemingly genuine sites all produce enough conflicting information to make anyone’s head spin. At this very moment, there’s a firehose of intentionally false content out there, and it’s gotten to the point where it’s near-impossible to find truth from fiction in certain instances. This is happening in part because of fake-grassroots (called astroturf) organizations and unwitting signal-boosters.

Unfortunately, there’s currently a well-funded effort to cast doubt on the safety of wireless tech (Bluetooth, cellphones, Wi-Fi) in particular. Let’s talk about it.

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6994901/height/399/width/710/theme/standard/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/

Genesis of a monster

If you want to know more about something, chances are your first stops are Google or Siri. Non-experts often ask search engines questions that would never occur to an expert, creating a search value for the answer to those questions. When a new search happens, search engines have to populate a list of sites addressing the question, but they can’t determine if the content is relevant until people click around on results. The articles that get clicks are usually the scariest ones, making topics without reputable data (data voids) sensationalist by nature.

youtube

Consequently, a combination of fake grassroots organizations (astroturfers) and profiteers tend to fill these data voids simply because it’s very easy to capture the top results for these valuable terms in the absence of real information. As the claims they peddle are usually shocking, scare articles tend to go viral by word of mouth or social media. Experts tend not to tackle these issues, not wanting to give the impression they’re even worthy of discussion. Clearly this approach isn’t working.

Sometimes the end result of these astroturfing efforts isn’t very harmful, but we’ve seen tragic outcomes with anti-vaccine scare campaigns, global warming denial, multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes, and even the 2016 U.S. election. Data voids are harmful because they provide an opportunity for bad actors to take advantage of people simply wanting to learn more about a subject, presumably because it might affect them directly. It’s not pleasant to think about, but the people who fill these voids with misinformation can put innocent people in harm’s way, all to earn a buck (or, y’know, destabilize the West).

https://e.infogram.com/b784a292-4ace-48bf-9950-bc025d8da495?src=embed For the last ten years, a handful of well-funded misinformation campaigns have been underway online and in print about the dangers of non-ionizing radio frequency electromagnetic radiation (RF EMR). Through a combination of money, concerned non-experts, and an absence of fact checking, the cause has been championed to the point where mainstream media, local governments, and countless people have been duped into accepting an obvious falsehood as truth — namely that Bluetooth, cellphones, and Wi-Fi are somehow the culprit behind (nonexistent) increased rates of cancer, depression, DNA damage, infertility, ADHD and autism.

Follow the money

If you search “is Bluetooth harmful” online, you’ll find almost nothing but misinformation — including that very bad CNN article on the front page. Bluetooth is a good example because it’s so extreme and obviously false, so someone campaigning on the issue should stick out like a sore thumb. If you scratch a little deeper, you’ll see organizations like the Environmental Health Trust pop up over and over again.

No, it didn’t.

If you read the poorly fact-checked CNN article, much of the basis for the extremely questionable expert testimony rests with a 2016 National Toxicology Program study, and a nonprofit group with a seemingly-competent collection of experts at the helm. However, it’s a thin veneer covering a mountain of bullshit—and money.

Before I go any further, you should check out the companion piece we did covering the science of the supposed health risks of RF EMR. Additionally, the lead author of the study most often used to justify scaremongering gave a great summary of the findings, speaking with the Associated Press:

The evidence for an association between cellphones and cancer is weak. And so far, we have not seen a higher cancer risk in people… At best it might be a weak carcinogen … if in fact it is a carcinogen” —John Bucher, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

When I started looking into each of the doctors championing bizarre “science” for these supposed grassroots groups, I found most had a pattern of supporting debunked or flawed studies, and others simply misrepresented data with scary-sounding rhetoric. Some even claimed links between their issue of the day and poorly-understood disorders like autism (ASD). I shouldn’t need to point out this is a common tactic for those in other scare efforts like the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO crowd. However, it’s more than a little curious that someone would make these same claims over and over again without scientific consensus behind them.

Many of their arguments center around the common “think of the children!” appeal, kindling the false hope that somehow turning off the Wi-Fi at night will prevent little Billy’s hyperactive behavior. Of course, these claims all come with a disclaimer they don’t constitute medical advice, despite the inherent implications of a medical professional telling you what’s safe and what isn’t.

Just because someone has a lab coat on doesn’t make them an expert in non-ionizing RF EMR.

Even if you read into the studies and literature reviews showing equivocal evidence of cancer, science doesn’t work by one study finding something and establishing objective truth. You need lots and lots and lots of people performing studies on the same issues and mountains of evidence to prove a claim. Since a scientific consensus on a potential health risk posed by RF EMR doesn’t exist after almost 60 years of wireless tech studies, it’s safe to say the likelihood we’ve somehow missed the link between it and cancer is extremely low.

So, I started looking up tax returns. As luck would have it, I found a few threads to pull.

Turns out, much of the anti-cellphone scare effort (including the aforementioned EHT) was at one point partially-funded or directed by one particularly wealthy doctor, Dr. Lucy Waletzky, out of New York. Given that she’s been the Chair for the New York State Council of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation since 2007, (and therefore extremely busy) it did not surprise me that my attempts to get a comment for the story went unanswered.

Grassroots Environmental Education, a non profit Waletzky was listed as directing in 2016, even runs a few ancillary sites for signal boosting the message to other groups. A site called the BabySafe Project tells prospective parents about the alleged prenatal dangers of wireless radiation, and the ChildSafe School implores schools to limit child exposure to wireless radiation. Another wraps anti-wireless cautions into a book aimed toward helping parents care for sick kids.

Of course, these claims all come with a disclaimer that their advice to avoid wireless tech doesn’t constitute medical advice, despite the implications inherent by a medical professional’s input.

It’s entirely possible the people behind these groups genuinely believe what they’re doing is right. It’s entirely possible they’ve known someone with an acoustic neuroma or schwannoma and wanted to seek solace in action against what they believe to be the culprit. However, paying to fund a campaign against something when you don’t know it’s to blame is putting the cart before the horse.

Considering a majority of studies often touted as proof of the dangers of wireless radiation are either inconclusive or simply willfully misread, it’s hard to believe these groups have a deep respect for science guiding their actions. While it’s always good to verify what you think you know with studies, acting without a clear understanding of the issue can lead to unintended — or unforeseen — consequences.

Particularly disturbing, some of these sites play into the conspiracy-theory blog and Facebook-share crowd, much like the anti-vaccine movement does. When a site run by a nonprofit provides scare memes and repackages bland statements from legitimate medical groups to push a phony call to action or reason for panic, that’s a giant red flag. It also makes it prime material for Russian bots.

RT @TheDailySheeple: California Department of Public Health Hid This Warning on Cell Phone Radiation for Years

—_nickluna_, confirmed Bot

Digging through a now-outdated database of fake tweets, I was only able to find a handful of anti-cellphone posts or anti-Wi-Fi propaganda. However, the anti-U.S. social media effort is centered around generating as much controversy as possible regardless of the subject; It doesn’t take much for a “troll farm” to set its sights on something and signal boost the crap out of it. That can be especially damaging if controversy around the topic could lead to things like coverage gaps, or hospitals eschewing wireless internet in favor of something less effective. Because of this, it’s even less okay to take an anti-science stance than it was before.

Why this is a big deal

Okay, so a wealthy person and like-minded individuals are fighting a crusade against wireless tech. It’s their right to their spend money how they see fit, right? Not quite.

Even if a campaign to stop you using your phone as much isn’t exactly yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, it’s still conditioning people (read: voters) to accept certain falsehoods as truth. Wireless tech is used for vital medical applications and other critically important communication systems. Public backlash against it would endanger lives if the system is disrupted by misinformed individuals.

Leaf-peeping in Northern New England can be beautiful, but in signal gaps: nobody can hear you scream.

While the rich and powerful with deep pockets may not think (or care) that this affects anyone in the U.S., wireless coverage is a life and death issue out in the sticks. Where I grew up, if you get in a crash at night and there’s no service, you’re completely screwed — that’s just the way it is some places. That’s only one example, but there are countless other problems with scaling back our communications grid. Championing this anti-science does no good at best, and extreme harm at worst.

Take the anti-vaccine movement. The subject has been discussed to death already, but by causing enough worried parents to forgo vaccines, it’s possible these movements can create the conditions necessary to revive once-dead public health problems. One child in particular may not run into issues if their parents are duped into believing this bunk, but enough people acting as if their concerns are truth can cause a public health crisis. Rejecting truth leads to dire consequences, and just shrugging at someone’s dangerously mistaken beliefs to maintain a facade of civility should never be okay. While their concern might appear genuine, it’s still an attack on the well-being of others indirectly.

While the rich and powerful with deep pockets may not think (or care) that this is an issue that affects anyone in the US, the truth is wireless coverage is a life and death issue out in the sticks.

It’s not simply a question of misinformed individuals anymore. State governments, politicians, and political parties have started to take up the mantle of championing this crap. Real problems will arise from it. How well do you think schools will prepare kids for the future without Wi-Fi? Surely warning labels on things that won’t harm you could send the wrong message. There’s little danger of Dr. Jill Stein winning any election in the near future, but sometimes politicians in other parties have to pander to fringe candidates’ bases to win general elections. Don’t signal boost this craziness, it may just end up being law.

Scaring people with junk science affects us all, whether it’s obvious or not. It’s never okay, and it can lead to people getting hurt.

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roguecaregiver · 7 years

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Veterans’ Choice Program out of money? Say it ain’t so!

I know everyone is currently pissed off about the whole NFL stand/kneel debacle, but may I direct your attention to something that you may not have seen on your local news or Facebook feed. Something that ACTUALLY impacts the veterans everyone seems to only remember when it helps make THEIR point.

Here is the headline you probably missed yesterday:

Interestingly enough, I wrote about the Choice Program back in 2015. Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

This was the article I was responding to, written by the Associate Press on July 13, 2015.

Why is it every other year we threaten to take away from veterans, yet we are so quick to trot them out for our own political agendas? Asking for a friend…

What is the Veterans’ Choice Program? I’m glad you asked.

So to catch you up, do you remember hearing about the God-awful wait times veterans were experiencing getting seen at the VA? No? Let me jog your memory.

This was my response to the first article, written July 14, 2015.

So in 2015, the VA wanted to take money from the Veterans’ Choice Program to cover the budget shortfall, or else they would be forced to shut down VA hospitals.

SO WE’RE CLEAR, they wanted money from the program that was created to ease the backlog so that vets could be seen in a timely manner, and, you know, not DIE waiting…

-OR-

They would be forced to shut down VA hospitals, impacting even MORE veterans.

Why does this guy keep coming to mind?

Here’s my question…

So did the VA get that money? And then claim the program needed $2.1 million in emergency funding due to unexpected costs, even though the previous budget shortfall was $2.5 million that they wanted from the program, thus not even re-funding it to its original level?

Why is the VA so quick to point to the cost of medications and say that they underestimated the program costs so please bail us out or we’ll shut down the hospitals when they have a GLARING history of wasteful spending?

Do they seriously have the audacity to waste BILLIONS of dollars only to put the VETERANS’ CHOICE PROGRAM in limbo to cover their own wasteful spending? Anyone else see the irony in this?

What waste, you say? Glad you asked.

I also wrote a piece when everyone was so pissed at Starbucks over the hiring of refugees. I’m going to take that same piece and slightly modify it. Take out Starbucks, insert NFL. [Original post here.] Instead of all of the NFL bullshit that has hijacked my social media, why isn’t THIS going around? Why aren’t all of the people screaming “WHAT ABOUT THE VETERANS?!!” spreading the actual screwing of veterans around like wildfire instead of who is standing or kneeling at a football game?

BEFORE YOU SHARE THAT MEME ABOUT [THE NFL KNEELING], READ THIS!

I keep seeing all of these posts being shared where people are angry about something and then use veterans to try to prove their point. The most recent one is [the NFL].

So folks are upset by [the NFL] and are using veterans as justification for their feelings. I'm getting a little tired of the misdirected "outrage" on our behalf by other people. If you want to be upset that vets are getting screwed over, kindly aim that anger at the broken VA system, not at [the NFL].

Be upset that people are being dropped from the Caregiver program for NO REASON. The Caregiver program was designed to provide a small stipend to someone caring for a disabled veteran, many times a spouse or other family member who ultimately had to give up their own careers to take care of their veteran. http://www.thenewstribune.com/…/milita…/article56571708.html

Be upset that the VA keeps trying to collect money that is NOT owed to them by veterans, sometimes in the thousands of dollars range. Be upset that the VA's policy seems to be take the money first (and usually ALL AT ONCE, leaving the veteran NOTHING to live on), and then they have to fight the bureaucracy for months to get that money back. http://www.latimes.com/…/la-na-national-guard-bonus-2016102…

Be upset that it's taking YEARS for some veterans to get a disability rating at all. It took TWO YEARS for my husband's rating to come through, and it nearly killed us financially. http://cjonline.com/…/va-addressing-enrollment-backlog-more…

Be upset that it's next to impossible to get appointments at some VAs. For example, when we were still in Texas, I called in January to set up an appointment for my husband. First available appointment? The end of APRIL. How long do you have to wait to see YOUR doctor? http://www.cbsnews.com/…/va-patients-still-facing-long-wai…/

Be upset that the VA is denying ratings for service connected disabilities that are so beyond obvious, it's infuriating, like my friend Torrey Shannon whose husband who was shot IN THE HEAD while in Iraq, losing his eye, but the VA will not rate him for the Traumatic Brain Injury he now lives with. In fact, his records that she just found claim his injury was sustained in PEACETIME. https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php…

Be upset that when the government is at risk of shutting down due to budget fights, the vets are one of the first affected. http://www.usatoday.com/…/shutdown-protests-vetera…/2979557/

Be upset that 22 veterans per day are committing suicide because they are falling through the cracks. http://www.nytimes.com/…/kristof-a-veterans-death-the-natio…

Be upset that 1/3 of calls to the VA suicide hotline go unanswered. http://www.nbcnews.com/…/one-third-calls-va-suicide-hotline…

Be upset that some of those suicides are done by desperate veterans AT a VA location, but those stories rarely make it to the news. I have heard of vets shooting themselves in the waiting room, jumping to their deaths, setting themselves on fire in the parking lot, etc., then the VA covers it up. http://www.nj.com/…/vet_who_set_himself_on_fire_outside_vet…

Be upset that when a veteran is at rock bottom and asks for help, they are sometimes put on a waitlist that is absolutely INSANE. It took 5 tries over 2 years to get my husband into an inpatient program because the VA kept dropping the ball. He almost didn't live long enough to go. http://www.wkow.com/…/digging-deeper-could-the-va-have-done…

Be upset that one report found that 28%, more than 1 in 4 of the VA enrollee backlog DIED while waiting for care. http://www.stripes.com/…/report-28-percent-of-va-enrollee-b…

Be upset that the bodies of veterans were left to rot in a VA morgue for up to 2 months without proper burial. http://www.foxnews.com/…/new-low-dead-veterans-left-in-va-h…

Be upset that a lot of veterans are over-medicated on drugs that either turn them into a zombie or exasperate rage and suicidal ideation when they are already at a higher risk. http://www.cbsnews.com/…/vas-overmedication-of-vets-widesp…/

Be upset that some veterans are then suddenly and unexpectedly yanked off these medications because they can't get a damn appointment to see their doctor before the RX runs out, leaving them to deal with horrible withdrawal effects. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/4d42d63a-acb3-11e4-9c91-e9…

Be upset that the people behind some of the biggest VA fuck ups are NOT held accountable, KEEP their job, and NEVER change. When any other person in another field would be immediately FIRED, things are instead covered up. It's next to impossible to get someone at the VA fired. http://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/fired-over-va-wait-times/

Be upset by the glaring WASTE by the VA. Like spending millions on artwork instead of investing it in programs for veterans. https://gma.yahoo.com/report-va-spent-millions-costly-art-v…#

I can't tell you the number of times I have heard the wrong equipment, like wheelchairs, being sent to veterans, then they have to wait even longer for the correct one to be ordered. Like my friend who had multiple wheelchairs that her husband couldn't use because they were the wrong one or wrong size, but the VA won't take them back. Chairs that cost thousands of dollars!

I could keep going because there are just SO MANY examples of ineptness, but I'll stop here. If you want to be upset and scream "WHAT ABOUT THE VETERANS?!", please, for the love of all things holy, aim it where it could make a difference.

[The NFL] is in the business of [playing football].

The VA is in the business of taking care of veterans.

Why the hell are you yelling at the [football] people?

#va veteransaffairs newva wheresthemoney choiceprogram woundedwarriors ptsd vetsdeservebetter

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