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eldritcmor · 1 year

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You knew it was coming

taskforce 141 and the midwestern gen-z reader(platonic)(of course) inspired by @meatonfork for the grim au. @thesharktanksdriver for the shark au I am a sucker for young and genz reader being an absolute menace

The team didn't properly meet you till a few days after the storm incident. Apparently walking into a communal space looking like you just fought the sky and grinning like a maniac leaves an impression.

Gaz was the first to approach you. Wondering why you looked like a drowned rat met a tazer.

You looked at the man for a moment as you munched on a granola bar. "Oooh! you mean the storm." "Yeah. Why were you out there by the way?" "Not much to do where I'm from so storm watchin' is a very fun pass time." "That was storm watching! you looked like you were in the middle of the storm!" "Relax, it was a baby storm. Hardly any damage."

Gaz tended to stick around you after that. Come to realize you're not much of a thrill seeker but your sense of what's a good past time and what is borderline dangerous are a whole lotta skewed.

you were on leave somewhere in south Cymru. News said there was going to be a storm rolling in off the sea. You went to find Gaz immediately.

His first experience storm watching was a chaotic event. Rolling waves and sheer winds. There really wasn't rain so much as a relentless force of water pushing down on you two. You were both drowned rats that day. Price was disappointed but Gaz couldn't fight his adrenaline fueled grin.

After that, you became fast friends and you started to show through on your brand of humor. Genz and midwestern humor creates a very dark sense of humor.

"Hey storm! Come see what we dug up in storage!" "If it's my hope and dreams, please rebury them. I abandoned those long ago."

Your not really good with communication on things but man, do you spam the man with memes and videos daily. Or just little pictures of cool shit you found while wandering around.

Soap leaned over Gaz's shoulder. "What's got you laughing so hard?" Gaz tilts his phone around. It's a short video. of someone zooming in a rock with long boop sound effect. There's a a stick bug on the rock. Just rockin'. Your voice comes through in a bare whisper "Get stick bugged, motherfucker."

Ghost didn't approach you so much as he caught you.

It was a dare. Sneak up on the legendary ghost and surprise attack him from behind. Nothing dangerous of course. Just a quick yank back and arm around the collar.

You got fucking thrown. It was amazing.

It was no longer a dare. It was now a past time. He once asked why you were doing this?

"Why?" The man stared you down as you stared up at him from the floor. "Why what?" *Why do you keep attacking me?" "Cause it's fun? and you haven't told me stop?" "Getting thrown usually puts a stop to it."

After that it became a game of hunt between you two. Of course there were rules or at least guidelines to it. no barracks, no showers, not during missions.

He found out about the knife collection first. One of his combat knives was missing and one the recruits pointed him in your direction.

He was a little surprised when you just whipped out the bag and opened it. His knife was right there on top along with about 30-50 other knives in the bag. The knife had been freshly sharpened and any mechanism for opening it cleaned and oiled.

when asked, you said an unattended knife still deserves some up keep

He just starts handing you knives when he comes back. sometimes it's cause he's too tired to do the maintenance himself. other times cause you looked like you need a distraction.

Probably the only one to really pick up on your cues. Not that the others are bad at it per say just they tend to catch it a little late. And due to the game of hunt you two keep playing with surprise attacking each other well cant blame him. A lot of your cues are non-verbal

Soap met you when you got caught swiping from price's stash of booze. By him who was setting up a prank that would involve Price's stash of booze.

No sir I don't know why all your booze tastes like apple juice.

You're like 5'3" to his 6'2". so he just kind of leans on you when ever he gets a chance.

At first you're uncomfortable with it but eventually it becomes a sort of reassurance.

He notices but doesn't comment when you start seeking more physical contact.

You have a weird little greeting if it's an off day or you're just feeling heavily nonverbal. You just thunk your head on his arm or back and rest for a second before moving on

You get so pissed one time and out just spills a whole entire tumble of curses. At first in Spanish, a few Ukrainian phrases, a whole litany of German and finally several very specific Gaelic and Scots phrases.

He asks about it later.

"Hey what was that earlier when you were mad?" "Oh! just things I picked up along the way."

He starts speaking Gaelic more often just to see what you pick up. Sometimes you ask what the words mean and slowly repeat them. other times you just go parrot mode and repeat back to him.

Language lessons over the coms are a thing.

He's the first person and nearly the only person you will hug routinely. he was the first one to show you that seeking physical contact to ground yourself was okay, after all.

Price knows your past. Especially that shit that you have been involved in when dealing with the more well strange side of humanity. It's why he asked for you in the first place.

Him and ghost probably notice the fact that you are incredibly calm in situations that would send most absolutely running off.

"Hey kid, you good?" Price rests a hand on your shoulder. The room was caked in gore and and dead bodies. "I'm good, captain." Your voice is monotone and light. He pulls you back a little anyway. "Go scout a little. I'll call this one in."

He asks about it at some point. You give him the no bullshit answer, cause well he's your captain. You've had your Fight or Flight response triggered so much that it's never fully turned down, so now it's just easier to compartmentalize through it and break later.

Was the first to witness such a break and immediate panic cause Oh no! crying recruit.

Eventually he figured out that hugs help.

you seek him out for ✨dad✨ hugs now, just when your feeling off or on the edge of a break. it usually sends you right into a break.

You fell asleep on his shoulder during transport to mission once. woke up to his hat jammed on your head and his gear propping you up.

You will look this man in the face and spout the most cursed fact known to you at the particular minute just to see if he knows it too.

If he doesn't well at least he learned something.

Is usually the one to catch you in the early mornings. just a simple nod in greeting as he sips his coffee.

you always try to steal his coffee. you never succeed

The only who knows that you have a pretty good sized weighted dino plush in your room. He got it for you after a breakdown and you decorating every report you turned in with a dino sticker.

Feel free to brainstorm btw, this is just storm being well storm.

#call of duty mw2 #call of duty x reader #captain john price #john soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #kyle gaz garrick #141 x reader #taskforce 141 #Eld writes

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humming-pokemon-helpers · 2 months

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Okay, I promised gay Pokémon, I will deliver (so I can distract myself from thinking about anything else relating to this day!!)

🏳️‍🌈💝Let’s Talk About Gay Pokémon Courtship!💝🏳️‍🌈

Firstly, a note: this post is mostly about Pokémon that form long-term partnerships (exclusive or not). That doesn’t mean there isn’t any gay romance going on in non-pair-bonding species, just that it’s more of a short-term fling! (Did you know Yanma have been recorded to be gay? Now you do.)

With that being said… I want to look at a few specific examples for today! Birds are by far some of the most dedicated, but I’ll focus in on a lesser known one today, Mandibuzz! I’ll also touch on a wonderful Zoroark pair I’ve gotten to know myself, and finally, as bears discussion in any talk of couples, Tandemaus! (I might add more if there’s demand, later.)

1. Mandibuzz

Mandibuzz, as many may be aware, are a primarily (I would say solely, but biology doesn’t like absolutes much) female species of buzzard Pokémon! Typically they produce their eggs by pairing with Braviary, but… that’s about where the “straightness” ends with many Mandibuzz.

See, Mandibuzz raise their young in nests made from bone. But what many neglect in this fact is that nests are not made for one singular Mandibuzz. Instead, Mandibuzz go through a long and arduous courtship process to choose fellow Mandibuzz to pair up with, consisting of bone collection and adornment (which the Pokédex, to my loathing, lists as “showing off for males” that don’t exist), specialized mating calls and courtship dances, and finally, the exchanging of bones.

Once these nests are formed, Mandibuzz nest together for life. They’ll hunt for carrion together, adorn each other with pieces of bone, and groom each other, in addition to diligently raising their young together. Newborn Rufflet and Vullaby view both Mandibuzz as their mothers, regardless of which clutch they’re from. Perhaps as the most bittersweet example, bonded Mandibuzz are willing to fight to the death to protect not just their shared clutches, but each other. Love those lesbians.

2. Zoroark

I know, I know, it’s a cop-out from me to throw in another Unovan Pokémon of my species, but if I didn’t add this all of my examples would be lesbian. Zorua, like many other gender-skewed species, typically have an abundance of males and not many females around. You might think this would lead to intense competition for mates. You would be very wrong. Firstly, because not many pairs are exclusive for life (some are, still). Secondly, because male Zoroark, on average (again, this tends to be similar for many male-skewed species!), are gay as hell. (My brother being exclusively straight is weird, and I blame human heteronormativity jokingly.) (ALSO, this may just apply to my pack for all I know.)

Anyhow. Zorua essentially form hunting partnerships in childhood. Hunting used to be an essential part of our lives before McDonphan’s showed up down the street to raid instead. …Okay, it still is. Now, these pairs are mostly formed between same-gender Zorua, and stick through the rest of one’s life. Female Zoroark who pair tend to raise their kits together (though kit raising is pretty communal already), and often have similar closeness to female Mandibuzz. Male Zoroark who are paired at a young age often focus exclusively on their partners! They serve as teachers to the younger Zorua in the pack, much-needed babysitters, and often adopters of the ‘weaker’ kits whose survival is uncertain. Outside of kit rearing, though, some paired Zoroark have formed their own solitary pairs far-flung from local packs, subsisting off their own paired hunts or taking on lives in the human world together!

3. Tandemaus

Tandemaus, as a species, are presumed genderless due to their never being separated. That being said, there are gender differences in the mäuse, with there being pants-wearers and shirt-wearers. What field researchers have found recently, though, is that up to 15% of couples consist of two pants-wearers or two shirt-wearers! (Sadly, could not get such a picture for today.)

There’s no observed behavioral difference between two-shirts and two-pants couples… and what’s more, they are just as likely to show up with one or two more mäuse suddenly. Genetic testing has found these newly-acquired mice are just as genetically equivalent to their “parents” as mixed-pair born Maushold… I wish I could begin to dig into that, but good for them! Good for them.

#pokeblogging #pkmn irl #long post #//mostly silly headcanons :)

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dailyadventureprompts · 2 years

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You've done a few Monsters Reimagined posts about gods already, so I was wondering... any ideas for reimagining Lolth? I know in your Drow post you suggested just ditching the spider cultist stuff, but I do think Lolth herself has some potential. (I have some ideas of my own, which can be summed up as "to high elves, Lolth IS an evil trickster, but to Drow she's the goddess of law, art, magic, and anything to do with webs, and CORELLON is the trickster" but I'm curious what ideas you have)

Deity: Lolth, Queen of Spiders and Weaver of Lies

Its said that in the dawn era when the world was still settling the first mortals caught one of their gods in a lie. It was a benign, harmless thing, but that first falsehood turned sour in the god’s mouth, and when spitting to earth it took a shape with many legs, and scuttled off into the dark

Setup: None can say where Lolth or her cult first emerged, as a goddess of deception she has worn many guises and worked to obscure her true origin since perhaps the first moment of her existence. even her commonly recorded name; Lolth, is but the most recent of her aspects, one that many scholars believe she has abandoned in recent ages as more and more of her followers awake to the cruelty of her doctrine, leaving behind a hollow idol the way a spider sheds its carapace when it grows.

Lolth is a goddess of deception, not the simple half truths that everyone lets slip now and again (though some more orthodox faiths claim that these lies give life to spiders), but to the falsehoods that warp the perception of individuals, communities, and entire nations: they are out to get you/ I didn't push you, you fell/ our way is the godly way, all others are degenerate. When one of these delusions takes root and begins to skew lives, the goddess weaves another thread into her tapestry of deception, wrapping her victims in a false reality the way a spider wraps its prey. Lolth too is an enemy of objective reality, sowing madness in the minds of mortals or using her agents to muddle and destroy historical records.

Logically it doesn’t make sense to worship a goddess of deception, nightmares and gaslighting, until one asks who might benefit from others falling prey to such afflictions. Tyrants, abusers, con artists, the ones that think they’re clever enough to lie forever or the ones so prideful they believe that their opinions override reality. These are the ones that feel the tug of the spider’s string, and delude themselves into thinking they are puppeteer rather than puppet.

Adventure Hooks

After the death of their high priestess, a cult of darkelves found their connection to the spiderqueen severed, throwing them into a theological crisis that left most of their leadership dead as each tried to backstab their way into proving that they were Lolths next chosen. Faced with a total lack of guidance, the cults lesser acolytes and henchmen have taken to following the last survivor off this divinely ordained massacre: A former apprentice of the high priestess who died performing a grand rite and was transformed into a deathlock for her trouble. Kept around as both jester and example of what fate awaits those who waver in their faith, this cackling cadaver has forgotten much of who she was and now calls herself Hollowhead, a cruel nickname given by her mistress when she realized her dead apprentice always had spiders on the brain, literally. Now tugging at the neck chain that once secured her to the high priestess’s throne, Hollowhead leads the cult out to enact whatever whim her goddess puts in her head, with the features on the menu being sacrifices, rampant poisonings, and gross transfigurations.

In one of their many adventures, the party end up clashing with a charming huckster who’s gone and made an enemy of some very powerful people. Perhaps he’s backed a guild leader into a bad business deal, or swindled a fortune out of the party’s prospective patron. Perhaps he introduces himself as a mentor for a young party of roguish individuals and then leaves them holding the bag in the midst of a heist. When he dies (either when the party catches up to him or months later after he’s been justly tried and tossed in a dungeon) he realizes that he’s called upon the weaver of lies one too many times in the course of filling his pockets, and is at risk of having his soul claimed once it passes into the underworld. To avoid this terrible fate, the huckster pulls one last trick, stealing himself from the goddess’s clutches and wandering the world as a ghost. Never one to be denied her prize, the goddess dispatches a monstrous construct from her realm, a Retriever, to fetch the trickster’s wayward soul and flatten anything that stands in its way: such as the party, who the huckster has been quietly haunting for some time as a means of tagging along with their adventures.

On the trail of a missing merchant caravan, the party encounter a village Where Everything Is Fine, with the one exception being the library dedicated to Ioun seems to have been boarded shut. Folk here vaguely remember the merchant passing through, but having come a long while the party decide to rest in the rustic and comfortable inn to enjoy some good food and the owers’ charming hospitality, only to wake up with one of their number missing. Find out their horrifying fate under the cut

They find their missing friend some hours later living a completely different life, having been married to an attractive and attentive stranger for some years and never once having contemplated becoming an adventurer and leaving the village Where Everything Is Fine. Snapping their friend out of it is as easy as noticing the faint trace of webbing near their ear and squishing the spider that’s crawled in there carrying a number of delusions with it, but there’s no telling which one of them could be next to forget. Checking inside the boarded up library reveals a few haggard townsfolk and a VERY paranoid priestess of the goddess Ioun who’ve been hold up inside while the rest of their neighbors went all Norman Rockwell/Stepford wife. To hear them tell it, things started happening after the innkeeper’s wife showed up with bruises after the two had a raucous shouting match infront of a large crowd of patrons. The two had always had a rocky relationship but she insisted over and over again that Everything Is Fine… and people started to agree with her. Desperate to preserve the illusion of a blissful homelife, the innkeeper’s wife has made a spontaneous pact with Lolth, and her increasingly blasphemous self delusion will stop at nothing to ensure that no one ruins her fantasy. Depending on how tactful you want to be consider having her turn into a giant spider monster, with her abusive husband hollowed out, alive and aware but filled with innumerable skittering young.

Titles: Queen of Spiders, Weaver of lies, Mother of Deceit, Lady of truth (for the faithful)

Signs: Excessive spiders, or spiders where there should not be spiders (such as in your mouth or ears), a pervasive sense that someone is lying to you or that what you perceive is not real, faces momentarily showing opposite emotions.

Symbols: Spiders and their associated iconography, more subtle symbols may include objects in groups of eight, like eight stars in a ring upon a flag or eight jewels set in a fractal spiral upon a broach. Other cults unconnected to spider iconography use that of weaving: looms, spinning wheels, dropspindles, and may occasionally substitute silkworms for spiders where regionally appropriate.

Followers:In addition to her active cults, such as the most well known among the darkelves or creatures like the chitine Lolth is a proactive goddess when it comes to choosing champions, most often selecting for those with the capacity for controlling or deceiving others, or those victims who would replace their abusers rather than see their torment end. Some few desperate also worship Lolth as a means of protecting themselves from deception or madness, but the queen of spiders is likely to exact a heavy toll for such protection, if she extends it at all.

Also yeah, no sexy spider goddess art for you folks. Her many-legged majesty may take on a pleasing guise when trying to entice you to do something but when it comes time to throw down you’re going toe to toe with something that exemplifies madness and lies and treachery

Art

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burinazar · 15 days

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what motivates you artistically? :3

well right now blelaf mainly. no ok hang on. alright. so.

when i was really young i had this feeling like if we could all just understand one another, if there was a perfect way to beam your thoughts and feelings into someone's head, it would fix almost everything re conflicts and human suffering. (naive obviously but this was what i thought lol.) when i started to be aware of what it was to read good books and look at good art it felt like in some ways the closest we could come to fully articulating an idea, a moment, a feeling, and placing it in its entirety into someone's mind. relatedly, uh, bad stories/art that didn't seem to respect their audience pissed me off at the squandered opportunity (sorry the snobbery came out sorry) and made me think, dammit, the audience and types of people evoked within this deserve better and i'm gonna try. with the combo of these two things it was like ..okay i'm going to start writing and drawing. it was all about stories ideas concepts. oh and also i really liked rodents and wanted to draw them as often as possible lol. i drew so fucking many rodents. gah. these concepts were no joke deeply linked for me because as a child i genuinely felt like the bad rap rodents get from people unthinkingly condemning them via stereotypes was a symptom of a societal lack of empathy and consideration. (possibly terry pratchett's fault)

(could not locate early rat art at this moment but here's relevant scribbling. i was nine i think.)

tl;dr plunging themes and concepts i find interesting; communicating them to other people. (sometimes the concept is admittedly not highbrow. sometimes it is very silly. sometimes it is 'hey ! it would be hot if this happened to b*laf'.) it can be hard to reconcile the desire to 'communicate' via art/writing with some of my work just not having much of an audience or even feeling like i don't want to share it for various reasons lol, but in those cases i frame it to myself as, the effort of presenting the idea was enjoyable in and of itself, an act of personal communication between me and the subject or content of the work even if the thing itself will never be shown to another soul : v anyway fanwork can be a neat way to do that because it's like shared muses or canvases where what you see in them or love about them is already partially pre-communicated to people and you can hit the ground running on evoking emotions, concepts and narratives using the shared frame of reference, as well as skewing and transforming said frame as needed. btw i found another drawing of me and the sages that i didnt use in the other post so here it is

there have been many periods of my life when i was making more original work, though. (i'm sure i've said this many times now but before the sages i had a very comparable attachment to a couple of my OCs.) i also had a pretty terrible experience with fandom around middle school that sort of drove me away from heavily engaging for a long time; i was still in fandoms but basically never shared my writing outside of like PMs and servers. that's part of why my current abyss bullshit is so precious to me and also why i can get protective over it; it pretty much singlehandedly brought me back to the Blessings and Curses of being directly engaged in sharing a lot of fan content publicly. (man for a person who doesnt like bondrewd i do quote him a lot unfortunately.)

so anyway. yes. uhh sorry that was really long. i sort of just like blogging haha thank you very much for the ask! < 3

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lovedabishiga · 6 months

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TouTen Vigilantes

Being a vigilante is a thankless job.

Most of the time, he patrols the streets and keeps suspicious individuals away only to get a lackluster thank you and lukewarm soba from the old grannies at the neighborhood. Other times, he chases after pickpockets and thieves and sometimes unfair loan sharks only to get chased away by a mob who thinks he’s the one who stole from them, even when he ends up hauling all the stolen stuff back. Efforts to properly recognize his valiant and selfless efforts come far and few. As is typical; gratitude only comes when you’re a shiny hero and not some washout copy of the No. 2.

Being a vigilante, after all, is an unrewarding job.

Because despite all the good you do to a neighborhood, community, or some stranger who needs a little help, a single mistake automatically marks you as a villain.

A villain.

A brawl with an armed robber of a convenience store turned to a fire emergency and the robber being rushed to the hospital. On the news, the robber was called a civilian. The firemaker, however, was hailed as the villain.

“Unbelievable pricks,” Touya mutters under his breath, sitting down at a fire escape with his box of first-aid supplies and a radio the fizzles every three seconds. “Next time, I’ll let you get robbed, yeah?”

‘Thank goodness for Manual, Hosu’s own water boy!’ the newscaster says, while her partner chuckles. ‘And don’t forget our delightful No. 2, Endeavor – ’

“What the – he has a fire quirk! He didn’t even do anything,” Touya exclaims, as if arguing against a beat-up radio would stop the reporters from laughing, or change the news story, or even refrain them from mentioning ever again his Fa – no, Endeavor. And it hurts, knowing that he did so much than the man who arrived 10 minutes later at the scene. “Stupid, gullible pieces of trash,” Flammable trash, all of them, all of them!

“Um, excuse me?”

If Touya was less injured from the burns, he’d launch a fire first right then and there. Instead, Touya whips around, legs ready to sprint or to fight, both his palms balled to a fists, as a he regards a young man at the stairs of the fire escape. He is small and hooded, with a thick parka over his frame and battered cargo pants, donned all in the color black, except for the rabbit mask that’s skewed over to the side, his bright red shoes and even brighter red eyes.

“You’re the ‘Touya,’” the man smiles, ominous. “Right?”

Touya squints. “And you’re the Rabbit,” Every vigilante knows that mask anywhere. “Right?”

The Rabbit – or at least that is what Touya remembers of him, the vigilante with a nasty quirk and fearsome prowess that even Stain acknowledges him – drops his smile and sighs exasperatedly. “Ah, no, it’s actually Hare, not rabbit. Those two are very different species.”

Touya frowns. Huh. “Then why do you have a bunny mask then?” This isn’t what Touya had in mind when he first heard of the vigilante, Rabbit – or Hare.

Short, skittish, soft-spoken with a rasp in his voice. There’s a stupid mole next to his lip and for some reason, Touya’s lizard brain chose to fixate on that and not on the ungloved hands that many people in the circles of the underground warn incessantly against.

Touya notices a thimble on each of the Hare’s middle fingers though. “T-this isn’t a bunny mask, it’s a /hare/ mask, this time I made sure – ” Then, as if remembering what he came here for, Hare quickly composes himself. “I came here because…I saw the news.”

Touya tenses. “It isn’t hard to,” For reasons Touya /knows/, there’s a bounty on the villain that burned down the convenience store. A whooping 1 million yen, to be paid by Endeavor’s Hero agency, for the said villain’s capture. Alive. Touya takes a step forward. “So what of it?”

“Well, you see – ” Burned fingers or no, a fall is still a fall if Touya pushed hard and right enough. “– I saw what you did and – ” Touya just needs to be careful of those fingers, because if he gets touched by all of them, he’s gone – “ – thought you were still miles better than all the heroes who responded, despite what everyone else says.”

Touya balks. “What – ”

“I know Manual and Idaten patrol that area, but still, you were the first to arrive, the first act at the scene, and sure, some collateral damage happened, but you still ended up saving that man’s life. If you waited for the heroes, I’m sure that robber wouldn’t gotten away and that convenience store will have to be closed down,” the Hare says, nodding to himself. So, please don’t get disheartened by what people say. Taking down properties is just part of the job. I’ve taken a few myself! If heroes are allowed to do so, then why can’t we? It’s such a double standard really. And,” Then the Hare chuckles, looking less than the violent executioner that he was said to be and more of a teenage boy just a few years younger than Touya. “You were amazing.”

“Oh.” Touya feels his cheeks heat up. He doesn’t even know where to begin.

“But next time you really might want to be more careful. We don’t want to attract the attention of heroes when they’re supposed to be turning a blind eye on us,” the Hare continues on, rummaging something in the pockets of his parka before taking out a small convenience store, onigiri. “Here. For a job well done,” the smaller man places it on the ground between them. “Thank you for your good work. Let’s do our best to make this hero society a better place!"

Then without any preamble, he leaps off the staircase, hops all the way down to the ground, before dashing off. Touya stares at where the younger vigilante was, mouth agape, left with the company of a sole onigiri and a radio long-forgotten.

Touya rubs his hands against his face, keening. “What the fuck was that…?”

If this is what it feels like to be rewarded for his efforts, then maybe, maybe, he’d like to remain thankless (he doesn’t), unknown (not anymore).

And most of all, he doesn’t want to be patronized like that ever again!

(He’ll burn more buildings if that means seeing that cute, red-eyed bunny again)

#shigadabi #dabishiga #touten #todoroki touya #shimura tenko #dabi #shigaraki tomura

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redcatmusings · 1 year

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Hello! For the character ask, I'd like to ask you about Lin Beinfong 😁

That's a dangerous ask, be prepared to read all the lovely Lin rambles.

1: sexuality headcanon

Given that canon wise she dated Tenzin, I feel Lin is at least bisexual. I prefer her paired with women in my own biased skewed view. She strikes me as someone who is less concerned with the parts and more about the smarts.

2. OTP

I liked the OTP happiness with Lin, but lately, I've been branching out to some different pairing ideas that have led to some explosive, emotional and beautiful love poems. Lin doesn't NEED anyone, so what would it look like if she chose someone.

Lin x Kya - My original go-to pairing. Mostly due to being close in age, and I liked the polar opposite factor of these two outwardly. The idea that, if they could find common ground and a way to work out their differences with communication, then each provides the pairing with their own traits that balance one another out. Kya's "water off a ducks back" laid-back attitude serves to either infuriate or teach Lin that some things are okay to let slide and to just "live in the moment." Likewise, Lin's more grounded personality could help keep them on track and avoid undesirable consequences (we can't always live on the edge of our seats) but might become tedious for Kya.

Lin x Kuvira - This is probably my OTP for Lin currently. I feel like the age gap adds elements to a relationship that those closer in age do not get. Lin has wisdom, experience and patience on her side. Kuvira has youthful exuberance, new perspectives and a connection to current developments. In this pairing, Kuvira can help keep the stubborn Lin abreast of newer more efficient ways of life, reconnect Lin with shelved hobbies/dreams and challenge out of date beliefs. Both women share a level of maturity, past trauma that with the right partner, can be explored and healed through time and of course a steady personality. Challenges to this pairing would be stubbornness, uncompromising or shame from society's views on large age gaps between partners.

Lin x Korra - So similar to the Kuvira situation with a few exceptions and a lesser feeling of connect. I think Korra would add a very playful, adventurous, and tender aspect to the relationship. Having her own trauma to work through, I think she could provide a safe haven for Lin in their relationship to work through her own skeletons in the closet. There would probably be a lot of fluff in this relationship because of how playful Korra can be. As Avatar, she embodies a lot of the other elements and can pretty wild and free-spirited; perhaps too much for Lin. The disconnect and challenges would be both can be uncompromisingly stubborn and explosive. Korra's outward bursts would put Lin on the defensive and shut down any chance of negotiation. Lin might be too grounded for Korra, even if they could kick it off.

3: brotp

Mako. He's definitely her protégé and shows similarities with her work ethic. I think ultimately she can count on Mako and probably does some lowkey venting with him around.

4: notp

Hmmm I don't have a strong feeling here. Probably not any of the young guys? I don't see Lin as a cougar and I think anyone younger is probably the pursuer in their relationship.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

Lin started the coffee, then headed to the cupboard to grab a mug. Inside was a metal rose in each of the mugs, with a note tucked between two of them. "This way, whatever one you choose, you'll be thinking of me" the note said in neat cursive writing. Lin smiled and relieved the cupboard of a simple green mug with its own personal metal rose.Kuvira was right, Lin would be thinking of her all day now.

6: favorite line from this character

7: one way in which I relate to this character

See above quote. I spent most of my life trying to make a parent love me through doing what I thought they wanted. Like Lin says, it doesn't work and don't make the same mistake!

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

The way she talks about how she took her anger out on Air Nation Island. Lin you are too proud of that.

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Misunderstood Melon for sure.

#headcanon #lok #the legend of korra #lin beifong #legend of korra #tumblr asks

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marsupials-of-mars · 11 months

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Due to lack of sleep and new medication I have violently imprinted on a new hyperfixation like a baby bird. The kind that's out of left field but has consumed my mind for two horrid days.

I'm also kind of wary of the Brandon Rogers community bc he comes from like edgy stuff which is great bc he does it well but it can make for a rough fandom experience bc many do not do it well. and there's a lot of overlap with the vivziepop community which I'm also spooked by because a lot of it skews young and edgy in the same way. (I also enjoy helluva boss but it is very flawed and we need to be on the same page fr I honestly see more what the total stuff is going for now seeing the Brandon stuff but I think he does it better personally)

And this sounds like insulting but I am not trying to Im just sleepy and ramblin. I'm usually not keen on those types of fandoms bc it can be a lot of infighting and sort of like uncritical/non-nuanced views of characters and all? And that's just an assumption I haven't actually engaged much with specifically the new stuff maybe it'll be more adult because he's an older YouTube guy so the young ppl who watched him are grown.

Basically I'm trying to figure out the best way to enter a fandom and curate an experience where I won't get stressed.

I need to be placed into the water in my little fish bag so I am in my proper little spot. I must be accustomed to the scent through a closed door.

Basically I'm asking who I should follow in the BRYCE/helluva boss fandoms who do cool shit with the material.

Sorry I feel like I'm being condescending but my brain has been rock tumbling bobby worst and Bryce tank thrust for a couple days with nothing else in there and I need an outlet I'm in pain

#brandon rogers #bryce #bryce tankthrust #bobby worst #im not putting the vivzie show tags bc im scared lol

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deliriumsdelight7 · 9 months

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I hope it is okay to message you about this I don't want to swamp Phoenix with messages since I'm sure she has many anons right now! I survived my abusive ex who tried heavily to lie and twist things on me within our community, despite that he started dating and hurting me when I was 15 (til 17 when he found someone else) and he was almost 30, the tactics he and his friends used on me and other girls really similar in that callout. 1) One of those callout people dug deep into her blog, found a selfie from a decade and while they did color out her face there seems to be others digging elsewhere like her twitter, a lot of it reads as if leading to potential doxxing will come next. 2) Another user has a separate callout for someone that is writing for their pleasure smut with ST characters x children between newborn to 12 among other original stories, how the children enjoy it. Commenters include a man who talked about how enjoyable it was to read, to keep it up, and how he was writing one about a 12 month old. So LIKE idk how phoenix shipping dustin x erica when erica is older based on their dynamic and thinking it'd be cute one day makes her a monster just like those people writing shit like that? The skewed mindset is shocking. Maybe it makes me an anti to say that, but like jfc one is shipping because fun dynamics, the other is making literary csa for pleasure purposes. Not the damn same and to classify it as the same IS FUCKED for other victims and survivors of that. the call out about that is here: percygranate / 717945449642967040 and I really think that this deserves a lot more attention. Phoenix should not be in a class like what this example is doing. This literally how people ruined Michael Jackson's life. 3) This isn't really info but I do hope this can reach peace for you all. It's triggering to read the callouts. Erica being a young black girl played by a young black actress, I understand wanting to protect her and what she represents to fellow black fans, it is different for black people and I think that does deserve space for a conversation. Trying to have a dialogue and clear up miscommunications/things taken out of context is how this should have been handled, not a trying to ruin someone's life with such an evil real criminal label over fiction. Just a lot of love to Phoenix, you, and everyone else directly involved.

Thank you so much for all of this information, Anon. I’m really grateful that you took the time to write all of this, and I’m sure Phoenix will be, too.

I’m very sorry to hear that you were groomed and harassed by your abuser, and I hope you’ve been able to find healing from that.

For your first point: would you be able to send me links to any posts on that blog that threaten violence, doxxing, or any other harassment? Phoenix and I are blocked, and in order for us to report the harassment, we need links of the behavior. If you’re comfortable, you can reach out to me in DMs and I will absolutely respect your privacy and not share your identity with anyone. If you feel unsafe doing so, you can by all means stick with anon asks. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.

For your second point: I wasn’t even aware such a thing was happening. If so, that’s pretty damn gross. I would prefer to stay out of any public call-outs for it, though, because call-out culture is what’s landed fandom as a whole into the mess it currently is. I’m going to stick to my policy of “don’t like, don’t read” on this one. But, for the record? Hardcore squick.

As a side note, I’d like to point out that the “underage Chrissy” concept does not exist in a vacuum. I was there, Gandalf. I was there the day (cough MONTHS cough) The Other Ship accused Hellcheers of being pedophiles, going so far as to say that Chrissy was the same age as Mike and Dustin and Eddie was 22. A bunch of Hellcheers decided that if that ship was going to make a stink over an eighteen year old and a twenty year old, we’d give them something to complain about. Phoenix was far from the only person to indulge in it. In fact, for a few weeks, the Hellcheer Prompts blog was flooded with nothing but requests for underage Chrissy fics. All of this is to say, there are massive amounts of context missing from those call-out posts. Context which I was there for. THAT is why I defend Phoenix, and will continue to do so.

And for your final point, I 100% agree that a respectful dialogue could and should be had before jumping down people’s throats. Unfortunately, for many people, joining a mob and organizing a witch hunt is often more rewarding than having a constructive dialogue. Anger and outrage are an addiction. But living like that, creating an environment that demands moral purity on pain of life-ruining accusations and violence, it’s only a matter of time before you fuck up and the mob you were a part of turns on you.

Thank you again for taking the time to reach out, Anon. It’s deeply, DEEPLY appreciated.

#fandom wank

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somestorythoughts · 1 year

Text

Immortal Leverage AU again

The immortal community is small.

By this I mean small in relation to the population of the earth, not small as in you can count them all on your fingers and toes. If you gathered them all in a city, it would be one of those cities where everyone was three degrees of separation from each other tops. However, and this is the key point, they do not talk to each other.

This is NOT a community where everyone knows everyone or has heard of everyone because they do not interact with each other on a regular basis. There are names everyone knows of course, and some who have traveled enough to have met most of the community, and it isn’t that everyone is isolated, but the things necessary for everyone to know everyone are missing.

There’s just too many people to know everyone, and just enough distance and keeping-of-low profiles to make trying difficult.

I say this to explain why it takes months for the Leverage team to realize that of all the fucking people they could have accidentally formed a vigilante group with they managed to do it with FOUR other immortals. The odds of that happening are pretty low too.

There is another contributing factor. Some immortals are better at concealing it than others, some are better at spotting it. And even the ones that are good at hiding their immortality tend to have slightly skewed perceptions of normal so that doesn’t help.

Sophie is excellent at spotting fellow immortals and just as excellent at hiding it. She reads people, it’s what she does, and once you get people talking and know what to look for, it’s easy. But there’s Nate, who’s been hiding it almost as long as she has, and Parker and Eliot, who are very good at hiding because of their careers and are also not quite normal for other reasons, and Hardison who just isn’t old enough to have any immortal tells. Nate is sharp enough to notice, but he’s hampered by the same things Sophie is and is drunk off his ass on top of it.

Parker doesn’t understand people so the tells Sophie uses, she can’t read. She can tell if someone is immortal by how they react to injuries and their recovery time, and can spot evidence of physical skills that people don’t have without the dedication of decades then do the digging to figure out if they’re immortal. But Nate doesn’t have those tells because his skills are mostly mental, Hardison again is too young, and Eliot has gotten very good at hiding his injuries.

The only reason Eliot remembers (mostly) how injuries act on the average person is spending so much time around injured normal people. And being immortal doesn’t mean healing immediately here. It just means healing completely. He’s good at faking more trouble than he’s having when he needs too, and practiced at brushing it off as experience with pain if someone asks. And he’s the one taking all the hits for the team so he doesn’t have the chance see how they act in these situations which means that he evaluates them as dangerous quickly but doesn’t clock them as immortal.

Hardison is a baby immortal and doesn’t know what to look for but also doesn’t have the signs of being immortal or the knowledge because at this point he’s managed to avoid any serious injuries. But eventually he starts doing research to find out more about who he’s working with, and he attributes the difficulties tracking down info to them being in the game for so long. Except Nate. When he looks closer there are odd details in his records, things that aren’t right but he can’t find out more than what’s fake. He knows something’s wrong there, but doesn’t know what to do with this info. He’s too young to figure out immortal. Yet.

Hardison finds out something’s odd first, but doesn’t know what. Eventually someone else has a realization, and everything follows from there. But there’s only so many ways to find out you’re immortal.

So it’s a good thing Hardison has an immortal family to hold him through the first injury that definitely should have killed him.

#so a couple people mentioned they wanted to see a fic #and i don't know if i'll do a whole fic #though if someone does tag me!#consider this a continuation of that idea #rambles on the au #leverage au #immortal au #Leverage team #nate ford #sophie devereaux #parker #eliot spencer #alec hardison #leverage immortals au

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 2 years

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I've heard of this website called "tumblr". Do you know it? Can you describe what the site is like?

I'm sure it would interest you. I think I would describe it as, "social media site that is in many ways like Facebook," but with no Facebook-like aspects and more tumblr-like aspects.

You can post your thoughts in a text-only format that's limited to 300 characters (this is a lot -- my posts, on average, are about 4,000 characters). On the text-posts there are a number of different formatting options, and the main one (the blue font) is like tumblr. (You may be familiar with this kind of post -- I have several popular posts of this form.)

There is a sidebar with little icons for social media sites, so the tumblr sidebar is just like "Facebook and Instagram and Twitter icons next to one another." There's no "profile"/"wall"/"feed" functionality (but this might be added later, to the extent people want it). There's no "comments" feature, but "reblogs" are possible. There's no way to block people, or report them. There's no group chat feature.

Users can choose to "promote" other posts to others via "reblogs," much like one would with tumblr's version of reblogs -- in this case, other users might see posts you had made via their "dashboards," and the text of the posts on those dashboards will look the same as if you had reblogged the post from your own page, except it will have your icon next to it. I like this feature a lot -- it's good for building a community, and it is possible to use this feature to get a lot of exposure.

And, yes, the userbase skews very young. Many of the userbase (including me) have been on the site a long time and have been there for long periods of time, and many of them post only one or two original posts a day. I think this contributes to their feeling that the site does not cater to their interests.

#moldbug tag?#todbrowning #clouds-of-wings

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wtchwtch · 1 year

Text

TT014_Transcript

TT014: When D Met Jess

This is a fanmade transcript, please let me know if you see any errors.

TT014

(Intro music)

(Tape recorder sounds)

Mark: Oh, thank goodness. Oh, thank you, God or, or god's or godesses or Mighty Turtle, Lord of Earth, or whatever! Just thank you. Listen to this:

News Reporter: Breaking local news, just in. Seven days ago, a young woman was abducted and sadly, authorities were not hopeful as an initial search came up with little to speak about.

The local search was expanded yesterday morning, province-wide, with the help and coordination of both provincial bodies as well as the RCMP in an attempt to build leads in a case where there seemed to be none. Jesse Sygard, who who was allegedly kidnapped and brought daylight with no witnesses to the event had been found alive.

First responders commented stating her condition was stable, but the exact plight of her capture is yet unknown. Local authorities stumbled upon her in Breyer Park seeming dazed and confused. From there, she was rushed to hospital due to suspected dehydration. We will update as more news comes in regarding a case that has grip the community in a state of fear for nearly a week.

Back to Doug with Sports at half past the hour.

(Tape recorder sounds)

D: Is he coming or what?

Mark: I'll be honest, when I say I'm only thinking 60% sure he is coming.

D: You said you talked to him!

Mark: Well, I texted him.

D: Mark...

Mark: He'll be here!

D: Good. We've got lots to talk about.

(Tape recorder sounds)

Cole: D, I'm so sorry.

D: What are you apologizing for?

Cole: If. If I'd never come up with this stupid idea, then, then Jess never would've.

D: You're seriously making this about you.

Cole: Wait, I'm, I'm sorry. What?

D: This was never just about you.

Cole: D, my name was on the list. The letter was to me. I'm, I, I'm not trying to be self-centered here, but-

D: You're an absolute dweeb, who cares if your name was on the list? Who cares if the letter was just to you? When someone threatens you, they threaten us. It, it could have very well been me or or Mark whose name was on that list as well. I mean, would you have blamed either one of us?

Cole: Well, hold on.

D: No, no, I'm not holding on for squat here cuz frankly you've got nothing to say that I don't know on the topic and a lot better than you.

Whatever skewed version you have of yourself in your head where you're like the main character of every story, let it go. Yeah, I know in a lot of those stories you cooked up and the versions of the events, you're the bad guy too. And I'm sure you're not the best person in the world all the time. Just let us beat you up, huh?

Don't go doing it yourself

Mark: Hear hear!

D: All I wanna know right now, Cole, is, what are we gonna do about it?

Cole: Do, what are we gonna do about it? I, I don't know what the hell we can do about it.

D: They took Jess, Cole, and I wanna nail those suckers to the wall for it.

Cole: What?

D: Aren't you mad? What are we gonna do is just roll over and let them win? Hell no.

Cole: D, anything you'll say, they'll just-

D: What the listener will hear? Oh Lord. No. Not the listener. Yeah, I know they'll hear me and I've got a story to tell them just so they know how much they piss me off.

(Tape recorder sounds)

D: My grandmother used to get me those plastic princess heels, the ones that come in packs of two or three different pairs. They're all clear plastic with a pink or blue hue and sparkles throughout, like something a four year old would imagine a princess would wear. Christmas, birthdays, she'd always make sure I had my princess heels and, and to be fair, I used to love them.

I'd put on my prettiest gown, which was usually a ratty old night dress with stars or unicorns. And slip my tiny little feet into those sticky, clear plastic princess heels with the sparkles, and I'd walk about the house imagining I was Rapunzel, or pretend I was asleep on the couch like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.

I used to love getting those heels because my grandmother would giggle so hard, she'd cover her mouth and make little snorts as the tears streamed down her eyes when I put them on and clip-clopped about the house, shuffling my feet to keep them on in, flicked my hair with every ounce of drama I could muster, and declare that I must have chocolate milk with my lunch.

That was me at three and four and five and six years old. I, I used to love the girly things because my mom and my grandma loved the girly things, and I loved the giggles and smiles and pictures they'd take and all the wonderful things they'd say to me when I used to parade about like that.

By the time I entered primary school though, I felt a little different about the princess heels. And soon I felt a little different about my long hair and my painted nails too, so piece by piece I changed them, cuz they didn't feel right anymore. They didn't feel comfortable. So I cut my hair and trimmed my nails and rubbed them with acetone until all the pink chipped nail polish was gone.

It's funny looking back, you know. I got really lucky. I was lucky my mom never really made a fuss about it. It went from her rushing home from a sale at Zellers with a hot pink backpack to her rushing home from a sale at Zellers with a pair of knockoff converse and a crisp flannel shirt. She never missed a beat.

It was the same excitement either way for her. Same with my grandma too, princess heels to cap guns, and a plastic sheriff badge, and she barely blinked. And she still giggled watching from the window as I played cops and robbers with you two idiots in the cul-de-sac.

Not everyone's that lucky. Most people aren't, but I was.

No- no matter how lucky I was though, it didn't change the fact that I was different. Different wasn't bad, not for me, but it can be lonely. Jess and I met years ago at Bible Camp. During that one summer, my parents thought maybe having a little Jesus in the house would be a good thing. Yeah. We must have been the only two people at camp who argued over who would have the bottom bunk.

I wanted it, because I was paranoid of stepping outta bed, half asleep to use the washroom and falling five feet to the ground. She wanted it because it was near the only outlet where she could plug in her nightlight. Eventually, a counselor got involved and settled the fight, putting Jess in the bottom bunk because she said she was afraid of the dark.

But she wasn't afraid of the dark. She just wanted to stay up late reading her books. It pissed me off, but it was cute. She was cute. We didn't talk much after our yelling match on the first day, and I didn't really think there was anything between us. Jesse left a day early from Bible camp. Her mom got sick and her dad wanted her closer to home.

I'd spent the entirety of Sleepaway camp giving her dirty looks and ignoring her, but I was sad to see her go, like my chance to turn things around was gone? I didn't really know what I could've done or how I would've done it, but I felt like I lost something when she left. You guys might not get it, but no one was talking about non-binary identities or being queer at that time, especially not a couple of people at Bible Camp.

It's weird when you don't have the words to describe something like how I felt about Jesse the first time I saw her. If I was being honest. I didn't really care about the bottom bunk. I just wanted her attention, but I also didn't know how I felt because I didn't know how I was supposed to feel, and that's where my loneliness lived.

I had no one to ask, no one to talk about my feelings with, not anyone who would understand the complications of feeling different than seemingly everyone else around me. I yelled at her about the bottom bunk and held a grudge for the duration of camp. All because I had a crush on her. And before I could figure my feelings out and put the words to it to make it make sense to me, she was gone.

That night when I went to bed and stuck my hand under my pillow to touch the cold side, I felt the spine of a book. Jesse had left a parting gift for me: Perks of Being a Wallflower. I told the counselors that I felt sick and stayed in my Cabin on that last day reading until my parents came to pick me up at dinner time.

It was like Jesse was speaking to me through that book, like she was telling me in some small way that she knew, at least in part, how I felt, and that she accepted me and, and wanted me to accept her .

(D chuckles)

D: Oh, what a way to leave an impression on a queer 14 year old coming to terms with their identity. Leave a copy of Perks of Being a Wallflower to express some unrealized infatuation. Feels cliche now.

We found each other on social media a year or two later and left the odd comment her heart on posts, but that was it for years. Then she asked me for coffee a few months ago. I've never felt the way I feel about Jess, and now I know the feelings I'm having don't actually need to be explained to anyone for any reason.

I mean, we've barely been official for a month but... I'm falling in love with her and, and I,

I love myself even more for allowing myself to love her and I love us and all the things we do together. And I can't begin to tell you how liberating that is to say aloud instead of feeling like it can't hurt me so long as I don't talk about it. Jesse makes me feel a part of the world. She doesn't make me feel different because even when different isn't bad, it's still apart from the rest and and lonely.

But with her, I'm not different. I'm just me and I'm just me and she's just Jess and I wouldn't want it any other way.

To whoever is listening to me right now. The stalker, the listener, the creep in the shadows. Whatever you call yourself, there's one thing you ought to know about me: I'll do anything for the ones I love.

I'll do anything to protect them. My family, Cole, Mark, and Jesse. It may not be today or tomorrow. It may not be for a week or a month or a year or decades from now when you are weak and frail and infirm, but I will find you and I intend on making you pay for what you've done.

(Tape recorder sounds)

D: I'm not angry at you, Cole, for anything outside the bounds of our friendship, but I am absolutely furious and we; Mark, you, me and Jesse, we're gonna take our pound of flesh before this is over.

Mark: Good Lord Macbeth. Dost thou be-est a little dark, nay?

Cole: Jesus...

D: Mess with me or mine? No, not a chance.

Cole: All right, then what do we do then?

D: First we need to hear from Jesse exactly what happened. She's been talking to doctors or police or resting since they found her. Haven't seen her yet, so we let her rest and then we get in and we hear what she has to say.

Cole: It doesn't get us that far, D. I- I feel like we would have heard by now if she could have told police, or anyone, who took her.

D: It'll give us somewhere to start.

Then we're gonna sit down and start recording cuz we got ground to cover. I listened to that interview you did with Dr. Rutland Cole, and I've got some serious questions, and now that damn ransom letter or abduction notice, or whatever the hell that was, I feel like something's starting to click in my brain.

Mark: You know, I've been thinking a lot about that too since you both left me, myself, and I together for a week.

Cole: Sorry about that.

D: Sorry.

Mark: The letter from the listener, the one that Jess was forced to read out seemed kind of self contradictory at first. But when you put it beside the interview, it starts to make a lot more sense.

Cole: I'll be honest, I'm emotionally exhausted. Can, can we take a knee for the night and come back to it-

D: in the morning? Absolutely.

Mark: Look at us back at it again. Feels good, you know.

(Tape recorder sounds)

Mark: Tiny Terrors is an anthology horror podcast produced by Pulp Audio and licensed under a creative commons attribution, non-commercial share alike 4.0 international license.

D: This episode was directed by Cole Weavers with sound production and editing by Mike LeBeau.

Mark: To find additional information or to join our Paton for additional content and ad free episodes, visit our website www.tinyterrorspod.com

D: Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at TinyTerrorsPod,

Mark: Or join the Pulp Audio discord by clicking the link in the description below.

D: Rate and review us on Spotify and Apple.

Mark: And finally, thanks for listening.

#tiny terrors #tiny terrors podcast #tiny terrors pod #tt transcript #tiny terrors transcript

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house-of-slayterr · 2 years

Note

What if aliens abducted someone who was autistic and what would they do with them?

So this is assuming that one, aliens would be real in this scenario, and two, aliens would be interesting in coming to earth. If there really was another intelligent life out there, what would they like about earth? Would they come here to study our sun, our moon, our atmospheric pressure? Or perhaps they would be interested in the plants, the animals, the bacteria.

Would these aliens be able to communicate with us? Perhaps their language is more intelligent than ours and we can't understand it. Or maybe, we are the advanced beings and they will follow shortly after us. Perhaps they've come to observe our way of life s they can mimic it themselves. I think it would be cool if they communicated in sign language and gestures instead of verbal vocalisations.

Nos, suppose they do come to earth, were also going to assume they landed somewhere in America. Their job is to successfully abduct a gaggle of humans for observational purposes. Would they be picky about their selection, or grab a well-rounded group? Have they also abducted Neurotypical people? Or else how would they come to realise Autistic people are special, different?

Now let's say they've come to realise that Autistic individuals are the population they want to model themselves after. They would still need a diverse group in order to run a proper study. If the group is too small and too similar, it will skew the data and present with bias. So they collect black people, Latinos, disabled people, autism and ADHD combination, women, men, nonbinary people, young and old.

Autism is typically caught during addolance, and is more difficult to diagnose. Many autistic children are prone to going nonverbal, especially when overstimuallted. What do you think would happen if you suddenly woke up in a foreign place with extraterrestrial beings staring at you? The best way to collect data, in this case, would be the observe from a far technique. No direct contact with the subject as that would interfere with the data collection.

Now say we go a little older, the teenage demographic. This would be best observed with the dual technique. Observe at first for a far, then once you've collected enough information move on to stage two. Direct human contact. These people are still in a developmental phase, therefore you have to be careful about how much influence they latch onto. While the aliens wish to observe human autistic behaviours, the autistic teens could accidentally pick up on alien mannerisms. Some people with autism tend to subconsciously mimic those they are around as a way to make the other person feel more comfortable and at home. So they would have to keep talking to a minimum and be careful not to do anything that could be perceived as non-human.

Adults would be the easiest to directly interact with. They have lived with their way of thinking for long enough, that it is unlikely they will be subject to much change. Autistic people don't like change, especially when it's outside of their control. These people might have an established routine which would be very easy to observe. If they are verbal, autistic people tend to have an expansive vocabulary as We have to study human interaction. This is done in order to make us seem "normal" or blend in. Vague language can be quite upsetting. So the aliens would be able to have conversations with these people and learn through anecdotical evidence.

I think they would be interested in earning how we observe our own world. With special interests, we tend to obsess over every detail, which makes us reliable narrators. Some of us have odd comorbidities like synesthesia, or sociopathy, Borderline Personality Disorder, and sensory perception difficulties. This makes the way we experience the world very different from that of a neurotypical person. I think that is why the aliens would choose us for observation, we offer the most diverse and detailed perception of life.

#Ask an autistic person #autism #autism headcanon #autism theory #autistic #aliens #extraterrestrial #life beyond the stars #earthlings #Ask Fang #fang rambles

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frankensteinsmonstergotablog · 3 months

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Women's Spaces and Relationships

I gave myself a day to fully cool off and reflect before I made this post. I can not help but realize that it is far too common for young women's families to become involved in their relationships and to side with men they do not know. This is even more prevelant when the girl is being raised without her father or the father and the boyfriend are on good terms. It's tragic, and when a girl is really young or inexperienced it is a form of gaslighting. Boys lie, or at the very least skew narratives in their favor, because it's a sensitive topic. It's their love life and their first relationship too. Young people test the waters of what is socially acceptable, so of course that's what most young people will do. I'm not here to call out young boys in highschool who don't fully understand boundaries, especially given the cultual norms depicted in media and upheld by patriarchal standards.

However, the real problem with this circumstance is that society as a whole has given men way too much control in social situations, even when they are incredibly young or simply out of bounds. The ball is not in their court, and as the older person, it's up to the girl's parents or guardians to set an example. To let these young men know that this is not a place for them. Likewise, a young girl should never try to invade a young man's family home to win him back, should never try to win over his family, etc.

I understand I may have some fall out with others over this topic, especially since masculinity is a cultural performance that relies on tradions such as the chase, getting a girl back, etc. However, if you're a parent and your immediant instinct is to side with a man you don't know in your own family member's first or second relationship, you're only making that problem worse. Being part of a community, giving younger generations life long skills, it all relies on older people, specifically parents and guardians acting accordingly. I can not fathom a reason to comment or care about my future daughter's relationships to such an extent, much less to side with a teenage boy, allowing him inside a space that should be a place where a young girl can feel is her own. I've watched this type of situation play out, and it digrades the trust a young girl has with her family moving forward as well as her trust in future relationships. If a young girl ends a relationship, that should be her choice.

Additionally, taking the opposite action can aid a woman's future. All the women I have known who have had financial and academic success did not have this experience. All of them grew up with parents that did not let men get close to the family until the women were much older (late 20s, early 30s) with education and career path being first and foremost the priority. Not to say the women couldn't talk about their boyfriends growing up, or have them over, but for the boys to be hanging out with their families when she wasn't around? This was unheard of. Why bother whipping this courtship into a frenzy when it's a first try? Let it fail, learn from those failures, and branch out onto better future endeavors.

I wanted to address this topic, to form it fully outside my mind because it happened to me. My own mother allowed my first boyfriend, a man years older than me, into our family home. She agreed with him that I should quit attending my current school and go to a completly new city with him, despite me having already cut things off with him days prior. There are no words to how truly awful it felt to have be in such a situation. Had my father been alive, I still wonder if my ex would have even considered pulling such a stunt. It's a harrowing thing to say I experienced and lived through, and while I'm lucky, I can not say with full confidence how many other women have died because they tried to flee an abusive relationship and their own families turn on them. If we as a society want to fully address the patriarchy and a culture's internalized misogyny, we have to give women a safe space to return to after exploring the world, their sexuality, and all life has to offer. Virginia Woolfe's essay, a Room of One's Own, famously touches on this ideology that women's suffrage depends on not just theories and slogans, but physical spaces with which women can escape to and find sanctuary in; "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." While the female novelist indeed needs a room of her own, so does the future surgeon, pilot, and entrepeneur. No girl should feel she can not return to her home, the very pot from which her roots grew, and not feel the cards are not stacked in her favor and the gates only open on her and her parent's command.

#feminism #sexuality #society #culture #gender stuff

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gurugirl · 4 months

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I truly apologise. I promise I was not trying to shame you for anything. I really like your writing and was trying to say that I appreciate the way you write to request. I can see from your response how it could seem like a personal attack and I’m sorry. I am all about fantasising about whatever you want!

I think what I was trying to comment on was just broader tropes in fan fiction and the way some things have become really normalised for younger people or people without much relationship experience and I do sometimes wonder what that is setting them up for in the real world, you know? The same way that porn is warping young guys perceptions of what sex looks like. I think fan fiction is definitely much healthier than that but there are still some interesting recurrent themes that I worry about for example a lot of choking, a lot of submission stuff. These are perfectly reasonable kinks if that’s what people want but there’s absolutely nothing odd about not wanting them, nor are they apart of most sex.

I just thought you seemed open to chatting about that stuff, I really wasn’t trying to talk about you personally or imply that you don’t have your own personal history or fantasies that of course you can communicate however you feel! And lucky us for getting to read them.

Apologies again.

I definitely don’t disagree that porn can be bad for lots of people and set skewed expectations and perhaps fan fiction can also be part of that.

But If I look at this hobby of mine under this lense then I wouldn’t write for tumblr any more. If I felt I was responsible for my readers well-being then I just wouldn’t do this. I’m not equipped for that. I just write fiction and it usually contains many things I like or enjoy writing.

Everything I write (request or not) is something I enjoy and want to write. I can’t write something I’m not into and so hearing that you felt this sort of idea or fantasy would only make sense if someone was young or inexperienced did feel like a bit of a jab at me, even if you didn’t intend it. I write what I enjoy.

I know that many of the people who have commented and reblogged are both experienced and mature (I have gotten to know many of them through dms) so this could sound insulting to those of us who just enjoy this kind of thing. I might have sounded very defensive toward you but that was because I just don’t want any of my readers who did enjoy the content to not feel bad for liking it.

I suppose there’s nothing wrong with asking why but I also think that when we want to really dissect everything we consume we wind up with nothing in the end.

Again. I’m not proclaiming to be self help or a voice of reason to anyone on what healthy relationships should look like or not. In fact I write pretty exclusively (with a few exceptions) problematic relationships.

Thank you for the apology. I’m sorry I was so defensive and that might have been unnecessary but I felt like I wanted to make sure the readers that have enjoyed this story didn’t feel bad about liking it. Perhaps no one would have taken it that way except me. I’m sensitive to certain criticisms because I do put so much of myself into the stories even if they have nothing to do with me 😅

Xoxo

#ask

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jcmarchi · 6 months

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AI and Educational Equity: A Blueprint for Closing the Gap

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/ai-and-educational-equity-a-blueprint-for-closing-the-gap/

AI and Educational Equity: A Blueprint for Closing the Gap

In an ideal world, everyone would have the same opportunity for a quality education. However, the reality is far from this view. There are differences in the status and quality of education related to factors such as socioeconomic status, cultural barriers and language barriers. Although we live in an age of unprecedented technological and social progress, differences in possession, the gap between more educational opportunities and less access is largely the result of failed policies.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the COVID-19 pandemic made it more difficult. In a time where we rely very heavily on technology and its byproducts, not everyone has the luxury and the privilege of having access to them. This has further increased the education inequity gap. Although technology has the potential to make education easier to access for everyone, it can also act as a barrier that worsens inequity, especially for those already at a disadvantage.

This blog is going to explore the complex topic of how artificial intelligence (AI) can help make education fair for everyone. We’ll go beyond the usual conversations and think of other creative ways that AI can help us make schools better and more equitable for everyone in the future.

Education “inequality” and “inequity” are often used interchangeably but for the sake of this blog it’s important to make the distinction in the context of education. Inequality describes the uneven distribution of educational outcomes, while inequity indicates when these inequalities are unfair and systematic. Basically, inequality is a symptom, but inequity is the problem we aim to solve. In this blog, we specifically focus on using AI to address educational inequities.

The Current State of Educational Inequity: Hard Facts

Globally, 258 million children, adolescents, and youth are not in school. This number isn’t uniform across regions: 31% of young people are out of school in sub-Saharan Africa and 21% in Central Asia, compared to only 3% in Europe and North America. These figures demonstrate the stark disparities in educational access between developed and developing nations.

But even attendance doesn’t capture the full picture. Learning outcomes, or what students are actually able to understand and do, reveal another layer of inequity. In Brazil, for example, it would take 15-year-olds 75 years to catch up to the average math scores of their counterparts in wealthier countries, given the current pace of educational improvement. For reading, this gap widens to an estimated 260 years.

In-country inequities further illustrate the point. In Mexico, 80% of indigenous children finishing primary school do not reach basic competency levels in reading and math. These students are falling further behind and the gap widens in educational achievement.

These numbers are more than just data points; they are indicators of real, systemic issues that require attention and action.

Causes of Educational Inequity: Digging Deeper

Educational inequity is a complex issue that stems from a variety of factors. To understand the root causes, we need to go beyond surface-level observations and delve into the mechanisms that perpetuate this systemic problem.

Resource Allocation: Primary cause of education inequity is the skewed distribution of educational resources. Unfortunately, education has become the political grounds for students in many countries which has caused the resources to be allocated to where most of the political pressures are rather than the area that needs resources the most. Such attention usually stems from urban communities or those with a dominant cultural or educational background. Consequently, schools located in financially challenged or remote localities, or those primarily serving underrepresented communities, are at a disadvantage when it comes to things like facilities, materials, and qualified educators.

Teacher Training: Teachers are crucial in determining the success of educational programs. If insufficient focus is placed on both initial and ongoing training for teachers, the result is often gaps in student learning. This problem is pronounced in areas where teachers per capita is significantly lower and access to quality education for these educators are more scarce.

Curriculum Relevance: The diversity of a country often comes into conflict with a one-size-fits-all educational curriculum. Students from rural areas or cultural minorities, or those living in poverty, often find the standardized curriculum irrelevant or meaningless. This mismatch is exacerbated when the language of instruction differs from the students’ native languages, leading to reduced learning and higher dropout rates.

Social Factors: Prejudices, stereotypes, and sometimes even overt racism and sexism, can also contribute to educational inequity. Disadvantaged students often encounter negative attitudes from teachers and classmates, affecting their willingness to learn and increasing the likelihood of early dropout.

Each of these factors is not just an independent issue but part of an interconnected web that feeds into the larger system of educational inequity. Addressing this complex challenge requires a multi-faceted approach, which we will explore in the subsequent sections.

Why AI Can Make a Difference in Addressing Educational Inequity

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize how we approach educational inequity by offering solutions that are both scalable and personalized. Take resource allocation, for instance. AI-driven analytics can identify underserved schools and student populations, enabling governments and educational institutions to distribute resources more equitably. This data-driven approach can apply pressure where it’s most needed, rather than where it’s most politically expedient.

In terms of teacher training, AI can facilitate remote learning and professional development opportunities, breaking down the geographical barriers that often leave educators in impoverished or rural areas without access to quality training. This amplifies the human capacity to teach by equipping educators with the skills and support they need to be effective, irrespective of their location.

As for the curriculum, AI-powered adaptive learning systems can personalize education to suit the individual needs of each student. This is especially crucial for students from diverse backgrounds, who may find a “one-size-fits-all” curriculum irrelevant or challenging. These intelligent systems can even adapt the language of instruction, bridging gaps that may otherwise lead to reduced learning and higher dropout rates.

Lastly, AI can mitigate the social factors contributing to educational inequity. Intelligent systems can be designed to be culturally sensitive, avoiding the biases and prejudices that might otherwise be perpetuated in educational settings. These systems can also identify patterns of discrimination or bias, alerting administrators to issues before they escalate, thus fostering a more inclusive educational environment.

A Vision for the Future: AI Transforming a Rural School District

Imagine a rural school district where educational disparities are starkly evident. Teachers are undertrained, resources are scarce, and societal prejudices persist. To tackle these issues head-on, the district integrates a cutting-edge AI educational system, resembling platforms like Penseum.

Right off the bat, the AI platform performs a thorough needs assessment. It combs through data on student grades, attendance records, and even local demographic factors. This nuanced understanding allows school authorities to shift resources where they’re most needed.

Teachers get personalized professional growth opportunities through a dedicated portal. No matter where they are in their career, the platform serves up relevant training and even remote mentorship, enabling them to become more effective educators.

For the students, an adaptive learning platform reshapes their educational experience. It customizes lessons based on a detailed profile of each student’s strengths, weaknesses, and learning preferences. Additionally, it alerts educators about students who might be veering off course, enabling timely interventions.

But that’s not all. As the academic year unfolds, the platform also begins to spot more subtle problems, like implicit biases in evaluations and imbalances in resource distribution. School administrators are notified, and remedial steps are immediately taken. Teachers can access specialized training to counteract unconscious biases, ensuring a more equitable learning environment for everyone.

This isn’t just technology for the sake of technology; it’s a holistic approach to dismantling the barriers that perpetuate educational inequality. Over time, the district evolves, becoming a blueprint for how platforms like Penseum can democratize education, making it more equitable and inclusive.

Drawing Parallels: AI in Healthcare as an Adjacent Scenario

When considering the transformative potential of AI in education, it might be instructive to examine its applications in healthcare, another sector fraught with systemic inequities. Just like in education, the healthcare system faces challenges like resource allocation, access to quality services, and cultural biases, among others. AI has already started to make inroads in addressing some of these issues in healthcare, offering promising implications for its application in the educational sphere.

For instance, IBM’s Watson Health has developed AI-driven predictive analytics tools that help healthcare providers make informed decisions. These tools analyze vast amounts of patient data to identify trends or flag risks that might otherwise go unnoticed. In this way, healthcare resources can be allocated more efficiently, prioritizing those most in need—much like how AI in education can help allocate resources to disadvantaged schools or districts.

Similarly, companies like Zebra Medical Vision have been pioneering in the field of medical imaging. Their AI algorithms can analyze medical images and spot potential anomalies, which is particularly useful in regions that lack the expertise in radiology. The technology, thus, has the power to democratize access to quality healthcare diagnostics, just as AI has the potential to democratize education through tailored learning experiences.

Google’s DeepMind has developed an AI system that can identify eye diseases in scans, providing early detection that could prevent more severe vision loss down the line. This is especially significant for under-resourced communities where such medical expertise is lacking. By the same token, AI systems in education could offer early detection of learning disabilities, enabling timely interventions that could make a substantial difference in a child’s academic trajectory.

By examining these real-world applications of AI in healthcare, we can begin to construct a vision for how similar technology could be leveraged to combat inequities in the educational system. Both sectors share the imperative to serve diverse populations fairly and effectively, and in both cases, AI offers tools that can help achieve this goal.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations: The Dual-Edged Sword of AI

While the applications of artificial intelligence hold immense promise for bridging gaps in educational equity, there are important challenges and ethical considerations that cannot be ignored. The excitement surrounding this technological frontier must be tempered by critical examinations of its potential downsides, many of which can inadvertently exacerbate existing inequalities.

Firstly, data privacy stands as a major ethical concern. Educational systems hold sensitive information about students, including academic records, socio-economic status, and even behavioral assessments. As AI systems require large datasets to function effectively, the question arises: Who owns this data, and how secure is it? Mishandling of such information could have serious repercussions, potentially violating students’ privacy or enabling unauthorized profiling.

Another concern revolves around the quality and fairness of algorithms. As human biases can be coded into these algorithms, we run the risk of perpetuating, or even amplifying, existing prejudices. Whether it’s racial, economic, or gender biases, AI systems could inadvertently favor one group over another, thereby worsening the educational divide rather than alleviating it.

The accessibility of AI tools is another major issue. Schools in affluent neighborhoods are more likely to afford advanced AI-based educational systems, potentially widening the gap between them and underfunded schools. Unless there are concerted efforts to democratize access to these technologies, the potential for AI to serve as an equalizing force in education remains compromised.

Moreover, there’s the question of teacher and student autonomy. While AI can be a helpful tool, there’s a very real concern that over-reliance on algorithms could undermine the role of educators in crafting curricula and evaluating student progress. Similarly, while personalized learning paths created by AI can benefit students, they could also create an overly structured environment that stifles creativity and independent thought.

Lastly, there’s a lack of long-term studies examining the efficacy and ethical implications of using AI in education. This creates a knowledge gap that makes it difficult to forecast the unintended consequences of integrating these technologies into educational settings.

While AI offers a tantalizing possibility for improving educational equity, it also poses a series of ethical and practical challenges that need to be thoughtfully addressed. Recognizing these challenges is not an argument against the use of AI in education but a call for a more nuanced, ethically responsible approach to its implementation.

A Balanced View on the AI-Education Nexus

As we explore the transformative possibilities of AI in the educational landscape, it is crucial to adopt a balanced perspective. Artificial intelligence holds significant promise for addressing many of the systemic inequities that plague education systems globally. From personalized learning pathways to more equitable resource allocation, the potential benefits are both sweeping and impactful. However, this is not a one-sided narrative. The complexities of introducing AI into such a delicate ecosystem, fraught with ethical and logistical pitfalls, cannot be overstated.

While AI can be a powerful tool for augmenting educational quality and fairness, its implementation requires a cautious approach. We must engage in constant ethical scrutiny, ensuring that privacy is protected, biases are mitigated, and access is democratized. At the same time, safeguarding the roles of teachers and students as active, creative participants in the learning process is non-negotiable. The absence of long-term empirical studies on the subject calls for an ongoing commitment to research and evaluation, as we step into this largely uncharted territory.

In essence, the journey towards integrating AI in education is much like navigating a complex maze. Each turn presents opportunities and challenges, and while the destination—a more equitable educational landscape—is compelling, the path to get there is fraught with questions that demand thoughtful answers. Ignoring these questions is not an option; instead, they should serve as guideposts, shaping a more informed, ethical, and ultimately, effective application of AI in education. Only then can we hope to fulfill the technology’s promise without falling prey to its perils.

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