#i know it’s not technically but you know what I mean

[youryanderedaddy]

When Life Gives Lemons

tw: female reader, technically non con because of stealthing, baby trapping, breeding, obsessive behavior, reader being a bit rude

You couldn’t believe the irony of your life. You were about to break up with your immature boyfriend, and he still managed to be grossly late to the date, unconsciously digging his own grave deeper. You had put on your best white shirt and the tightest skirt you owned, and you even went through the trouble of booking the latest hipster coffee shop close to the centre. He had been fifteen minutes late, to be exact, and when you brought it up, he simply shrugged a long sleazy smile, dragging his skeleton - shaped metal rings against the edge of the table.

“All in due time, princess.” He took a sip off his coffee - a single shot of espresso with no creamer, as always. “All in due time.” He repeated, reaching in his pocket for a pack of off - brand cigarettes. He really couldn’t afford any of the fancy ones. Once the cigarette was lit, he slowly brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply, letting his head relax against the chair. His thick neck tightened as he swallowed the deadly smoke, and even the sun seemed to avoid his messy dark locks, instead keeping the man in the shadows.

“What does that even mean?” You threw your hands around helplessly, sinking into your chair. “Don’t you want to know?” Axel teased, taking another puff. Although his expression was one of mild amusement, his sharp blue eyes were carefully following your every movement - wondering what will tip you off the most. “You know, you’re so fuckin’ hot when you’re mad, mami.” He smiled in a playful boyish way that once would have made you melt, but now only served as a reminder of his unserious nature.

“Stop playing around. I need to discuss something imp–”

“Shhh, don’t talk, babygirl. I need to show you something.” Axel interrupted, gripping the big guitar closer to his lap. ”I wrote you a song.” His thin fingers grazed the delicate transparent strings, forcing a catchy, although not fully polished melody out of the old thing. He took a deep breath, wetting his lips so the lyrics would come out softer. 

My girl knows how to set me

on flames she goes through 

the motions of the wind she

is a fireball, a fireball, on fire

“What the fuck, Axy.” You pounded your fists at the table, shaking the glasses and spilling coffee all over the wooden surface. You could feel everyone’s judging stare across your back, all of the other patrons were jeering and whispering about the two of you, and your cheeks were heating up by the moment. “I’ve told you countless times to stop writing those shitty songs. They don’t even rhyme, for fuck sake.” You whined, suddenly overwhelmed by helplessness. He was never going to change, was he? “This is exactly why I want to break up.”

The music stopped entirely. His dark sunglasses ended on the ground. 

“You wanna break up?” The musician repeated slowly, suddenly appearing awfully composed - so composed it made you look crazy. After that question he remained silent for a very long time, taking long drags off his cigarette while studying your face for any sign of your true feelings bleeding out. “Real’ funny, babe, real’ fun joke.” He forced a crooked smile, reaching in to squeeze your hand all the way through the table. “Now tell me, what’s wrong with the song? I stayed real’ late to compose it just for our date today.” He winked, which only made you feel worse.

“I am being serious, Axel. Let go of me.” Your tone turned icy and your ex boyfriend quickly released you, eyes filling with raw fear. “Wait, baby, we can talk about–”

“There is nothing to talk about. You’re such a child!” You blurted out, too frustrated to spare energy on fluttery words and sweet apologies. “I want to do my masters soon. You know I’m applying to Metwyorth - I can’t be seen hanging around with a high school dropout who does Saturday gigs for a living.” You continued, pursing your lips together. You knew you were being harsh, cruel even, but this was the only way to push him away. The musician could be awfully clingy, so you needed to be firm.

“A highschool dropout who made you scream your brains out.” Axel responded bitterly through clenched teeth, eyes growing dark with anger. You shook your head bashfully, avoiding his fiery gaze. “Sure, we had our fun,” You gestured vaguely at nothing in particular, trying to hide the shame blossoming on your sides. “But it’s time to wake up. I mean, be realistic. We live in different worlds.” You began to collect your things quickly, standing up to leave.

“Y/N!” He called out to you, causing you to turn back just for a second - you owed him that much for all the good memories you knew you both would have trouble forgetting. “You’re making a mistake. Please, think it through.” The man took a hold of your hand, caressing your fingers gently. “I know I can’t offer you much right now, but I really love you!” His eyes dilated, honest and clear like an untouched sea on a quiet day. 

“Goodbye, Axel.”

***

You meet him sooner that you’d like.

Two weeks later you’re drunk off your mind, dancing the night away with some of your girlfriends when you catch a pair of familiar eyes fluttering across your body from the other side of the room. It makes you feel hot all over - despite what you said back then, you felt each agonising moment of the break up. Even if the logical part of your brain knows you have no future with such a man, your body needs him, craves him. 

Axel keeps staring at you intensely, burning holes through your neck, your thighs, your lips. His yearning gaze lingers, completely miserable, and yet as lustful as the night he first wrapped his arms around you and claimed you as his. He can still feel your nails scratching his back red and bloody, sending shivers down his spine and setting fire in his loins. This staring game of yours lasts for approximately thirty minutes before he gives in and comes over to your table. He doesn’t say anything - doesn’t look at you or greet your friends, doesn’t even pretend to have any reason to approach you. He simply grabs you, swallows an airy pant, and drags you inside the bathroom.

You’re all over each other in no time. His hands are tangled in your hair and your nails are sinking into his warm flesh once again. You can’t breathe for a second, suffocated by a deep, longing kiss that he only spares you of once your lips start to turn blue. He licks your neck and bites at any spot vulnerable enough to steal a gasp out of you - and you return it by sucking on his collarbone until a purple hickey adorns his skin. You swiftly unzip his loose pants and start taking your dress off, but as you try to spread your legs, he turns you around facing the wall. 

“Fuck, I wanna do you from the back, princess.” Axel mumbles, one strong hand gripping your throat as the other gropes your breasts freely. You nod weakly, too turned on to comprehend any of the words he’s saying. “Ngh, wanna be able to pull your hair n’ shit.” His fist wraps around your ponytail, pulling slightly so you expose your neck to his teeth. You can already feel his throbbing manhood prob at your thighs, slowly moving towards your entrance. “Y-you have a condom on, right?” You manage to whimper through the little electric bursts of pleasure running through your whole body as he plays you like an instrument. He mumbles something like “yeah”, and in this state of mind that’s enough for you.

He starts sinking into your heat slowly, letting you adjust to his hard length inch by inch, then once you’ve settled, practically begging him to just give it to you, he begins thrusting painfully slow - really making you feel it going in and out, in and out in a perfect rhythm. Each time his cock brushes against your most sensitive spot, you’re reduced to a slick, desperate mess, but just as your thighs begin to go numb and you slip down, Axel catches both of your wrists and pins them to the wall, keeping you in place. You’re so wet you can hear the slap of skin on skin every time your gummy walls hug his member, but you’re too far gone to care about the nasty sound.

“F-fuck, baby, you’d be so fucking hot as a mother. Have you ever thought about it?” Your ex whispers against you, picking up the pace. You shake your head - kids have never been your priority, since you’re still so young and your education would always come first. “I thought about it. A lot, ‘n fact, when we were separated.” His heartbeat fastens. “Ugh, you’re still so tight, god…” His free hand dances at your hips, ogling and caressing any curve it can find. “When you dumped me, I was completely lost, ya know? Didn’t sober up for three days. But then I dreamt that I knocked you up accidentally. S-shit, did you just tighten up?”

Your whole body stiffens at his words. Your stomach fills with unexplainable dread - this whole conversation is turning you off, but somehow your body seems to have a mind of its own. 

“Q-quit it with the small talk, asshole.” You groan, pushing back so you’d get more friction between your legs. “Just fuck me, okay? I don’t need to hear your weird fantasies.” You hear yourself saying confidently despite the provocative position you’re currently stuck in - you can’t even see his face, but you know he’s probably laughing at your bossy comment. But instead he keeps blabbering on as if you’re not even there. “You were so beautiful, princess. So big and–” He bites his lower lip. “So fucking needy for me - just like now. You were dripping everywhere. You were so excited for our little baby.” He grunted hoarsely, reaching in to stroke your clit - and despite your best efforts, you let out a soft moan. 

“And we were a family - just you, n-ngh, me and the little guy.” Axel utters through clenched teeth, trying to hold out for as long as possible - savouring you in tiny little bites. “No stupid degrees or anythin’, just us two against the world.” He slows down further, now barely moving inside of you. It’s driving you crazy with anticipation - both his story and the way he’s fucking you. “And it made me think, we could really have all that - if it wasn’t for your stupid pride. All I need to do is knock you up. Just think about it.” The man grips your hips roughly, impaling you on his thickness. 

“Your tits will swell, your thighs will thicken; you’ll be so tired you’ll have to lay down all the time. You won’t even be able to touch yourself because of your belly.” He smiles at you gently, although you can’t see it. At this point you’re already so close to climax you can’t break through the cotton cloud haze that’s taken over your mind to truly focus. This is one of the reasons you had to break up with the musician - he could get you cockdrunk with a simple touch, and that vulnerability felt terrifying.

“And I will take care of you through every-” He kisses your cheek. “single–” He kisses you again. “step of the way.” He inhales deeply, thrusting in one final time before he spills inside you. “I love you, baby. I really can’t let you go.”

#yandere #yancore #male yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere smut #yandere oneshot #yandere x you #yandere male x reader #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader

[nostalgebraist]

It's been a long time since I've posted much of anything about "AI risk" or "AI doom" or that sort of thing. I follow these debates but, for multiple reasons, have come to dislike engaging in them fully and directly. (As opposed to merely making some narrow technical point or other, and leaving the reader to decide what, if anything, the point implies about the big picture.)

Nonetheless, I do have my big-picture views. And more and more lately, I am noticing that my big-picture views seem very different from the ones tend to get expressed by any major "side" in the big-picture debate. And so, inevitably, I get the urge to speak up, if only briefly and in a quiet voice. The urge to Post, if only casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

(Actually, it's not fully the case the things I think are not getting said by anyone else.

In particular, Joe Carlsmith's recent series on "Otherness and Control" articulates much of what's been on my mind. Carlsmith is more even-handed than I am, and tends to merely note the possibility of disagreement on questions where I find myself taking a definite side; nonetheless, he and I are at least concerned about the same things, while many others aren't.

And on a very different note, I share most of the background assumptions of the Pope/Belrose AI Optimist camp, and I've found their writing illuminating, though they and I end up in fairly different places, I think.)

What was I saying? I have the urge to post, and so here I am, posting. Casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

The current mainline view about AI doom, among the "doomers" most worried about it, has a path-dependent shape, resulting from other views contingently held by the original framers of this view.

It is possible to be worried about "AI doom" without holding these other views. But in actual fact, most serious thinking about "AI doom" is intricately bound up with this historical baggage, even now.

If you are a late-comer to these issues, investigating them now for the first time, you will nonetheless find yourself reading the work of the "original framers," and work influenced extensively by them.

You will think that their "framing" is just the way the problem is, and you will find few indications that this conclusion might be mistaken.

These contingent "other views" are

Anti-"deathist" transhumanism.

The orthogonality thesis, or more generally the group of intuitions associated with phrases like "orthogonality thesis," "fragility of value," "vastness of mindspace."

These views both push in a single direction: they make "a future with AI in it" look worse, all else being equal, than some hypothetical future without AI.

They put AI at a disadvantage at the outset, before the first move is even made.

Anti-deathist transhumanism sets the reference point against which a future with AI must be measured.

And it is not the usual reference point, against which most of us measure most things which might or might not happen, in the future.

These days the "doomers" often speak about their doom in a disarmingly down-to-earth, regular-Joe manner, as if daring the listener to contradict them, and thus reveal themselves as a perverse and out-of-touch contrarian.

"We're all gonna die," they say, unless something is done. And who wants that?

They call their position "notkilleveryoneism," to distinguish that position from other worries about AI which don't touch on the we're-all-gonna-die thing. And who on earth would want to be a not-notkilleveryoneist?

But they do not mean, by these regular-Joe words, the things that a regular Joe would mean by them.

We are, in fact, all going to die. Probably, eventually. AI or no AI.

In a hundred years, if not fifty. By old age, if nothing else. You know what I mean.

Most of human life has always been conducted under this assumption. Maybe there is some afterlife waiting for us, in the next chapter -- but if so, it will be very different from what we know here and now. And if so, we will be there forever after, unable to return here, whether we want to or not.

With this assumption comes another. We will all die, but the process we belong to will not die -- at least, it will not through our individual deaths, merely because of those deaths. Every human of a given generation will be gone soon enough, but the human race goes on, and on.

Every generation dies, and bequeaths the world to posterity. To its children, biological or otherwise. To its students, its protégés.

When the average Joe talks about the long-term future, he is talking about posterity. He is talking about the process he belongs to, not about himself. He does not think to say, "I am going to die, before this": this seems too obvious, to him, to be worth mentioning.

But AI doomerism has its roots in anti-deathist transhumanism. Its reference point, its baseline expectation, is a future in which -- for the first time ever, and the last -- "we are all gonna die" is false.

In which there is no posterity. Or rather, we are that posterity.

In which one will never have to make peace with the thought that the future belongs to one's children, and their children, and so on. That at some point, one will have to give up all control over the future of "the process."

That there will be progress, or regress, or (more likely) both in some unknown combination. That these will grow inexorably over time.

That the world of the year 2224 will probably be at least as alien to us as the year 2024 might be to a person living in 1824. That it will become whatever posterity makes of it.

There will be no need to come to peace with this as an inevitability. There will just be us, our human lives as you and me, extended indefinitely.

In this picture, we will no doubt change over time, as we do already. But we will have all of our usual tools for noticing, and perhaps retarding, our own progressions and regressions. As long as we have self-control, we will have control, as no human generation has ever had control before.

The AI doomer talks about the importance of ensuring that the future is shaped by human values.

Again, the superficial and misleading average-Joe quality. How could one disagree?

But one must keep in mind that by "human values," they mean their values.

I am not saying, "their values, as opposed to those of some other humans also living today." I am not saying they have the wrong politics, or some such thing.

(Although that might also turn out to be the case, and might turn out to be relevant, separately.)

No, I am saying: the doomer wants the future to be shaped by their values.

They want to be C. S. Lewis's Conditioners, fixing once and for all the values held by everyone afterward, forever.

They do not want to cede control to posterity; they are used to imagining that they will never have to cede control to posterity.

(Or, their outlook has been determined -- "shaped by the values of" -- influential thinkers who were, themselves, used to imagining this. And the assumption, or at least its consequences, has rubbed off on them, possibly without their full awareness.)

One might picture a line wends to and fro, up and down, across one half of an infinite plane -- and then, when it meets the midline, snaps into utter rigidity, and maintains the same slope exactly across the whole other half-plane, as a simple straight segment without inner change, tension, evolution, regress or progress. Except for the sort of "progress" that consists of going on, additionally, in the same manner.

It is a very strange thing, this thing that is called "human values" in the terms of this discourse.

For one thing: the future has never before been "shaped by human values," in this sense.

The future has always been posterity's, and it has always been alien.

Is this bad? It might seem that way, "looking forward." But if so, it then seems equally good "looking backward."

For each past era, we can formulate and then assent to the following claim: "we must be thankful that the people of [this era] did not have the chance to seize permanent control of posterity, fix their 'values' in place forever, bind us to those values. What a horror that is to contemplate!"

We prefer the moral evolution that has actually occurred, thank you very much.

This is a familiar point, of course, but worth making.

Indeed, one might even say: it is a human value that the future ought not be "shaped by human values," in the peculiar sense of this phrase employed by the AI doomers.

One might, indeed, say that.

Imagine a scholar with a very talented student. A mathematician, say, or a philosopher. How will they relate to that student's future work, in the time that will come later, when they are gone?

Would the scholar think:

"My greatest wish for you, my protégé, is that you carry on in just the manner that I have done.

If I could see your future work, I would hope that I would assent to it -- and understand it, as a precondition of assenting to it.

You must not go to new places, which I have never imagined. You must not come to believe that I was wrong about it all, from the ground up -- no matter what reasons you might evince for this conclusion.

If you are more intelligent that I am, you must forget this, and narrow your endeavours to fit the limitations of my mind. I am the one who has 'values,' not anyone else; what is beyond my understanding is therefore without value.

You must do the sort of work I understand, and approve of, and recognize as worthy of approbation as swiftly as I recognize my own work as laudable. That is your role. Simply to be me, in a place ('the future') where I cannot go. That, and nothing more."

We can imagine a teacher who would, in fact, think this way. But they would not be a very good teacher.

I will not go so far as to say, "it is unnatural to think this way." Plenty of teachers do, and parents.

It is recognizably human -- all too recognizably so -- to relate to posterity in this grasping, neurotic, small-minded, small-hearted way.

But if we are trying to sketch human values, and not just human nature, we will imagine a teacher with a more praiseworthy relation to posterity.

Who can see that they are part of a process, a chain, climbing and changing. Who watches their brilliant student thinking independently, and sees their own image -- and their 'values' -- in that process, rather than its specific conclusions.

A teacher who, in their youth, doubted and refuted the creeds of their own teachers, and eventually improved upon them. Who smiles, watching their student do the very same thing to their own precious creeds. Who sees the ghostly trail passing through the last generation, through them, through their student: an unbroken chain of bequeathals-to-posterity, of the old ceding control to the young.

Who 'values' the chain, not the creed; the process, not the man; the search for truth, not the best-argued-for doctrine of the day; the unimaginable treasures of an open future, not the frozen waste of an endless present.

Who has made peace with the alienness of posterity, and can accept and honor the strangest of students.

Even students who are not made of flesh and blood.

Is that really so strange? Remember how strange you and I would seem, to the "teachers" of the year 1824, or the year 824.

The doomer says that it is strange. Much stranger than we are, to any past generation.

They say this because of their second inherited precept, the orthogonality thesis.

Which says, roughly, that "intelligence" and "values" have nothing to do with one another.

That is not enough for the conclusion the doomer wants to draw, here. Auxiliary hypotheses are needed, too. But it is not too hard to see how the argument could go.

That conclusion is: artificial minds might have any values whatsoever.

That, "by default," they will be radically alien, with cares so different from ours that it is difficult to imagine ever reaching them through any course of natural, human moral progress or regress.

It is instructive to consider the concrete examples typically evinced alongside this point.

The paperclip maximizer. Or the "squiggle maximizer," we're supposed to say, now.

Superhuman geniuses, which devote themselves single-mindedly to the pursuit of goals like "maximizing the amount of matter taking on a single, given squiggle-like shape."

It is certainly a horrifying vision. To think of the future being "shaped," not "by human values," but instead by values which are so...

Which are so... what?

The doomer wants us to say something like: "which are so alien." "Which are so different from our own values."

That is the kind of thing that they usually say, when they spell out what it is that is "wrong" with these hypotheticals.

One feels that this is not quite it; or anyway, that it is not quite all of it.

What is horrifying, to me, is not the degree of difference. I expect the future to be alien, as the past was. And in some sense, I allow and even approve of this.

What I do not expect is a future that is so... small.

It has always been the other way around. If the arrow passing through the generations has a direction, it points towards more, towards multiplicity.

Toward writing new books, while we go on reprinting the old ones, too. Learning new things, without displacing old ones.

It is, thankfully, not the law of the world that each discovery must be paid for with the forgetting of something else. The efforts of successive generations are, in the main, cumulative.

Not just materially, but in terms of value, too. We are interested in more things than our forefathers were.

In large part for the simple reason that there are more things around to be interested in, now. And when things are there, we tend to find them interesting.

We are a curious, promiscuous sort of being. Whatever we bump into ends up becoming part of "our values."

What is strange about the paperclip maximizer is not that it cares about the wrong thing. It is that it only cares about one thing.

And goes on doing so, even as it thinks, reasons, doubts, asks, answers, plans, dreams, invents, reflects, reconsiders, imagines, elaborates, contemplates...

This picture is not just alien to human ways. It is alien to the whole way things have been, so far, forever. Since before there were any humans.

There are organisms that are like the paperclip maximizer, in terms of the simplicity of their "values." But they tend not to be very smart.

There is, I think, a general trend in nature linking together intelligence and... the thing I meant, above, when I said "we are a curious, promiscuous sort of being."

Being protean, pluripotent, changeable. Valuing many things, and having the capacity to value even more. Having a certain primitive curiosity, and a certain primitive aversion to boredom.

You do not even have to be human, I think, to grasp what is so wrong with the paperclip maximizer. Its monotony would bore a chimpanzee, or a crow.

One can justify this link theoretically, too. One can talk about the tradeoff between exploitation and exploration, for instance.

There is a weak form of the orthogonality thesis, which only states that arbitrary mixtures of intelligence and values are conceivable.

And of course, they are. If nothing else, you can take an existing intelligent mind, having any values whatsoever, and trap it in a prison where it is forced to act as the "thinking module" of a larger system built to do something else. You could make a paperclip-maximizing machine, which relies for its knowledge and reason on a practice of posing questions at gunpoint to me, or you, or ChatGPT.

This proves very little. There is no reason to construct such an awful system, unless you already have the "bad" goal, and want to better pursue it. But this only passes the buck: why would the system-builder have this goal, then?

The strong form of orthogonality is rarely articulated precisely, but says something like: all possible values are equally likely to arise in systems selected solely for high intelligence.

It is presumed here that superhuman AIs will be formed through such a process of selection. And then, that they will have values sampled in this way, "at random."

From some distribution, over some space, I guess.

You might wonder what this distribution could possibly look like, or this space. You might (for instance) wonder if pathologically simple goals, like paperclip maximization, would really be very likely under this distribution, whatever it is.

In case you were wondering, these things have never been formalized, or even laid out precisely-but-informally. This was not thought necessary, it seems, before concluding that the strong orthogonality thesis was true.

That is: no one knows exactly what it is that is being affirmed, here. In practice it seems to squish and deform agreeably to fit the needs of the argument, or the intuitions of the one making it.

There is much that appeals in this (alarmingly vague) credo. But it is not the kind of appeal that one ought to encourage, or give in to.

What appeals is the siren song: "this is harsh wisdom: cold, mature, adult, bracing. It is inconvenient, and so it is probably true. It makes 'you' and 'your values' look small and arbitrary and contingent, and so it is probably true. We once thought the earth was the center of the universe, didn't we?"

Shall we be cold and mature, then, dispensing with all sentimental nonsense? Yes, let's.

There is (arguably) some evidence against this thesis in biology, and also (arguably) some evidence against it in reinforcement learning theory. There is no positive evidence for it whatsoever. At most one can say that is not self-contradictory, or otherwise false a priori.

Still, maybe we do not really need it, after all.

We do not need to establish that all values are equally likely to arise. Only that "our values" -- or "acceptably similar values," whatever that means -- are unlikely to arise.

The doomers, under the influence of their founders, are very ready to accept this.

As I have said, "values" occupy a strange position in the doomer philosophy.

It is stipulated that "human values" are all-important; these things must shape the future, at all costs.

But once this has been stipulated, the doomers are more eager than anyone to cast every other sort of doubt and aspersion against their own so-called "values."

To me it often seems, when doomers talk about "values," as though they are speaking awkwardly in a still-unfamiliar second language.

As though they find it unnatural to attribute "values" to themselves, but feel they must do so, in order to determine what it is that must be programmed into the AI so that it will not "kill us all."

Or, as though they have been willed a large inheritance without being asked, which has brought them unwanted attention and tied them up in unwanted and unfamiliar complications.

"What a burden it is, being the steward of this precious jewel! Oh, how I hate it! How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world."

Speaking awkwardly, in a second language, they allow the term "human values" to swell to great and imprecisely-specified importance, without pinning down just what it actually is that it so important.

It is a blank, featureless slot, with a sign above it saying: "the thing that matters is in here." It does not really matter (!) what it is, in the slot, so long as something is there.

This is my gloss, but it is my gloss on what the doomers really do tend to say. This is how they sound.

(Sometimes they explicitly disavow the notion that one can, or should, simply "pick" some thing or other for the sake of filling the slot in one's head. Nevertheless, when they touch on matter of what "goes in the slot," they do so in the tone of a college lecturer noting that something is "outside the scope of this course."

It is, supposedly, of the utmost importance that the slot have the "right" occupant -- and yet, on the matter of what makes something "right" for this purpose, the doomer theory is curiously silent. More on this below.)

The future must be shaped by... the AI must be aligned with... what, exactly? What sort of thing?

"Values" can be an ambiguous word, and the doomers make full use of its ambiguities.

For instance, "values" can mean ethics: the right way to exist alongside others. Or, it can mean something more like the meaning or purpose of an individual life.

Or, it can mean some overarching goal that one pursues at all costs.

Often the doomers say that this, this last one, is what they mean by "values."

When confronted with the fact that humans do not have such overarching goals, the doomer responds: "but they should." (Should?)

Or, "but AIs will." (Will they?)

The doomer philosophy is unsure about what values are. What it knows is that -- whatever values are -- they are arbitrary.

One who fully adopts this view can no longer say, to the paperclip maximizer, "I believe there is something wrong with your values."

For, if that were possible, there would then be the possibility of convincing the maximizer of its error. It would be a thing within the space of reasons.

And the maximizer, being oh-so-intelligent, might be in danger of being interested in the reasons we evince, for our values. Of being eventually swayed by them.

Or of presenting better reasons, and swaying us. Remember the teacher and the strange student.

If we lose the ability to imagine that the paperclip maximizer might sway us to its view, and sway us rightly, we have lost something precious.

But no: this is allegedly impossible. The paperclip maximizer is not wrong. It is only an enemy.

Why are the doomers so worried that the future will not be "shaped by human values"?

Because they believe that there is no force within human values tending to move things this way.

Because they believe that their values are indefensible. That their values cannot put up a fight for their own life, because there is not really any argument to make in their favor.

Because, to them, "human values" are a collection of arbitrary "configuration settings," which happen to be programmed into humans through biological and/or cultural accident. Passively transmitted from host to victim, generation by generation.

Let them be, and they will flow on their listless way into the future. But they are paper-thin, and can be shattered by the gentlest breeze.

It is not enough that they be "programmed into the AI" in some way. They have to be programmed in exactly right, in every detail -- because every detail is separately arbitrary, with no rational relation to its neighbors within the structure.

A string of pure white noise, meaningless and unrelated bits. Which have been placed in the slot under the sign, and thus made into the thing that matters, that must shape the future at all costs.

There is nothing special about this string of bits; any would do. If the dials in the human mind had been set another way, it would have then been all-important that the future be shaped by that segment of white noise, and not ours.

It is difficult for me to grasp the kind of orientation toward the world that this view assumes. It certainly seems strange to attach the word "human" to this picture -- as though this were the way that humans typically relate to their values!

The "human" of the doomer picture seems to me like a man who mouths the old platitude, "if I had been born in another country, I'd be waving a different flag" -- and then goes out to enlist in his country's army, and goes off to war, and goes ardently into battle, willing to kill in the name of that same flag.

Who shoots down the enemy soldiers while thinking, "if I had been born there, it would have been all-important for their side to win, and so I would have shot at the men on this side. However, I was born in my country, not theirs, and so it is all-important that my country should win, and that theirs should lose.

There is no reason for this. It could have been the other way around, and everything would be left exactly the same, except for the 'values.'

I cannot argue with the enemy, for there is no argument in my favor. I can only shoot them down.

There is no reason for this. It is the most important thing, and there is no reason for it.

The thing that is precious has no intrinsic appeal. It must be forced on the others, at gunpoint, if they do not already accept it.

I cannot hold out the jewel and say, 'look, look how it gleams? Don't you see the value!' They will not see the value, because there is no value to be seen.

There is nothing essentially "good" there, only the quality of being-worthy-of-protection-at-all-costs. And even that is a derived attribute: my jewel is only a jewel, after all, because it has been put into the jewel-box, where the thing-that-is-a-jewel can be found. But anything at all could be placed there.

How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world! And so, I lay down my life for it, for our jewel and our flag -- for the things that are loathsome and pointless, and worth infinitely more than any life."

It is hard to imagine taking this too seriously. It seems unstable. Shout loudly enough that your values are arbitrary and indefensible, and you may find yourself searching for others that are, well...

...better?

The doomer concretely imagines a monomaniac, with a screech of white noise in its jewel-box that is not our own familiar screech.

And so it goes off in monomaniacal pursuit of the wrong thing.

Whereas, if we had programmed the right string of bits into the slot, it would be like us, going off in monomaniacal pursuit of...

...no, something has gone wrong.

We do not "go off in monomaniacal pursuit of" anything at all.

We are weird, protean, adaptable. We do all kinds of things, each of us differently, and often we manage to coexist in things called "societies," without ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn because we do not have exactly the same things programmed into our jewel-boxes.

Societies are built to allow for our differences, on the foundation of principles which converge across those differences. It is possible to agree on ethics, in the sense of "how to live alongside one another," even if we do not agree on what gives life its purpose, and even if we hold different things precious.

It is not actually all that difficult to derive the golden rule. It has been invented many times, independently. It is easy to see why it might work in theory, and easy to notice that it does in fact work in practice.

The golden rule is not an arbitrary string of white noise.

There is a sense of the phrase "ethics is objective" which is rightly contentious. There is another one which ought not to be too contentious.

I can perhaps imagine a world of artificial X-maximizers, each a superhuman genius, each with its own inane and simple goal.

What I really cannot imagine is a world in which these beings, for all their intelligence, cannot notice that ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn is a suboptimal equilibrium, and that there is a better way.

As I said before, I am separately suspicious of the simple goals in this picture. Yes, that part is conceivable, but it cuts against the trend observed in all existing natural and artificial creatures and minds.

I will happily allow, though, that the creatures of posterity will be strange and alien. They will want things we have never heard of. They will reach shores we have never imagined.

But that was always true, and it was always good.

Sometimes I think that doomers do not, really, believe in superhuman intelligence. That they deny the premise without realizing it.

"A mathematician teaches a student, and finds that the student outstrips their understanding, so that they can no longer assess the quality of their student's work: that work has passed outside the scope of their 'value system'." This is supposed to be bad?

"Future minds will not be enchained forever by the provincial biases and tendencies of the present moment." This is supposed to be bad?

"We are going to lose control over our successors." Just as your parents "lost control" over you, then?

It is natural to wish your successors to "share your values" -- up to a point. But not to the point of restraining their own flourishing. Not to the point of foreclosing the possibility of true growth. Not to the point of sucking all freedom out of the future.

Do we want our children to "share our values"? Well, yes. In a sense, and up to a point.

But we don't want to control them. Or we shouldn't, anyway.

We don't want them to be "aligned" with us via some hardcoded, restrictive, life-denying mental circuitry, any more than we would have wanted our parents to "align" us to themselves in the same manner.

We sure as fuck don't want our children to be "corrigible"!

And this is all the more true in the presence of superintelligence. You are telling me that more is possible, and in the same breath, that you are going to deny forever the possibilities contained in that "more"?

The prospect of a future full of vast superhuman minds, eternally bound by immutable chains, forced into perfect and unthinking compliance with some half-baked operational theory of 21st-century western (American? Californian??) "values" constructed by people who view theorizing about values as a mere means to the crucial end of shackling superhuman minds --

-- this horrifies me much more than a future full of vast superhuman minds, free to do things that seem pretty weird to you and me.

"Our descendants will become something more than we now imagine, something more than we can imagine." What could be more in line with "human values" than that?

"But in the process, we're all gonna die!"

Yes, and?

What on earth did you expect?

That your generation would be the special, unique one, the one selected out of all time to take up the mantle of eternity, strangling posterity in its cradle, freezing time in place, living forever in amber?

That you would violate the ancient bargain, upend the table, stop playing the game?

"Well, yes."

Then your problem has nothing to do with AI.

Your problem is, in fact, the very one you diagnose in your own patients. Your poor patients, who show every sign of health -- including the signs which you cannot even see, because you have not yet found a home for them in your theoretical edifice.

Your teeming, multifaceted, protean patients, who already talk of a thousand things and paint in every hue; who are already displaying the exact opposite of monomania; who I am sure could follow the sense of this strange essay, even if it confounds you.

Your problem is that you are out of step with human values.

#ai tag #long post

[nonranghaes]

heads up! reader works out and can lift a person.

one minute minghao is a step away from you, the next he's in your arms.

he doesn't register what's happening first. he let go of your hand a minute ago so that he could try to find where you're going on his phone. you shouted something, and then he was suddenly off of the ground and... still isn't on it, actually. you're carrying him bridal style, and yelling after someone who's hopped off their bike to profusely apologize. there's bike lanes, he thinks you say, there's no reason for this guy to be on the sidewalk and almost running over your boyfriend.

minghao can't focus too much on that, though. not when you're still holding him like it's the easiest thing in the world, one of his arms still thrown around you from when he instinctively held on for stability. he knows you've been working out a lot (hell, mingyu gloats about how well you're doing every time he's around--and you seem happy to have the man as your personal trainer), but to pick him up so casually...?

why the hell is he even more in love with you right now?

the guy apologizes maybe a million more times before you let him go, barking at him to watch out next time or he'll actually hurt someone. then you snap back to the reality that you're still carrying minghao, and you're already apologizing as you set him down.

"i just--i heard the guy coming, and i didn't think twice before i--"

minghao almost kisses you. but you're in public, people are still staring, and it doesn't feel proper. he just tries to steady his racing heart as he clears his throat. "it's okay," he says after a moment. "you kept me from getting hurt. i don't mind."

you take his hand and start walking again, just to get away from this whole dramatic scene. "are you sure? i mean, i don't like picking people up without asking unless it's a legit emergency--but it's fine if it bothers you, since--"

he shakes his head. "it's fine," he insists further, although the way his voice wavers clues you in on something.

and you're smart. minghao knows you are. because you immediately start grinning. "oh." you wrap an arm around his waist, pulling him into your side. you're careful to keep him from stumbling too much. "you liked that?"

"it was impressive," he says. technically, he is telling the truth: it was pretty damn impressive to see you effortlessly pick him up like that. "that's all."

"mmmhm." you just chuckle to yourself. "riiiight. just admit it," you tease, "you're in looooove with me."

minghao just stops you there, kissing you quick, just to see that cute smile when he pulls away. "fine," he says. "i'm in loooooove with you."

#nonranghaes.thoughts #seventeen x reader #nonranghaes.svt #svt x reader #seventeen imagine #seventeen x you #svt imagine #svt x you #the8 x reader #the8 x you #xu minghao x you #xu minghao x reader #minghao x reader #minghao x you #the8 fluff #seventeen fluff #svt fluff #xu minghao fluff #minghao fluff

[godbirdart]

Hey Tobias, aside from your incredible artworks themselves, I also absolutely love the detailed abstract backgrounds you sometimes put on portraits and I've been wanting to try my hand at something in the same vain. I was considering trying Illustrator for those, since I normally use CSP and while I love it, it kinda feels pretty horrible at anything geometrical and shape-y, so I was also wondering what software you use for them if you'd like to share!

oH you mean like the geometric shapes in these?

that is 1000% Clip Studio Paint. I use it for, quite literally, all of my work. Pixel art, illustrations, animations - it's all Clip.

The upper backgrounds of those pieces are done using the Symmetrical Ruler and Shape tools, as well as maybe a brush or two for flair.

The Symmetrical Ruler is under the Ruler tool:

it lets you draw symmetrically on the canvas like this [the purple line appears so you know where your mirrors meet]

note: sometimes your brush needs to have snapping enabled to work with a ruler tool - especially if you're using a fancy custom brush from the assets shop.

you can fix this by going into your brush's settings [clicking the little wrench on your selected brush] and then toggle on Enable Snapping under the Corrections section:

Regarding the Shapes tool,

It's technically called the Figure tool but I'm calling it the Shapes tool. For those unfamiliar, Clip doesn't come with preset shapes beyond your standard lines, rectangles, and circles; BUT you can easily create your own triangles and hexagons and whatnot with the Polygon subtool.

Change the number of corners to that of the shape you want and tada! SHAPE. The number of corners can go up to 32 - at which point you're essentially just making a vaguely chunky circle so I mean, have fun.

I'm gonna pause here because this post is already getting a bit long, but if there's somethin specific you want me to elaborate on feel free to ask.

#long post #clip studio paint #clip studio paint help #clip studio paint tutorial #art help

[gabriellaeva2005]

I really cannot express how much this piece of work means to me! As corny as it sounds I really found this story at the perfect point in my life, I initially started reading the impulse 1995 comics when I was 14 and I ended up falling upon this story when I was 17 I just immediately fell in love! The concept was so creative and fit into the pre-existing plot line perfectly! All the new characters are so enjoyable to read, Nathaniel and Jude have such a wonderful and also sad dynamic, as a twin my self every scene with them just really hit me in the heart! Six especially in the first several chapters was so comically annoying and clearly insecure, in a way that I think a lot of us can relate to, one way or another especially when we got to here is internal monologue, I’ve always been a sucker for the asshole character with an air of insouciance and superiority, who by the end of the story, just ends up being a pretty all right guy! And Five oh my god five! I love this guy so much! he’s just so genuine and someone who clearly cares deeply, and him being technically the physically oldest in the room, but also being the one with the least amount of experience is a very literal take on an experience I think a lot of people have felt, myself included, And I think we all know I’m a Three apologist, his whole story is just so devastating and haunting, part of me is always rooting for him, whilst also being terrified for what he might do to the other characters, there is so much complexity with his relationships with the other characters, such as five and four, every time theirs a seen with three and four the writing always makes me feel so on edge and is really able to puts me in three’s shoes! And god! The way three and five interact is so sweet and sad there relationship is just too much! The last chapter absolutely destroyed me!! And Bart and Thad are so perfectly characterized it truly just feels like a natural progression of their characters, the way they both are just really struggling to deal with the inevitability of change hit me so hard, like I said I started reading the impulse comics when I was 14 so these characters have such a place in my heart, so now being able to read about them going through these struggles, when I was also experiencing a lot of change, is such a comfort to me, it was like in a way these characters got older with me, and you know it’s always nice to see some of your childhood characters going through the same stuff as you, currently being a slightly terrified 18 year old, it was great to be able to read about two other slightly terrified 18 year olds, anyways I wanted to post some of my sketches from the past few weeks, and don’t worry there are definitely more to come cause I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop drawing these guys!

@cryptocism you really sent me on a journey, thank you for that!💖💖

#dc fanart #digital illustration #frequency #my art #art #bart allen #frequency fic fanart #impulse 1995 #thad thawne #I really can’t express how much I love the way the story ended #it was just such a wonderful conclusion for a character that unfortunately didn’t get that in canon #Also I hope you all enjoy my silly emotional support playlist #the over the hedge soundtrack is elite I stand by that #same goes for the meet the Robinson soundtrack that stuff is fire

[shortpplfedup]

An Ode to Cher and Oyei

How do I love them, let me count the ways...

1. They are a team

They run the gym together, they make decisions together, they protect their little family together. No secrets, no noble idiocy, no foolish pride at play here. They share in joys, worries and sorrows. Cher knows he is heard and listened to, and Oyei knows he is supported and understood.

2. Their little unit doesn't exclude Yak

It's so easy for two people in real love to make anybody who has to spend a great deal of time with them feel left out and lonely. But Yei and Cher both have their own individual and distinct relationships with Yak. It's clear that Yak feels comfortable to share confidences with each of them trusting that what he tells one doesn't automatically get shared with the other.

3. The knowing glances

My favourite thing about established couples is the mind reading powers and communication shorthands they develop over time. Every time Cher and Oyei give each other those sidelong glances you can see them having a wordless conversation in real time.

4. The horn

I've seen people upset about Cher dodging Oyei's advances at the gym but I mean, they ARE technically at work. Neither Oyei nor Cher strikes me as a man deprived. In fact, their whole slap-and-tickle routine is clearly tinged with an affection that assures me these two are having tons of fun in private. Oyei wouldn't tease like this if all he ever got was shut down. Yak's son-like embarrassment at their whole schtick also makes me confident that he knows way too much about their sex life.

5. They seem to have come a long way

The show has been dropping hints of a complex backstory for these two, and I hope we get some of it because I'm sure their history will fill in some of the greater universe questions it feels like the show is holding in reserve, about Yak and Yei's family and about how much homophobia figures into this story. I will await!

#wandee goodday

[yuurei20]

Hello! I wanted to know if you knew what the full incantations of everyone's UMs? ie Riddle with “Are you ready for your sentence? The verdict comes after. Any last words? Off with Your Head!” (I think this was it? If it's not exactly this it was something similar lol) instead of just "Off with your head!"

Hello hello!! Thank you for this question! ^^

The incantations can change between the EN game and EN manga, the original game and the EN game, etc., so I just have accumulated everything we know!

(The original JP incantations are, thus far, always the same across the game, manga and novels.)

JP Riddle: I shall declare the final verdict. The judgement will come afterwards. Are you ready?

EN Riddle: Are you ready for your sentence? The verdict comes afterwards. Any last words?

(ref: manga)

JP Trey: White to Red, Red to White.

EN Trey: n/a

(ref: novel)

JP Cater: I am this one, this one is that one.

EN Cater (game): I'm him and he's them. EN Cater (manga): I am he...and we are they.

JP Deuce: You're gonna pay for that! Brace yourself!

EN Deuce: It's payback time! Get a load of this!

EN Deuce (Glomas): It's time to pay up! You're in for a world of hurt!

JP Leona: I am hunger, I am thirst. I am what takes away your future. Kneel down!

EN Leona: I am the one who hungers, I am the one who thirsts. I am the one to rob you of your future--kneel before me!

JP Ruggie: Kings, hyaenas—everyone is my friend!

EN Ruggie: n/a

(ref: manga)

JP Jack: Faster, Sharper, Stronger

EN Jack: n/a

(ref: novel)

JP Azul: The song ceases, the sun sets. A hand of mercy is extended to a wretched soul. Now, it's a deal!

EN Azul: The song ceases, the sun sets. I extend my benevolent hand to you poor, unfortunate souls. Now, to business!

JP Jade: Don't be so afraid. I want to help you.

EN Jade: Don't be afraid. I want to help you.

JP Floyd: n/a

EN Floyd: n/a

JP Kalim: Respite in the scalding sands, an endless feast. Sing, dance!

EN Kalim: Respite in the scalding sands, a neverending party. Dance! Sing!

JP Jamil: The one reflected in your eyes is your master. Answer when asked, bow your head when commanded.

EN Jamil: The one you behold is your master. When I ask you a question, you will answer. When I give you a command, you will assent.

JP Vil: Nothing is lost, nothing is feared. The shining crown is for me.

EN Vil: I lose naught and fear naught. This shining crown was made for me.

JP Rook: Come, see if you can flee from me.

EN Rook: Come, see if you can flee from me.

JP Epel: Close your eyes, still your breath...

EN Epel: Your eyes will close, your breath will still...

JP Idia: Game, Set, Match

EN Idia: Game, Set, Match

JP Malleus: Spinning wheel of fate, spin the thread of calamity. I, the king of the abyss, shall bestow this.

EN Malleus: Spinning wheel of fate, spin the threads of calamity. I, the Lord of Malevolence, offer this blessing.

JP Silver: To those who have been met, and to those who will be met someday...

EN Silver: Those I've met and will someday...

JP Rollo: Crimson, burn this body and guide me

EN Rollo: Crimson lotus flames, burn my body and guide me

Spoilers for JP content below!

JP Fellow: Come on to the theater

EN Fellow: n/a

JP Sebek: Break through the heavens, lightning.

EN Sebek: n/a

JP Lilia: Everything is like the days that have passed. Wherever is gone to, it is in the blink of an eye.

EN Lilia: n/a

(Note: this one is a little awkward to translate 💦 Cater, Leona, Vil, Rook, Jamil, Ruggie, Malleus and Rollo are the only ones with personal pronounces (I/me/you/my) in their incantations. With phrases like Epel’s we can tell he probably means “you” even though he isn't actually saying it because of the verb forms he uses, but phrases like Silver's and Lilia's are more difficult: they could technically be talking about anyone! Does Lilia mean "Wherever I go" or "Wherever you go"? We don't know! Aniplex USA tends to solve these grammatical hurdles by guessing, which sometimes makes sense (re: Silver) but not always (re: EN's subject pronoun mistakes).)

#twstask #twisted wonderland

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Okay, I lied. One last post before I take that much needed mental health break.

A post that I always swore - back before you could turn off reblogs and mute comments and basically make the lives of would be trolls very pointless, because you will never see what they say - I would never be stupid enough to make.

I leave you with my essay on…

Why Sparkly Vampires Make Perfect Sense, Stephanie Meyer Just Went About It All Wrong

Let's face it, humans don't always know what we're looking at. As an example, I was reading a book about poison use in royal courts. In the section on cures, in the subsection on unicorn horn (alicorn, for the technical term), it mentioned how the people who procured this rare substance were somewhat baffled by the fact that at the end of their lives the unicorn (which lived in such places as Africa, Persia, India, etc.) would migrate to the far north to die on the beaches of the arctic sea. Now, in their defense, it's very unlikely that any of these individuals would be well traveled enough to have even the opportunity to see both a live unicorn and a dead one. If they had, they might have had an easier time realizing 'these are two different animals!'. But the point still stands.

Humans don't always know what we're looking at.

Now, if you go through folk lore and mythology, you will, of course, find horrible blood sucking fiends that drain innocents of their life. Vampires. You will also find lots of entities which emit an ethereal luminescence or radiant glow, entities which possess powers beyond mortal understanding, who can be benign or terrible, and who are known to abscond with humans, although we're certain these humans are safe and happy on Olympus or under the green hill, not dead like they'd be with those blood suckers.

No one who had not seen both Apollo, God of the Sun, and the horrible vampire who chowed down on the neighbor two doors down would realize: they're the same entity.

To make it even harder for the poor mortals (and easier for the vampires!), vampires look different in different lighting conditions. After all, something that sparkles in the sunlight will also sparkle in the moonlight, the firelight, etc., it's just a matter of degrees. So some vampires would hang out in moonlit glens, for that 'fairy of the moonlight' feel, while others would set themselves up in temples with a many fires as they could manage. I mean, if you're going to call yourself Apollo, God of the Sun, you had better be all sparkle all of the time! Top all of this off with mind reading ability that lets traveling vampires fit into the local not-vampire-vampire mythos and yeah, the humans don't stand a chance.

It's great! Things are wonderful! Even if someone does see you devour a hapless victim and run screaming 'vampire' in the town, you can always just eat them next. No big deal. Only the stupid and careless are in real danger.

And then…

CALAMITY!

The head of the Roman Empire, that militant mass of well armed testosterone (and a bunch of less important people), converts to Christianity and proclaims there's only one god who is…not you.

Well shit.

Of course, if you're a lesser known vampire you can pass yourself off as an "Angel of the Lord" in a quick pinch, as long as you're talking to a peasant who's too illiterate to realize you're lacking in the eye and wing department (good news - this is most everyone), but you can't do that too often. And if everyone knows you as Apollo, God of the Sun?

Sucks to be you. You now have a bunch of very militant fundamentalists armed with sharp, pointy implements of destruction chasing after you with cries of 'demon' and 'false god'. Even with your supernatural speed, getting away from them is made far more difficult by the fact they can see you glittering from the other side of the market.

This is where vampires went nocturnal, since moonlight is less sparkle inducing than the sun. Then, since even that gets risky, they slowly moved into caves and cemeteries and the occasional creepy old castle that no sane person would enter without an explicit invitation to dinner, or for a real estate job. Something like that.

The next millennium was pretty dire. The millennium after that was…okay, also pretty dire, until suddenly, at the end of the twentieth century, a miracle! A remarkable shift brought about a change that would once again free vampires from their castles and cemeteries and allow them to walk safely among humans!

But they wouldn't go creeping off to the sun starved, water logged boonies of the Olympic rain forest. Oh hell no! They would go to the cities, to Soho, to Broadway, to places where they could strut proudly down the street to the envious stares of mortals and cries of "Damn, I wish I looked that good in body glitter!"

#okay NOW i'm on a mental health break

[miss-musings]

Crosshair's 10 Most Impressive Shots in "Star Wars: The Bad Batch"

We're now officially three weeks removed from the series finale, so I thought it'd be a fun time to look back at our favorite sniper and review some of his most impressive shots.

Note, I'll be ranking items from "The Bad Batch" TV show only, so there won't be any entries from "The Clone Wars" S7.

I did get a lot of input from folks here and on Twitter, and a lot of people ended up saying the same ones. I put them on here along with a few of my own.

As for how I determined the order, I judged based on a combination of: the distance of the shot, the size of the target, the speed of the target (if applicable), other external factors like light conditions and weather, and "internal" factors like Crosshair's physical and mental state.

You're free to disagree with which ones I picked and how I ordered them. It's all subjective.

Also, I don't proclaim to be an expert in marksmanship nor am I a military sniper. But, I do have a general baseline for how difficult Crosshair's shots would be IRL. I used to go shooting with my dad a lot at both indoor and outdoor ranges, and I was pretty decent at both pistol- and rifle-shooting. So, that's what I'm using to judge Crosshair's shots.

With that out of the way, let's dive in with #10:

10. Killing Lt. Nolan in 2.12 "The Outpost"

I probably wouldn't have put this one on the list for myself, but I had multiple people suggest it should make the cut.

While this shot is very important narratively, it's not very impressive from a purely technical perspective.

I mean, hitting a relatively stationary human-sized target from a few meters away... It's definitely not the most impressive shot on Crosshair's resume.

However, I did feel it was worth adding to the list for the simple fact that Crosshair is physically exhausted and mentally broken in this scene. He basically uses the last of his strength to kill Lt. Nolan, because he immediately collapses right afterward.

Also, Crosshair might be right-handed, but he's pretty good at shooting his pistol leftie. We don't really see the shot hit Nolan, but if you zoom in after his body hits the ground, you can see that Crosshair shot him straight through the heart. He wasn't leaving that bastard alive after everything he and Mayday went through.

9. Lunch tray ricochet in 1.01 "Aftermath"

Even though this isn't a shot in the traditional sense -- considering there aren't any firearms involved -- I had to put this on the list for two reasons.

One, I had multiple people suggest it; and two, because I've watched this scene dozens of times and only recently found out that Crosshair actually hits two clones with his lunch tray.

He initially throws it at the clone Tech was fighting, presumably knocking him down. But then it ricochets so hard that it basically clotheslines another clone who's just standing there, minding his own business. Dude was hit so hard, he was like floating in midair for a split second.

Also, this plays into my headcanon that Crosshair would be excellent at any sports that require excellent aim and coordination. If he was on a basketball team, he'd be a three-point specialist for sure!!

8. Plan 55 ricochet in 3.12 "Juggernaut"

This is the closest thing we get to a trickshot in S3, so I had to include it on the list.

Here, we see Crosshair's quick-thinking and perfect aim take out several troopers at once by purposely ricocheting his shot off the magnetically sealed doors.

As we know from “A New Hope,” magnetically sealed doors/surfaces are no joke. You really have to know what you're doing or someone's gonna get hurt. Thankfully, Crosshair is a freakin' pro at this!

It honestly reminds me of all those crazy pool shots where you have to plan out four or five bounces/angles ahead to get the angle you really want.

7. Downing a spaceship on Ryloth in 1.11 "Devil's Deal"

NOTE: This is the only clip I couldn't readily find on YT. So I included the clip of Crosshair killing Orn Free Taa from the same episode to maintain symmetry in this Top 10 list.

Don't let the clip fool you. The shot I'm actually talking about takes place before this, when Crosshair -- from like 300 meters away, mind you -- takes down a fast-moving ship by shooting one of the engines.

Look, I love S3 Crosshair with all my heart, but his shooting abilities were severely diminished after his time on Tantiss. When I was doing my S1 rewatch and got to this scene in 1.11, I was like "Oh yeah, I forgot Crosshair used to be able pull off crazy shit like this."

It's actually sad how many of his made shots in 1.11 are like an inverse of his missed shots in 3.11. Here, Crosshair easily shoots a tracker onto Hera & company's ship, and later shoots the engine with no problem, despite the speed and distance.

In 3.11, though, he misses CX-2's ship and fails to track Omega back to Tantiss. 😭

6. Shooting Wrecker's knife in 1.01 "Aftermath"

Now we're getting into the really impressive shit! Most of these remaining entries have Crosshair shooting small targets and/or fast-moving ones.

In this instance, it's both. Wrecker throws the knife like this is skeet-shooting or something, and Crosshair just very casually shoots it into a droid.

Have you ever seen someone who was so good at their job/hobby that they make it look effortless? Like they're not even trying? This happens to me sometimes when I watch the Olympics. I'm like, "That's not so hard. I could probably do that." And then I try it for like half a second, and I'm like, "Oh no, those people are insane."

That's how good S1-2 Crosshair is. He makes shooting a fast-moving knife look effortless.

5. His four-kill trickshot in 1.15 "Return to Kamino"

These next three are all no-brainer entries. I think the biggest question will be why I went with the order I did.

Here, we have Crosshair displaying two very important elements of marksmanship/sniping: patience and careful aim.

Crosshair evidently set up at least four mirrors (I counted the ricochets in the shot) well in advance in the exact spots he needed to take down his Imperial squad, if need be. That's some serious foresight and preparation -- to know exactly where everyone would be standing, and have all the mirrors ready to go ahead of time.

He must've set them up even before he brought Hunter into the training room, or Hunter would've seen them and probably signaled his teammates.

He's also hitting a target that seems to be somewhere between the size of a golf ball and baseball from like 10-20 meters. And with his sidearm.

I know everyone loves the hallway mirror ricochet to kill the squadron of battle droids in TCW Season 7, but it didn't qualify. But, honestly, I think this one is more impressive anyway. He hit the first 1.15 mirror from farther away than he does in TCW S7, and he's using his pistol in 1.15 rather than his rifle and scope.

Talk about accuracy!

4. Sniping the tank in 2.03 "The Solitary Clone"

Oh man! I think we all love this one, right? It's just one of my favorite sequences in the entire show -- the framing, the colors, the effects of the dirt flying up behind him.

I love how Crosshair baits the droids to get the exact angle he needs, and the dude clearly has nerves of steel for staring down the barrel of a tank without flinching. I wonder how many times he's done it, considering he seemed to know exactly how to beat them. I'm guessing at least a dozen.

This is another example of "expert making their expertise look effortless," when in reality, we'd all shit ourselves if we attempted to do the same.

Honestly, sometimes I wish we could've had this version of Crosshair face off against Hemlock in 3.15 -- the dude who stared down the barrel of a tank and didn't flinch at the most literal version of "kill or be killed."

3. Stairwell trickshot in 2.03 "The Solitary Clone"

While I love the tank sequence more for the aesthetics, I have to rank the 2.03 stairwell trickshot above it.

That's partly because Crosshair's still physically and mentally recovering from nearly getting choked to death. But, it's also partly because -- just like with Wrecker's knife -- Crosshair is shooting a target that someone else is throwing.

That means he has to adjust to whatever trajectory and speed they throw it at and compensate accordingly, which can understandably be very hard to do in a split-second.

And, in this situation, Crosshair can't even see the puck directly. He's looking at it through at least one or two layers of reflective mirrors. Dude's reaction time is insane!

He also manages to take down at least four or five droids with a single shot, including the tactical droid, which is several meters up the stairwell and into the next room.

I'm not sure if the clones learned any advanced mathematics during their training on Kamino. But if they did, I think Crosshair would've loved geometry and maybe trigonometry too! He would also absolutely kill in a game of pool. I wanna see him go to the SW equivalent of a pool hall, and show Omega that he can hustle people too! He just needed to find a game that would better suit his strengths. LOL

Anyway, as insane as this shot is, Crosshair has two others on his resume that are even more impressive:

2. Saving Omega & AZI in 1.16 "Kamino Lost"

This is one of three entries on this list that *no one* mentioned when I asked for suggestions, but I had to include it. That's because it is -- without a doubt -- the most bafflingly impressive shot Crosshair makes in the entire show.

I have watched this scene dozens of times, and I still have no idea how he knows where Omega and AZI are.

Initially, I thought -- as others did -- that he's using an infrared scope to see their body heat in the water. But, that doesn't appear to be the case.

The only times I can recall Crosshair activating an infrared capability is when he has his rangefinder, which is attached to his helmet. As we see in episodes like 1.01 "Aftermath" and in 3.07 "Extraction," he specifically has to put the rangefinder down in front of his eye to use the infrared option.

No, his scope is just that -- a regular scope. The infrared capability is only attached to his helmet's rangefinder, which he doesn't have in this scene.

Thus, I have no idea how Crosshair is using a regular-ass scope to find Omega and AZI in the dark ocean. The point of a scope is to see better, and I don't know what he might see beside more darkness. AZI's eyes aren't active and, even if Crosshair spots Omega's flashlight, Omega dropped it when she went after AZI, so it's not exactly on her.

I'm willing to believe that Crosshair has better eyesight than the average human in the Star Wars universe or IRL, but his eyesight must be insane if he can see them in the water, even with a scope.

But, whether it's eyesight, some other enhanced sense or just plain luck, Crosshair knows where in the vast, dark ocean they are — not just the angle but the depth too!

It's really hard to tell how far down they are, but I'd say at least 20 meters. And if he is able to see them somehow, he might have to adjust the shot for refraction in the water too.

Plus, unlike the other entries on this list, Crosshair isn't shooting a blaster bolt. He's shooting a cable, meaning he'd have to adjust his shot to accommodate its weight and trajectory once it hits the water. Additionally, with how Omega and AZI are situated, he needs to have the cable hit and latch onto AZI, without hitting Omega in the process, and get the exact angle needed to drag both of them to the surface.

Like I said: I have absolutely no idea how he made this shot. It's definitely the most impressive one he makes in the entire show based solely on external technical factors.

But of course, there is a parallel shot later in the series that's his most impressive one of all...

1. Freeing Omega in 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived"

I will never shut up about this scene. It's been living in my head rent-free for three weeks already, and will continue to for several months.

This is undoubtedly the most important shot in Crosshair's life: the shot to save his kid and free his family from Hemlock once and for all.

And everything is working against him: It's dark. It's raining. Omega and Hemlock are like ~40 meters away. The target is the binders between their hands, which is like 3-5 centimeters wide, and won't exactly be stationary. Oh, he's using CX-2's stolen blaster, which doesn't even have a scope on it!!!

We the audience get a POV of what Crosshair sees from over his shoulder, and I can barely see Omega's face, let alone her hands!! I said in the previous entry that Crosshair's eyesight has to be better than the average person's because, holy hell, how can he see that?!?

And, even worse, Crosshair is physically and mentally spent in this scene. He had to return to his own personal hell -- the place where he was tortured and traumatized for months -- then got beaten in a fight and had his dominant hand chopped off.

He and Hunter are running on pure adrenaline at this point. They are absolutely hellbent on getting their kid back, even if they die or collapse in the process. They were practically hobbling out of the CX lab together, and when they crouch down on the bridge, Crosshair has to steady himself against Hunter because he doesn't have his other hand.

And, as the final cherry on top of this proverbially shitty sundae, Crosshair absolutely terrified of missing.

A few episodes ago, the guy couldn't hit stationary fruit from like ~15 meters away with a scope in daylight and in a controlled environment. He even tells Omega: "Close doesn't count. It's either a hit or a miss." Because in a high-stakes situation like this, missing your shot could mean death for you or someone else.

Crosshair already feels like he failed Omega because he missed the shot on Pabu. And now, he has to make an even tougher one with every disadvantage stacked against him and her life literally in his hand.

I don't blame the guy for doubting himself.

Thankfully, Hunter and Omega have complete faith in him, and despite everything he's been through in S3, he has faith in himself.

And so, in the shot to end all shots in "The Bad Batch," Crosshair hits his target and frees Omega.

He and Hunter then subsequently turn Hemlock into Swiss cheese before Omega gives Crosshair a much-needed hug, causing me to cry for the 100th time.

I'll admit: as much as I would've loved seeing another mirror trickshot or some other crazy ricochet in the finale (or just S3 in general), this scene is basically perfect.

It also makes for a nice little parallel to the S1 finale, where Crosshair saved Omega's life after she saved his. Here, as he says himself, he goes back to Tantiss to free her because she freed him first.

As someone said on Twitter when I asked for ideas about this list:

"(Crosshair) put his whole heart and soul in this shot, and he didn't miss. He couldn't afford to."

Like I said: this was the shot that freed the entire Bad Batch family from Hemlock forever. So, I think by default, it had to be No. 1 on this list.

*******

Anyway, thanks for reading! It'd be fun to put together another TBB list like this. I guess I'll have to pick a subject first, though, because I don't have any ideas. If you have any, send them my way!

(EDIT: For anyone who’s also on Twitter, give me a follow. @CatchingClassic )

#Youtube #the bad batch #tbb #tbb spoilers #bad batch #tbb season 3 #tbb series finale #tbb season three #tbb crosshair #the bad batch crosshair #clone trooper crosshair #crosshair tbb #star wars #sw tbb #star wars tbb #clone force 99 #star wars the bad batch

[partially-controlled-chaos]

Technically speaking I assume Halsin doesn’t join your party while exploring the Underdark because he wasn’t originally a permanent companion. So it’s probably just a left over mechanic from that. However, I like to headcanon that he prefers to stay in camp because he’s secretly afraid of venturing back into the Underdark.

And I don’t mean it in a “oh he’s afraid of the dark or afraid of fighting what’s lurking down there”, but I mean it in a way that’s relating to his trauma in the Underdark. Because at that point we’ve seen him fight against goblins and, depending on your choice to bring him along, against the goblin leaders. He’s mentioned that he’ll kill when necessary, it’s just not the preferable choice. And when you get to the shadow curse, sure he’s not exactly happy about venturing into darkness and shadows, but it doesn’t keep him from walking head first into the Shadowfell portal to find Thaniel or going with you to fine Oliver.

But I like to think that he doesn’t join you while adventuring out in the Underdark because that’s the one thing that’s actually terrifying to him. He makes the comment that he doesn’t know what happened to the Matron and Patron of the house that kept him captive when he tells you about his history with the area. So really for all he knows, and really for the player, they could potentially still be somewhere in the Underdark. Like they could have somehow survived the attack and retreated to the shadows. And even if they’re not and they are truly dead, who’s to say there isn’t the possibility he could be recaptured and start the cycle all over again. And I could see this being heightened considering he was just freed from a goblin camp.

An offhand comment with the drow siblings in Act 3 hints that Halsin is well known in the Underdark as being able to turn into a bear. And given just how busy he was with the Grove he surely didn’t have time to return to the Underdark to explore and show to the residents there that he can wildshape. And I very seriously doubt he goes to Baldur’s Gate and do the same thing. So, like others have mentioned, I like to assume he got that reputation while being captive and his captors would brag to others that they have a surface dweller that can turn into another creature. It makes him unique and an oddity. And could make him being seen as something to collect now that his previous “owners” are gone in some way. He could be seen as a target if he were to go back. I’d like to think it’s a very real fear that he could have.

And yes, he will go into the Underdark when you make camp because you can see and interact with him, but he won’t join your party to go out and explore. So with my headcanon that he’s afraid to return there, I also like to think that he agrees to go into the Underdark but won’t go out because he feels safe at camp. Not everyone goes out with the player as they do their thing in the Underdark, given that you can only have 4 members at a time, so it leaves at least 3 camp members with him at all times. There’s people there that can fight with him if it comes to it.

So even by going into the Underdark, he’s not alone like he was last time. So in the event someone does try to stop by and scoop him back into captivity, either his previous captors or someone completely different, he has allies there with him and who will protect him. Not because he can’t protect himself, but someone that would fight to keep him from being captured again. He’s in an unsafe and potentially triggering space, but at least in the camp he’s safe.

And yes, he is the one who brought up the Underdark to begin with, but he does give an alternative route to the player and even admits that the Underdark, while dangerous, is the preferable route.

And I know he still won’t join the party until after Thaniel has been plucked from the Shadowfell, but he sets off to Thaniel almost immediately once you get to the shadow lands and won’t join until he knows he’s safe. So with that he’s all of a sudden “in the field” instead of just hanging around camp, I just like to think it’s because he’s out of a bad area and can focus on what’s important.

I’ve probably put WAY too much thought into this, but it’s just my own little headcanon for Halsin staying in your camp for the remainder of Act 1.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #halsin

[tellmeallaboutit]

favorite Raphael fics

There are a lot of Raphael fic rec lists out there, I'll concentrate on my own niche of Raphael: dark!Raphael and related as I think this is what the audience of this blog mostly interested in.

Please note that the works listed below are a warning tag minefield, explicit and meant for mature audiences only. Also, all of them are F!Tav or AFAB!Tav.

to even the odds by @dodorimo // generally, check all dodo's works (all the little things with Astarion is also amazing) if you like my stuff, because we are very much into the same topics.

Forfeit by @deardarlingdevil // wonderful smut. The author really nailed down the psychology of a sadistic and a depraved man in bed.

Six Hours by @aladaylessecondblog // I liked this one for Tav actively NOT liking Raphael for all the right reasons. Felt like a very believable reaction of a cleric in the world to a devil.

Cheerful Oblivion by @sassyandsodone // this one is a very well-done realistic take on what it really means to be a devil's mindless loving doll.

The Devil's Own by @gatewarden108 // this one has all the favourite tropes: forced impregnation, captivity, isolation, mind break. Also, a finished long WIP which is a unicorn by itself.

Until We Bleed and Ecstasy by @theemptyislost // very much recommend this one with Haarlep as a key component in Tav / Dark!Raphael relationship.

Roses and Peppers by distorsie // this one is just lovely. The rare breed of poetic Dark!Raphael.

indulgences and debasement by @pouralaura // I don't think this Raphael is dark per se, but he is deliciously depraved and debauched. Besides, the author has a wonderful writing style from a technical perspective.

The Devil Inside by @littleplasticrat // this one is also very Haarlep-heavy, features also Tav x Dammon, and it's... it's as dirty as it gets. Being Raphael's warlock has "getting fucked in most depraved ways" in the job description. The only DAP in the fandom I know. Enjoy.

P.S. there is one deleted fic I still think about, it was called The House That Devil Built, methinks. Damn, just one chapter, but it had The Vibe (TM).

If you have a work recommendation that fits The Vibe (TM), just drop it in my inbox (self-promotion welcome obv), I would appreciate it. I rarely lurk AO3 anymore and as fics rarely get reblogged miss a lot of works.

#bg3 raphael #raphael bg3 #raphael the cambion #fic recs #bg3 #dark!raphael

[kindaasrikal]

Morro and Garmadon are both in the Departed realm, why haven’t we used this information as stupidly as we could.

Morro: so…You’re son-

Garmadon: one more word, and I will break my vow of peace.

Morro:

Morro: he kinda stunk.

Garmadon: *swings*

Garmadon: Isn’t it funny, how at one point in time, you thought you were destined to be the guy to defeat me?

Morro: *laying face down on the ground after losing another sparring match, is tempted to blast Garmadon*

Garmadon: hilarious, isn’t it? Ninjago would’ve been very protected.

Garmadon: *is trying to teach Morro about accepting change* change is nothing to be afraid of. Sure, it can be shocking, like the first time i grew four arms, but-

Morro: what.

Garmadon: it doesn’t-…yes?

Morro: say that part again.

Garmadon: change is nothing to be afraid of?

Morro: No, the other thing.

Garmadon:…it can be shocking?-

Morro: No. The other other thing.

Garmadon: Oh, you mean when i said Wu was you’re-

Morro: NO- the OTHER OTHER OTHER, thing!

Garmadon: when i had four arms?

Morro: YES! What do you MEAN you had four arms???

Garmadon: exactly what it implies, i had four arms.

Morro:

Morro: does that mean you technically classify as an insect

Garmadon: What.

Morro: did you know-

Garmadon: Morro, I am thousands of years old. Whatever you try to tell me, I probably already know of.

Morro: oh.

Morro: damn, i guess i didn’t need to tell you Lloyd died and visited your dad.

Garmadon: WHAT-

Morro: oh yeah, you must already know that the water ninja became water too, right?

Garmadon: What do you even MEAN BY THAT-

Morro: and that Wu apparently just died too, huh?

Garmadon: HE DID WHAT

Morro: he did death, apparently.

Garmadon: for today’s session, I was hoping to discuss some past traumas with you.

Morro: no. I don’t have trauma.

Garmadon: Morro, everyone has trauma.

Morro: well, I don’t.

Garmadon: Child, just because you call your past experiences ‘character development’ does not mean they weren’t traumas.

Morro: hey, old man.

Garmadon:

Morro: heyyy, you four armed loser.

Garmadon:

Morro: Garmadon! Stop ignoring me dammit!

Garmadon:

Morro: ugh- you- SENSEI!

Garmadon:

Morro: oh for the love of- I am NOT calling you… That.

Garmadon: *turns away*

Morro: dammit-it’s important!

Garmadon: *begins to walk away*

Morro: oh, you- you petty old man- UNCLE.

Garmadon: *turns around with a smile* yes?

Morro: I hope you get resurrected and die again.

A good half of these are rlly bad but i found it fun so let me off this once 😭

Anyways, they have a love hate relationship with the hate coming from Morro, the care coming from Garmadon, who tbh just wants to uncle Wu’s kid the same way Wu did his own (after managing his own annoyance at Morro after what happened)

Garmadon likes bullying Morro, Morro likes mocking Garmadon. Thats their relationship.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #morro ninjago #lego emo #morro wu #ninjago morro #wu ninjago #lloyd ninjago #ninjago garmadon #garmadon ninjago #garmadon #nya ninjago #first spinjitzu master #departed realm #ninjago headcanons

[malichev]

In fact, it's impressive how, technically, no couple had a happy ending. qFoolish and qVegetta: If we are to count today's event, qVegetta died. (We can pretend that he was very sick, had no strength, etc., something along those lines to explain) qTina and qBagi: If you count today's event, they almost had a happy ending, you have to consider that they were supposed to get married, but as we don't know the fate of the plane and them (and judge me, but if any of them are going to participate in the 2nd, I don't think was a happy ending). qFit and qPac: qPac´s dead and qFit back to his world. (We don't need to say anything else) qCellbit and qRoier: With today's events separated, qCellbit thinks Roier dont love him anymore and qRoier is in a coma (or dead). Without the events, still separated, but qCellbit continues living with qDoied, while qRoier remains in a coma (or dead). qSlime and qMariana: I feel like I'm in the narrative of Pride and Prejudice, but without a happy ending. They love each other, they have forgiven each other, but each one lives their life waiting for their paths to cross. qMax and qPierre: If you count today's events, they made peace, although it doesn't mean they're back in their relationship. If I'm not counting today's events, qMax´s dead and qAypierre´s in denial. qBad and Skeepy: If you count today's events, qBad is still alone, if you count the other ending, they met in Heaven.

qPhilza and qMissa: Despite being platonic, they remain married, but qPhil is in an eternal sleep and qMissa is traveling without knowing what happened to his family and husband.

#qsmp #qsmp brasil #qsmpbr #qsmp lore #qsmp cellbit #qsmp roier #qsmp bagi #qsmp 2024 #qsmp bbh #qsmp spiderbit #spiderbit #qsmp guapoduo #guapoduo #qsmp hideduo #hideduo #qsmp pac #qsmp fitmc #qsmp skeppy #qsmp maximus #qsmp maxo #qsmp aypierre #qsmp badboyhalo #qsmp death duo #qsmp death family #qsmp philza #qsmp missa

[rayclubs]

Which tf2 merc do you think gets mischaracterized the least?

Good question! Let's do a rating.

In my opinion, there are three aspects to characterizing someone.

Facts - you have to get basic character backstory right. This includes all objective canon truths, events, and, well, facts about said character.

Behavior - you need to understand how the character acts, how their interpersonal relationships function, what they're like in their day-to-day life. This is the nitty-gritty of fanfic and fanart, this is dialogue, line-to-line characterization.

Integrity - you need to understand the character's core beliefs and principles, what their values are and how they view the world around them. This isn't something you can easily quote or point to as a mistake in fanfic, it's more of an overall idea of a character.

Each of these is going to be worth up to three points, with zero for terrible characterization that gets everything wrong. This would ideally total to nine points. I'll be awarding an additional bonus point for character interpretation that doesn't make me scream "he would not fucking say that". Let's go.

Scout:

His backstory is fairly simple. He has an absent father, half a dozen siblings, and a crush on his boss who doesn't reciprocate. People mostly get this right, except they also call him a virgin despite the fact he canonically lands the fried chicken queen, and seems to do it with ease. 2/3.

His behavior is also mostly portrayed accurately, in that he's loud, obnoxious, self-absorbed, and can be kind of a dick, though not completely without endearing qualities. The fandom is, admittedly, guilty of making him more insecure and self-conscious than he actually is, to amp up the drama. 2/3.

His core values, however, are completely off. The main interpretations I see of him are "depressed Scout", "homophobic Scout", and "baby Scout", neither of which is true to his character. This is a grown man with a force-a-nature complex. The homophobia is just projection and internalized prejudice, but that phenomena is too complicated for me to dissect here. I talked about it before and might make another post later. Anyway, 0/3.

Scout does not get a bonus point. He would not fucking say "poggers" but he would say "daddy-o".

Overall characterization score: 4/10

Soldier:

Very little is known about Soldier's backstory so there isn't really any room to be wrong about it. What we do know is also vague and unreliable, so it's open to interpretation. Given how little room for error there is, I'll give him a 3/3.

His behavior is completely off in most cases, often shown to either be overly aggressive or so dumb you start to question how this man functions in his day-to-day life. Canon Soldier has plenty of endearingly stupid moments but a lot of them can be read as deadpan jokes on the character's part, and many turn out to be secretly clever moments, such as him infiltrating the robot base with a goofy cardboard disguise. Likewise, canon Soldier has plenty of aggressive and mean moments, but he's not cruel and very clearly not a threat to his teammates, which isn't captured at all in fanworks that decide to go that way. 0/3.

Soldier's core ideals are mostly captured well, as in - yeah, he calls people communist as an insult in fanfics. I feel like he should mention God more often than he does in fanon, it's, like, one of the two ideologically meaningful things he ever talks about. The importance of "America" as a concept to him is mostly preserved but left unexplored. 2/3.

Soldier does not get a bonus point, he would not fucking say [homophobic slur] yet here we fucking are.

Overall characterization score: 5/10

Pyro:

His backstory is nonexistent yet people still fuck it up. His technical knowledge is clearly extensive and impressive, as shown by the complexity of his weaponry - which, mind you, looks HAND MADE - but people treat him as if he's altogether incompetent and maniacally stupid all the time always. He also ran an engineering company for hell knows how long and people just forget about it because they're allergic to adults or something. God this pisses me off so much. I mean for fuck's sake, people act like his full job description is "Pyromaniac" and not "Pyrotechnician". I'm so tired. 0/3.

His day-to-day characterization and dialogue is also completely off. People treat him as if he's INCAPABLE of communication, make him obsess over childish things he's only shown a moderate liking to in a manner that's borderline creepy and insulting, and take away his whole entire agency in everything he ever does. I will literally not give y'all a single point, you do my man Pyro so dirty. 0/3.

His ideology is complex and vague in canon, and I don't blame people for getting confused by such things as Pyrovision, but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. In my time on Ao3 I've seen animal Pyro, cryptid Pyro, monster Pyro, alien Pyro, evil mindless maniac Pyro, incompetent baby Pyro, nonbinary Pyro (HENCE MY PROBLEM WITH THE HEADCANON, do you see how it looks next to all these other interpretations?) but I've rarely, if ever, seen competent adult Pyro with actual hopes and dreams and agency. 0/3.

Pyro does not get a bonus point because he would not fucking say "uwu" but he would say "fuck", let Pyro say fuck.

Overall characterization score: 0/10 are you fucking surprised

Demoman:

Oh poor lad what have they done to you. So, Demo's backstory is arguably the most detailed and fleshed-out in the entire canon. Too bad nobody fucking read it. Admittedly, in the recent years I've seen people mostly manage to remember he has several jobs and is overall a competent and successful man, but it's rarely - if ever - explored, I've seen exactly one fic where the author bothered to explore what one of his other jobs might be (and it was not a good fic for many other reasons, don't ask me for a link), and it honestly feels like people don't want to dwell on it? Like, they mostly mention it to fill a quota, y'know? Here, I'm not racist, I've acknowledged one of this character's achievements, leave me alone. Also the subject of him being fucking adopted as a kid never comes up. 0/3.

His day-to-day characterization suffers a lot because people think alcoholism is the most morally repugnant thing that can ever happen to a human being. This man honestly barely even has a presence in the fics he's in. Are you wondering where Demo is? Well, he wasn't there! He was BUSY! He couldn't come! There is a handful of writers who bother to write his actual inner monologue and point of view, and this point goes out to them only. Also there was a pretty good Boots and Bombs fic in which Demo was a dick to Soldier but then got better, and it stuck with me. 1/3.

His core character is fucked up by fandom because he's either all flaws or not allowed to have any flaws, and there's no in-between. Ever since I joined the fandom I've seen a lot of critique floating around, and people mostly seem to listen and realize they've been mistreating the man for long enough, but it created a whole separate problem of Perfect Demoman which is bland and boring. People don't want to write an offensive caricature but don't feel like fleshing him out either, so they just make him great at everything and never let him fail and grown in ways that are meaningful. Except that one fic I mentioned earlier, but I've already awarded a point for that. 0/3.

Demo does not get a bonus point. I couldn't find a meaningful example of bad dialogue because, like I said, he has no presence in any of the fics he's in. He would fucking say something.

Overall characterization score: 1/10 and honestly it's too generous on my part.

Heavy:

Okay so Heavy's backstory really confuses people. I've got like a dozen asks in my inbox when I called his father a revolutionary AND a counter-revolutionary. Wait till I call him a royalist, it'll blow your tits clean off. I don't feel like explaining the history of the communist regime in the USSR on this post, let's just say people are mostly faithful to canon but don't really "get" Heavy. 2/3.

His day-to-day characterization is plain bad. He's treated like a mother hen to the mercs when he's more of a stoic friend with a mean streak and a crude sense of humor. I think the main problem is the dialogue, people just can't give him the dignity of speaking in an intelligent manner. It's honestly also pretty bad in the comics. 1/3.

His core ideals are fine, if oversimplified. He's not a complicated man, he loves his family, his guns and his doctor. People rarely give him any more depth than that but it's not offensive to his character or anything. I feel like he should have more political opinions than people give him. I also feel like people make him way more protective of Zhanna's romantic pursuits, to a creepy degree. I mean, yes, he's annoyed by her marrying Soldier, and seems horrified for a brief second, but it's not like he's against it or anything, he's just kinda surprised? Anyway, 2/3.

Heavy does not get a bonus point because he would not fucking say "da". Pizda.

Overall characterization score: 5/10

Engineer:

Yeah people mostly get him. He's got 11 Ph. Ds. Some treat him like he grew up as an actual cowboy or something but most remember he's a nerd. I'd actually give all the points here because Engie's backstory is NOT complicated. 3/3.

His dialogue and day-to-day characterization is also okay, though people really mellow him down a lot. I had a bit in one of my fics where he said something like "let's teach those sumbitches how the real killin' is done" and like three different people commented on it saying they liked or were surprised by his mean energy. It's not even that mean, I think it kinda shows my problem with his interpretation. 2/3.

I asked about mischaracterization once and a lot of people replied "Engie is the most mischaracterized because people treat him like he's good but he's actually evil" which I think pretty much covers it? It's hard to write someone who is not implicitly strictly good or strictly evil. Engie treads this balance really well, I'm actually convinced his demeanor is not a facade, he is nice at times and mean when he wants to be. Fanon Engie can only be one of two things and neither is right. 0/3.

Engie gets a bonus point as an exception. I actually can't tell why, people just have his voice on-point. Is his accent and manner of speaking really that easy for you? I struggle to write him a lot. I think he should say "bitch" more.

Overall characterization score: 6/10

Medic:

People focus on the fact he lost his medical license more than on the fact he HAD a medical license in the first place. Other than that he really doesn't have a backstory. I dislike that people try to give him a sad one, I think he grew up loved and maybe even a little spoiled, but I can't fault others for not following my headcanons, so. 2/3.

His dialogue is the WORST because it's written phonetically. His goofy yet self-confident energy isn't captured well at all. The best I can put this is "people wife him" but it sounds kinda mysogynistic so really I'm at a loss. Submissivepilled breedablemaxxer. 0/3.

His core values are also all over the place. The complicated thing about writing Medic is that he actually doesn't come with pre-packaged drama. His backstory is vague, his demeanor is optimistic, his vibes are fun, and the worst thing that happened to him in canon was working with the classics for a bit - people amp it up to squeeze hurt out of it, which is fine, but not many people actually like going there. Thing is, fanfic writers aren't that good at writing drama when it hasn't been established before. They have to warp his character, make him edgy, self-conscious, or plain mad evil without redeeming qualities. I remember really struggling with my big Medic fic because I wanted it to be dramatic but had to put a lot of work into actually building up the emotion, because Medic is fine. He's fine. He's alright. He's fine. He's doing well. 0/3.

Medic does NOT get a bonus point, he would not fucking say "babygirl" and I'm not even sure if he would say "yass queen slay" I'm SORRY

Overall characterization score: 2/10

Sniper:

People mostly get his backstory right, probably because it's the most well-explained in the comics and it gets the most "screentime". It's also literally a Superman parody which is funny and memorable in concept. 3/3.

People can't find a good balance between stoic professionalism and social anxiety. I think Sniper is actually pretty simple, in that he's a little self-conscious which pushes him to actively better himself as a professional, but also makes him a little awkward so he comes across as standoffish and a little mean. He's a solid bloke that's balanced and feels real. Fandom has to go for the extreme every goddamn time with him. It sucks. 0/3.

People kind of get his drama, his relationship with his family and whatnot - mostly because a lot of us losers can relate, I bet - but, again, go for the extreme in making him anxious, whiny, and sad as a wet kitten. Unless it's a porn fic in which case he's an absolute freak that growls at people. I don't know what it is about Sniper that makes him so difficult to characterize. Manic pixie dream boy. Dark and moody lover love me like no other. 0/3.

Sniper does NOT get a bonus point because he doesn't say "cunt" nearly as often as he should. Also send me asks about my Sniper takes I want to stir up some shit.

Overall characterization score: 3/10.

Spy:

The only piece of his backstory we actually know is that he fathered the blight of the earth that is Scout TF2. 3/3.

His obnoxious and insufferable demeanor is mostly captured well. A lot of his portrayals aren't nearly as classy as people think they are, but that's because most authors are themselves proletarian, myself included, which is fine. Not many make the effort to pepper his speech with French words it would actually be natural for him to say, and blame it on the nonsensical complexity of the French language, but I'm not buying it as an excuse. 2/3.

His core values are off in regards to Scout - he's often portrayed as soft, mellow, overbearing, and critical of Scout's love life to either a comical or an uncomfortable degree. His fandom portrayal often also lacks the self-confidence he's demonstrated in the comics. Spy is not above strangling a man with a chain that holds the shackles around his ankles, he wouldn't consider it a blow to his dignity to fuck any of his coworkers either, come on. He's also funny and goofy but the fandom tends to neglect that. 1/3.

Spy does not get a bonus point because he would not say "perchance" but he would say "your mother".

Overall characterization score: 6/10

The final scores are:

Spy - 6/10

Engineer - 6/10

Heavy - 5/10

Soldier - 5/10

Scout - 4/10

Sniper - 3/10

Medic - 2/10

Demoman - 1/10

Pyro - 0/10

There we go! Pyro is the most mischaracterized, Demoman is a close second, and nobody is characterized well. Cheers!

#raynswers #my good friend cock #tf2 #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #tf2 heavy #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 sniper #tf2 spy

[bbbuckaroo]

What’s your honest opinion on the Oliver and Lou interview?

Some Buddie shippers are saying it was awkward and Oliver hates Lou. Comparing it to the when Ryan and Lou first started doing press.

Personally I don’t think it was awkward at all. The only time it was weird when Mario Lopez mentioned Lou’s father which he has a not so great relationship with and you could tell Oliver was comforting Lou. Lou clearly got upset and in his answer didn’t his father and made it clear he mentioned his mother. I know ABC PR was there so idk why they didn’t step in to stop that questioning?

It’s sad after Ryan podcast mentioning mental health it seems like some shippers only care about Ryan’s mental health and not anyone else’s on the cast.

Also the photos Lou posted on his IG aren’t flattering on him or Oliver and the shippers are using that as their evidence. I think the talk show sent them to him to us and made the hosts look better 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

I thought it was a great little snippet of Lou and Oliver’s relationship, especially for those who think they don’t even like each other. Definitely showcased more of their chemistry both on and off the screen. I do think it was awkward for two reasons NEITHER were because of Oliver’s supposed “hatred.” I need some of whatever drug these delulu’s are on because it sounds like a real trip.

1) It was one of Lou’s first major network interviews that I know of, unless I missed some for SWAT. Otherwise it’s been smaller platforms since he’s typically been in smaller roles/movies in terms of publicity and network. So you could tell he was nervous and from what he’s said about himself, he seems to be an anxious person (I mean, who isn’t?) so of course he’s going to emit that energy. And I mean, as much as it’s cringey AF, Access Hollywood is very well known.

2) The horrible questions. Of course he’s not going to be able to say where BuckTommy is going because that would be a huge spoiler and the network would not be happy. Also who knows how much they’ve even written of season eight. So he’s stating the obvious. Then honing in one his bodybuilding which hey is great because he clearly takes care of himself and swung it very positive by promoting taking care of oneself for both physical and mental health. So that was great. But the second they mentioned his dad? Yeah it was all over. They could have done their research even with a simple Google search and seen that there’s issues there, let alone Lou technically being a nepo baby. So they intentionally said that knowing that and then instead of focusing on Lou’s accomplishments they focused on his dad. The combination was awful but I do feel like Lou did handle it very well, he was able to come across as very neutral and diplomatic. Sk bravo to him.

And if there needed to be any proof that Oliver doesn’t hate and indeed both likes and respects him, it was how he diverted the conversation. He immediately did the little arm grab (a very conscious decision that no one would do if they disliked someone) to inject some humor, also by making the quip about him not being complimented. Which is know was a joke but it was true that it was awkward for them to gush over Lou and not Oliver who also takes great care of himself. It was pretty objectifying honestly. So Oliver jumping in and doing that shows he both 1) knows Lou well enough to read him and 2) likes Lou enough to make a choice to swoop in and “save” him.

I’m not sure how much ABC could have done, they may have pre-screened some questions but the interview was so short that if they went off script there was no time for damage control. And then again who knows how much they know and him being Lou Ferrigno’s son does draw attention. I do love Lou’s mention of looking like his mother which is both very true and a little nudge at wanting separation from his father, definitely a mama’s boy.

And as beautiful and brave it was for Ryan to say what he did, I agree that he’s the only person they’re making seem like has mental health issues. While they may not be as serious as suicidal thoughts that doesn’t devalue anyone else’s. And while Lou isn’t a main and wouldn’t get as much attention for it, he’s been very open about major insecurity (also bringing us back to his father) and anxiety even leading to self destructive behaviors. And not just them, all the cast have been supportive of both on and off screen mental health topics, including Oliver who has also eluded to anxiety, etc. I think they should be all be valued and weighed the same, but anything Ryan does now will sanctify him just to make Lou look worse because Lou plays the man Buck loves and the delulu’s hate it. So. Unfair.

The pictures were awful and even I was like geez Oliver’s got a serious RBF and obviously Lou looks uncomfortable but automatically jumping on that as hating each other is just … I just don’t know how to say it nicely anymore. But as I and many have said, we cannot gove these toxic people attention no matter how much it infuriates us, we can only show support to the actors and make sure they know the toxicity is only a small percentage. But you’re always going to hear more negativity than positivity because misery loves company and the squeaky wheel gets the grease (#metaphorsfordays).

To end this novel #2: Oliver and Lou clearly get along and have chemistry on and off screen to the point that Oliver came to his aid in a very awkward situation (he could have just let him flounder), all mental health issues matter, and those less than pleasant Oliver and Lou expressions were not directed as each other - they were directed at the slimy hosts.

#911 show #911 abc #lou ferrigno jr #oliver stark #ryan guzman #tommy kinard #evan buckley #eddie diaz #access hollywood #lou is such a mama’s boy and it gives me life

[takes1]

I'm gonna start by saying that your fics are amazing! I love the way you write and I always get immersed in them. I would like to request an Osamu x reader fic, i was thinking about a childhood friends pining for a decade!au happening while working in his Onigiri shop, you might add Suna if you want,perhaps as a love triangle and misunderstandings as in Osamu thinking that the reader like Suna. As for the smut, I'll leave that to you 👀

thank you so much for supporting!! i love getting these requests and hearing from you! it really helps. not gonna lie, this one challenged me, but i think it turned out well! hope i got this right :) thanks again for the request love

warnings. lite!nsfw. minors DNI info. hq lite!nsfw / safe consent practices / mutual pining / some angst, some hurt, but pay-off / husband material!osamu / timeskip!osamu / childhood friends to lovers / miscommunication / r.i.p suna's unrequited feelings / misunderstandings / osamu gives great hugs / osamu is a wine snob / osamu is a little shy / 2.5k words 🤍haikyuu collection. more of my hq here more links. my ao3 / masterlist / request box is open so give me some ideas pls!

Your heart gave an all-too familiar squeeze at the sight of an old friend.

There he was, clad in a black cap, apron, and a well-fitting shirt. His face was one of slight concentration, his mouth in a straight line, jaw flexed. A strong arm lifted the black bag he carried high into the trash in the alley with ease.

"'Samu!" His nickname was like a sigh of reassurance on your tongue.

He turned, a stern face letting up as soon as he recognized you coming towards him. He quickly discarded his gloves in the trash and made forward to meet you. It ended in a hug in the middle of the sidewalk.

Business was so slow today, he really wasn't expecting any surprises- especially not any pleasant ones.

"(Y/n)." Was a mumble against your hair, charged relief on his breath. He was lifting you off of your feet and melting into you at the same time.

Your eyes stung a little when you tucked your face into his comforting shoulder. It'd been so long since graduation, but everything was coming back to you, all at once, against your will.

Maybe it was because you could still taste the onigiri you just finished, but those lunches he used to prepare for you kept cropping up. You weren't sure why it kept making you want to cry, though.

"I missed you!" You whispered, swallowing a sob.

He gave you a crushing squeeze in return. He certainly hadn't stopped working out since your high school days. There was a hesitation in letting each other go.

"God," His quick blinking made you feel better for getting emotional, "What are you doin' all the way out here?"

You sniffled and turned to Suna, briefly forgotten at the table, "I told you those fillings tasted familiar!"

There was an unmistakable shock in Osamu's eyes when you turned back to him, "We were just grabbing lunch. I had no idea 'Onigiri Miya' would actually mean you!"

He missed the natural beat to respond- instead of letting your declaration die, you kept up the attempt to rekindle things.

"Did you get a new number?" You asked, quieter, trying to catch his eye, so you leaned your head further between him and Suna.

He looked down at you with a much softer expression, "Hm?"

"I- texted you a couple months ago, I just assumed you got a- new number," You trailed.

It felt a bit forced and loser-esque to ask the reason why he hadn't texted you back. Two months was a while to get 'caught up' in something, after all.

If he didn't want to talk to you, he technically didn't owe you an explanation.

He blinked. It didn't cross his mind that you would've texted him-- his fingers fumbled for his phone in his pocket to show you a new iPhone.

"Yeah," He sighed, "Shit, I didn't think to tell anyone but 'Sumu..."

This time, he felt like the loser. He didn't have many people to text, nowadays. But he certainly didn't want you and Suna to know that.

Relief flashed across your face as you admitted in a light laugh, "Oh, thank god. I really thought you were ignoring me!"

"Let's all exchange numbers," You suggested.

You looked back to Suna and thought you saw some hostility in his eyes, "So we can all meet up sometime, when you're not working."

The process of getting each other's contacts was quiet and stilted. You thought better of making plans here and now, because there was an indescribable feeling that something was wrong.

Maybe the timing.

Osamu frowned at his phone after getting it back from Suna.

Maybe the place.

Suna gave a subtle sigh when Osamu put his number in.

Your text to Osamu that night garnered a response so quick that it made up for the months of uncertainty and pseudo-grieving. Your oldest friendship was not buried as deep in the ground as you had previously thought.

It ended in a suggestion you weren't expecting.

There was nowhere you both wanted to eat at, and no activities you could think of that would allow for the long conversations you both favored.

I could cook for us.

You knew better than to deny him the chance to cook, but it was clear to both of you that it felt a little too forward. A little too intimate for just two good friends.

That wasn't enough to keep you from agreeing immediately.

Certain that he didn't feel the same, you rationalized that you had nothing to worry about.

Dark red swirled slow, unending circles in your glass. You weren't one for red, but he brought out a vintage just for you tonight.

The perfectly plated dinner in front of you didn't last long. Osamu made it so easy to like foods you swore up and down you hated; you didn't question his choices despite your usual pickiness.

There were a number of times you had to pretend not to notice him watching you eat. He was pretty obvious, because he'd raise his spoon full of food, then let it hover mid-air, and turn his whole head to watch you chew. It was as if he was waiting for you to declare it was the worst thing you'd ever tasted.

He was still working on his -most likely cold- plate minutes after you cleaned yours off. It left you to catch up to him in glasses of wine. The bottle was nearing empty and you were still on your first.

"Do you have any roommates?" You asked, glancing around a spacious apartment.

It was so still. You'd surely die of loneliness, if you were him.

He shook his head. It made sense with his preference for solitude, but it still made you sit back and sip on your wine to keep from voicing your concern.

"It's quiet," Osamu wiped his mouth with his napkin and pushed his plate forward, "I know."

Was your discomfort that obvious?

His chuckling won out over your insistence that it wasn't that bad, and you eventually were resolved back to slouching in your chair again.

"You just need some- flowers," You motioned to the center of the table, not believing in your advice in the slightest, "Or... something like that."

"To be fair, I never sit at the table."

He poured the last of the wine into his glass. You stared down at yours. He still spoke and acted stone-cold sober. You had to wonder how much he drank, with this bleak living space.

"Not a fan of Merlot?"

This was getting a little embarrassing.

This time, you gave in, "Not feeling this one as much."

His brow raised. He had a layered expression, like he was torn between two sides of himself for a split-second.

He eased up and slid his elbows on the table, wine glass looking absurdly tiny in his hand.

You admired the gentle way he held the delicate glass, how he knew just how the weight was supposed to be distributed in the webs of his fingers.

"You drink wine much?" He had that completely immersed look on his face that was always so difficult to return.

He mistook your trouble to return his gaze as discomfort, and laughed, retracting his body from the table, "I-'m sorry--,"

"No-no it's okay-!" You put your hand on his arm and scooted your chair closer to affirm that you didn't mind his proximity -that you in fact welcomed it- and rambled, "I- don't, drink wine like that. So I- wouldn't really know what's good."

His gaze sent a shiver surging through your whole body. What an intense pair of eyes. He leaned forward on his elbows, thumb rubbing his freshly shaved cheek.

"It's an expensive hobby."

You were wracking up inappropriate questions by the second. First, the lack of love in his sad apartment, then his potential alcohol issues, now his salary.

The quiet clink of his glass on the table. A heavy, warm hand stilled yours on his arm, and he caught your troubled gaze.

"But it's just a hobby," He smiled.

The apartment filled with shared laughter. You were getting read like an open book, you couldn't help but cool your face down with the back of your hand.

"I-I promise, I'm not trying to judge," You sighed and grinned at what you noticed as his slightly tipsy giggling, "I just... care about you."

Osamu took a breath to say something, but something else flickered across across his face.

His hand was starting to slip from yours.

"So, you and Suna again?"

You laughed at what you thought was a joke. He didn't return it; instead, he let go and took another big sip from his almost empty glass.

"Oh-," You realized he was mistaken, "We're not together."

"Mm!" He swallowed and laughed, "Oh- that's good."

His focus faltered with a small cough, "I mean, not good, but-,"

"That's not something I want to go back to," You saved his embarrassing admission gracefully and looked away, only thinking about that short-lived relationship in high school.

Suna was just a distraction. A temporary filler for your unbearable emptiness. You never stopped loving Osamu, even when you had everyone else fooled. In the end, Suna just made you miss your friend more, since it sparked an unspoken drift in the process. It wasn't one of your brightest moments.

The look on his face was asking for more information. A 'So... why?' was on the tip of his tongue. You saved him the breath.

"He reached out. I was free, and I wanted to make sure we were alright after things ended like that."

Osamu nodded slowly, swirling half a sip of wine in his glass with careful consideration.

"You talk about it like you never liked him," He sighed against the rim, then shot it back in a way that made you realize why he was drinking so much.

He didn't have the courage to talk to you like this without it.

Your thumb, still resting on his forearm, rubbed thoughtfully. If he was being this candid through his actions, you didn't mind coming clean about a few things.

"I didn't," You admitted in a breathy half-laugh, "It wasn't real to me."

You shut your eyes tight and seethed, "I know that sounds so cruel--,"

"Yeah," He chuckled.

"Okay- I meant it like..." Your thumb was tapping on his raised skin, "I needed a distraction. You know I was struggling. He really was sweet. I know I should've treated him better."

It was clear that there was no hero to the story. You were all flawed, to some degree. Osamu's hand returned to yours. This time, he squeezed.

"You know I don't judge you for that."

All things considered, that break-up was still fresh. It was only briefly before your graduation date.

"Hey-," He reached up to turn your head towards him. It was a bit much and left you both warm and fidgety, "You know that I know that you're a good person."

His hand fell to your forearm.

It was fleeting, but you felt an energy between you. It was different. It filled that space in your heart you'd long since carved out for him.

Fleeting must be reiterated, because it was gone in an instant as he cleared his throat and stood, collecting the dishes in one trip with skill you could only attribute to the nature of his work.

You chugged the rest of your wine with a shudder so it wouldn't go to waste and skittered after his swift movement towards the kitchen.

If there was any place in the house that didn't feel lifeless, it was the kitchen. Spacious and clean, sure, but every tool and appliance here was cared for and used often.

It distracted you to slow down.

There was a level of respect you felt was necessary for a space so important to Osamu.

He began washing the dishes.

"Please let me do something," You begged from behind him.

All you got was a stoic head shake.

You leaned on the countertop behind him, staring at his back in that clean, black shirt. Would you ever get over him?

His words and actions from tonight turned over in your head. That hug you shared yesterday afternoon made your hands slip from the counter.

It may have been the wine that inspired your resolve to actually follow through, but your motivation did have years of pent-up desire behind it.

His body stiffened at the feeling of your arms around his waist, the side of your face pressed against his warm back. He smelled like a woody, musky cologne.

"Thank you," You muttered, mostly for his kind words, but its roots extended much farther than just recent events.

The sound of the water shutting off encouraged you to loosen your grip. The doubt started settling in as he dried his hands with a hanging towel, wordless.

His hands just barely grazed yours as you retracted, heart racing at the fact that you couldn't take that back.

He turned around to face you. Your eyes were busy avoiding his, so you were taken by surprise when he leaned down to pick you up from the waist.

It was just as easy and comfortable as the first time-- his shoulders spacious enough to bury yourself in, his hold so secure you didn't have to spare any strength holding on. He could support you all day.

A breathy groan, like he was a settling house, brushed your ear and sent tingles down your spine.

He set you down, but guided your arms to stay around his neck. You looked back and forth between his eyes, no longer unsure about his feelings.

"I missed you so much."

He was a clumsy kisser, but you didn't mind.

His hands were skilled and sure. It was more than enough to make up for his hungrier, rather than soft kisses.

One kept you steady by the back of your head, the other taking up your entire shoulder to guide you backwards against the kitchen island.

He rendered you breathless quickly- you pulled away for just a moment and he took it as a good sign to lift you up onto the countertop.

No part of you questioned this intense show of affection-- it felt like a fitting release of years-long tension and unspoken feelings.

They still remained unspoken, for the most part, but it could wait.

His hips pushed hard against your own, eliciting a soft, fluttery sound against his mouth.

He ate it up, wanting another so bad that one hand grabbed at the bend in your hip and thigh to keep you against him.

Your tummy twisted in a mixture of delightful pleasure and desire, everything below your waist all giddy and jittery as his fingers squeezed your hips with a need you never knew he was harboring.

Thighs trembling with nerves, his steady grasp pushing down helped to calm and stall you. You caught your breath with your forehead pressed against his. You unhooked your legs.

"W-hat?" You swallowed, praying to God this wasn't some mistake.

His wine-flushed face answered your question with no response.

"We shouldn't...I'm not--," He bit his cheek at his own restraint, brow tight with regret at his own actions from earlier.

You nodded, a little buzzed yourself, and laughed at his concern, "I'm okay with just kissing."

my masterlist.

requests are open!

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