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#considerably less nowadays
sillayangel · 1 year
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im sure i gained most of my followers like. 5+ years ago at LEAST. wonder how many are even active anymore
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ghostfag · 5 months
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shaking in my boots over posting something tee emm ay related . noooo i got my cs lab in the morninggg
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envy-of-the-apple · 2 months
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Dark!Naga!Gojo Satoru x reader x Dark!Naga!Geto Suguru
Top of the Food Chain
I've always wanted to continue my naga!mha fic but considering i dont write for deku+co anymore, i decided to move my au a couple fandoms over:D 1.8k wc
Part two
(Warnings: animal deaths, blood, obsession, dark content, slight gun threat but not rlly, polyamory, gender ambigious!reader) 
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Despite being here for nearly a week, you still don't think Satoru understood how delicate you are. 
He's overbearing, in that sense. Constantly poking and prodding and squeezing until your lungs give and you're forced to squeak. You can't blame him for not understanding. He's an animal, after all. Inhuman. Despite his skin and hair, the scales coating his tail give away just how different he is. He was probably born fighting, kicking, and screeching his way through the foliage, hunting, chewing, and biting. 
He's not like you when all you knew when you were younger was coddling and softness. You can see it in his scars, and bruises, and marks. 
Luckily, for you, Suguru had an inkling that you weren't made for sharp claws. 
It's not a fight, you can tell when they're fighting, it's more like a warning? A minor disagreement. Suguru hisses at the other naga, scrunching up his face, showing his teeth. Satoru is quick to respond, but a little more playful. Fortunately for you, the black-haired male seems to win the argument. Satoru's coils loosen around you. Air stops fighting its way to get into your lungs. 
You finally go lax in his hold. Satoru seems to enjoy that, dipping his head to bury his face into the base of his neck. The first few times he did that, you were afraid he was trying to bite off your jugular. Now, you think it's just another way he can soak up your body heat. 
Maybe you've been here for longer than a week. At this point, you couldn't really tell. Hope that you'd be found was starting to slowly fizzle away. The explosion had been massive. The ship had sunk in a matter of minutes. With a disaster that huge, you doubt anyone would still be looking for survivors. Especially on an uncharted island, where myth had turned into reality. 
 Satoru had been the one you'd woken up to. Washed ashore, barely conscious. You were half-certain he was planning on eating you with the way he held your leg, watching your muscles bend and turn. In his defense, he must have thought you were dead. Your shrill scream quickly convinced him otherwise. 
It was barely a fight. More or less, a pathetic kidnapping as he grabbed your body, slinging it over his shoulder. You've never remembered screaming and crying so loudly before, convinced you were about to be eaten. Suguru probably heard you before he saw you. 
Satoru's mate was a little less impressed with you. Back then, they didn't bother learning your tongue, speaking in hisses and snarls, unaware of your misery. Suguru's frown was glued on his face, but the naga never let you run away, always keeping a hand or a tail on you at all times. It was a rough first day; you didn't know they weren't interested in eating you until they tried to feed you. 
Things were much different back then Nowadays, they are a lot more considerate of yourself and your soft body. You think you've come to an understanding with these strange creatures. 
Suguru was the nicest out of the two. In that, you mean the least rough. Compared to his counterpart, he's a bit smaller, but that's not saying there's any real difference. If it comes down to it, you are more than certain he'd be able to kill you off as quickly as his mate. You thought he hated you, at first. Now, you think he has a hard time showing blatant affection. His touches typically come in the dead of night, when you're barely conscious. A clawed finger gently raking over your soft skin. Large hands sculpting your face. 
Satoru's eyes were the first thing you noticed about him. Glittering like blue sapphires. You had a feeling they weren't just for show. Time and time again he's proven that he can see better than Suguru could. He smiles a lot more, but you're starting to wonder if that expression translates across species. He can speak your tongue slightly better than Suguru could. It most likely has to do with his insistence on staying with you. The more time you spend with him, the more you have to say 'No' 'Don't touch there' 'Stop'. 
In the rare times you manage to escape their hold, you like watching them interact with each other. They often sunbathe for hours, lazing around hot rocks to soak in the heat. They like touching each other. Sometimes it's aggressive, like when Satoru chomps on Suguru's neck and you're suddenly much more aware of how careful he is with you. Other times it's: soft, unintentional, meaningless. Languid cuddling when you are finally able to braid Suguru's hair. 
At this point, you've surmised they won't eat you. At least, not for the moment. You don't exactly know what they think of you. Do they have the concept of pets in their worldview? Maybe that's the closest thing you can place yourself as, at least in their eyes. They must think you're helpless. To them, you have no claws, no fangs, no venom. They probably don't know you come from a species that's hunted others to extinction and currently burning down the planet. You must be the first time they've ever seen your kind, stripped away from your weapons, when you're the least dangerous. 
"You should be more scared of me, you know," you once whispered to Suguru in the dead of night.
He was dozing off, blearily keeping his eyes open to stare at your moving lips. There was a grunt behind you, and Satoru tightened his arms across your waist. Greedy for affection, even in his sleep.
"Humans are terrifying," you said, reaching out to touch, "top of the food chain."
Suguru had smiled at that. You found yourself smiling back.
"You're lucky I didn't have a gun on me. You probably don't even know what that is." It's dark humor to press two fingers into his forehead. Your way of coping maybe.
Or perhaps your actions prove that humans will always desire to be violent, no matter how perilous their fight may be.
"Bang." He leans into your touch, unafraid. Oblivious to the threat that you are.
You're guessing Satoru only let you go because of the food Suguru brought.
You're able to feel the ground again as he glides over to Suguru having just come back from a successful hunt. The carcass of the largest deer you've ever seen is slung across his back. The smell of blood already makes you nauseous. 
You think Suguru had been the most panicked when you refused to eat, clicking and cooing while he tried to force-feed you the bloody leg of a bear. Back then, your communication was even worse than it was now. You were smeared in crimson by the time he relented. Practically dripping in it. 
Now, Suguru knows you have different tastes than them. You're not a big fan of raw. The fish and the handful of berries are more than enough to sate you as you gather the items he's given in your hands. 
"Thank you," you say. You reach out, touching his face with warm fingers. He purrs into your touch. You smile. It's the least gratitude you can give him. After all, he's not asking for much. If they hadn't found you, you would have been dead long ago, or at least, significantly less weaker. It's the least you can do. 
For a moment, you delude yourself into thinking they were your pets. It'd certainly be easy too. They have little to no regard for personal boundaries, much like dogs. They're more animalistic than they are human. 
It's funny to think of these monsters as lovable pets.
"Thank you," Suguru repeats. You giggle. It's not like they actually understand you. It's simple mimicry. Like talking to a parrot. 
"Thank you!" Satoru chirps, never one to be left out. He pushes his mate out of the way, eager for your pets as well. Suguru hisses, but doesn't argue. You've learned they like to be scratched right there on the bottoms of their chins. 
Suguru's less obvious, but Satoru has no desire to pretend. He melts into you, practically slumping his weight into your weak hold. It's a little adorable actually. You give a little laugh. He seems even more pleased at that. 
They're fun to be around, but this can't last. You belong with other humans, far far away from this island. So far, you hadn't seen any boats in the horizon, but you hope one would come by soon. A plane would be even better. Close enough to give you hope. Maybe if you built a big enough fire, it'd reach someone eye. 
Hopefully, in just a few weeks, these creatures will be a very cherished memory. 
You frown when Satoru reaches over to grasp at your food, the meat specifically. You glare, moving away from his hold. He titters in clear disappointment. You hate seeing him sad but you already have so few food sources. It's best to conserve whatever you get. 
"No," you pointedly tell him, "It's mine. Mine." 
His frown deepens, and he opens his jaws to let his fangs pop out. 
"Mine," you repeat. 
He leans back, huffing. You laugh because you know his expression is more out of frustration than any actual anger. Again, animals. You pet his head in apology, before turning away. You'd have to start a tiny fire to start cooking. Raw fish is edible, but it's hardly desirable. 
A hand grabs yours, clawed, the grip is tight around your frail skin. When you look back, Satoru is staring at you. Eyes wide. Eager. 
"Mine," he says, but it's more like he's testing the word. Tasting it on his lips. 
You scoff, unamused. "That's my arm. Not yours." 
Satoru smiles. Sharp teeth. You suddenly remember he's a carnivore. 
He's slow when he draws you in, practically dragging you into his arms. You're used to his spontaneous hugs, tight and suffocating. You can't fight him off, so you typically wait until Suguru has enough of his behavior and drags him off you. 
"Mine," Satoru repeats. Alarm bells ring in your head but it's easy to brush them off. It's mimicry. They can't understand. It's like talking to a parrot. 
You feel the weight of the other naga at your back. His arms wrap around your waist, pushing you against Satoru's chest. You stiffen when Suguru's fangs lightly graze up your neck. Never quite punctures, but is terrifyingly close.
"Mine," Suguru says into your skin. 
You laugh again, but it comes out less hesitant. More airy. Amid their hold, a sudden thought comes to you.
If you weren't at the top of the food chain anymore, then who was?
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littlesmartart · 4 months
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I've been wanting to draw something as a sort of follow-up from Safety of Distance for a while, so - tada! Xichen cultivates to immortality to keep his boys company! he never goes back to wearing his Lan ribbon, but the symbol of it still means something to him, so he takes up wearing a ring instead. he says he wears it on his wedding-ring-finger to discourage people from hitting on him, and if he secretly wears it there for other personal reasons, well, that's his business.
JGY fucking loooooooves playing with all the new technology and trying to keep up with fashion and pop culture (it's good for him to have a challenge as he is 100% A Dog With A Job, if he doesn't get enough stimulation he starts performing psychological experiments on his household) and nowadays he can use spreadsheets and banking apps on his phone!!! man is the happiest he's ever been!!!
Mingjue... cares considerably less about keeping up with the times, he knows he's gonna stand out whatever he does so he's just gonna Do Him however is most comfortable. he does wind up getting some very Qinghe tattoos to subtly obscure his, uh... reassembly scars....
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soleminisanction · 6 months
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I've always really liked DC's in-house choice of referring to their various superhero groupings as "families," but it has gotten a little frustrating recently with people both in canon and in fandom seeming to forget that families aren't just a parental-unit-and-kids formation. They're complicated, and a lot of the DC families are too messy to fit into that neat little nuclear family mode.
Which is to say... here's some scattered thoughts/summaries about how these families are actually structured in canon, because I think it's interesting:
Supers -- The smaller, more traditional Superfamily (Clark, Lois, Kara, Kon, etc.) is a pretty traditional Midwestern nuclear family, with Jimmy Olsen filling the role of close family friend/goofy neighbor sidekick (in the Silver Age, he was Kara's would-be suitor) and Steel feeling more like part of Clark's personal circle of friends. The recent line up, though, with Jon, the twins, Kong and Nat? Starts to feel more like some old dynasty or noble house, complete with fostered foundlings and the Steels acting almost like knights under a noble's banner, possibly reflective of what the House of El would have been on Krypton.
Arrows -- Might currently be the closet to a traditional nuclear family structure. You've got Ollie and Dinah, their younger sisters, Ollie's adopted and biological children, and Ollie's granddaughter through Roy, plus by some counts Roy's co-parent and her sister as "in-laws." Bonnie and Cissie King-Jones are adjacent to but not technically "part" of the family, though I believe it's implied at one point that Ollie might also be Cissie's bio-dad. Pretty straightforward, these guys are actually family and they act like it, for good and ill.
Shazam Family -- Also a literal, actual family. Not originally, the original golden age "Marvel Family" was considerably more complicated and only Billy and Mary were full siblings, but nowadays the whole point of the modern Shazam family is that they're foster siblings united by familial love and that's fantastic. Meanwhile your average Black Adam story is 75% angsty family drama, 25% Egyptian mythology references.
Flashes -- Technically closer to three nuclear families (the Allens, the Wests and the Garricks; four if you include the Quicks), two of whom are united by marriage and all of whom are bound by the Speedforce, which, given its semi-spiritual connections to things like Speedster afterlives, can act almost like a religious force that connects them to the additional members like Avery, Circuit Breaker and Max as Bart's foster-dad. They're a big, sprawling tree with more cousins than siblings, the kind of family that functionally has a reunion every Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Lanterns -- Now these guys are the exception that proves my point about the whole 'family' thing not being straightforward. The lanterns aren't a family, they're a corps. Soldiers. Space cops. Comrades-in-arms. They respect each other, have each other's backs, might even like or care about each other, but those last two are optional, and they don't have the same kind of assumed obligations towards each other that a family would have. They're friends and co-workers, not family, but that doesn't mean their relationships are less significant, they're just different.
Wonders -- Roughly half of them are either one of Hippolyta's daughters (Diana, Donna, Nubia pre-Crisis) or related to them through the gods (Cassie), and the other half (Artemis, Yara, modern-age Nubia) use sister as a term of endearment more in a utopian lesbian commune kind of way. I think they brought Steve Trevor back recently? He's basically the Ken in this equation and perfectly fine with that role. None of which should be surprising if you've seen Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.
Bats -- This is the one that people get really wrong when they try to force it into a traditional family structure. Don't let WFA fool you, the Bats are and have always been way more a snarled mess of tangled interpersonal relationships than they've ever been a cohesive family. Whether Dick is Bruce's son or his brother depends on what era you're talking about, and the former reading is much more recent than you think -- as in "started cropping up in the early 2000s" recent. Barbara is both Cassandra's sister and her mother. Duke and Steph both have living parents and neither of them want or would ever dream of treating Bruce like their dad; Tim was the same way until his dad died. None of the Robins ever lived in the mansion together, nor did Cass. Babs considered Jean-Paul Valley her brother and Huntress is so close to Tim she once hallucinated him calling her Big Sister. They're a beautiful mess of people finding places where their broken edges fit together into something that works for them and trying to reduce it down to a cozy nuclear family is just so goddamn reductive and lazy.
Blue Beetles -- Are only tangentially related to each other. Seriously, they never even get direct mentoring, each one just takes over when the previous one dies and works on completely different rules from the other two. They're complete strangers bound by a legacy and that's honestly pretty fun.
Zataras -- There's only three of them and they're literally a father, daughter and cousin.
Martians -- Not really a family because there's only the two of them, but an interesting case where the two survivors of what was functionally a war of mutually assured destruction came together in an attempt to find some peace in the aftermath of what they'd lost.
Titans -- The JLA and JSA aren't really in the "family" category, but the Titans lean into it hard, mostly because they're a textbook found family. They don't mirror a nuclear family structure, they're simply a group of people who came together to form a mutual support network. They're the idealized college friends you grew into your own with, some of them childhood companions and others you only met once you leave home for the first time, but all of them friends that you manage to maintain contact with for life, with everyone coming back together even as you scatter and do your own things.
Young Justice -- Meanwhile, this team is the chaotic group of misfits you hung out with when you were a teenager, especially when you were just starting to be allowed to act without adult supervision. You drive each other crazy, none of you know you're all queer as fuck, and you'd fight a bear for any of them even if they asked you not to. They'd probably be insulted if you tried to call them a family. They come out here to get away from their families, thank you very much.
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writingmeraki · 6 months
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cold enough to chill my bones.
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a roronoa zoro drabble !
pairing : zoro x gn!reader, teasing frenemies to ???
genre : fluff, romance, they like each other but aren't dating...yet.
warnings : not any i can think of! if you find anything alarming then lmk :)
author's note : enjoy this quick drabble while you wait for the first chapter of the zoro series!! and also i got the idea to make after i got almost sick last night- maybe zoro is a bit of ooc? idk i just love the idea of him being a menace while flirting but not knowing what to do when someone flirts back at him lololol let me know what you think ! <3
word count : 1k
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Despite the sun almost blinding you as it set, the sky turning into shades of deep pink intertwined with light purple and hints of yellowish orange, you felt cold.
Naturally, you'd always been the type to get cold easily, quite literally. Before even the harsh winters used to begin, you'd be getting the chills amid the warm autumn.
Though. it was beneficial when it was the blazing summer and you were always not on the brink of dying due to the immense heat as your cooler hands and feet made you more comfortable. 
But today, it was a bane to your existence as your teeth chattered as you sat down on the lounging chair in the middle of the ship, trying to rub your hands to bring life back to them. 
“Seems like someone can’t even take the fall breeze huh?” 
The familiar voice taunted you and you didn’t even need to look at him to know he was probably smirking as he looked down at you. 
Sighing in annoyance, you faced Zoro and clicked your tongue when you were right about him smirking. 
It was a tad bit distracting though, especially since he looked too…attractive than you’d like to admit.
“If you’re here to taunt me then leave me be.”
“The weather is annoying enough anyways, I don’t need another nuisance.” Not wanting to entertain him today, you turned your back towards him and faced the sunset. 
Too bad it was such a beauty but your body wasn’t allowing you to just simply be in bliss to enjoy it. 
Suddenly you felt a heavy weight on your shoulders, which took you by surprise as you flinched to stand up and yelped loudly. 
“Calm down idiot, it’s just a jacket,” Zoro said as it was his turn to roll his eyes,
“For the record, I didn’t come to ‘annoy’ you as you said which is quite ironic coming from you but I saw you shivering like a drenched cat,”
“So me being the considerate person I am,” You scoffed at his humble attitude which he chose to ignore, “I’ll let you wear my jacket for the time being.” 
Honestly, you were confused. Zoro was a confusing man you‘d concluded. Since the time you’d joined the crew, he’d been confusing you by saying something different, different as in finding every way to taunt you but then he’d be nice as a true gentleman with his actions.
Like right now for example. 
So ultimately, you were confused about how to thank him.
“Uh…thank you?” You’d thought it was best to just say it, figuring it was enough as you pushed your arms throughout the black clothing that was a tad bit larger than you. 
Of course, it was larger near the shoulders, enough to fit almost two of you inside.
“That’s it? That’s how you thank me? You know I almost saved you from I don’t know shivering to death here?” 
You sighed, now in exhaustion at his over-exaggeration, it wasn’t like if he hadn’t helped, you’d have not gotten up yourself and gone into the kitchen since it was usually always warmer as Sanji was always cooking something and the heat was always bubbling there.
He tsked at your sighing and supposedly unappreciative attitude, ready to go on a rant about how people nowadays never appreciated the little things and whatever.
When suddenly you got an idea. 
“-sometimes even if a gesture may be less, you should sti-” You shut him up by leaning forward, on your tiptoes and pulled him by his yellow shirt closer to you, landing your lips on his surprisingly soft ones.
That oughta shut him up. 
You pulled away in about three seconds, eyes shut as you just relished how soft they were and how right you’d been about them being like this from the countless times you’d imagined kissing him.
When you pulled away, you saw something you didn’t think you’d have seen anytime soon. 
Zoro was red, a bit wide-eyed as he stared at you, not speaking another word, his cheeks highlighted with a blush that was familiar to you in a way it was something you’d always experience whenever you’d check him out for too long. 
“Sooo is that enough for a thank you?” You smirked at him tauntingly, thriving in the way he was speechless, happy he could feel how you felt at times when he decided to shamelessly be a menace, a cute one, at that. 
“Now if you excuse me, I have some work to do.” Turning around, you didn’t say anything else as you tried to hide your giggles recalling his comical expression of astonishment.
“YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT!” After a few moments of gathering his thoughts, Zoro was able to form a proper reaction.
“I deserve more than a peck! Kiss me like you mean it-” You burst out into giggles now at the way he was whining as you shook your head abruptly turning around to face him when he began to follow you. 
“For that you have to earn your way to it!” You mocked him, pocking your tongue out as he glared at you, now crossing his arms.
“Are you seriously messing around with the Roronoan Zoro, demon pirate hunter?”
You rolled your eyes at his seemingly serious tone but you knew he was playing into the little thing you’d created as his lips twitched, trying to hide his grin.
You grinned widely at him, now your dimples peaking out, 
“Ohh if you are the pirate hunter, you’ll have to catch me first to get your treasure!”
 As cheesy and cringy as it was, you caught him off guard as you turned around and ran, figuring the place to run to was likely the kitchen in the confined space you had.
“HEY! Now you’re just cheating!” You heard him shout behind to which caused more giggles,which left your cheeks aching from how widely you’d been smiling.
Admittedly, the once cold you’d been feeling was now replaced by the warmth unknowingly yet knowingly caused by the oh-so-famous pirate hunter.
Maybe he did deserve a proper thank you afterall huh?
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all written works as well as images and edits (unless credited) belong to pri.do not plagiarise, repost, re-edit or claim as yours. pics mostly found on pinterest. I don't own any of the characters from the movie, rightfully belonging to One Piece creators and the Netflix franchise and also this is a fictional work, not relating to any of the cast in real life.
writingmeraki Ⓒ 2023
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atierrorian · 7 days
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| Glad it's you | — R.H
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PARING: Rook Hunt x Deaf!reader
SYNOPSIS: All your entire life, you knew silence. But—it isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Because even with your biggest flaw, he still chose you.
˗ˏˋGENRE ´ˎ˗ — Romance, fluff, angst/comfort
˗ˏˋCW ´ˎ˗ — Rook is already a warning. Ooc, mentions of bullying, stalking(It's Rook, duh) horrible poetry.
˗ˏˋNOTES ´ˎ˗ — Wow! It has been a while and I am so sorry for not making anything in quite some time, I've become so busy nowadays that writing has barely crossed my mind, so I'll make most of my free time writing this!
✎| Masterlists|Navigation |
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♡ "Are you really willing to accept me?" ♡ "I've accepted you a long time ago."
People always pitied you for as long as you can remember now. Frequently assuming it must be hard not being able to hear. And yeah, sometimes—but it isn't as bad as they make it out to be, if anything, you find solace in the silent world you have lived in all your life. Sure, there were times when it was hard to understand people, especially if they didn't know sign language.
Luckily, you mostly used poems to interact with them. Though, it was amusing to see them struggle to grasp your poems—that's what makes it fun anyway.
And so, making use of your skills, you swiftly wrote down another poem for a certain hunter. He's one of the few people you've known who could actually decipher what your poems meant. And it's not to say each and every time you show him your masterpiece, he always seems to be on your level when it came to writing back to you.
It always makes you feel giddy inside when he writes back to you. Re-reading every syllable. Caressing the ink that was clearly carefully written with such consideration with each word he used, you couldn't help but feel as though he was hinting to you about something.
You scoffed; shaking the thought away. Who were you trying to fool? This was the Rook Hunt you were thinking about! He's like this with everyone. Besides—why would he go for someone who had a defect? To say the least, you weren't insecure with your disability but, thinking about the blonde hunter who seemed to always cross your mind whenever you wrote—you couldn't help but feel your heart tightening in your chest from such thoughts.
In the end, why would he choose you? You're nothing special, far from it anyway. You're just someone who could never hear and someone who just writes to communicate. But, even then, you were still wrapped around his fingertips. And besides—it doesn't hurt to hope, right?
You felt a hand placed on your shoulder, you froze. You had never stayed still like a statue so fast in your entire life until now. What? Millions of thoughts were racing through your mind right now—was it another of the students who were here to once again chuck balled up papers again? Take your poems away from you and ripped them to pieces or flames it until there's nothing left but ashes?
"Awww, what's this? Another one of your silly stories?"
"Look! It's another one of their love poems!"
"Pathetic if you ask me."
You didn't focused on them, you never even knew what they were saying, and you could care less what insults or degrading comments they were spewing from their filthy mouth. Your knees on the ground while clutching onto what was remains of the paper you once cherished. And they tore it all up like it was nothing.
Shuddering from the memory, you closed your eyes and continued to look at your lap; prepared for whatever torture they were gonna do to you again. Tore your poems? Throw paper at you? Mocking at you while you cry in tears because they had nearly killed you? What else did they had in store for you?
You gripped the paper even harder, shutting your eyelids even tighter if that was even possible. You were scared.
Huh.
You felt a piece of paper slid onto your lap, hesitantly, bit by bit, you forced your eyes to open to see what it was. Was it an insult written in a letter? If so, then you're surprised that they were even intelligent enough to finally realized that you had a hearing disability instead of using their vocals to try and insult you.
But no, it was not anything you expected or thought. Instead, your vision was blessed with a familiar handwriting. Subconsciously, you read what was was written on the white letter that graced your sight, and goodness it always doesn't fail to make your blood rushing through your face. By the sevens, how does he always make you feel this way?
Why such a blue face? You don't need to be ashamed of such a heartache; If you need someone to wipe your tears, my heart will gladly volunteer; What you consider flaws, is what I consider perfection —
Mon Cherie, you are the belle of my dairy heart, You, sweetheart, have me wrapped around your fingertips; I will never let go of the string that wraps around my wrist; That connects me, to you.
My heart beats loudly; even you could hear it— If your heart longs for anything, Mon cherie, just write to me; And tell me all your silly sorrows. -Rook Hunt
Though it was short and simple, you couldn't help but re-read the words every now and then. You smiled seeing the words written on the paper. How could you not? His words sweet like candy, it was addicting in a way even you were worried you wouldn't get enough of it. Or maybe it's too late for you.
Your heart started racing so fast you thought even you could hear it. The more you examined the poem the more it started to look like a love confession. But it couldn't be that, could it? You so badly wanted to hope that you had a chance but you didn't want to get your hopes up.
You, sweetheart, have me wrapped around your fingertips.
Those lines, shit, you couldn't help but swoon over them. Clutching the poem, you finally gazed at the author with wonders and hope. He smiled at you and signed those three words you've been waiting to see.
"I love you."
Was it even possible for your heart to be beating faster than it was before? You held the poem closer to your beating heart, trying to conceal it; worried he might hear it. It felt like your heart was about to leap out of your chest. You sighed dreamily and thanked your heart for choosing him.
Meanwhile, Rook chuckled seeing your flustered expression. He found beauty in all things whether it was considered good or bad to others. But he found you the most beautiful of them all. He won't lie, he fell for you hard when he saw you. Because even when he learnt about your flaw, it didn't matter to him; you were still the fairest of them all. You weren't able to hear his words—but that's alright; he'll gladly write thousands or more letters if it meant to show you just how much he loves you.
He'd gladly and happily dance in hot and burning shoes if it meant to show you his devotion to you, just to show how much he cares for you. And if anyone were to make you doubt? Let's just say they wouldn't be coming closer to you anymore if they caused you pain. But before that, he'd come and comfort you, with words written on paper just so all your worries would go away.
Even if his fingers start to go numb and bruises appear, he won't stop until he finally sees you smile. He's glad that his heart chose you.
END
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Wow! Uhm, heyy ik it's been awhile but I finally found enough inspiration to make this! Again sorry it's been awhile I've been so busy that I barely found any time to write at all, but I do hope you guys liked this!
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crookednachogalaxy · 11 months
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im kinda thinking about bowser being a simp and i cant help but think how would that translate to luigi?
im not gonna take the movie's plot into consideration, but i will be using bowser's characterization as a starting point.
so, we know bowser is a simp for peach, and a big one at that. his style of showing affection is not only loud but downright aggressive, and while it absolutely fits him, it didnt work on peach and definitely wouldnt work on luigi. so where do we go from here?
i'd imagine they start off as begrudging friends. bowser still loves peach, but he doesnt want to shake the peace that has been established. and most of all, the rejection still stings and he's being sorta lost and mopey. luigi, having a heart too kind for his own good, hangs around the koopa king offering his comfort - and while he isnt too keen on having the younger mario brother buzzing around him, its better than being alone.
over time, he gets over the rejection. he is able to form a genuine friendship with peach (with no resurfaced feelings!), and even mario sees him more as a sports rival than a threat nowadays, allowing for some light-hearted banter. when those two toad-heads announce their relationship, bowser is genuinely happy for them. luigi, in the meantime, really grows on bowser as a friend. he invites the plumber over to his castle regularly to spend time together, conversation flowing naturally between them. when he's with luigi, it's so easy to forget about the world.
physical affection, too, starts becoming the norm without either realizing it. it starts off small, simple fist bumps and head pats. laying an arm over the other's shoulder to pull them close while joking, hugs hello and goodbye. eventually, they sit together, sides touching, bowser's tail curling around them.
it's during one of those sit-togethers that bowser first realizes his feelings for the plumber. luigi is fast asleep, cuddled up to bowser's side without noticing, and the koopa king is nothing but enamoured. as he goes to gently pet luigi's hair, he freezes. since when was he so gentle with him? since when were they so close? what he was about to do was something he did for his children often, but they were his family. when did luigi become part of that circle? it left him wondering about what to do.
bowser is loud. he is confident, he is shameless. if he likes someone, they will know. but peach hated his aggressiveness, and luigi would like it even less. so how could he show luigi he loved him without overwhelming him? being subdued and talking around the bush is not his style, but for his new beloved he'd find a way to be true to himself and honest at the same time.
from that night onwards, bowser approaches their interactions differently. he is more openly affectionate, not just in the way of who he allows to see them be affectionate but also what types of affectionate gestures he shows. he cups luigi's cheek, he nuzzles his snout into his head. their hugs become longer and tighter, he freely purrs when luigi runs his fingers through his hair, he gives him flowers. he rushes to pull out the chair when luigi's sits down at the dinner table, and he has his private study adjusted to fit luigi's sensory needs and allow him a space to relax and make his own. bowser is so obvious in his affections that the troops and caste staff start saluting luigi as if he were a person of importance in the castle (much to his confusion).
luigi, as touch starved as he is, takes the new affection in stride. he doesnt realize what it's supposed to mean, but he loves the way bowser is becoming so comfortable with him. he, too, opens up in turn, and it becomes hard to believe that he once lived a life without someone so important to him.
luigi's realization happens a while later than bowser's. the koopa king was asleep on the floor, belly down and head in luigi's lap, with luigi running his hand through the king's hair. it's in that vulnerable position that he comes to terms with his feelings for the koopa king, and he questions himself and their every interaction upon it. the next day, when bowser makes another big gesture of affection towards him, is when he realizes that bowser feels the same way, and has been telling him for a while. when luigi reciprocates, romantically, bowser cannot stop his tail from wagging hard.
and that's where it continues. bowser is still loud and obvious in his affection for luigi, but he makes sure that it is private, for them, and luigi appreciates it immensely. peach, observant as ever, knows immediately when things changed between them, whereas mario stays oblivious until they officially announce their relationship. he is supportive tho (you know, im not even surprised. if anyone can tame that overgrown lizard, of course it'd be weegie).
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Are dolphins still being captured for aquariums/parks and is it ethical (or complicated?)
Thanks for the ask! Yes, captures unfortunately do still occur in unregulated countries, though far less frequently than in the past. One of the most infamous examples is the annual dolphin drive in Taiji, Japan. While the main purpose of this hunt is to kill animals for meat, a small number of young, attractive dolphins are kept alive each year for sale. Nowadays, only unaccredited institutions purchase these dolphins, and even the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums now prohibits its members from acquiring captured dolphins. Although Taiji is the most well-known, the majority of cetaceans captured from the wild in the 2000s/2010s came from Russia, which recently prohibited the practice.
Western parks and aquariums have not purchased wild-captured cetaceans in decades. The last captures in US waters occurred in 1989, and the last foreign imports were in the early 1990s (long before widespread public sentiment turned against dolphinariums). I do not believe the practice was ethical, and almost all my colleagues would agree with me. Some of them were indeed brutal affairs, such as the infamous Penn Cove captures, in which several young Southern Resident killer whales (including the famous Tokitae) were taken. Multiple animals were inadvertently killed, and the hunters clumsily attempted to hide the deaths by stuffing the whales’ corpses with rocks. The bodies resurfaced, and following public backlash orca captures were no longer performed in the US.
As awareness of animal welfare grew amongst scientists and the general public in the 70s and 80s, collections of smaller cetacean species became considerably less vicious. They were typically supervised by a veterinarian, and care was taken to ensure animals were not physically harmed. However, these were still undeniably stressful to the animals.
I’m glad the practice stopped. Dolphins are not endangered, and I don’t think we can justify the trauma of removing healthy young animals from their pods. Of course, I make exceptions for individuals that are ill, injured, or a danger to themselves or humans (like Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s Izzy)—and these situations are never taken lightly. And if a species ever became endangered (highly unlikely for bottlenose, but a possibility for belugas), that would also be cause for reevaluation.
Dolphins do quite well in modern accredited aquariums. In the United States, all managed dolphins were either born in human care or have been out of the wild for over 30 years (excluding non-releasable rescues). While there are valid concerns about cetacean captivity, ongoing wild capture is not one of them.
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This is kind of a follow-up to this post about the Targtower brothers dynamic. I just love them. What`s not to love, honestly:
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In that post I used the word 'lust' to describe a certain aspect of Aegon`s feelings towards his brother - but upon consideration I believe the word 'desire' to be more suitable. But what are the roots of these feelings and how do they and the form in which they are expressed change with time?
First things first:
1. Long post;
2. Nothing is this post is intended to promote or encourage sexual relations involving minors;
2. I enjoy both platonic (canon version) and romantic/sexual (fanon territory) interpretations of Aegon&Aemond relationship - without belittling any other pairing (canon or not) involving either of them. In fact I quite enjoy some of those other pairings as well.
So, the sensual side of the Green brothers` relationship is not the focal point of the show (or even of their relationship in general) by any means. And it`s not a simple 'I just want to bend you over the nearest piece of furniture and give it to you' thing from Aegon`s part either. It`s deliciously subtle and quite complex even from the beginning of their interactions we see - and it gets even more complicated as they transition into their adulthood.
Teen Aegon is a flirt in general. But when it comes to his brother the flirting intensifies - and begins to resemble 'pulling pigtails'. It`s in the spirit of mockery but one heavily tinged with fondness - and other feelings, deeper and heavier.
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It`s the way Aegon's focused on Aemond - to the point that it feels like they are alone, even with other people in close vicinity. This focus doesn`t dissolve even when Aegon looks elsewhere.
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It`s in the way Aegon touches Aemond: seemingly carelessly - but there is a kind of hesitance, almost shyness, about his touch. Huge props to Ty for his acting: the not-exactly-platonic undertones are there, yet the vibe doesn`t feel gross in the slightest (the way it might have felt if acted out with less finesse, given the fact that Aemond is a minor after all, and so is Leo) - if anything it`s endearing. And I believe it feels this way because the roots of Aegon`s feelings are not sexual after all.
To Aegon, Aemond is a mystery: he`s his likeness yet his antipode, he`s so close yet so far. He can`t get a full grasp of him however much he tries. Aemond is like some rarity, a mystical object created by the Warlocks of Qarth, the one he wants to dismantle and see how it works but doesn`t dare to do it since he might not be able to put it back together. But first and foremost Aemond is Aegon`s brother - his blood, his companion; the one he wants to feel close to, the one he wants to be like him and tries to achieve it in any way he can - hence the trip to the brothel. It certainly wasn`t a nice thing to do, and Aegon`s train of thought there might have taken various directions at once, but ultimately I don`t think it was about corruption or causing Aemond discomfort but about unity, companionship, feeling close, alike and one - the things Aegon chased after and was deprived of.
A crack-ish side note: Aegon telling Aemond he fancies creatures with 'veeery long legs' with this playfully lecherous grin on his face -
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-has never not been funny to me since the moment I realized that adult Aemond, courtesy of Ewan Mitchell`s gorgeous physique, might just have the longest legs among all the characters (or at least he`s damn close to the top).
As the brothers grow up so do Aegon`s feelings.
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Both curiosity about the intricacies of their similarities and differences and deep desire for true company and understanding are still very much there. But now there is also so much more. Guilt and shame over not being by Aemond`s side when he needed it most - and seeing a reminder of this on his brother`s face every damn day. Protectiveness that seems misplaced nowadays, but that`s not always the case: Aemond will need Aegon`s support after what happened at Storm`s End - if only he allows himself to accept it. Admiration and envy - about how strong and brilliant his little brother has become, how right he`s turned out to be in contrast with Aegon`s perceived wrongness. And it all comes to a head during the chase and fight scene in episode 9.
A lot of people mentioned that they expected the Targtower brothers to kiss when Aegon pleaded with Aemond to let him go. Well, that`s entirely understandable given that we have this shot:
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TGC`s eyes did not just slip there, after all: such things are not done at random, it was a conscious acting choice. And I`m pretty sure Aegon would have indeed kissed his brother if not for Criston intervening and breaking the spell of the moment. Because while under this spell Aegon saw Aemond for everything that he`d ever been to him: his playmate and his toy, his judge and his closest human friend, his solace and his torment - and, perhaps the most important thing right then, his freedom. For years Aemond truly was the personification of the fate Aegon wanted to have - being the second son, free of the burden of the future rule, of excessive expectations, of torturous scrutiny. But also in that moment Aemond literally became Aegon`s freedom, or his best chance at getting it. And so, Aegon was ready to kiss his little brother goodbye - and at the same time kiss his freedom in greeting. But, alas -
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-in a few seconds freedom slipped away, and Aegon let go of it - let go of his brother, never tearing his eyes away until the very last moment.
Just look at his face, it`s all there (Tom, you are a genius).
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Also, at the risk of sounding like a broken record: Tom and Ewan`s chemistry is everything. In a notably short amount of screen time they shared they have managed to give life to an astoundingly authentic, layered and compelling sibling bond that outshines pretty much every other (not that there is a competition going on but still).
To try and sum all of it up, it`s not that Aegon wants to fuck Aemond - it`s that he wants Aemond, period. And that want, need, desire can take many forms and include many things. Their relationship is complicated, dramatic and wholesome with a side of fucked up - but absolutely beautiful. And I, for one, love it to pieces.
@the-girl-in-the-box here you are!:)
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tubatuzatara · 8 months
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lovesick ● txt
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genre: pure angst
synopsis: ending of your relationship with txt
warnings: a curseword maybe, txt may came across really toxic but this is just fiction
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yeonjun
you still wait at the restaurant he promised he would be on time to your date. why does everything have to have a flaw? everything has been going great with you and yeonjun. you are not the punctual type either but you never made him wait almost for two hours. his massages said he'll be there, just wait a bit longer for him but you start to pity yourself and feel the gaze upon you. everyone probably thinking you are pathetic. who waits for someone this long?
even though you were starving before your arrival, you completely lost your appetite. you keep ordering the damn water over and over again. you tell yourself to give these waiters huge tip after this.
when you finally see his siluet, you sigh in relief. finally, you think to yourself. he immediately starts apologizing the minute he sits down on the chair facing you. "yeonjun, i know you are busy but-" he interrupts "but what, baby? but if i loved you enough, i would make more time for you? we have been through this. i love you but there is things that i cannot control. and i am sorry" he is right. you have been through this. maybe even a millionth time. why keep bothering? the solution is right there but you both avoid to see. yet the only thing you see is that right this moment. you had it enough. you needed someone who can give you the care you give them back, not someone who is too busy for that.
without going further you say "it's over." you stand up and walk away to avoid confrontation. sweet old pangs of love waits for you, shouldn't you be on time?
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soobin
you admired soobin for his ways to keep it calm. always finding ways to healthily communicate instead of starting a fight. choosing his words carefully to avoid hurting you.
but now you cannot recognize the man in front of you. the man you love, the man who is supposed to love you.
you became mute once you saw the tantrum he had just because you did a small mistake. unable to answer him or hear what he says because of the shock. he keeps screaming at you and all you can do is to take it. "you are so useless, Y/N! do you understand me, utterly useless!" how can the man you thought you knew turn into someone else just because you burnt the meal you wanted to cook for him to show him how much you care and love him.
his hurtful words cutting your heart like a knife, you can't help but start crying. "you cry now?! don't think that this will work on me. god, i had it enough! i always kept it to myself to all of those become just vain. i don't even want to see you anymore." his final words causing you to bellow, you watch him walk away. and you know it wasn't the heath of the moment, he was having this emotions for a very long time. you understand it now.
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beomgyu
you and beomgyu used to plan thing to do together, always doing something more exciting each time. both of you loved it too much.
yet time has passed. first you started doing them less often, then someday completely stopped. but you loved chilling with your boyfriend. first it was also exciting since you always found a new topic or something to share keeping both of your brains stimulated.
but nowadays you two were more like an married couple minus the legal benefits of marriage and potential children but you loved it. you thought he did too. to be honest for a moment he did. at least this is what he says in the letter he wrote.
why couldn't he at least do it face to face? the letter says he is afraid to tell you something that would hurt or scar you. but doesn't the letter do the same? was he too bored of you that even the break up talk was too much for him? even though his letter is considerate, it does no good for your brain to stop repeating the sentence. "you are so boring, even for getting dumped."
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taehyun
"Y/N, we need to talk." you feel your throat going sore. nothing good comes with these words. and what he says next makes your suspicions correct, taehyun is breaking up with you.
"there is no easy way to say this. but i think we outgrew each other. it is not like i hate you now but the attraction, the romance... i cannot feel those things with you anymore." the only thing you wanted was to run away after hearing those words. have you become less desirable looking? have your personality changed? what made him stop having feelings for you? you just say "why?"
"there is no 'why', Y/N. we just outgrew each other. time has passed and time changes everything. we don't need a reason to feel different." even though it all makes sense, it sounds nonsense to you. "is there anyone else you like? that's why?" you ask. "no, i promise there is no one now but that doesn't mean i like you."
you want to start a fight but his annoyingly calm attitude makes it impossible. "is there anything else?" you ask your final question. "no." he answers. and you both sit there for almost an hour before he excuses himself.
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huening kai
you feel like your your boyfriend kai has been ignoring you. talking or texting you less and less day by day. yet he was always nice to you so you thought there was no problem.
at the end of the day he always says "i love you" that is all that matters. even though you crave for more, you are contented with what you have.
you cannot imagine a life without him so it is all okay that he is the way he is. you still love him.
and then today he decides to leave everything on read.
you: hi baby (seen: 07:35)
you: good morning (seen: 07:35)
you: what r your plans for today? (seen: 07:37
you: hey! how was your day? (seen: 16:42)
you: are you okay? (seen: 17:30)
you: why aren't you answering? (seen: 17:53)
you: did i do something? (seen: 17:54)
you: kai, you are making me worry. can you please talk? at least give me some dismissive answers if you don't wanna talk but don't do this to me. (seen: 17:59)
you: kai, please... (seen: 17:59)
you: please answer (seen: 18:0)
you: does this mean it is over? if it is not just text something (seen: 23:15)
you: anything (seen: 23:16)
you: like this? (seen: 23: 20)
you: you end it all like this? (seen: 23:20)
you are going to miss him. you are going to miss him so much. why did he do this?
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tanadrin · 6 months
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the episode on Cold War Liberalism of Know Your Enemy is dense in a delightful way, and Samuel Moyn has a lot to say about the evolution of liberalism as an idea that I think is really interesting. His basic contention is that, essentially, the Cold War ruined liberalism, and the thing we think of when we think of liberalism nowadays is, in many ways, a shadow of its former self. Bullet points of bits I found interesting:
Earlier liberals engaged productively with thinkers like Marx; there was a strand of ambition and an idea of a gradual process of perfection that led to some of liberalism's greatest accomplishments, like the welfare state. Even out-and-out leftist figures like Marx could admire aspects of liberalism that were emancipatory (albeit within strict limits that had to be overcome).
During the Cold War, liberals became enamored of a theory of totalitarianism that didn't differentiate much between the right and the left, and shrank from its earlier ambitions, becoming--through vehicles like neoliberalism--less and less distinguishable from various flavors of conservatism. This eventually led liberals to turn away from liberalism's formerly successful achievements, including against the robust welfare states that had done so much in the middle of the century.
It's not like pre-Cold War liberalism wasn't bound up with ideas about laissez-faire economics (and even imperialism), long before neoliberalism arrived on the scene. Nevertheless, some of the earliest liberals still had promising ambitions: Moyn cites "perfectionism" ("perfection" here being understood more in the sense of "a process of improvement" rather than "a final unchanging state"), which he contrasts against (in more recent theory and practice) "tolerationism." Tolerationism sees liberalism as sort of merely the thing that lets people get along and which prevents bloodshed; figures like Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill weren't merely tolerationists in this sense; they weren't aiming for a world in which people merely muddled along, but had the ambition to achieve the highest life for humanity, and thought that you could create institutions that promoted this, via (or perhaps while also) promoting public and private freedom. In other words, perfectionism is a kind of positive (almost utopian) vision for liberalism to aspire to, but one which contemporary liberalism lacks. In this way liberalism was also both explicitly emancipatory and progressive, in a wauy which, again, Moyn contends present-day liberalism is not, having set its sights considerably lower.
Our instinctive sense of what liberalism consists of nowadays--something beleagered, timid, and not especially aspirational--is a product of the Cold War. The traumas of the world wars and the tensions of the Cold War seemed to produce what you might call a trauma response against ambitious and utopian ideas within liberal thought, albeit one that (like a lot of trauma responses) was reactive and self-limiting rather than a fully rational course-correction--call this allergy to real ideological commitment the "liberalism of fear," after Judith Shklar's work of that name. Although even Shklar was distasteful of neoliberals, who, she argued, abandoned the principles of the Enlightenment simply because the Soviets tried to claim them as well.
Cold War liberals seemed to take the Soviet Union at its word that they were the sole inheritors of the Enlightenment, the ideas of the French Revolution, and even of reason, science, and history; they contended themselves with something much more minimalist and timid, without the emancipatory element that was crucial to Enlightenment thought and abandoning useful lessons learned from writers like Marx.
European Catholics declare the Cold War long before liberals join in. Liberalism had helped to create socialism after all; there were once real points of ideological consonance between the two and many liberals were interested in the early days in seeing how the Soviet experiment would turn out. These writers coin the idea of totalitarianism as a thing uniting both the communists and Nazis. But they are perfectly fine with places like interwar Austria. They don't like the Nazis because of the pagan overtones, but these are not liberals!
Popper's contribution to this project is to decanonize and demonize historicism. He associates Hegel and Marx with his "very cramped understanding of what historicism is," i.e., a commitment to lawlike inevitable processes in history. But while attempting to cast that rather narrow idea into disrepute, he tars a much broader swathe of ideas with his brush--including (if I understand this part correctly) the thoughtful and deliberate engagement with the place of one's ideology and political aims in a larger historical context. Liberals sort of give up any claim on history because of Popper, which Moyn thinks has been particularly disastrous especially since the end of the Cold War. Liberals do not give people much to believe in anymore, either because history is over or because justice is sitting there at the end of the moral rainbow and we'll get there eventually if we just wait and vote Democrat without engaging in major criticism of structures of power.
There's an interesting point in this part about how nowadays nobody believes in positive teleologies anymore--"progress" on a grand scale--but only negative ones ("the slingshot to the atom bomb," to paraphrase Adorno).
The irony of course is that at the beginning of the Cold War, while liberals were as a group abandoning the whole idea of emancipatory politics, they were (for a short time) engaged in building some of the most triumphantly emancipatory institutions in the history of liberalism, in the form of strong welfare states. Rawls comes along and creates a robust theory of the welfare state in 1971, but only once the dismantling of these institutions has begun.
Only halfway through the episode so far, but it's a lot to chew on. It certainly resonates with my own frustrations with liberal politics, where liberals keep wringing their hands about the rise of far-right populism, and then going "I know what the answer is! It's a minor tweak to the tax code!" Like parties across the center-right/center-left spectrum are terrified of actually articulating any kind of coherent political vision, so of course the people who do that (even if their vision is a Hieronymous Bosch-style grotesque of the world) are going to have the advantage.
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petermorwood · 3 months
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Crisps / Chips again
Associated with this post, here's an artefact, two anecdotes and an opinion.
The artefact is a slightly dented but still remarkably airtight "Charles Chips" tin.
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It was bought, full, many years ago from the Vermont Country Store, from whom we subsequently bought reflll packs - given their size, "sacks" would be more accurate - which were shipped to Ireland in sturdy cardboard boxes.
VCS no longer carry Charles Chips in either tin or refill. I know. I checked. BUT...
The Charles Chips company, which per Wikipedia was doing just fine in 1990 then got sold and went bankrupt twice in less than three years (gosh!) is Back In Business, and note has been taken, with considerable interest - oh, you bet - that they do international shipping...
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Anecdote No. 1 is from when @dduane lived in Bala Cynwyd near Philadelphia, in what was known as "The House of Dangerously Single Women" (ahem). She tells me that the household used to get Charles Chips delivered to the door about twice a week, by the company's own vans.
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Speaking as a long-time crisp fan, I found that both very neat and a source of mild envy. :->
Anecdote No. 2 is from 30-ish years ago, when we were in New York for something or other and, being rather jetlagged with our internal food clocks out of whack, did our usual thing and went out for a walk.
Curiously enough, this involved visiting several food stores and supermarkets where we bought a lot of Interesting Foreign or Much Missed (i.e. American, in both instances) junk food for grazing on back in our hotel room.
In one of them DD was about to lay claim to a huge bag of Wise potato chips (its bag would have been the design in the middle)...
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...while nattering to one of the shop staff how much she missed them. He told her that a new delivery was expected in about 20 minutes and if she wanted to wait, she'd get much fresher chips.
And So It Came To Pass.
Well done, that guy!
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Finally, while Saratoga Springs may have been where potato crisps / chips were popularised, standardised, commercialised or whatever, it's definitely not where they were invented.
Even the oft-repeated "creation myth" frequently has its hard-to-please celebrity demanding to have his potatoes sliced and fried really thin "The Way I Had Them In France" - which kinda sorta suggests they were, um, being made there just like that well before the Saratoga thing happened.
Myths are okay, even marketing myths - so long as they're recognised as myths and not shilled as true by places with reputations like the Smithsonian.
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It's a bit like the still-current nonsense about spices being used in medieval kitchens to disguise bad meat. As far as I've been able to find out, this originated with a historian called J. C. Drummond in the late 1930s - yup, just before World War Two - simply because he didn't know his period terminology.
"Green" meant fresh - even nowadays, an inexperienced or immature person is "green" - so green cheese was newly made, and green meat was newly slaughtered, unaged and consequently tough and flavourless.
Just ask any steak fan the difference between a fresh steak and a 30-day dry aged one.
Drummond, in his overspecialised-scholarship wisdom, assumed that "green venison" meant meat which had gone off, and that a recipe to improve it with spices was to cover the bad smell and taste.
In fact it was somewhere between a marinade and a rub, meant to improve the tenderness and flavour of fresh meat as if it had aged for a while, thus shortening the waiting time between killing a beast and getting it to the table of a hungry court.
As I've said before, it's always easier for no-proofs-given pop history to dismiss medieval people as (insert derogatory observation here) than take the time needed to explain why and how they in their time were not that different to us in ours.
*****
PS: when looking for that previously posted stuff about green meat I found a post where, with even less evidence than Saratoga Springs inventing crisps, a Brit poster claimed Brits invented curry.
Snrk.
Among other more or less pertinent observations, I mentioned that what Brits invented was BRITISH curry, and anyone who has read "Nanny Ogg's Cookbook" will know what I meant by that... :->
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despazito · 9 months
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Idk in my idyllic world the use of ai could improve animation workflow and catapult junior level artists into creative leads roles faster if there's less menial work to be done.
We could have artists still in charge of creative decisions and drawing vis dev while the computer assists with the most labour intensive steps of making shows or movies.
For simpler shows for instance it would be neat I think if you could run your storyboard through a script and have the machine import all relevant assets staged to the best of its abilities instead of manually having to drag props and rigs into your shot and scaling everything before you can even begin to animate (does that tech exist already? Probably).
Like nowadays we already have animation programs where you can set deformer limitations.
youtube
i could imagine a possible future where software includes or does subscription services to ai trained on work by artists who got paid to draw or animate template motions or anatomy references. something like generating smart bones could become an automated feature. i can maybe even foresee tech that can look at a character model or design sheet you've drawn and generate a rig for it. in all these scenarios you would have to correct stuff and tune things to your liking, but it gives a considerable head start to the work.
More dynamic shots could be made on smaller budgets if we gave ai props or backgrounds and said "give me this but rotated a little" instead of drawing the same damn chair from 10 angles as a prop artist, I refuse to believe anyone's passion in life is to make prop turnarounds or clean up inbetweens.
what if you had an ai that was trained on drawings of heads at every angle, animals in every angle, a slew of expressions and mouth shapes, then gave it a character ref drawn from a few angles and bam it makes the vtuber rig for you.
this still leaves space for original art and would still require a skilled creative to make something look it's best, that could be a gig. more animators could potentially begin their own smaller studios if cartoons are way easier to make. if anyone could potentially make their own movie in the future, charge people to do it right! no computer can replace a human knowledgeable in film or drawing to guide it in the right direction. without creative people at a production's core, i think the future of ai film is just a very, very, sophisticated version of goanimate than can also do art theft.
this could become the weird futuristic version of "i wrote this children's book can you illustrate it for me?" but instead your mom's friend wants to commission a show pilot they wrote a screenplay for.
When animation was drawn on cels we had entire painting departments whose job it was to paint each individual frame by literal numbers, and it was tedious!! Now we have the paint bucket tool for digital coloring, and software like Toonboom lets you color in one frame then generate the coloring for the proceeding frames. We still have a colour and painting department, it's just different work now. but now we also have people making full color cartoons from their basements because Flash was released for personal computers with said digital tech along with computer generated motion tweening for animation!!
Junior animator and junior bg painter or prop artist roles will probably face an overhaul where more work can be done with less people. But the utopian outcome would be these junior artists can sooner take up lead or supervisor positions where they get to execute their own ideas instead of someone else's. more shows or movies could be produced with less crew for less money, slashing costs when deciding what to greenlight or to take a risk on new talent. The problem is capitalism would make it suck because it only cares about exploiting workers for those cheapest costs possible and forego the necessary human crew required to make the difference between machine-assisted productions and pure ai generated slop
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styllwaters · 1 year
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Introducing the Sea Crawler!! The first proper species I've developed for my sci fi fantasy verse!
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They are a semi-aquatic sapient species inhabiting a water dominated planet with only a few islands. They have been in the galactic community for a fair bit, but it is quite rare to see them off-planet (as they aren't built for extended periods out of water). Their technology is at a similar stage to ours.
Crawlers are typically separated into two main categories: Ocean and shore dwellers. Ocean dwellers reside beneath the seabed in large and complex underground tunnel systems. They are usually larger and more brightly coloured than shore dwellers - this is partially to ward off larger predators which are more common underwater. That's also what their stingers are for.
The shore dwellers, as their name suggests, make their homes by the sea. They live in settlements built in large caves which are considerably less complicated than the underwater cities.
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Crawlers were descended from ambush predators! Their tentacles would shoot out to paralyse and grasp prey, but nowadays they're mostly used for eating, talking, and facial expressions.
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I don't want to make this intro post too long so I'll stop here, but I still have a lot more lore in mind! I eventually plan to develop their language and social structure more (and introduce more aliens!) But for now I'll leave this here. Behold my abominations tumblr
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⚠️ Old designs and lore // Do not reblog ⚠️
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vrisrezis · 1 year
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Hi! I hope you're having a nice night or day. May I request the bnha class 1-a characters you write for + the types of people they'd hate to be around? Basically just the people they can't stand, whether it's platonically or romantically. Thank you!
(Some manga spoilers in shoji and aoyamas part)
Izuku can stand mean people, if the treatment he received from kacchan for so long is anything to go by. But you’d have to be a special kind of mean, the kinda mean that doesn’t come from a place of some form of mistreatment, or some inferiority complex, or even because you just don’t know any better. He cannot stand people that will just pick on others for the sake of it. In his eyes, kacchan is a good person, even if he was a bit cruel in his younger days. But he hates a person that’s clearly terrible, through and through, and there’s no true reason behind it, you’re just straight up terrible. Like a comic book villain with no character depth, just straight up, no morales, just a terrible human being.
Kacchan can’t stand people he sees as weak. As he grows, his idea of weak changes. Nowadays, he can’t stand somebody who talks big and then cowers when it comes to a fight, or has the audacity to look down on others when they’re as pathetic as a koalas entire fucking existence is. (I fucking hate koalas holy shit.) Hes no stranger to putting up a front for other people, but he’s still real about who he is and he hates anyone that plays pretend for the world. He does not hide behind a facade, even if he can’t be honest about how he feels, even if he has to act tough, he’s not a liar about who he truly is and what his ideals are. He hates somebody that is too ashamed of themselves to be honest about who they truly are. Because to him, that’s fear. And to him, letting fear control you like that, to that point, is weakness.
Shoto can’t stand people that are inconsiderate and selfish. The reason he adores his class so much is because he sees the good in everyone, their kindness, their selflessness, how considerate they are of eachother, even bakugou is in his own way. But somebody that simply doesn’t care for anyone but themselves reminds him all too well about why his family fell apart to begin with, because his father was selfish and far too focused on himself and what he wanted. If you tend to be selfish but show remorse for it, and are trying to be better, he wouldn’t mind you so much. He minds people that are unapologetically selfish and simply don’t care for others. To him, it’s a dangerous trait for anyone to have.
Ejirou hates anyone that isn’t an honest person, compulsive liars annoy him and he can’t stand being around somebody he can’t trust. Ejirou is an honest guy, and is pretty much an open book. So he doesn’t understand how people could ever pride themselves in being fake. It’s completely foreign to him and he’ll never understand. He doesn’t mind small lies, and it’s not like he’s gonna deny lies all together but he can’t trust somebody who consistently lies about things. Important things or even things that don’t matter, if it’s constant he doesn’t like it, simply put.
Denki hates being around people that are overly snobby. He really can’t stand being around overly confident rich kids (bakugou doesn’t count because he isn’t snobby lol). It’s not like he minds his rich friends, he likes em! Maybe he’s a little jealous but that’s all! But he really can’t stand somebody snobby and judge-mental just because people happen to have less than you or whatever the reason may be for your bitchiness. He doesn’t mind somebody that’s bitchy, he deals with bakugou on a everyday basis. However, he does mind somebody that’s bitchy just because they happen to be rich and often brag about the money they have.
Sero cannot stand people that prey on the weak in order to make themselves feel better. How pathetic do you have to be? Honestly, nothing makes him more angry and it’s partially why he wants to be a pro hero so much. He wants to protect others from the likes of people that abuse their power and pick on those in weaker positions. He wants to be a person high in power, but for the good reasons. He would despise bakugou in junior high, but at the same time he is all for people changing and becoming better people. Seeing you first hand be a shit person to the “weak” would seriously piss him off.
Ochako hates people that simply revel in hatred, who enjoy it. She thinks it’s sad, people like that probably don’t have much going for them and don’t have much to enjoy in life if they enjoy hating others and others hating them. While she may sympathize with you she still can’t stand you, and everything it is you stand for. She can’t be around somebody that brings drama everywhere they go and is always itching for a fight, or to hurt other peoples feelings. It’s so attention seeking it’s embarrassing. If she didn’t feel so bad for you, she’d tell you off a lot more.
Mina can’t find it in her to hate most people, but she will say she cannot stand people that are… well… sadistic. Even in a sexual manner and even if it’s a consensual thing she just… hates it. Like way more than the average person. She thinks you’re horrible.. so HORRIBLE for enjoying peoples suffering and while that’s how most people would feel she has a special hatred for people like that and it makes her stomach turn and it makes her feel so unpleasant, even if it’s just bullying and poking fun, if you enjoy doing that so much, for the sake of just seeing somebody cry it sickens her.
Momo can’t stand people with next to no manners. The kinda people that would pick their nose in a public space, those kinda people just disgust her. A lot more petty than everyone else on this list but she was raised a certain way and she just can’t believe that some people aren’t the same? Most people on this list would find it gross but not enough to hate them, but momo finds herself really being unable to be your friend because who does that so openly? She doesn’t even hate bakugou like that, and he’s rude as hell. She doesn’t even mind him that much but even she can get annoyed with some of the conversations she overhears him have. She’s not a snob or anything, she just values politeness a lot.
Jirou can’t stand people that make fun of people for their interests. A personal thing she’s always hated, she used to always get made fun of for wanting to be a pro, whilst having a passion for music. It’s caused her to have some issues with it herself, so she just hates anyone that makes fun of people for enjoying something they love. They’re not doing anything wrong! It’s not a crime to have a hobby. She understands criticisms of different things people enjoy, but shitting on somebody for their interests isn’t rocking at all, in her opinion.
Tsu can’t stand people that don’t listen. If it’s an accident, she can get over it cause she knows it’s not their fault, but if it’s because you clearly don’t care and it’s on purpose it can be upsetting because it’s clear you don’t care about how she feels or what she has to say. This is a pretty standard thing to hate in a person, but she hates it especially. She hates being ignored in general, so this is a bit more than just a pet peeve and she’s not against dropping you rather quickly over it either.
Tokoyami can’t stand people that act kind but secretly are just snobby assholes. The audacity you have to act like you care for others, when in reality you’re simply using them for your own benefit. The audacity you have to act kind, and when somebody realizes it? You act like a victim? Truly annoying. He hates people like that and he’s not one to shy away from calling you out on that shit either. He can never get over it, how can somebody be like that? The hawks situation, with twice really eats him up inside. Somebody he idolized so much, could he really be like that. Could he? Was he just pretending to be a carefree bird, or was he just so carefree he didn’t even care if he murdered a man? Things like this keep him up at night.
Shoji hates people that discriminate against others. Of course, everyone on this list does but naturally he has a special distain for it, as somebody that’s been hurt and discriminated against for his appearance. He will hold a special hatred for you, especially if you’re in UA with him. How could somebody aim to be a hero but be … like that?
Aoyama would hate somebody with villainous traits to them. Perhaps it’s because it reminds him of who he is. That he’s no better than a villain himself. Even if this wasn’t something he desired. He can’t stand being around people that use and abuse others. It just upsets him to his very core.
iida hates people that seek vengeance. It’s obvious why. He hates those that are vengeful, constantly looking for fights, even for the sake of others. It’s even worse if you’re being self righteous about it. It just reminds him of what he thinks is the worst mistake he ever made. He sees himself. He hates it so much it hurts to describe. So he finds himself constantly trying to change you, fix you. He knows it’s wrong though, you are who you are. He just happens to hate who you are.
Ojirou is a chill guy, you’ll find it’s very hard for him to hate people. But he hates people that are just… annoying. You’d have to be a special kinda annoying. The type to be overly two faced and talking shit about everyone you meet. Like a middle schooler. It’s just so tiring and draining to be around somebody so negative and he can’t stand it. But what he hates even more is that he’s acting like what he hates too. Because at the end of the day he acts nice, when he secretly hates your guts.
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