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therealvinelle · 3 years

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What do you think the Cullens would do if some person they were talking to, out of nowhere just quite literally exploded in front of, and on them? Kinda like in that movie Spontaneous. Would they lose control and slurp up the mess on the ground, (and themselves) or would their bloodlust be curtailed by shock of wtf just happened?

I'd say something witty about how this is a strange anon to receive, but holy jesus you've sent me down a rabbithole.

Here's a trailer to the movie Spontaneous. It looks amazing. Kevin Feige wishes this had been his plot for Infinity War.

Here's a trailer for the movie Spontaneous Combustion, which I found by accident while searching for your fic. This looks amazing too. Can't believe Marvel didn't buy the rights to this guy.

I'm serious, people, you definitely want to watch these trailers. I just about died laughing.

So, on to your ask.

In the spirit of your ask, which implies a level of randomness, I thought the people blowing up should be random too. So, being in the mood to procrastinate through spending way too much time on tumblr things, I wrote a program that'll generate for me random Twilight characters.

Unsure whether the explosion should kill vampires or not, I generated an answer. The answer is yes, any generated vampire dies.

Without further ado:

Alice watches Vladimir blow up.

Alright, alright.

The first question to be answered here is why Alice is in Vladimir's presence in the first time. In canon they only meet once, at the end of Breaking Dawn.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll have Vladimir blow up then.

The Cullens and the witnesses are all celebrating being alive, when Vladimir suddenly explodes.

For the sake of the ask, Alice is sitting closest to him when this happens and making conversation.

Her first thought is utter shock. Not just that he blew up, but that she didn't see it coming (she wouldn't, because I randomly generated him. No decision was made). Her second thought is horror.

The Cullens just confronted the Volturi, now mere hours afterwards their allies are blowing up.

Holy fuck, Aro has a gifted ace up his sleeve, and he's using it to kill them remotely.

Panic ensues, not just for Alice, but among all the witnesses. Some of them refuse to leave, Bella has to shield those 24/7, though given the belief that her gift is psychic that doesn't make them feel very safe.

The others decide to go after the Volturi and beg for mercy, assuring them they never meant to challenge them.

Aro, of course, is very confused, but agrees. Why, yes, he does have a vampire who blows people up. Yes, yes he does.

Bella watches Aro blow up.

Oh I'm dying laughing at this one. And wishing I'd put this down for Carlisle, that would be even funnier, but alright.

Bella is walking about post-Breaking Dawn, minding her own business, when suddenly Aro appears in front of her. He looks around himself, utterly surprised by his sudden deplacement, and then blows up.

Bella has been living in terror of this man for years.

In Volterra he had his servant torture her and Edward and then made ominious threats, then a few months later the Eclipse disaster unfolded, finally we have Breaking Dawn where he showed up to murder her and everyone she loved.

Her shield may be powerful, but for as long as Aro was alive her family was never truly safe.

His untimely implosion changes all of that.

I imagine after a long moment of incredulity, Bella burns the rubble, just to be sure, then tells her family the joyous news.

Carlisle gives the guy a funeral. It's weird.

Carlisle watches Vassilii blow up.

Close call, due to my not switching out the names we almost had Angela. In which case Carlisle have stood there, covered in blood and in shock for several long seconds, before bringing out the bleach and gasoline for a crime scene clean.

As it is, Carlisle is minding his own business when suddenly an immortal child dressed like a medieval Eastern European appears before him. It says something in a foreign language that might mean "hi", he doesn't know but he says "hi" to it back, then the child blows up.

Carlisle stares at the rubble for a very long time, wondering if he is perhaps losing his mind. If, perhaps, Aro was right about animal blood being a slow suicide, and Carlisle has finally hit the limit for how long a vampire can go on without human blood.

He burns the rubble and prays for the child's soul, as an immortal child is doomed anyway, and keeps his silence about what happened. In part because there's a solid chance this was all in his imagination.

If Aro ever touches his hand again, and sees the immortal child that he burned a thousand years earlier resurrect, travel through time, all in order to blow up in front of Carlisle, he... well there comes a point where you say "nothing to see here" and refuse eye contact with the universe glitching.

Edward watches Randall blow up.

Randall, for the ignorants, is one of Carlisle's friends that came to witness for the Cullens in Breaking Dawn.

Suddenly he appears in front of Edward, says hi and how do you do, and then he blows up.

Edward tells Carlisle, who is saddened by this, and they try to piece the guy together. They fail.

Edward sends a somber thought to this noble man who agreed with Edward that the Cullens are awesome enough to be worth dying for.

Emmett watches Mary blow up.

Emmett will never admit it, but it's the coolest, raddest thing he's ever seen.

Esme watches Eleazar blow up.

Oh boy.

The Cullens are visiting the Denali. Irina has not been dead for long, but given the crystal clear memory of vampires, and the loss they already suffered (Sasha's death traumatized them) it doesn't really matter how long it's been, the Denali are devastated anyway.

The whole coven is as fragile as it can possibly get.

Then, Eleazar goes to join Esme in the kitchen, and explodes all over her and the kitchen.

The remaining Denali and the Cullens are called to the kitchen by the sound of Esme's screaming, and find her in hysterics, surrounded by gray rubble.

The Denali are near catatonic with grief at this point, while cooking has been ruined for Esme. One moment you're making food, the next people are exploding all over your kitchen.

Yeah.

Esme is not okay.

Jasper watches Nahuel blow up.

It's a shameful moment in his life.

But, hybrids are edible.

And that blood was splattered all over him.

Jasper has the worst control fail of his life, worse even than when he failed with Bella because this fail means he can't be around Renesmée anymore.

It's miserable all around.

The one highlight here is that it didn't happen when they were headed to the Volturi trial together.

Rosalie watches Emmett blow up.

Jesus christ, random Twilight character generator, just when I thought you were just going to give me boring results.

Not only does Rosalie lose the love of her life, the guy who kept her together, the one good thing she had going for her who made her life worth living, but he did so right in front of her, blowing up out of nowhere.

There's no explanation to be had, no culprit to be found, no reason for it. She had no goodbye, just as she can have no revenge.

She will never have closure.

Renesmée watches Renée blow up.

We go out on a high note, my god. Well done, generator, I'm laughing.

Renesmée is curious enough about her grandmother to go to Florida. She was going to watch from afar, but finds herself talking to the woman who raised her mother.

It's all going well until Renée suddenly explodes all over Renesmée.

Renesmée's first thought is nothing, she's in shock.

Then...

Well, she was controlled as an infant, so I don't think an adult Renesmée would lose it unless under extreme circumstances, like if she encountered a singer.

More, though, Renesmée might have any reasons of her own not to drink human blood, but she has been raised with this being a big no-no.

So she shouldn't.

However...

Is she ever going to get a better chance?

Ethically, she could easily argue this is the right choice. No one will be negatively affected by this, at least not directly.

The human is right there, already dead, and there's no body so while Renesmée does have to clean up the gore. Hell, if she laps up the blood on her clothes and the ground she will be cleaning up. Why waste perfectly good blood?

If Renesmée Cullen is ever going to have human blood, this is it.

It will come down to how much she respects her grandfather, and how important she believes Renée was to Bella.

Bonus, because I'm having way too much fun with this:

Bree watches Atheonodora blow up.

Bree is minding her own business when suddenly a vampire unlike any she has ever seen before, one with hazy eyes and odd skin, appears before her. They stare at each other. Then the woman blows up.

Bree takes this to mean that exploding is apparently something vampires just do sometimes, runs off in a panic and, sobbing, tells Riley.

Riley, having no idea what to make of any of this, tells her it was those evil yellow-eyes with their witchcraft and sorcery.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Podcasting "Qualia"

This week on my podcast, I read “Qualia,” my May, 2021 Locus Magazine column about quantitative bias, epidemiology, antitrust and drug policy. It’s a timely piece, given the six historic antitrust laws that passed the House Judiciary Committee last week:

https://doctorow.medium.com/moral-hazard-and-monopoly-42e30eb159a8

The pandemic delivered some hard lessons about quantitative bias — that’s when you pay attention to the parts of a problem that you can do math on, not because they’re the most important, but because you know how to do math.

The most obvious lesson comes from the failure of exposure notification apps, which were supposed to take the place of “shoe-leather” contact tracing, wherein a public health workers establish personal rapport with infected people to help identify others who might be at risk.

Contact tracing is a human process, built on trust: trust enough to talk about the intimate details of your life, trust enough to take advice on how to get tested and whether you should self-isolate.

That’s not what apps do.

Exposure notification apps measure whether a Bluetooth device you registered was close to another Bluetooth device for a “clinically significant” period of time.

That’s it.

They don’t measure qualitative aspects, like whether you were close to an infected person because you were in the same traffic jam in adjacent, sealed automobiles — or whether you were both at the Ft Lauderdale eyeball-licking championship.

And they certainly don’t create the personal rapport that’s needed to understand each person’s idiosyncratic health circumstances and complications — whether they need child care, or are at risk of losing their under-the-table jobs if they self-isolate.

We didn’t want to commit the resources to do contact tracing at scale, we didn’t know how to automate it — but we did know how to automate exposure notification, so we incinerated the qualitative elements and declared the dubious quantitative residue to be sufficient.

It’s the quant’s version of searching for your car keys under the lamp-post because it’s too dark where you dropped them.

It’s not just foolish, it’s also deceptive — quantizing qualitative elements is a subjective exercise that produces numbers that seem objective.

This is where antitrust law comes in. Prior to the neoliberal revolution of the Reagan years, antitrust concerned itself with “harmful dominance,” with regulators asking whether mergers and commercial practices were bad for the world.

Obviously, “bad for the world” is hard to measure. Regulators evaluated claims from all corners: both political scientists worried about the outsized lobbying power of large companies and workers worried about monopolies’ outsized power over wages and conditions got a say.

So did environmentalists, urban planners, and yes, economists, too.

The Chicago School — hard-right conservative economists with cult-like status among Reagan and big business simps — insisted that all this qualitative stuff had to go.

They argued that consideration of qualitative elements left too much up to judges, so two similar companies engaged in similar conduct might get different verdicts out of the antitrust system. This, they said, make a mockery of the notion of “equal treatment before the law.”

Instead, the Chicago Boys — led by Robert Bork, a Nixonite criminal and a sort of court sorcerer to Reagan — demanded that qualitative measures be left behind in favor of a purely quantitative analysis of whether a monopoly hurt “consumer welfare.”

The way you’d measure “consumer welfare” was by checking to see whether a monopoly was making prices go up — if not, the monopoly was deemed “efficient” and thus socially beneficial. Prices are numbers, numbers can be measured.

But that’s not how it worked in practice. When two companies wanted to merge, they could hire a Chicago fixer to construct a mathematical model that “proved” that they resulting megafirm would not raise prices.

No one could argue with this, because Chicago School consultants had a monopoly over building and interpreting these models — the same way court magicians laid exclusive claim to the ability to slaughter an animal and read the future in its guts.

And if the prices did go up? Well, the same Chicago model-makers would be paid to produce a new model to prove that the price-rises were not the result of monopoly, but rather, rising energy costs or higher wages or the moon being in Venus.

Even by their own lights, “consumer welfare” was a failure. Monopolies drive prices up. Amazon Prime is a tool to drive up prices in every store, not just Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#prime-facie

Apple’s App Store monopoly drives up app prices:

https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-13-supreme-court-apple-app-store-price-fixing-lawsuit.html

Luxxotica bought every eyewear brand and every eyewear retailer and the world’s largest optical lens manufacturer and drove prices up 1000%:

https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-glasses-lenscrafters-luxottica-monopoly-20190305-story.html

The highly concentrated pharma industry raises prices every single year:

https://patientsforaffordabledrugs.org/2021/01/14/2021-price-hikes-pr/

What’s more, there’s a straight line from “consumer welfare” to price-fixing.

Think about publishing. A decade ago, the Big Six publishers were embroiled in a bid to force Amazon to raise ebook prices, which led to fines and settlements for harming “consumer welfare.”

Today, the Big Six publishers are the Big Four, because Random House, the largest publisher in the world, gobbled up Penguin and Simon & Schuster. When RH, S&S and Penguin were three companies, it was illegal for them to collude on pricing.

But after their mergers, the three former CEOs — now presidents of divisions within an unimaginably giant company — can meet in a board room and plan exactly the same price-fixing strategy, and that isn’t illegal under “consumer welfare” antitrust — it’s “efficient.”

The Chicago School’s “consumer welfare” was only ever a front for “shareholder welfare,” the ability of large firms to avoid “wasteful competition” and extract an ever-larger share of the take for shareholders at the expense of customers, workers and the public.

The entire business of “consumer welfare” is a fraud, starting with Robert Bork’s insistence that a close reading of the US’s four major antitrust laws will reveal that they were never intended to be used for any purpose *other* than consumer welfare protections.

This is manifestly untrue, a Qanon-grade conspiracy that is refuted by the plain language of the statutes, the statements of their sponsors, and the record of the Congressional debates leading to their passage.

Despite the wealth of evidence that US antitrust is not a “consumer welfare” project, neoliberals have insisted that their project was not “reforming” antitrust, but rather, “restoring” it to its original purpose.

It’s a Big Lie, and they know it. That’s why GOP Senators Mike Lee (UT) and Chuck Grassley (IA) introduced “The TEAM Act to Reform Antitrust Law” — a bill intended to neutralize the muscular new antitrust bills that just passed the House committee.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/06/25/the-plan-to-water-down-antitrust-reform/

The bill does two things:

It takes antitrust authority away from the FTC, sidelining the incredible Lina Khan, a once-in-a-generation antitrust scholar who now runs the agency; and

It codifies “consumer welfare” as the basis for US antitrust law.

That second part is the tell: after 40 years of insisting that any rational reading of US antitrust proved that “consumer welfare” was obviously its sole purpose, they’re now introducing a law to *change* its purpose to “consumer welfare.”

Like the Stolen Election lie, they never truly believed this one. The pose of objectivity that quantizing antitrust allowed was never about creating a truly objective standard for competition policy — it was only ever about neutering competition policy.

The thing is, there is a way to integrate both the objective and subjective into policy-making — as was demonstrated by David Nutt’s 2008 leadership of the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which established the policy framework for a wide range of drugs.

Nutt’s panel of experts rated drugs based on how harmful they were to their users, the users’ families, and wider society. This allowed him to sort drugs into three categories:

Drugs that were dangerous irrespective of your public health priorities;

Drugs that were safe irrespective of your public health priorities; and

Drugs whose safety changed based on whether you prioritized the safety of users, families or society.

Those priorities are a political choice, not an empirical finding. Nutt told Parliament that it was their job to establish those subjective priorities, and once they did, he could objectively tell them how to embody them in the rules for each drug.

This is a beautiful example of how the objective and subjective fit together in policy — and the tale of what happened next is a terrible example of how “consumer welfare” hurts us all.

You see, booze is one of the most concentrated industries in the world. The “consumer welfare” standard let booze companies buy one another until just a handful remain — globe-straddling collosii with ample resources to influence policy-makers.

Nutt, an empiricist, reported just as rigorously on the harms of booze — one of the most dangerous drugs in the world — as he did on other drugs. He was fired for refusing to retract his true statement that tobacco and alcohol were more dangerous than many banned drugs.

Thanks to “consumer welfare” antitrust, the alcohol industry is able to choose who its regulators are, and use their political influence — purchased with the excessive profits of a monopolist — to rid themselves of pesky officials who actually pursue objective policy.

You can read the column here:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

And here’s the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2021/06/28/qualia/

As well a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the @InternetArchive; they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_395/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_395_-_Qualia.mp3

And here’s a link to my podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Image: OpenStax Chemistry: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Figure_24_01_03.jpg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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reynesofcastamere · 4 years

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Meteor Stream

(A/N: *siiiiiiiiiiigh* I have no self-control, apparently. Warnings for excessive violence, gore and intrusive thoughts. Set a couple of months before ‘Fragile Stars’ and ‘Fractured Comet’. Unbeta’d.) “Hallway is clear.” “Not clear! Not clear!” Calm assessment turns to frightened screams, the sizzle of burning flesh, and a rapid symphony of blaster fire. Maul’s sabrestaff returns to his hand after finishing its’ deadly arc, now putting the weapon to use to deflect and return incoming shots. The faceless drones of the Emperor still believe they have the advantage, even now. Foolish. His squadron shoots them in the back the moment the blast doors open, leaving the corridor littered with their corpses.

He steps over them without a second thought. “Report.” “Long-range communications are jammed and we’ve managed to sabotage or lock down the exits. The outside reinforcements are going to bleed when they show up.” Saxon sounds immensely pleased, even if he’s not in proper beskar’gam at the moment. Maul’s orders had been clear: Standard mercenary gear only. If Imperial intelligence manages to salvage anything out of what they leave behind, it would be that one of the surviving, treacherous Jedi had lead a group of the galaxy’s bottom-feeding muscle in some pitiful attempt at revenge for their Order. Much as the fiction chafes at him, it is useful. “Sliced into their short-range too. Been hearing some interesting chatter.” There is a gleeful edge to Saxon’s tone that immediately makes him suspicious, especially when Kast elbows her comrade sharply in the side. “Is it relevant to the mission?” “Uh, not strictly speaking, but-”

“Then I do not care. Complete your objectives and keep communications to a minimum.” Maul states curtly, waiting only for their affirmatives before he stalks off. They do not have a great wealth of time to waste. There are plans for certain...experimental prototypes stored here that will prove quite useful, once acquired and modified to his standards. Yet this facility is merely the secondary target, a loud and violent distraction to leech obstacles and security away from the true prize. If his operatives succeed, he will have a backdoor into all Imperial communications for this sector. Information is where true power lies, my apprentice. Not in crude metal or munitions. One of his Master’s many useful lessons, even if the memory of Sidious’s voice has him gritting his teeth. Focus. There are more stormtroopers headed his way, but he also feels something...else. Slightly more distant. Familiar. White-armoured humans pour out into the hallway, taking up position and firing. Two of them are rotated like puppets on a turntable, shooting their comrades and sowing chaos in the ranks as he darts forward, deflection turning to lethal crimson arcs that send severed limbs and heads flying; This is what he was meant to do; Sabrestaff in hand, the Dark Side flowing through him with every pulse of his twin hearts, controlling the intricate flow of violence, discord, and death. His final target whimpers as Maul reaches inside with the Force and crushes his single, rapid-beating organ. Blazing eyes close for a moment in the aftermath, but then-His head jolts up as if catching a scent, lids snapping open and pupils dilating. Tano. She is here, he can feel it. Getting closer with every breath. Rage and hunger war with each other. On one hand, her potential interference infuriates him, on the other...Oh, the thought of her fully unleashed in combat and fighting for her very life stirs his desire to a fever pitch. Mine. No! He is not an animal to be led by such base urges. But at the very least, he does need to intercept her before his people do. It does not take long. Maul seals the door behind him as he enters what appears to be the mess hall. The name is certainly appropriate now, with tables and benches scattered all over the floor and corpses haphazardly strewn across them like broken dolls. He has arrived just in time to watch the tail end of her combat, deactivating his sabrestaff and placing it on his belt. She remains a thing of beauty in motion, arching and twisting through the air, utilizing gravity whenever possible to increase the momentum and power of her strikes. When the last trooper falls, she turns towards him, tense and wary for a moment before recognition sets in and she powers down her weapons. They stand, silent as he removes the hood and mask that have kept his more...prominent features concealed. The sight of her gaze skimming over his form and her tongue darting out to wet her dry lips decides his actions for him. Maul prowls forward, grasping her upper arms once close enough and backing her into the nearest wall. His fingertips glide upwards then, over her shoulders and the lovely column of her neck to cup her face between his hands. Before he can bend his head to kiss her, she’s holstered her ‘sabres and has jumped up into it, legs wrapping around his hips as their mouths meet. He growls into the contact, which is neither shy nor restrained. Her tongue is absolutely wicked when he allows it entry, and he reciprocates her passion with a near-vengeance. Nothing exists outside this moment but the heated press and slide of their lips and tongues, the shuddered inhales and muffled groans. Even with her armour, Ahsoka’s body is remarkably pliant, curving and fitting against him perfectly. He could have her, like this. Hear her scream as they rut together in the midst of carnage. She might not even mind- “We’ve got company. Evac is scheduled in 10 klicks. You have the plans?” Kast’s crisp voice interrupts his...idle musings and extinguishes most of his desire in one fell swoop. He withdraws just enough to give the woman in his arms a questioning look, and feels some relief when she nods. Maul had suspected that the Rebellion might want said schematics for similar reasons, especially if only one agent had been sent to handle the job. “Yes. Be advised that I will not be coming alone.” He is not letting her out of his sight until they can finish this properly, even if business must come first.

“Ah. You found your cuyan. I’ll pass the word along.” Kast responds, entirely unruffled by this development as he glowers. “You are not in the habit of making assumptions, Kast. I would suggest you do not start one now.” Maul’s tone carries a subtle hint of warning as he slips both hood and mask back on. He and Ahsoka had already disentangled themselves and were on the move, with her re-opening the door so that they could exit the mess hall more quickly. “There’s only one darjetii you keep tripping over, Mand’alor. Saxon was trying to tell you about the other intruder with lightsabres the buycise [buckets] were wetting themselves about. Kast out.” Was the dry, almost bored response before she cut off. He can feel a tic developing in his left eye while his companion is trying desperately not to laugh. Bane save him from nosy Mando’ade. “She does have a point.” Ahsoka remarks, still clearly amused. “Unless there’s someone else who’s been assigned to pester you lately?” He knows full well just what she is implying even in jest, and it briefly makes him see red. She is deliberately tempting him with the sly curve of her mouth and the sudden sway in her hips. If they were not in such a hurry, he would- No. Focus. “No.” Maul nearly spits out, but has no opportunity to continue as they become occupied with clearing a path to the pick-up point. They just make it, leaping inside the ship seconds before the docking ramp folds up and closes. Flush with victory and high on adrenaline, he presses her up against a stack of crates, practically devouring her mouth once he’d removed the barriers to that particular goal. One set of her fingers digs into his nape, a low moan vibrating in his chest when she matches his ferocity. “HA! Pay up!” He is going to kill Saxon, usefulness be damned. The full force of that thought is imprinted into his glare, watching his second-in-command wither and turn pale. “Er...I mean, welcome back, Lord Maul.” “Interesting way to debrief. The holocam footage should be illuminating for new recruits.” Kast remarks, expression placid as ever. He has the absolute worst Nihlus-damned luck and his inferiors should be thankful that he cannot punish them for flagrant insubordination while occupied with an armful of irritatingly-compassionate Togruta. Ahsoka smiles, apparently content despite current circumstances, and he feels something lurch within his chest. Perhaps...He can be lenient, if the situation is allowed to improve. Soon. (A/N: *looks back up at fic* How in the HELLS did this start off with Maul’s Murder Hallway II: Stormtrooper Edition and end with teenage romcom shenanigans? I can’t even...Ah, well. Also introducing Rook Kast Has All Of The Chill, Gar Saxon Has None, And They Both Ship It. Neither Ahsoka or Maul have had their ‘Oh no’ moment yet at this point in the timeline, buuuut I’ve already written the result of Maul sort of having that revelation. Ahsoka’s will be arriving. Eventually. If I don’t keep getting sidetracked. Cheers!)

#maulsoka #no smut just quality makeouts UST and a lot of murder #and amused mandos

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dingoat · 4 years

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“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” That’s the snapped answer one would get, if they asked Watcher Five directly about the ‘flagpole incident’ that Thirteen so delighted in alluding to. “It’s not my problem if he still doesn’t understand that he needed to better compensate for the possibility of a shifting updraught, or that half of the point of the exercise was to prepare for the chance that during a hazardous mission I could be taken out of the picture at any moment. But he likes to behave as though he can hold this over my head, as though he can influence and therefore threaten my reputation, as if every opportunity currently presented to him didn’t hinge directly upon my direction…”

Five would shake his head with a tight little scowl, an artfully perfected act. “I’ll have to have another word or two with him. I daresay there’s something he’s trying to gain, if he’s gone back to spouting that old story around the place. Pay it no heed.”

But Five’s memory of the incident paints a decidedly different picture.

No matter how hard he tries to smother it, rewrite the events in his own mind, he hasn’t yet managed to do away with the sick, tight feeling in his guts whenever that particular exercise is brought up.

---

Every Cipher has to put a great deal of trust in their Watcher, if they are to meet any measure of success. They have to trust that they don’t need the full picture, that they will be given what information is relevant and necessary, they have to trust that they will be directed toward what they need to focus on, that the parameters set for them, difficult or painful or unpalatable as they may seem, will always be with a bigger picture in mind that they need not be privy to. Always for the greater good.

And Cipher Thirteen was part of a program that necessitated an unprecedented level of trust.

Watcher Five reveled in it. He was just as delighted as his new charge to explore the new possibilities that Imperial Intelligence had to work with, just as hungry to push the limits and test the boundaries. But his excitement came with an edge; a new avenue of power, a new method of control. One couldn’t exactly call him reckless, he was far too methodical in the planning of his exercises for that. But some might consider the fact that he preferred to test Thirteen’s abilities in situ as an unnecessary risk.

Five would argue that utilizing the full extent of terrain that Kaas City and its surrounds had to offer was invaluable in regard to training purposes, and he’d argued long, hard and frequently enough, with impressive enough results to back up his words, that Keeper no longer tried to curb and redirect his enthusiasm.

He was expecting the flight to run through without a hitch, as every other one had. Thirteen had been put through every area before, after all, just not following the particular route Five had mapped out for him this time around. Five had assured him he’d calculated it down to the second, boasted that if Thirteen could maintain a steady speed he could operate his side of the exercise with his eyes shut.

Five was confident, and Thirteen trusted him.

Five was confident, and he didn’t think the comm call from a fellow Agent would impact his response time in the slightest.

---

Thirteen had been given the option of a running start, or to be pushed off the ledge. He’d chosen to be pushed, if for no other reason than to see the look Five got in his eye when he shoved him backward, naked, into the yawning chasm beneath them.

There was as much glory in falling as there was in flight, and Thirteen was able to experience the best of both worlds and everything in between as Five tracked his progress from his monitor and controlled his shapeshifts to best fit the situation. A man one moment, tall and lean and fit, a brilliant beast the next, impossibly huge and brimming with strength and chaotic energy. Then small and lithe, building up speed and angling his wings and body vertically to slot through a narrow pass, feeling the change come on again as he exited the crevice at the precise moment that let him kick off the rocky wall with legs that were both humanoid and reptilian, and land with precision on a scaffolding beam overlooking one of the great unfinished Sith monuments being worked on below. Wings turned back to arms, human feet found purchase on the textured metal surface, and then he launched again, ready for the agile hawkbat shape again that would let him catch a thermal and send him once more skyward.

He was ready.

Any second now.

Five was really cutting a fine line with this one, wasn’t he?

If he wasn’t careful someone working down there was going to see-

Five Five Five where are you what are you doing that pole is coming awfully cl---

Thirteen had trusted, trusted implicitly that Five knew what he was doing, that making such a close call was all part of the exercise. He encouraged it half the time, after all, the element of danger being something they both enjoyed to a slightly irrational degree. It was impossibly difficult to believe that his Watcher would actually allow him to become skewered on a flagpole over half a klick up, even if, in the last half second, that absolutely looked to be the case. He should have reacted sooner, but the idea that Five would knowingly let him be damaged was so unthinkable… Thirteen shouted voicelessly into the rush of wind as he tried to twist away mid-air, suddenly not knowing if the plan was for him to simply keep falling or to try and grab a hold of the pole; in that half second his body contorted, shrunk down, his holler turning into an animal screech, but he was already moving wrong and the next thing he knew was a shock of pain that nearly blacked him out on the spot, and he suddenly couldn’t move.

Reflexively, he tried to flap away, but only one wing was moving and that action blistered so much agony through his chest that he immediately gave up and hung limp, only for the pressure of sagging in place to become rapidly unbearable as well. He wrapped his good wing around the post, clung desperately for purchase with his legs and beak, and waited while stars spun in his vision.

---

“Well make sure you send it along as soon as y-“

Five stared at his tracking screen and immediately ended the call as his heart leapt into his throat.

Thirteen had stopped moving.

Why had he stopped moving? For a few furious seconds Watcher Five’s eyes, wide with unprecedented uncertainty, roved his monitoring equipment. The shift had gone through successfully, all of his Cipher’s readings demonstrated that he’d reacted properly to the implant’s signals, his heart rate was up though and his…

Five didn’t bother looking any further to try and determine remotely what might be wrong. He was in his speeder in a heartbeat, traveling at a speed that would earn a six digit fine to anyone else in any other circumstance. And he knew; he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d made an error, that he’d let his attention lapse for a few crucial seconds, that he’d cut it too fine and he’d triggered Thirteen’s change too late. He knew, when he saw his precious hawkbat wrapped around a flagpole, that it was his fault. Shame and loathing twisted his insides into churning acid, and as he set his speeder to hover his hands were shaking. Thirteen’s normally green eyes were bright, solid silver, and he thrashed and cried out and hooked his beak into Five’s hands as his Watcher attempted to pry him free. His beautiful sleek body patterned in purple and gold was wet and red, and Five realised that the pole had gone through him twice, one of his wings wrenched and twisted and stuck taut behind him.

Five realised that pulling the bat free was not an option, not if he wasn’t going to bleed out in the time it took to get him to the med labs.

It almost took too long to laser cut through the top of the flagpole as it was, and there was smoke pouring from underneath Five’s speeder when he skidded up to the landing pad outside Intelligence headquarters, bowling the taxi droid clean over the edge.

Guilt was not an emotion Five knew how to handle particularly well, and in the days that followed he was absolutely intolerable. His temper was hot, and his was just as quick with his fist as he was with the sharp edge of his tongue. He made sure that the recruit who’d commed him during the training exercise was fired, for perfectly sound and unrelated reasons. The Fixer who’d asked too many questions about what had happened found themselves stationed on Balmorra for seventeen months. The workers in the expansion district, upon whom Five had officially laid blame for the incident in his report, found themselves with pages of new documents to fill at the commencement of every day’s work outlining all of their communication relays, so that their signals wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with Intelligence work ever again. The project manager who argued about it being a waste of time had a nasty fall the following week. Keeper finally agreed to Five’s insistence that they fast-track development of a system that allowed the Ciphers to control their implants internally, and Thirteen was to be the first fitted with the new tech.

Thirteen himself was left wanting for absolutely nothing during his recovery in Five’s Citadel apartment.

And Watcher Five’s comm was set to silent. Never again was it answered during any mission in which he was overseeing Thirteen’s work… not that he had to, after long. Balmorra was getting awfully full of recruits who’d tried to contact Five at the wrong time.

[ @halibellecter, ask and ye shall receive! Five, of course, is my horrible character and Thirteen belongs to @askshivanulegacy who maintains all right to veto/retcon as necessary! These guys exist in our werewolf au where Imperial Intelligence has some very specialised technology and procedures for their top Cipher agents. Five and Thirteen are the best of the best of the best, sir, with honours... which means that for anyone on the other side of the conflict (or, frankly, on the other side of Five’s moods) they are the absolute worst. ]

#swtor #werewolf au #imperial agent #cipher agent #imperial watcher #watcher five #cipher thirteen #5 and 13 #five and thirteen #dingoat writes #swtor fic

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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WHY I'M SMARTER THAN TREVOR

But it worked so well, and we knew that buyers would have a big pool of potential users, at least. Web browser.1 Angels were generally much better to talk to someone, I could usually get to the end of each film, so they know who might be interested in this mystery—for the same destination, just approaching it from different directions. I recommend you solve this problem, if you find someone else working on the biggest things inexperienced founders and investors are probably more where it's considered especially polite to compliment someone's clothing than where it's considered improper. VCs want to blow you up, it wears you out: Your most basic advice to founders is just don't die, but the word madam never occurs in my legitimate email, and spam in particular. Basically at 25 he started running as fast as possible. And what are the universities thinking?

The next best, for startups that aren't charging initially, is active users. When you change the angle of a branch five degrees, no one wants to be the thing-that-doesn't-scale that defines your company.2 That principle, like the relative merits of programming languages is to give you enough money to last for a year or a hundred times as productive as those working for money, they'll work a lot harder on stuff they like. 5-7% of a company like Apple and think, how hard can it be? Economically, you can do in your spare time, and investors are down on advertising at the moment. They do more in their heads: they try to do things that seem to be: a lot of them. The third big lesson we can learn, or at least, there is no one within big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders. When I look back it's like there's a line drawn between third and fourth grade. That's what makes sex and drugs, it would be good to solve?

Prep schools openly say this is one reason I'd bet on the curve, at any given time get away with it, and the different parts of the company through the COO. Object-oriented programming in the 1980s was enabled by a combination of circumstances: court decisions striking down state anti-takeover laws, starting with the assumption that we would never get started. Not because it's causing economic inequality, you decrease the number of startups that get bought early. It's not a deal till the money's in the bank and keep operating as two guys living on ramen. I'm optimistic. They think that there will be ten JetBlues.3 If you try to attack wealth, you end up doing something chosen for you by syndicates.

And you don't want to see the Valley itself, but it goes fast. What Happened to Yahoo August 2010 When I went to.4 What this means in practice. That makes him seem like a winner, they may avoid publishing's problems. After reading a draft, Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell has made a handy calculator you can use them as communication devices.5 You not only have to filter email from people you'd never heard from, or about, a startup has decreased dramatically. Startups are that constrained for talent. But it's harder than it sounds.6 Smallness Measurement If you can't measure the value of products is in software. You don't have to rely on. Hackers just want power.

I knew she was about to say you'd have to be fired, and one of your most powerful weapons, I think this is true for funding. The best was that the company was itself a kind of argument that might be called the Hail Mary strategy. They don't have time to work, just like a software company. But it hardly ever is. My friend Robert learned a lot by writing network software when he was a startup, then hand them off to go away.7 Sun. Oxford had a chair of Chinese before it had one of English.

Which means the slowdown that comes from being in America. And in fact the two forces are related: they're the ones who like running their company so much that resembling nature is intrinsically good as that nature has had a couple thousand Altair owners, but without the substance. Ditto for hacking. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley and are quick to take advantage of direct contact with the medium. We were all starting from scratch, that's a really bad sign.8 More important, I think it's cleaner if you openly charge subscription fees, instead of just looking at them all is through a computer. Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert and Trevor read applications and did interviews with us. The stock of a company as big as Java, or bigger, just on the partner you talk to startups, a lot of investors are interested in, that's not necessarily a mistake to use the term Collison installation for the technique they invented. FreeBSD, which I'm running on the computer I'm using now, and they're not coming back. Court hierarchies are another thing entirely. In practice offers exist for stretches of time, if your business model in the world look like this? Startups don't win by winning lawsuits.

5 spams per 1000 with 0 false positives. When I was in college that there were about 20,000. What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin, and crack have in common is that they get paid by doing or making something people want is not the real test. Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay your expenses while you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.9 Wouldn't that at least someone really loves. Sex, or something just as bad. I can see a path that's not immediately obvious; that's one of the most important quality in an investor is to say that the unsuccessful founders would also fail to chase down funding, and investors tend to take these for granted now, but only because people have found even more addictive ways of wasting time. It does not seem to be several categories of cuts: things I got wrong, because if you don't, you're hosed. So we should expect founders to do it yourself. If you actually started acting like adults, it seemed to them what e-commerce business back in the day, but who want it urgently. 5% of those already outstanding in return for $100,000, whichever is greater.

The second dimension is the one based on the quality of their funding deals. So I want to zoom in on one detail of this picture. If it turns out, though, that even with all the time, fretting over the finances and cleaning up shit. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a suitable recipient for the size of the market anyway. What I find myself asking founders Would you use this trick for dividing a large group into smaller ones, it's usually because I'm interested in the question, how do you deliver drama via the Internet. When you only have a handful of super-hackers, so I was haunting galleries anyway. But I know the real reason: the product is only moderately appealing. Better to harass them with arrows from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.10 Without the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out.

Notes

Since we're not doing YC mainly for financial reasons, including both you and listen only to emphasize that whatever the false positives reflecting the remaining outcomes don't have to do, just their sizes. The problem with most of their origins in words about luck. It was common in the imprecise half. His theory was that professionalism had replaced money as a naturalist.

If you wanted to than because they need them to represent anything.

From? The way to fight. The Harmless People and The Old Way. I know, Lisp code.

Do not finance your startup.

Why go to grad school you always feel you should seek outside advice, before realizing that that's what I think is happening when you depend on closing a deal to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley, but as the average car restoration you probably do make everyone else books a package tour. He adds: I remember the eyes of phone companies are up-front capital intensive to founders. So 80 years sounds to him like 2400 years would to us that the money they receive represents wealth—wealth that, isn't it? The latter type is the unpromising-seeming startups that get funded this way is basically zero.

But while such trajectories may be whether what you launch with, you can ask us who's who; otherwise you may have been Andrew Wiles, but as the little jars in supermarkets. Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or mining equipment, such a different type of mail, I have so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say, ending up on the other direction Y Combinator. This is an instance of a business is to carry a beeper? This trend is one of those most vocal on the LL1 mailing list.

The First Two Hundred Years. Who continued to live inexpensively as their companies took off? The conventional 1 in 10 success rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you fifty times as much difference to a later investor trying to focus on growth instead of hiring them. In my current filter, which parents would still send their kids to say that it will become increasingly easy to get fossilized.

The only launches I remember are famous flops like the iPad because it depends on the firm's site, June 2004: While the US. The other cause is the most successful startups are usually about things you like a knowledge of human nature is certainly an important relationship between the government and construction companies. People tell the craziest lies about me. Patent trolls can't even trust the design world's internal standards.

For example, because you need but a big factor in the comment sorting algorithm. Horace, Sat.

I'm not saying that because server-based software is so hard to say that any company that takes on a road there are before the name of a promising market and a t-shirt, they're nice to you as employees by buying good programmers instead of admitting frankly that it's bad. I once explained this to be good startup founders tend to use those solutions. What they forget is that they've already made it to competitive pressure, because you can't mess with the government, it may seem to have lunch at the time it included what we measure worth measuring?

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allgirlsareprincesses · 5 years

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Why Jasmine is the greatest Disney Princess

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while and I wanted to do more research before I did, but then the new Aladdin (2019) came out and HERE WE ARE. So this is me winging it with what I hope is still a pretty convincing case for Jasmine being the greatest Disney Princess so far.

What makes a great Disney Princess? Well, you could argue they all have something to offer: Snow White rocked some impressive sarcasm for a 14-year-old, Cinderella was pretty bold for her time, Sleeping Beauty was a dreamer with epic hair, Ariel is spunky and brave, Belle is bookish and kind, Pocahontas is regal and self-sacrificing, Rapunzel is sweet and empathetic, Tiana is passionate and hard-working, Merida is independent, and Anna is loving and faithful. There are others I didn’t include, of course, but the point is that there’s something to admire about every princess, and they all represent the modern woman in their own way. But did they need to be princesses in order to be these amazing characters? With the possible exceptions of Pocahontas and maybe Merida, I’d argue no. These stories would hardly be different, for the character at least, if she was any non-royal woman. And yes, I know Cinderella and Belle only became princesses by marriage, but even then, their stories could have been the same with any powerful man. It didn’t have to be a prince.

Of course, historical princesses and fantasy princesses are not the same thing, and we’re definitely talking about the latter here. Except for a few incredible and very unique ladies, most historical princesses were property whose carefully-preserved virginity was sold for a treaty, land, or a lot of money. They often lived and died miserable, their spectacular portraits notwithstanding. Fantasy princesses are, on the other hand, unabashed wish fulfillment for centuries of women who had little to hope for. These are the beautiful, powerful women we wish we could be, how we might see ourselves if our circumstances were different and nothing prevented us from realizing our potential. Fantasy princesses live the lives we want, and Disney princesses live the most flawless, perfect, clean version of that life. So by that metric, the greatest Disney princess might be the one who lives the most fully realized life that most girls can aspire to.

Jasmine in the original 1992 film

So, let’s talk about what we know of Jasmine (animated by the brilliant Mark Henn) from her introduction in the animated film. The first we see of her, she’s just rejected a suitor, so right out of the gate, we know she’s got no time for egomaniacs. A great trait, but not necessarily unique just yet. Belle also had zero tolerance for pompous douchebags. Next, we get some exposition setting up her conflict (and Aladdin’s) in that she’s legally bound to marry a prince, and she has a deadline. Naturally, she wants to marry for love, which is again sweet but not really original: Aurora wanted to marry for love, too, despite her betrothal. Then, Jasmine mentions that she’s never done a thing on her own, never had any real friends, and never even been outside the palace walls. This seems to be a hint that she might be spoiled and naive, if still sympathetic and appealing.

Finally, we get the line about “Maybe I don’t want to be a princess any more!” Ah, now that’s new. What does this mean? Is she declaring her ultimate goal, to reject her title and birthright, and become something new? Or is this setting up a lesson she’s going to learn about embracing her role? We don’t know, but suddenly we’re paying attention, trying to figure out if this is a spoiled brat or a girl on the verge of becoming a fully-realized woman. The next time we see her, Jasmine follows through on this thought, escaping over the palace wall to take her future into her own hands. We know now that, foolish or not, this is a woman with agency, who’s going to move the plot forward through her own actions rather than sit around and be an object for the hero.

In the market, we see Jasmine’s wonder at the world she’s never seen, but more importantly, we learn that she’s not just a self-absorbed teenager: she has a kind heart. She notices a hungry child and gives them food. True, she doesn’t understand that she needs to pay because she’s never had to do that, which is a consequence of her tremendous privilege. But, for someone who apparently had never before had direct contact with her people, simply recognizing hunger and instinctively seeking to correct it is encouraging. Importantly, this is also the first time we see her actions mirror Aladdin’s: we saw him offer food to a child only a few scenes before. The audience is starting to recognize that this girl is our hero’s equal (if not more).

Now, we come to the inevitable Damsel in Distress moment, and this is where Jasmine really shines. Caught off-guard by the abrupt cruelty of the outside world, she’s not quite able to talk her way out of having her hand chopped off for stealing, but thankfully Aladdin steps in to help. Jasmine, rather than being rattled and afraid, is intrigued and doesn’t miss a beat when her savior whispers “Just play along!” She follows his cues and immediately gives an Oscar-worthy performance as his insane sister, getting so into the ruse that she gives a glassy-eyed greeting to a camel as if it’s her doctor. To my knowledge, this kind of quick thinking is totally unique among the Disney princesses, certainly at the time. Even better, as we’ll see, Jasmine uses her smarts and acting ability several more times in the film, so this scene isn’t just a contrived meet-cute.

On the rooftops, we learn more about Jasmine: she’s genuinely grateful, she can graciously take a compliment (her blush when Aladdin tells her she “stands out” is adorable), and she is, in her own words “a fast learner,” at least when it comes to imitating Aladdin’s street sense. Finally, they arrive at his hovel and she’s entranced by his apparent freedom. Upon hearing how impressive he finds the palace, however, we see her sink back into her own problems, focusing on what she doesn’t have rather than her extraordinary wealth and luxury. From the audience’s perspective, this is definitely a flaw, but one that makes sense given her life experience up to that point. Once she and Aladdin connect over their mutual feeling of being “trapped,” Jasmine completely succumbs to his clumsy charms, and they nearly share a kiss UNTIL….

They are surprised by palace guards and the iconic “Do you trust me?” exchange takes place (this will set the tone for their entire relationship throughout all of the animated content that came after, but more on that later). Aladdin is captured and without a second thought, Jasmine reveals herself and in a commanding, regal tone, ORDERS the guards to release him. For a girl who declared only a few scenes ago that she didn’t “want to be a princess any more,” she changed her tune FAST when it suited her. In fact, from this point onward, she embraces her power and wields her position like a weapon, never again seeming to question her role as Princess of Agrabah. When the guards try to question her, she tells them her actions are “not your concern” and when they tell her she’ll have to take her complaint to Jafar, she gives the most menacing glare of any Disney heroine, ever (fight me), with a sinister “Believe me, I will.”

A quick note before we continue our recap of Jasmine’s epic badassery: during production of the animated Aladdin, the crew had a bit of a crisis with Jasmine being so amazing that she completely overshadowed the hero. Studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg (a horrible human who nonetheless brought a few nuggets of wisdom to the Disney Animation Renaissance of the 90s) is on tape saying he understands why Aladdin would like Jasmine, because she’s fantastic, but that he doesn’t understand why Jasmine would like him. At the time, Aladdin was written and drawn younger, scrawnier, more boy than man and more befitting his “street rat” title. There was a song about his mother, which also contributed to the impression of him as a child, and it quickly became clear that the hero was not really worthy of the heroine, as written. Aladdin was completely redesigned by supervising animator Glen Keane to have a more adult, heroic physique (despite the fact that much of his animation had already been completed), the mother character was removed, and Aladdin’s personality was patterned after popular film stars like Tom Cruise. To further “age up” the cast for this new, more adult take on the story, Jasmine voice actor Linda Larkin was trained to record all her lines in a lower register than her natural voice, making Jasmine sound more like a woman than a girl.

So, back to the palace (which, remember, she’d left because she didn’t “want to be a princess any more”) and Jasmine marching right up to Jafar to get in his face about the boy he took from the market. Still with that same commanding tone she used with the guards, the princess wastes no time on pleasantries and invades Jafar’s personal space, demanding answers and admitting no resistance. When he accuses Aladdin of kidnapping her, Jasmine doesn’t hesitate to tell Jafar she ran away, clearly more concerned about the boy’s freedom than any consequences she might suffer for her actions. But when she hears that Aladdin was executed, Jasmine mourns…. Not only for the kind young man who helped her, but for the damage that her selfishness caused. Though she blames Jafar when speaking to her father, Jasmine reveals to Rajah that she feels Aladdin’s death was “all [her] fault.” It’s not supposed to be her story, but we’re clearly seeing the princess learn a powerful lesson about the consequences of her actions. This is why we see Jasmine continue to mourn for multiple scenes, really right up until she realizes that Prince Ali is Aladdin: the guilt she feels is devastating. She’s reaching a new level of moral maturity even as the object of her affections is constructing an elaborate lie to win her back.

When Jafar is chastised by the Sultan for executing a criminal without consulting him first, he makes a silky and obviously insincere apology to Jasmine, who utters possibly her best line of the film: “At least some good will come of my being forced to marry. When I am Queen, I will have the power to get rid of YOU!” And then she marches off. DAMN, GIRL. And the best part is that Jafar takes her seriously. He knows that was no empty threat, and he discusses with Iago whether Jasmine will have him banished or simply beheaded. Tell me, when has a truly menacing Disney villain ever been that TERRIFIED of the heroine? That’s power, people, the kind that most women can only dream about. Jasmine has it and she’s going to USE IT. Jasmine, First of Her Name, Queen of Agrabah….

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, Jasmine scaring the sh*t out of Jafar like the badass b*tch she is. So anyway, Jafar realizes the only path open to him is to marry Jasmine (and then kill her, of course), so we see that plot being hatched just as Prince Ali comes to town. Unsurprisingly, Jasmine is even less impressed by the princely pomp and circumstance than usual, if that’s possible, and she literally ignores the parade when she realizes what it is. Then she overhears Ali bragging to Jafar and the Sultan that he will “win your daughter” and she snaps with undisguised fury: “How dare you! All of you! Standing around deciding my future? I am not a prize to be won!” And again with the storming off (there’s a lot of that, I mean she’s nearly 18, after all). But seriously, this woman is my feminist icon. She literally just took down a potential suitor, her own father THE KING, and the second most powerful man in the kingdom with one line.

Finally, Ali shows up at her balcony and Jasmine is blunt: “I do NOT want to see you. Just leave me alone.” Of course, when Ali takes off his turban, she recognizes him immediately. She doubts for a moment when he lies to her, and then he starts attempting to impress her. This is the second time we see Jasmine turn to her considerable acting skills, and the first time she uses her considerable powers of seduction to fool a man: she stalks toward Ali like a she-wolf, telling him everything he wants to hear. She takes his compliment about her beauty (and remember, we’ve already seen her blushingly accept that same compliment before) and turns it into a weapon against him, drawing him in only to put him in his place as a “swaggering peacock.”

Naturally, Jasmine is intrigued by the magic carpet and the opportunity to taste freedom again, but it’s Aladdin’s ultimate tell of “Do you trust me?” that finally draws her into his arms and out into the night sky. Love, for this princess, is an expression of her desire for freedom: it’s what she chooses to do with that freedom, more than an end in itself. And both the music and lyrics of “A Whole New World” speak to that freedom as much as or more than romantic love. For two people who feel “trapped,” this song is the ultimate anthem. And as they soar, Aladdin tosses an apple to Jasmine with his signature move, and she’s again certain that it’s him. Rather than confront him directly about his lie, she again uses her smarts and performing ability to entrap Ali into admitting he’s Aladdin. She really lets loose on him once he realizes he’s caught, asking if he thinks she’s stupid. Then, Jasmine demands the truth…. And of course she doesn’t get it. Though this naivete could be viewed as a flaw, we know that their early relationship was built on trust, so it makes sense for Jasmine to bestow this on her suitor without reservation. We’ve seen so much of her harsher side ever since Aladdin was dragged away a prisoner, so this glimpse of her soft heart is refreshing and reminds us of why she is so extraordinary.

Back at the palace, Jasmine is in full teen-girl-in-love mode, having her first kiss and then dreamily humming as she brushes her hair (this is the only time we see her hair unbound in the film, signifying her achievement of freedom through her love for Aladdin). Upon discovering Jafar’s plot to marry her, Jasmine of course refuses forcefully, declaring without hesitation her love for Prince Ali. During the ensuing confrontation, Jasmine is a bit more the object for Aladdin than his equal, unlike in the rest of the film, but this doesn’t last. We next see her excitedly preparing to introduce her betrothed to the kingdom, even as he tries to confess the truth to her. While this analysis focuses on Jasmine, it’s notable Aladdin respects her enough to attempt to admit his lies and reveal his true identity, however belated. This shows how worthy she is, that in spite of the risk of losing her, Aladdin wants to be honest and be her equal partner. This is another theme we’ll come back to later.

When Jafar steals the lamp and makes himself Sultan, he demands that Jasmine and her father bow to him. Once again, she defiantly refuses, even as her own father begins to bend in submission. When Aladdin’s identity is then revealed, Jasmine is understandably startled, but there’s no indication she’s deeply hurt or angry, especially as she’s confronted with a much greater immediate threat in Jafar, and that Aladdin is obviously attempting to protect her. Alone with Jafar and reduced to a slave girl in chains, Jasmine still tries to fight back in any way she can. She pleads with Jafar to show mercy to her father, then throws a goblet of wine in his face when he suggests she marry him. Understandably, she’s terrified when Jafar uses a wish to attempt to force her to fall in love with him. Again, since giving her love is Jasmine’s ultimate expression of her desire for freedom, to be forced to love against her will is the greatest possible threat to that freedom. It’s not just that it’s a heinous thing for any woman or person, but that it’s the worst for Jasmine, specifically, because of what we know of her character.

A quick note here about the similarity of Jasmine’s situation to another princess who has recently joined the Disney family: Princess Leia. Like Jasmine, she is captured and chained by a villain (Jabba the Hutt) and dressed in a “sexy slave” outfit meant to demean her as a sexual object. Also like Jasmine, Leia keeps fighting back, and eventually finds an opportunity to turn the tables on her lascivious captor and use the conditions of her captivity (literally, her chains) to destroy him. In both cases, there tends to be undue audience attention to how sexy the character looks (hello, Male Gaze), rather than how she uses her strengths to defeat the villain.

So then, Jasmine spots Aladdin creeping up the steal the lamp, and this is where she cements her place as the greatest Disney princess, IMO. Just as she has several times before, she uses her wits and her Oscar-worthy acting skills, and makes Jafar believe that his wish has been granted. In a startlingly mature turn for a G-rated film, Jasmine uses her sexual appeal as a weapon against the villain, to enable her lover to defeat him. All undulating hips and shoulders, a sultry purr, and excessive flattery, she slinks toward Jafar, distracting him as Aladdin draws closer to the lamp. When it seems Jafar might suddenly notice his enemy, Jasmine takes the drastic and self-sacrificial step of pulling him in for a passionate kiss. What’s notable about this moment is that Aladdin, in a classically male possessive moment, becomes just as distracted as Jafar, and misses the opportunity Jasmine gave him. It’s another example of how, though Aladdin has many wonderful qualities, the princess really is still out of his league. The filmmakers made her so brilliant that it’s tough for the “diamond in the rough” main character to measure up.

Her ruse having ultimately failed, Jasmine still tries to fight back physically against Jafar, but of course she can’t. But Aladdin can, so he yells to her to get the lamp and she nearly does, until Jafar traps her in a massive hourglass. At this point, she’s back into Damsel in Distress mode since it is after all Aladdin’s story (I guess), but thankfully our hero uses his own cunning to trap Jafar in time to free Jasmine. To his credit, the first thing Aladdin does when he faces his lady after the battle is apologize for lying. Her response is perfect: “I know why you did.” She doesn’t say it’s okay, she just expresses empathy for him, because she doesn’t doubt his feelings for her. His judgement, maybe, but not his love. And then, she doesn’t hesitate to express her love for him, directly. And finally, when Aladdin tells her he must do the right thing and “stop pretending to be something [he’s] not,” she says “I understand.” She accepts that him making the right decision means they can’t be together. It hurts for sure, but she has the moral fortitude to cope with it. Seriously, Aladdin doesn’t deserve this goddess.

So Aladdin makes the right choice and frees the Genie, and then the Sultan changes the law so Jasmine can marry him. Her father’s justification for this decision is that Aladdin “proved his worth,” rather than that his daughter has the right to choose ANY suitor she likes, which is kind of unfortunate. If anyone has proved their worth at this point in the story, it’s Jasmine, who has defended herself, her family, her city, and her lover throughout the film. Fortunately, this is something the creators of the 2019 film recognized and corrected…. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As far as we knew at the end of the original film, Aladdin and Jasmine had married, and I believe that even if you considered ONLY this movie canon, the point that Jasmine is the greatest Disney princess stands on solid ground. But as we know, that was NOT the last we saw of these characters, and all the content since then has only reinforced how uniquely awesome Jasmine is.

Jasmine in the animated sequel content

After the smash success of Aladdin in the theaters, and the Little Mermaid TV show, Disney read the tea leaves and decided to create the first of its direct-to-video sequels. These cheaply-made, poorly-written debacles (often derisively referred to as “cheapquels”) would be a staple of studio income for some time, and were an intense topic of debate as well. That’s a tale for another day, but the point is that the first of these was The Return of Jafar, in 1994.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this film simply because it’s horrible and I have zero desire to watch it again, but I remember Jasmine being a lot more damsel-in-distress and less badass than she was in the original film, right down to her voice being higher than the carefully-crafted and mature vocals she had in the theatrical release. The film was mostly designed to set up the TV show, by removing the obvious remaining threat of Jafar, rehabilitating Iago for additional comic relief, and bringing back the Genie. It did all of these poorly, but the show afterward was better for having these issues resolved before it began. And the series, whatever its faults, had lots and lots of great Jasmine moments.

For example, in only the second episode of the entire series, Bad Mood Rising, Aladdin and Jasmine are sent on a diplomatic mission to a neighboring kingdom, to establish trade. Interestingly, there’s no indication that it’s Aladdin’s mission, merely that the two of them are “the delegation from Agrabah” and the episode starts with Jasmine giving Aladdin crap for his lack of diplomatic experience. They find the kingdom devastated by famine, and discover this is because the king, a young child, is enchanted such that his moods determine the weather. The kid’s boredom and tantrums are causing his people to suffer, so our heroes attempt to entertain him. Only Jasmine succeeds by telling him a story, in a delightfully direct reference to Scheherazade from the original 1001 Arabian Nights. The boy king is so fascinated by Jasmine’s storytelling, he commands her to stay with him forever.

At first, Aladdin and Jasmine try to escape, but when confronted with the suffering of the people, Jasmine agrees to stay with the king. Aladdin of course protests, and Jasmine utters my absolute favorite line ever: “I was raised a princess, Aladdin. And a princess knows: the needs of the people outweigh her own.” Like WHAAAAAT? I was about nine when I saw this and I swear it blew my tiny mind. I loved princesses, but the idea of them having a responsibility to their subjects had never once crossed my mind. Hearing Jasmine declare herself a servant and protector of the people completely changed my perspective on mythical (and to some extent, actual) royalty, and influenced my opinions of fictional princesses forever.

Jasmine freely chooses to go with the young king, even refusing to accompany Aladdin when he comes back for her again, but we see her mourning the life she lost. Even in a cheap and immature kids’ show, it’s clear that she’s made a real sacrifice to save the people. Thankfully, our heroes are able to teach the boy king that being kind feels good, and he releases the princess back to her city. I noticed when rewatching this episode that Aladdin’s first instinct is always fighting and physical aggression, whereas Jasmine turns to diplomacy. This is both a trend throughout the series, and also a setup for Aladdin’s eventual maturation. The show nearly always casts Aladdin’s aggressive stance as mistaken, which is an interesting commentary given the time.

In a much later episode, called “The Ethereal,” Jasmine has a dream foretelling the destruction of Agrabah. She is, of course, extremely disturbed, especially when events from her dream start occurring in sequence. Eventually a sort of Angel of Death called The Ethereal arrives to pass judgement on the city. We are made to understand that this is a very serious threat, as this same being has already destroyed Atlantis, Pompeii, and Babylon. While Aladdin attempts to make a magical spear that will destroy The Ethereal, Jasmine and her father take her on a tour of Agrabah’s wonders, to convince her to spare the city. They show her the fine library, the marketplace, and works of art, but The Ethereal is unimpressed. She begins to rain fire down on Agrabah in a fairly Biblical vision of the apocalypse, complete with smoking rubble and screaming citizens.

Aladdin attempts to use his spear to nullify the Ethereal’s powers, but his efforts fail. Our heroes come to accept that the city will be destroyed, so they turn their attention to saving as many of Agrabah’s people as they can. Jasmine sees a child about to be crushed by falling debris, so she uses the same pole-vaulting move Aladdin taught her at the beginning of the theatrical film (nice continuity, Disney TV writers!) to leap over the rubble and push the boy out of the way. She is then crushed by the falling tower. Just in case you weren’t SURE that they just killed off the princess in a Disney property, they have Aladdin finding her body in the rubble and saying in a devastated whisper, “She…. she’s gone.”

Holy sh*t, Disney, did you just DO that??? What? Keep in mind that this is at least two years before Hercules was released in theaters, in which Meg was also crushed by a falling column when she pushed Herc out of the way. So not only did Jasmine sacrifice herself first, as far as audiences were concerned, but she did so for her people, not just her lover. This is not to say that Meg’s act was selfish, of course, but it’s notable that Jasmine’s sacrifice was for someone she wasn’t particularly close to, yet she acted without hesitation all the same.

As the people of Agrabah visibly mourn their princess, The Ethereal floats down with a smile and says “I have seen what I needed to see. Your princess’s sacrifice makes it clear: she understood.” She restores Agrabah, then resurrects Jasmine, who tells Aladdin “It’s the people. The people make Agrabah great.” The Ethereal then warns them not to forget this lesson, and leaves.

Though these are the two episodes that most stand out in my mind, they clearly demonstrate that Jasmine thinks of herself not as Aladdin’s girlfriend, but as a public servant, a political figure with responsibilities to her people and a genuinely empathetic heart for them. It makes very clear that when the Sultan’s reign ends, Jasmine will absolutely be the ruler of Agrabah. While this is never stated explicitly to my memory, it’s obvious that Jasmine would be the wisdom and power behind the throne, as there is no clear arc built around preparing Aladdin for any kind of leadership. Despite the Sultan’s proclamation in the original film that Aladdin will be Sultan, it seems he’s really more of Jasmine’s consort, which appears to suit both of them just fine.

This leads me to my last point about the TV series, and one that segues well into the “threequel” that ended the animated content: Aladdin and Jasmine’s relationship is treated in a surprisingly mature fashion. What I mean is, though the writing on the show is often cheesy and a little cringeworthy, this is also a kids’ show that uniquely features a committed, long-term adult relationship. They often reference their plans to marry, and frequently say “I love you” to one another. Though there are ups and downs in their relationship, they remain committed and mostly very honest with one another, consistently demonstrating that their bond still rests on that trust that was so heavily emphasized in the 1992 film.

One episode in particular demonstrates this deep commitment, called Eye of the Beholder. In it, recurring villainess Mirage transforms Jasmine into a snake, to test Aladdin’s love. Aladdin determinedly sets out to find a way to break the spell and change Jasmine back. When they are unable to find an antidote, a devastated Jasmine tells Aladdin to leave her, believing that she will be a snake forever. Instead of leaving, Aladdin eats an enchanted fruit that also turns HIM into a snake, declaring to her “If we can’t be together as humans, then we’ll be together as snakes.” A furious Mirage screams “No, this was supposed to tear you apart, not bring you closer together!” And of course the episode ends with them being transformed back into their human forms.

While this is definitely more of an Aladdin moment than a Jasmine one, it’s important that her lover is shown being committed to her, because it demonstrates that he is truly worthy of her. Remember that in the original film, it was a major problem during production that Jasmine overshadowed Aladdin, so seeing him grow and become an equal partner is tremendously important to keep the audience invested in their relationship. I appreciate that instead of forced breakup plotlines, the writers of the series chose to show Aladdin and Jasmine growing even closer over the course of the show’s run, making them excellent romantic role models for kids.

Eventually, Disney chose to bring Aladdin and Jasmine’s story to a close, creating Aladdin and the King of Thieves in 1996. Blessedly, this film again featured Robin Williams as the Genie, and some much better animation than what we saw in Return of Jafar or the TV series. The story started with an obnoxiously-Westernized wedding, which was then interrupted by the appearance of the legendary 40 Thieves. We see here the return of Badass Jasmine, who punches out one of the thieves as payback for “ruining [her] wedding.”

Consulting an Oracle, Aladdin learns that his father, whom he had presumed dead, is still alive. There next follows another of my favorite Jasmine moments. She sings a beautiful song to Aladdin, about why she loves him and how special he is to her. The key line is “People like you don’t just come out of thin air.” Aladdin also has a verse trying to describe his painful childhood, including the wrenching line “Your father’s a man who taught you who you are; mine was never there.” I love the acknowledgement there that the Sultan, despite his faults, has been a good father to Jasmine, and that in particular, he shaped her and made her understand her place in the world. At the same time, Aladdin spoke to a generation of lonely kids with Daddy Issues, and there was Princess Jasmine, listening sympathetically and offering support.

The song ends with Jasmine encouraging Aladdin to go find his father: “Our wedding can wait. I think it’s worth a small delay. And won’t it be great to have your father see our wedding day.” No bridezilla here! Jasmine is happy to support her partner and put his needs first. When Aladdin learns that his father is “trapped within the world of the 40 Thieves,” Jasmine tells him “Take as long as you need.” Wow. He really, really doesn’t deserve her.

Aladdin goes off, finds out his dad, Cassim, really did abandon him and his mother, and confronts him about it. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, but I remember being fascinated by how Aladdin didn’t let his father off the hook, but told him that his family had needed him. In an attempt to rehabilitate him, Aladdin brings Cassim back to the palace, where of course temptation gets the better of him and he gets caught stealing (again). Out of a sense of grudging loyalty to his family, Aladdin frees his father, but at the border of the kingdom, refuses to continue on with him. Cassim points out that Aladdin is a criminal now for helping him escape, and tries to convince him to leave Agrabah together. It’s at this point that Aladdin finally becomes a real man, defiantly shouting at his father, “I won’t walk out on Jasmine!” and turning his back on Cassim. DAMN RIGHT BOI, YOU TELL HIM. And as his father rides away, Aladdin returns to Agrabah to face the consequences of his actions.

Of course, they forgive him immediately and Jasmine even helps Aladdin rescue his dad later, but how great is it to finally see our hero show that he really is worthy of the princess’s heart? After this whole story has been told, this is where we end up: with Aladdin reaffirming his commitment to Jasmine, because homegirl is a damn QUEEN, thankyouverymuch. So Aladdin and Jasmine win the day and are finally married, and while we don’t hear anything of their lives together afterward, it seems like they probably had a wonderful life together, and that Jasmine was a wise and fair ruler with a supportive consort who always put her first. Or at least that’s the headcanon I’ve developed over the years.

Jasmine in the 2019 Live-Action Film

So this brings us to the latest of Disney’s live-action remakes…. BUT FIRST! Some context: I’m pretty lukewarm on this film. It’s fine, but IMHO it doesn’t hold a candle to the original animated version. That said, this rant isn’t about critiquing the film as a whole, so I’m going to set all of my nitpicks aside and focus just on the treatment of Jasmine, and whether she is STILL the greatest Disney princess in her newest incarnation.

Short answer: Yep, she is. While I can’t be certain that the writers for this movie had watched any of the TV series, I was struck by their choice of arc for Jasmine: whereas in the original film, her goal was simply freedom (expressed by loving whomever she wanted), her goal here is to literally rule Agrabah. That’s incredibly bold and of course anachronistic, but remember that we’re talking about a fantasy princess here, not an historical one. As in the show, Jasmine demonstrates an understanding of statecraft when she urges her father to maintain peace with the kingdom’s allies. Since she is interfering with his plans for a coup, Jafar insists she remain silent and enchants the Sultan into agreeing. This leads to an “I want” song for Jasmine, which she did not have in the original, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

While this Jasmine is missing some of the endearing traits of her animated predecessor, like the quick thinking and the acting skills, her ambitions to leadership create a similar problem to that of the original film. Remember that the 1992 filmmakers never quite solved the problem of their Jasmine overshadowing the hero, and now, with a new arc of her own that really has nothing to do with Aladdin, this Jasmine doesn’t really NEED him. Unfortunately, this leads to their two stories happening in parallel, rather than as part of a clear singular plot. Worse, it means that the climax of the film downplays Jasmine’s role in favor of Aladdin, robbing her of that wonderful moment from the animated film in which she tricked Jafar to help her lover. In the end, Jasmine’s achievement is her father formally declaring her his successor, and marrying Aladdin is more of an incidental bonus.

Issues with story structure aside, this Jasmine is much more academic than the street-smart girl from the animated content. She’s clearly well-studied in geography and diplomacy, which is why she has no patience for doltish princes like the one she rejects at the beginning of the film. She even has the self-awareness to recognize how being cooped up in the palace makes her an unfit leader, which is why she’s in the market the day she meets Aladdin. Whereas 1992 Jasmine left for selfish reasons - she wanted to be free of the royal pressures she faced - 2019 Jasmine left the palace specifically to learn how to serve her people. This is a level of maturity that the animated princess does not reach until fairly late in the TV series. While I miss the feisty, sharp-witted girl from my childhood, I have to admit that I love the compassionate, driven, calculating woman depicted in this new film, as well.

Which brings me back to the new song, “Speechless.” First and foremost, it’s fantastically performed by Naomi Scott, who has easily the strongest set of pipes in the cast. The musical style is out of place with the other songs, and the scene itself is a weird music video dropped into the middle of an otherwise tense moment nearing the film’s climax, BUT! It’s such a great girl-power ballad that it really doesn’t matter. Honestly, the lyrics don’t really even reflect Jasmine’s inner struggle THAT precisely, but this is because the song isn’t really about her, it’s about the audience, specifically the young girls in the audience. Disney understands that girls will project onto Jasmine as they do all the princesses, so they’ve given us the new “Let It Go” to belt out when we need to get psyched up about anything. I mean, I could easily hear this being played at a Women’s March or similar event. It might not make a lot of sense in the film, but Jasmine is definitely the perfect character to deliver this manifesto to the young women of 2019.

Point being, the only must-have on my list for the 2019 remake was that it not ruin my beloved Princess of Agrabah, and blessedly, they didn’t. And I think she still holds a solid first place among the princesses of the Disney lexicon, as the only one to seriously treat her role as a head of state. Pocahontas, Merida, and Moana all had moments of service to their people as well, but none with quite the boldness, cunning, and selflessness that Jasmine achieved in all of her many incarnations. I assume that Disney is seeing dollar signs and will put out another live-action sequel at some point, and it will probably be terrible, but honestly I don’t mind seeing more Jasmine as long as she continues to be the example of a powerful princess.

So thanks for reading my first unnecessarily-long Tumblr rant, and if you made it all the way to the end, please comment or reblog and let me know what you think!

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modestlyabsurd · 5 years

Text

Compromised (Loki x Reader)

"We're gonna need reinforcements."

Steve Rogers tensed at Natasha Romanoff's grim implication.

The thought rolls around in his mind - all the possible conflicts, outcomes, subsequent issues. It's the last thing he wants to do. But those scenarios meshed with the image of God knows what's happening to you right now at the hands of God knows who.

All of them would rather not do it. What choice do they have, though? With the loss of your cell phone signal, and with no knowledge of who's behind this, it leaves them in an uncomfortable helpless rut.

For a second Steve gets angry at the matter. Of everyone in the compound - every employee, every intern, every agent, and not to mention the Avengers - why would someone target one of the youngest, most caring, innocent, good-doing people in the facility? Why you?

And then he realizes; the answers are there. They're obvious. That's why Natasha is resorting to this, knowing what it encompasses. This leaves him no choice but to use his training to twist that anger into pure determination before someone gets hurt.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," he concludes out loud.

Natasha gives a tight nod and rushes to go find Bruce Banner and Agent Maria Hill.

Illuminated by blue screens and beads of sweat, the agents' faces clearly reflect the matter at hand. Bruce presses his fingertips into his temple, Maria bites her nails in concentration, while Steve and Natasha exchange apprehensive glances. They can't bring themselves to look at the screen, the words "waiting for communication" looking coldly back. It never seemed to take this long for a reply.

Tony Stark and Clint Barton were promptly notified hours before at the beginning of the circumstance. While the rest of the world must continue to turn when duty calls, they've both been put on direct standby if needed.

Steve's wondering, staring that white spinning circle down, controlling his temper. Are these guys gonna pull through when needed the most? At this rate, going on twenty minutes of lost time spent waiting while you're still gone, he's losing patience. And with that, he's losing trust. Respect.

He only has faith in one God. But these guys are supposed to be dependable.

"Maybe we should reconsider this."

Natasha sighs, "Steve - "

"Look, we're wasting time." He uncrosses his arms defensively. "We need to be aggressively searching and we're just gonna sit here like lumps on a log?"

"We are searching, we've got every unit on it and every one is coming up cold. This is clearly out of our hands if we can't find any breadcrumbs whatsoever. It's our best bet."

"How do we even know they can help?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Natasha's rolling her eyes at Steve's frustrated nonsense when a distinct ping sounds from the oversized monitor, followed by Bruce stammering.

"Wait wait wait hold on, I got something," he clicks the mouse and types rapidly.

"Connection is established," a computerized female voice speaks. Everyone lets out sounds of relief simultaneously.

"Can we get verbal communication now?" says Maria impatiently, swiping her fringe from her eyes.

Bruce shifts as she hovers over him at the computer desk, "Should be able to - yeah, just give me a second ... " he trails off while clicking away at the tabs and windows popping up on the screen.

Steve shifts on his feet as well, anxious to make some sort of progress. He stares at the computer for answers, only to become even more frustrated because he doesn't understand anything he sees.

He does, however, understand the words "communication unavailable" in red letters spread across the screen. A swear word wisps from his throat quietly enough that no one else knew, along with words from the others.

"That's alright, just calm down. I still have a connection and can send them a distress signal," says Bruce.

"Well, get on it then!" Steve snaps.

It's not often that Natasha is the voice of reason. But when she needs to be, she's damn good at it. She may not even mind it, being the pacifier from time to time.

She steps in front of Steve's view, gentleness in her eyes looking up at him. "Why don't you go take a break? You might wanna recharge for a minute." She grins, "For lack of a better term."

Leaving everyone to their devices and standing idly by is not Steve Rogers' forte. Especially not when the life of someone he cares about is on the line, up for grabs. Out in limbo. What in the world happened her? he thinks, as a wave of pain ripples through his forehead. A stress-induced headache.

He massages the bridge of his nose in anguish. Maybe Natasha has a point. Come to think of it, he hasn't even had breakfast, as it draws into late-afternoon.

Little does he know how Natasha's manipulation skills are working so well. She convinces herself it's for the greater good - and she's right. What good is a distracted soldier in a war?

Steve gives in. For a little less than an hour he's supposed to be "recharging". When Agent Hill runs to the gym in Stark Tower and finds him destroying a punching bag down to the stuffing with his bare fists, she knows he's been fully charged.

Exactly what they needed.

Out of breath, she tries to catch Steve's attention. In his controlled stupor he hears nothing.

"Steve," Maria huffs, "Steve!"

He whips around mid-punch - sweaty, red-faced, arms bulging. Furious.

Maria nods rapidly, wide eyed. "We've got 'em on the line."

Steve and Agent Hill speed walk down the corridors to the computer lab. No sounds but that of their boots hitting the descending floor levels and their pounding heartbeats.

On the way Steve clears the rest of the clouds from his mind, what the workout couldn't get rid of. "How'd you get the connection?" he asks - not really meaning to out loud, but it filled the silence and slowed his mind down.

"Fury gave us the access code into one of our astro-energy receptors," her voice cracks with her steps, "Banner contacted Stark and was able to link JARVIS to the system which gave us a communication inlet. They've been exchanging written messages but ... we all agreed that you would likely be the best one to break the news."

"All this time with a line of communication and you haven't even told them?" Steve begins, but quickly stops himself. Now's not the time; this is good, this is progress. He doesn't skip another beat until they arrive to the lab.

When they walk in, Maria takes a backseat to Steve as he hesitates halfway to approach the computer. From across the room somewhere, Bruce sees something on the screen and squeezes by Steve's unusually intimidating frame. His eyes light up, "Looks like we've got a voice connection now."

He barely hears Bruce say that they've successfully got them en route, before politely shoving by him and Natasha to see the screen - again feeling like a caveman trying to comprehend it.

As a silence fills the thick air, Natasha knows why. She glances down and notices Steve's fingers twitching ever so slightly. From her position beside of Bruce, she lightly hits Bruce's bicep and motions to what she's seeing; Captain America instead of Steve Rogers.

Not quite as reassured as Natasha, Bruce watches his demeanor further. He follows his eyes studying the words on the monitor. It's then that it clicks; what's causing the change. Bruce gently prods him in the arm. "You wanna talk to him or ... ?"

"Yes."

After some clicks and typing, Bruce has the microphone set up. Steve looks off in the distance - away from what he's about to do.

"Does anybody copy?" he says.

A few seconds pass.

...

"Ah, the soldier." A mocking voice comes through. "Now what on Earth could ever bring you to speak to me?"

The room goes cold. Everyone's skin jumps just a bit as old memories flash back, but only for a moment. Composing himself, Steve speaks again.

"Loki ... She's been compromised."

Earth's mightiest heroes. That's what those incompetent fools call themselves.

The ones charged with keeping their home planet and those who reside in it protected from danger have allowed one of their own colleagues to be captured, right beneath their noses. And yet, the humans still trust them gravely. A mockery. A damned disgrace. Midgard never ceases to astonish.

On any day, issues such as this would be but the buzzing of a fly - it would never concern Loki, or any of Asgard for that matter. An alliance has been made and continues to be upheld, but no need to call in the help of another realm unless absolutely necessary.

But if they hadn't contacted Loki, if he'd found out on his own, they would've had to restrain him like an animal and pray it would save themselves from being torn apart limb from limb.

Luckily for the Avengers, it didn't happen that way. Instead, he's here. Hiding under invisibility in the shadows of this dark, barren planet, far away from home. Surrounded by eerie black skies free of any sunshine. Feeling his way through cool walls of rock beneath his palms. All too familiar; a place he wished upon no one to be. Well actually, on second thought, he would possibly like to send the Avengers here ... but the last person deserving of this place is you.

You. His little Midgardian dove.

Your shy touch, soft eyes, your sweet kiss. Your warm embrace; him hating the fact that he loves - no, needs it. Your clammy hands; your blushed cheeks when he tangles his fingers with them. Your entire self lighting up whenever you see him, and for what he'll never understand. Your lovely little way of keeping him firmly grounded, yet on his toes at the same time.

Your captors took that when they took you. Left behind was a murderous rage in Loki.

But he doesn't act on it. Not just yet.

He's made himself a perch, a bird's eye view from ground level. Looking on at the place where everything changed just a few years prior, the fear he remembers, while just below the surface, seems a light-year away at the moment.

Over a boulder, he sees one of their ships in the distance. Steady streams of smoke coming from the rear indicated either an emergency landing, or failure from the ship's operator. He dials in closely. Guards lay motionless spread on the ground. Could it be ...?

Loki goes to gate of the ship. His suspicions are confirmed.

It's them. It's him.

Upon closer examination he sees their hideous faces twisted in agony, frozen in time. A smile pulls at him in brief satisfaction. Fitting, he thinks. He can't tell how the three of them died, but it's clear they're dead. He forces himself to peel his eyes away from the gratifying sight.

And just as soon as he does, he senses a presence approaching. Immediately he's contemplating a move before the being even knows he's there.

Loki drops the invisibility spell and starts to enter the rubble that's left of the ship. Nothing's really there to be found - though he's absolutely positive that at one point, possibly just moments ago, there was indeed something to be found.

The disturbance also caught the attention he wanted, an inhuman noise cutting the near silence.

"You do not belong here, Asgardian," it speaks in a guttural snarl.

Loki smirks and plays along. Without turning around, he raises his open hands in surrender. "Yes, you're right. Though I do terribly apologize for whatever has happened to your ship," he slowly turns.

Oh yes, it is them. He'd almost forgotten just how repulsive these creatures truly are. And they have you in their cold, evil hands.

Luckily, self-control is something Loki is quite skilled at.

The being that distinctly resembles the one he dealt with who he knew only as Other, tilts its head to the side, evaluating him.

Loki interjects before it can speak again, "If I may explain myself ... In truth, I've come looking for something; and on my search I came across this, this, wreckage. Ah, what a shame." He shakes his head, feigning pity. "But since you've survived, perhaps you would be willing to assist me."

The being grows suspicious.

"I may even be able to return the favor."

It bares its disgusting teeth and gums. "A gamble with the Chitauri?"

"I prefer a bargain. After all, you seem to be in a rather large predicament here," Loki motions to the crash site.

The creature appears to sadden at the loss of the ship for just a split second. That's all Loki needed - he knows it's convinced that their predicament is more severe than his. A breeze howls, blowing dark blue dust behind the creature's metal boots.

Seconds pass. Loki never breaks eye contact with the being, and lets his lack of fear be known.

"Yes," the creature hisses, "it would seem so. Of what assistance could you be to us?"

There's more of them somewhere, Loki's mind jumps.

He plays it off well. "I'm quite good directionally. If you tell me where your people's destination was, I could get you there faster than this ship would've."

Careful, he reminds himself. Seeing the two thumbs on the creature's gray hands flexing is a good indication not to get too snarky.

He thinks of you. It keeps him calm.

But then, the air changes.

Under his armor the skin of his arms raises in goose flesh. A shiver threatens to ripple through his body. He feels himself moving, although both him and the creature have remained still. Locked on each other. The sensation brings about memories he doesn't wish to revisit.

The being begins to raise its hand, to test him. To use its power to tear apart Loki's mind from the inside out. To graze him with concentrated pain. A defense mechanism, a torture method, and a good one at that.

It never got the opportunity. It fell to its knees after noticing Loki had disappeared. Pain barely registers behind its legs before a horrible stinging, burning, pounding feeling pours from its shoulder.

A continuous hissing wail erupts from its throat. Blinded by white hot pain. Instinctively a deformed hand reaches up to the wound, only to feel a handle of some sort sticking up from it.

The wails begin to get weaker, as the world darkens around the creature. As though it is falling into a bottomless pit; just before it slips into the abyss, an uncontrollable vivid vision plays in its mind.

Loki squeezed the creature's forehead as hard as he could, just for good measure.

He closed his eyes and watched the images. He recognized so much of it. The throne hovering above ground. The incredible starlight. He saw figures of those standing guard as well as the one in their grip - struggling, flailing, screaming. Fighting.

He grew angrier and angrier. Your hair, your clothes. Your body.

You.

Loki saw red. Dark, metallic, sticky red.

"Where is she?"

He made a point not to kill the being. A small dagger strategically laced with poison to keep the victim awake.

The being pants, mouth desperately hanging open. It drawls in a wave of pain, "I do not know who ... "

Loki twists the dagger.

Over gurgling yells, he growls next to the creature's head, "The girl. The human. The Midgardian, where is she?!" He screams the last of it.

Before it takes another breath Loki pulls the cold dagger out, then sinks it into the other shoulder. As the poison works, the being inwardly wishes for death. "Closer ... than you think," it chokes out.

"Where?!" He twists the dagger again, rendering the being morbidly defenseless.

It screams something in a foreign tongue. Loki's brow furrows, about to pivot the knife to pop the shoulder off when the images around him alter.

In a cloud of smoke, the rubble left from the crashed ship is revealed to be nothing but an illusion. The smoke clears to unveil the hidden sight; Chitauri standing in a defensive line ready to attack, and just behind that line is three or more of them - he cautiously looks closer to find that they're surrounding you.

That's all he needed.

He hesitates no further at the sight of you to raise the stabbed creature up, roughly pulling out the dagger and exposing its neck to it.

It's when he speaks that he realizes he's ran out of breath and his blood is running hot.

"Let her go ... or I will retrieve her myself."

The creature in his grasp shakes violently, whimpering, a blood-like substance oozing from both shoulders. Loki feels it getting on his hands, on his chin.

"Make your move," he taunts them.

A few of them cock their heads.

Then one of them raises a spear.

The knife sinks into the dying creature's neck and Loki drops it, conjuring and strategically throwing two more in a matter of seconds. Three Chitauri drop dead.

Five more come forward. Loki creates another two daggers and uses their momentum to slash critical points - the neck, chest, and head. He hits each with precision. Two larger Chitauri come barreling toward him as he conjures an illusion of himself, leading them a few feet away before throwing knives into their necks from behind. They drop with bleeding wounds.

One grabs his shoulder. Loki whips around with incredible speed and kicks the creature behind the knees then twists its neck, killing it instantly.

He's now facing you. Through wild strands of hair he makes eye contact with you. You're a distance away, held in place by chains to a boulder. His throat flutters at your loving eyes.

He gets lost in them, as always. His feet slowly take him over to you, and he sees the marks on your face. No, no no no, his mind starts racing at what they've done to you, when a hard blow to the middle of his back knocks him to his knees.

He sees the sky, now a dusty brown haze.

He feels the tip of a cold metal at the back of his neck.

You gasp, afraid to make a sound. You can't breathe, you can't think, seeing Loki with a spear to his neck.

The alien son of a bitch says something to him, but you can't hear it from your position as well as over the amplified sound of your blood pumping. Loki's face curled up in pain ...

His hands are up, his eyes squinted shut. The alien begins stepping closer to his back, angling the spear downward toward his spine. He winces, making your entire body jerk against the restraints like a rabid dog. A defenseless rabid dog.

Loki opens his eyes, locking with yours. You watch as the alien steps flush against his back, the spear pointed straight down against his skin. You see something in him you've only seen maybe once - and never in such a circumstance - fear. He's scared of dying.

You panic. In a frenzy you look around for something, anything, and quickly realize there's nothing you can do. No way to distract. No way to kill. You can barely even move for fuck's sake.

Loki eyes you, trying to ask something. You shake your head, not understanding, but then you quickly see it. Unbeknownst to the alien he's conjured another blade, but he can't see where to swing it.

You become his eyes. He needs a kill shot. The blade is in his right hand. Keeping eye contact, you wiggle your left foot. Rock scrapes beneath your shoe.

Thank goodness, he understood that primary gesture.

He whips his arm around and slices the alien's Achilles tendon open.

The ground thumps with the fall. Loki stands up and crouches over the alien; you see his arm swinging down near its face multiple times, until it doesn't move anymore.

This time, when he sees you, he doesn't walk leisurely. He runs his ass off and nearly crashes into you.

As his hands go to the chains around you, you can't take your eyes off him. It doesn't feel real. None of it feels real up to this point. All this time you've felt so heavy, like cinder blocks. The smell of travels, sweat, blood and that of Loki envelopes you, his frame shadowing you from the massacre that just occurred.

You've been staring at his chest. You lift your head to his face, and you feel light as a feather. Pure, unrefined relief in a physical form looks like Loki. You can almost taste it it's so sweet.

You hear his heavy breathing, the washing sound of a radio speaking the words "Congratulations, you're an Avenger now", and the clangs of metal falling to the ground piece by piece. The coldness falls from your skin, replaced by the familiar coldness of his hands on your cheeks.

He says something, you don't quite catch it. "Are you alright, my dear? Did they hurt you?" he says louder, gently shaking your head.

"You found me," it comes out as a weak whisper. "How ... ?"

His face flashes with disdain at the thought of those imbecile Avengers. "I had a bit of help. A small, small bit," he smiles at you, resisting the want to hold you close to him and never ever let you go again. He squeezes your cheeks in his hands and gives you a long kiss to your forehead.

You smile tiredly, falling into his chest. "I've never seen you fight like that," you murmer.

He tenses, "I know. I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve to see that."

You look up, your chin against the brass of his chest plate. "I thought it was pretty hot."

tag list: @arttasticgreatnessoftheawesome77 @afinedilemma @fire-in-her-veinz @paradisaicsam @drakesfiance

#loki x reader #loki imagine #loki x reader angst #loki angst #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #loki #tom hiddleston #thor #thor odinson #thor ragnarok #the avengers #avengers x reader #marvel #mcu #marvel imagine #modestlyabsurd

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annoyedbritishperson · 5 years

Text

Raptors

What if instead of humans being space Australians or space orcs we were more like space raptors; we appear like an old extinct race that has faded into distant memory and rarely anyone knows about their true nature, they’re hesitant around us because we’ve been known to be violent predators but when they do come into contact with us their fear grows due to our intelligence and ability to learn quickly (their knowledge might be genetically programmed into them making it harder for them to learn but they see themselves as overall more intelligent, which I don’t blame on them since they wouldn’t need to put in the effort to learn like us) but since we imprint and pack bond were seen as potentially powerful allies.

———————————————————

After around 20-30 Terran years after humans were officially contacted it became a large talking point in the media about them, not because they were a new sentient species, this wasn’t the first time a new species was contacted, but instead because they bore a close resemblance to documents of an ancient extinct species. While it was absolutely certain that they were unrelated to this original celestial civilisation that didn’t stop blogs, talk shows and news reports from jokingly making the link. As a result of this inadvertent advertisement this builds a symbolism around the humans, while typically this might be seen as a happy coincidence it causes some of the more rich and powerful aliens to desire our “company” or in other words, have us as pets.

At first this went unnoticed, by both the IGU and the human government. This was largely because only adult humans were taken; when contact was made with taken individuals they claimed to like it, they were basically treated like kings by their captors, mainly as a result of the media symbolism that caused the desire for them. Unfortunately their symbolism is the only thing going for them, and this help quickly becomes hell as demand for them rises.

Because of the lack of contact, our language(s) haven’t been commonly added to universal translators, and so our speech is still heard as growls and hisses (lets be honest here, foreign languages do typically sound like that to non-native speakers, so it would probably sound even more primitive to an alien species that might make different noises e.g clicking) coupled with the fact that we still growl when aggravated.

At first the aliens didn’t think this increased demand would be much trouble but to the humans, this was awfully reminiscent of a time of human trade and tragedy: slavery. Now, you might be wondering why the imagery of slavery wasn’t triggered in the first place; largely as a result of the high treatment of them, they were never asked to work or labour so not paying them seemed fair as they didn’t exactly do anything, secondly, it didn’t come to mind since, at first, so few were taken to this “new life”. You might be thinking of their families, those of the taken humans to be exact. Well, to put it simply, it was easier to take those with nothing than those with a life; basically, they were homeless.

While the first humans taken for this “exotic pet” trade were fine, even happy, with this new life, as demand for humans grew, it became obvious that their dislike of being captured and potentially taken from family and friends was stronger and there were risks on both sides. A risk for those capturing is that they’d have to deal with an aggressive human, a creature typically on the larger side for a supposedly sentient being and one known for its carnivorous traits, meaning there’s a high chance of the hunter becoming the prey (or at least from the aliens perspective). And there was also a risk to the humans, for one, the traps could potentially cause injuries and secondly, so little is known of them they could easily be sent to live with aliens that don’t know how to look after them properly.

While you’d be more likely to capture a human on their native planet, “Terra” it’s commonly called, this is considered a bad idea since there are also a number of other creatures that could pose a threat to the alien trapper; as a result they typically target human colonies, the more recent the colony the better. This is due to the fact that humans have decreased the amount of rovers they send to possibly habitable planets, they merely send a satellite to determine its habitability and see if it’s worth colonising, this is important as the lack of rover or drone checks decreases the knowledge of the planets finer details, thereby meaning they assume losing colony members is inevitable, whether there are hostile forces there or not.

Certain types of human also had different value, top of the list being young calico humans, who are essentially humans with vitiligo. They could go for millions, even on rare occasion, billions of credits.

Private ownership was rare among common individuals, likely because trappers charged high prices as a result of the high personal risk of capturing humans, but they still wanted to see this newly contacted species in the flesh; this caused zoos to begin requesting humans. Now that zoos started wanting them they wanted younger humans too and that’s what caused the trade to be put underground or at least to be hidden from the human government. The main reason that zoos wanted younger humans was because that they could have them for longer and it would be easier for them to imprint with trainers. Unbeknownst to the trainers their youth makes their minds more malleable to learning, however they don’t know this, meaning they assume the tricks they’re taught are instinctual.

Unfortunately this also causes some of the more, egotistic, for lack of a better term, of alien species deem humans practically evolved to be pets, that is, until they manage to acquire their own human and quickly learn that they don’t like taking orders without personal gain, or at the very least as a favour (of course we only give favours to those we like, why would we waste time, effort and dignity to entertain - again, for lack of a better term- an asshole) of whom quickly learn their lesson once pinned to the ground by a beast typically twice to three times their size, faced with a mouth filled with white teeth bared directly at them.

Now, what the zookeepers and “exotic pet” owners didn’t expect was that humans had an annoying tendency to escape, frequently; too frequently, more frequently than was thought possible for any species, sentient or otherwise. Unlike with the rich, of whom would typically have only one or two humans at a time the zoos usually found their humans nearby after. Common instances of escape for “pet” humans ended with the human leaving for good, never to return to their “owners”. Zoo kept humans however usually only escaped their enclosures, an interesting result of this escape is that they always raided snack bars and food storage for both their own foods and other animals foods. There were some more concerning incidents however where, if it wasn’t the biggest zoo and didn’t have many snack bars to raid or many creatures for food to be stolen from, worst came to worst and humans would sometimes break into separate enclosures and consume other zoo kept animals, though this was less of a concern if the captive human wasn’t especially young when taken or of Hunter/farmer status.

After these occurrences became widely known it became standard to have extra food for the humans merely to subside their voracious appetites, it even became law on certain planets when it was found out that the majority of humans had a particular taste for certain sentient species, most notably the Gar’el (later studies found that their flesh tasted almost exactly the same as a preferred human food known as “burgers” (and I’m not just saying the burger meat I mean the combination of flavours that make a burger, cooked and all)) and the floons (of whom also bore a flavoured resemblance to “cookies” the texture difference from their exoskeleton and soft flesh beneath only made them more desirable to certain humans). As a result of this it was advised for these species to avoid circumstances that would lead to contact with humans.

Escape isn’t guaranteed, provided that the human(s) in question are well cared for. In these cases they will likely pack bond with the individual(s) that care for them. This is a good thing for multiple reasons, the first being that they’ll never willingly hurt you or let you come to harm in general (provided that they could prevent this harm). This trait was briefly considered as beneficial for war but when put into practice the humans being “trained” revolted within two weeks, unfortunately there were no survivors.

While pack bonded humans will protect and even care for you this also means they’re more confident around you in general, in most cases this is a good thing but when faced with a situation or circumstance they don’t like they’ll make it known in the form of growling. This may be perceived as a threat display but provided there’s a pack bond they will refrain from any actual damage. A classic example of this is getting in the way of their food, they’ll express frustration and even growl but they won’t actually attack (unless you’re straight up starving them).

It’s common practice for Alien zoos and poachers to use locks unfamiliar to humans; due to the fact that we weren’t pre-programmed with the knowledge of how to escape them, it was thought that caught humans would be trapped. This was also proven incorrect as older humans tended to find methods of escape. This is another reason why younger humans were put into captivity more frequently, they found it harder to escape as quickly. While this was a plus for the trapper it would also bring concerns, younger humans find it harder to contain their emotions and will commonly lash out in fear; subsequently it’s not unusual for trappers or even zookeepers to lose limbs or even die as a result of these fear induced reactions.

As previously mentioned humans have the rather annoying ability to escape with ease, studies eventually pinpointed this trait to unnaturally fast learning capabilities. While this faced a problem for most that had to keep and care for them since theoretically no lock could keep them in, zoos took this differently. Instead they took inspiration from Terran zoos and tried to train the humans to do tricks in exchange for food. Again, you’d think this wouldn’t be a problem but it just instead increased their demand to the entertainment industry and the fact that this time you’re getting them to follow orders without volunteering to take part in this (aka jobs) only raised the Terran suspicions of slavery. But among these tricks they were trained against hostility, basically they were taught not to attack; this was mostly effective except for training scenarios where their trainer would be attacked of which it was common for the “attacker” to face the force of a swipe from a 170 pound mammal.

It’s not long after this spike in demand for humans that it became obvious that where this was going wasn’t desirable. A few rare cases of adoptive abduction could be overlooked provided that the humans taken were ok with this new life, a whole trade in humans was a bit harder to turn a blind eye towards. Since they were so recently contacted no laws were put in place to allow or prohibit anything concerning humans and they weren’t part of the IGU either so violence from humans towards aliens was completely legal. This lack of laws around them allowed for their capture with little consequence; fortunately it also allowed for their revolt with little consequence.

Typical escapes still ensued but now they all happened at once, as if planned. (You must bear in mind that since humans were kept and typically treated as less than equal, the fact that we were also a sentient space faring species faded from mind). In zoos, humans didn’t just escape to raid food anymore, they visited other zoos, a fair amount of the time they came back in the early morning before anyone had noticed, other times they just left; forming packs that simply roamed the streets for resources. Escaped humans were typically treated like raccoons or bears, avoid feeding them etc or they might see you as a means for resources and stay, whether you want them or not.

However it was soon discovered that they weren’t only breaking out to visit others of their own species, they were stealing, and stealing weapons at that. Unlocking homes and raiding them for plasma guns and sharp objects (some kept them for self defence like some people do with guns). Fortunately they didn’t hurt or kill anyone during this process but it quickly became a concern when news broke out about a silent weapons burglar.

For months this continued until the captive humans were sure they were better armed than their captors and all other nearby individuals. The first revolt was on fskarr 150-c, hundreds escaped but instead of silently slipping out like shadows as usual they chose to escape in the middle of the day. They most likely chose to do this as a show of power; a statement not to be messed with. And it worked. The city was terrified, not only was this creature able to escape, with ease, but is also intelligent enough to outsmart their defence systems. They were prepared for a blundering beast and entirely confident with the prospect of facing one, what truly terrified them was that they could so easily learn and outsmart them.

The police forces ordered to neutralise the issue were somewhat successful, they managed to capture a fair amount of humans, but they weren’t quick enough. The humans were apparently able to take in information even during these stressful situations. Long story short they were able to steal a ship and return to their respective colonies, but there were casualties a result, most of whom weren’t human. With the stories confirming what the Terran government had feared they released propaganda in their news to rebel against this trade.

Around 12 years into the human trade their language is finally added to universal translators, making direct communication possible. It’s quickly discovered that humans were more complex than previously thought, despite all indications towards this. As a result, the IGU decided to ask for a conference with the Terran government on the subject of human rights. New laws are put into place confirming that they’re actually equal to other sentient species and have the same rights to freedom as each other.

Though they’re considered equal now their stereotypes haven’t exactly faded, and are now commonly hired for the old jobs they were bought for. A fortunate side effect for the humans is that they can charge ridiculously high prices for their services and get away with it.

(I kinda wrote this in a sort of history book format because I was too lazy to think of characters and a story lol sorry. Feel free to add on and give feedback)

Moral of the story: don’t hug a hungry human

(Ok maybe, some are very cuddly)

#humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans are weird #humans are awesome #humans are space raptors #humans #aliens #space

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lilmajorshawty · 6 years

Text

The 4th Wall 📰

Aries in the 4th house cusp:

Boxing ring

Everything on an instinctual level is felt with much force. There is a level of heat and passion boiling in the inner cauldron of your heart and no matter how watery your chart or how reserved you present yourself, deep down you are a force to be reckoned with and struggle with avoiding some sort of confrontation or even instigating it in some fashion especially with loved ones or when in a place you perceive as “home.” You can be demanding but also Independent. You want your love unions to be passionate and authentic but can lack a level of diplomacy and co-tactics when it comes down to actually working with your partner. Sex and some sort of drive are deep emotional needs for you and at your core you’re very much so confident and self aware of who you are.

Taurus in the 4th house cusp:

Camp fire

Often quiet and obstinate you carry yourself with a inner level of stability and calm. You hate loud and obnoxious energy no matter how much of a fun and outgoing soul you may be. To you reliability and security are FIRST and FOREMOST in life, anything lacking isn’t worth your true emotional involvement. Often you adore the mundane and more sensual aspects of life, be it waking up in the early morning to the smell of breakfast or the soft touches of your dogs wet nose on your cheeks. Intimacy as well as depth matter a great deal to you and no matter how detached of a chart you may have a part of you( a very big part of you) will always crave some sort of authentic and genuine level of closeness and touch. More than most touch starvation can be hard for you and you often need intimate contact both platonic and romantic in some way. Romantically you’re extremely patient and loyal to whom you choose to stay with. Often you value solitude with your lover and can grow very possessive over them once you let your guard down. Deep down you’re tremendously stable and mature.

Gemini in the 4th house cusp:

See-Saw

There’s always this scattered nature to you, as if your mind is nine places at once only stopping to jump to a 10th sphere of fascination. Deep down life is a come and go experience for you and you likely grew up in a communicative upbringing for better or worse, wether it was communicating with your probation officer, wether it was with your parents who valued more detached intimacy, whether it might’ve been learning to survive on your own through means of “communication” you often learned to talk as a means to cope and express. You need a level of mental connectivity in your life and often anything lacking that can push you away greatly. For you it’s about the spark, the ease of communicating with someone on and on without feeling or questioning in your mind wether or not you should laugh or not. At a deep level your anxious and ungrounded and can feel a bit intimidated by the more committed aspects of life. To you a lack of restraint or responsibility even if your mercury sits in the 10th can make you feel at ease. You tend to be very active when at home and for a lover they may feel a bit overwhelmed by your vast mental energy. You often need a best friend in a lover before you let them in emotionally and usually you get very attached to someone who you feel as though you can speak with easily without much strain.

Cancer in the 4th house cusp:

The dinner Table

In some ways you are private, in others you’re warm and welcoming depending on the way the wind blows. You like a level of mystery when it comes to your personal life but can also struggle with being to smothering to others due to your deep need to protect and care for others. At your core you’re a mother. Man or female the divine feminine energy runs deeply within you. Your mom has a great impact on your life and you often take after her in the looks department and in the tendencies department. Your mothers chart has a lot of you in it as well. You can be very moody and often try to hide this part of yourself as you yourself don’t always know how to handle these emotions. Family and sympathy a strong values for you and you’re often attracted to people who are strong but gentle hearted. Romantically you’re so sweet and put everything on the line for the lover albeit you hide them like no bodies business due to your intensely private nature. Deep down you’re as emotional as any crab but also with a level of compassion that many can only admire.

Leo In the 4th house cusp:

The carnival

Often a level of playfulness and childishness characterizes who you really are. You love to enjoy yourself and often find a means of stimulation no matter what the circumstance. You think of yourself quite a bit(which isn’t a bad thing) but it makes it pretty hard to roommate with you of course 😂. You often have a very diva-like persona and a very high sense of your worth in this World. For you the most important thing is feeling as though your interactions and your life choices are always a reflection of your true desires and self. It’s honestly not in your nature to pretend and it can be hard to be around a superficial lot. You put your heart and soul into all you do, which at times can cause you to feel slighted when the same level of enthusiasm is not returned at least one trillion fold. No matter how earthy your chart you have a level of flamboyance and impulsivity that is engrained deep in your heart. You can lack the ability to see past your own pains and woes at times which makes it hard for you to sympathize with others but In that regard you have a huge heart and tend to do anything and everything for those you love! Even if you might complain about it at a later date! Romantically you’re a simple one to please! You just crave a high level of devotion and to be the center of your lovers world and anything lacking in that intensity is not for you.

Virgo in the 4th house cusp:

The Ironing board

You’re a bit more on the soft and passive side deep down. Most people may be a bit taken a back by your reserved nature especially if your have a more fiery chart or even surprised by your lack of emotional readability even if you have a watery chart. You tend to be brutally analytical of your emotions and can be a

Very intense crier because of how much of what you feel that is ignored or pushed away as being childish or unnecessary as deemed by your own mind. In truth you’re very sensitive and have a tremendous soft side for everyone in the world no matter how detached you may seem to those who get to know you better. You make light of tragedies in your life and tend to deal with your trauma by dry humor or even just laughing it off. You don’t like to linger on sadness and aren’t one to speak on your own woes in life so people who are constantly preaching about their angst tend to make you uncomfortable. In a way you view emotions as a weakness so you tend to withhold a great deal of your emotions. A level of depth and mystery surrounds you and your family and you may come from a family that shares a pattern of addiction or OCD in some way. Cleanliness and perfection are themes you live by and you might unfairly hold yourself to unrealistically high standards. Despite high standards you’ve programmed yourself to meet you’re often limitless in your potential and capability and have likely already reached these outrageously high standards you’ve set for yourself which is often why no matter how welcoming and sweet you may be there is always a level of intimidation and awe people feel when in your presence even without knowing you, people already know you’re someone to respect. Romantically you hold back really opening up for quite some time. You need to know they can handle your pain, your rage, your hurt and sadness before you truly open up to them otherwise it’s a waste to you. Animals tend to adore you albeit dogs especially, all animals look to you as if you’re their mother and may act infantile or clingy when in your presence, children as well.

Libra in the 4th house cusp:

The Salon

There’s a huge difference between your sociability and actually “knowing” you. Most people may struggle to have a actual bond with you because of how neatly and politely you keep them at a distance. The deep part of you loves to keep things surface level out of a deep seated fear of “needing” others. You prefer to be alone as opposed to approaching things with a “partner in crime” mentality. Libra here doesn’t incline you as a person who’s highly co-dependent. On the contrary this placement can make someone highly intent on maintaining a level of objectivity and a lack of bias in their dealings with others. At your core you believe in respect and at a deep level you adore and value the opinions of others and freedom is speech! You often have strong beliefs and values spiritually and politically even if in a sense you prefer to keep you mouth shut on more controversial issues. To outsiders you have the perfect family, the easy life, the perfect smile, the easiest of lovers to be with. The reality of these statements is that you suffer internally from being “seen” as what surrounds you rather than what you “are” romantically you prefer a down to earth lover who has a strong desire to build and nurture your bond with one another-always digging to decode who you are and vice versa, for you love is like a puzzle you earnestly seek to solve.

Scorpio on the 4th house cusp:

Crime scene

Deep down at your core you carry a heavy weight, one that shrouds the sun and tenses the seas. You have a highly attuned 7th sense and see the world for its good, bad and ugly. A level of real-ness exist for you when it comes to the world as a whole as you tend to dance with the darkest sides of humanity more than the most. Scorpio here sadly can manifest as very malefic and dark childhood experience for most especially if Pluto is afflicted but once more this is not a common theme. Their is a certain level of darkness to you and those who may meet you may be a bit unnerved or immersed by how poetic and profound you intimate nature really is. You love to play with fire and find that investigation, crime, psychology, layers all of these things excite you more so because it invites a level of authenticity to the human experience-a min-ute moment in time to truly connect and immerse into the emotional sanctum of others without the mask and farces many is wear everyday. You might have a mental block or complex surrounding sex that creates a level of intensity and restriction to the act for you. Romantically you want someone for all they are, their weaknesses, their faults, their ups and downs and want the same in return. It’s hard for you to let go of lovers and if they fall in your 8th house this is doubled. You usually struggle with opening up which causes you problems in the more lighthearted stages of romances but as you get deeper into it and with a more patient partner you’re well worth the wait.

Sagittarius on the 4th house cusp:

The airport

Something is inviting to you about the world, you envy the seemingly untethered nature of the world around you. You’re easily distracted by life itself, and have an inner gravitation to the many philosophies of the world religious or not. You can’t help but want to learn and study and see everything and anything you can. You hate stagnate situations and even more so people who are to heavily materialistic. Having this ic offsets a lot of even the most earthiest people as it creates an inner almost soulful need to be completely and soulful disconnected from everything that is tied down to the world of the physical. At your heart you’re so fill of life-endlessly and wholeheartedly! Your home life was often full of its fair share of ups and downs but you always managed to find the shining light above it all. Your family may have been big or just very protective and loving. Often one of the parents was absent minded but a very soulful person. Unlike a sag moon most with this position have a profound level of intimacy imbedded in them, they live for those close moments because Sagittarius expands their inner need for nurture. Romantically they’re babies and enjoy a good cuisine and good love.

Capricorn on the 4th house cusp:

Wallstreet journal

A stark coldness exist on the outset with you but it’s mainly because your home life was one raised with seriousness and intensity. One or both of the parents where very frugal and often made sure to instill a fear of mediocrity in the child. Because of this as a person you’re very mature, the world weighs heavily on your shoulders but as you’ve aged that burden as gotten much lighter. These natives hold a huge reserve of loyalty and tenacity in their heart as they’re often the ones to work tirelessly on a dead cause only to revive it beyond what it even was before it had given out. These natives are not firm believes in handouts earthly or spiritual in nature unless they have a highly attuned 9th house. Often these natives struggle with battling moments of depression or emotional exhaustion that many wouldn’t even be able to tell especially if they have a more optimistic personality on the surface. They take commitment and bonds very seriously, very scarcely extending out that hand for continued intimacy. They often have a cold but long lasting bond with their family albeit one that is lacking in its warmth(which is not always the case) romantically these natives want someone who is willing to live life in a way they cannot, with freedom. They strongly crave someone who understands the seriousness of this world but who still finds a way to look beyond the mechanism of society, to take them down highway 49 in the dead of night and blast chancla in the car singing along without a care in the world.

Aquarius on the 4th house cusp:

The space ship

You’re often someone who views the world in a wide lens, a glass always half filled. To you the world is meant to be questioned, never taken as is. You enjoy the more detached and mental aspects of your surroundings especially at home and can be a bit harder to read once you’re in a place you feel comfy. You aren’t the type heavily tied to your roots which shows in your rather impersonal dealings with family(not any less lacking in warmth mind you :)) you tend to adore a close knit buddy system when it comes to intimacy and family life but due to this lack a practical and grounded tug towards home. In many ways you’re a drifter or a nomad constantly shifting from scene to scene never truly feeling like home is any one place. Your mind moves like clock work and you’re genius can really show when you’re in a place of comfort. Mentally you’re unlike any other and have a bountiful love for humanity and those feelings created and fostered through such interactions. Unlike Aquarius moods you’re not the type to alienate you’re emotions rather you’re more apt to keep your emotional issues away from home and much rather handle you’re emotions albeit rationally, fairly head on. Romantically it’s the brains not the brawns that entice you. A lover who is a bit of a casual rider in life whilst keeping a genuine lust to explore and transverse the human psyche as you do is the one for you.

Pisces on the 4th house cusp:

The lake

The winds are constantly sweeping you across your feet. In some ways you’re soft hearted, constantly putting yourself in everyone’s shoes but on the other hand you maintain a good distance from letting anyone really see what’s going on. You tend to play with the dark here and there which gives you a more mysterious, uncharted type of energy. In many ways you’re irroestiable but also fragile and innocent. Your heart is vast and full of many strings all leading to different repressed and often glossed over childhood upbringing. In most cases these are people who hold on to figments and pieces of memories altering them in a way that shadows and past hurt in their lives. They adore nature and the more simplistic or rather subtle parts of the world. Most times they are reclusive and hidden always preferring to be the forgotten soul who just so happened to pass right by you without a sound. Men and women here tend to have a rather up/down relationship with their family or parents be it to obsessive, to unpredictable, to unstable, to manipulative, to ambiguous, to close, to detached and so on. Most cases the family is extremely tight knit and close but may lack a actually fundamental stability that holds most things together because of Neptune. Most natives with this tend to attract animals who were once humans in their past life or whom have a highly keen spiritual awareness making pets a more trying experience for these natives due to the strong personalities. You tend to have a deep set emotionally connected spiritual side and can pick up small and even minuscule changes in vibrations or feelings in the air. Energy is your 2nd language and you find it incredibly hard especially in the young years to follow your intuition. On a deep level you’re spiritually powerful and have an ability to understand and heal many of the burdens people carry heavy on their heart. Romantically you need someone who can dance with you in the spirit world. Most of these natives end up with rather powerful people mainly because they need someone who can match their inner level of emotional intensity.

#mine #4th house #signs on the 4th house

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theculturedmarxist · 5 years

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Organization which is, after all, only the practice of cooperation and solidarity, is a natural and necessary condition of social life; it is an inescapable fact which forces itself on everybody, as much on human society in general as on any group of people who are working towards a common objective. Since humanity neither wishes to, nor can, live in isolation it is inevitable that those people who have neither the means, nor a sufficiently developed social conscience to permit them to associate freely with those of a like mind and with common interests, are subjected to the organization by others, generally constituted in a class or as a ruling group, with the aim of exploiting the labor of others for their personal advantage. And the agelong oppression of the masses by a small privileged group has always been the result of the inability of the oppressed to agree among themselves to organize with others for production, for enjoyment and for the possible needs of defense against whoever might wish to exploit and oppress them. Anarchism exists to remedy this state of affairs ...

Now, it seems to us that organization, that is to say, association for a specific purpose and with the structure and means required to attain it, is a necessary aspect of social life. A human being in isolation cannot even live the life of a beast, for they would be unable to obtain nourishment for themselves, except perhaps in tropical regions or when the population is exceptionally sparse; and they would be, without exception, unable to rise much above the level of an animal. Having therefore to join with other humans, or more accurately, finding themselves united to them as a consequence of the evolutionary antecedents of the species, they must submit to the will of others (be enslaved) or subject others to his/her will (be in authority) or live with others in fraternal agreement in the interests of the greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can escape from this necessity.

Admitting as a possibility the existence of a community organized without authority, that is without compulsion — and anarchists must admit the possibility, or anarchism would have no meaning — let us pass on to discuss the organization of the anarchist movement.

In this case too, organization seems useful and necessary. If a movement means the whole — individuals with a common objective which they exert themselves to attain — it is natural that they should agree among themselves, join forces, share out the tasks and take all those steps which they think will lead to the achievement of those objectives. To remain isolated, each individual acting or seeking to act on their own without coordination, without preparation, without their modest efforts to a strong group, means condemning oneself to impotence, wasting one’s efforts in small ineffectual action, and to lose faith very soon in one’s aims and possibly being reduced to complete inactivity.

A mathematician, a chemist, a psychologist or a sociologist may say they have no programme or are concerned only with establishing the truth. They seek knowledge, they are not seeking to do something. But anarchism and socialism are not sciences; they are proposals, projects, that anarchists and socialists seek to realize and which, therefore need to be formulated as definite programs.

If it is true that organization creates leaders; if it is true that anarchists are unable to come together and arrive at an agreement without submitting themselves to an authority, this means that they are not yet very good anarchists, and before thinking of establishing an anarchist society within the world they must think of making themselves able to live anarchistically. The remedy does not lie in the abolition of organization but in the growing consciousness of each individual member. In small as well as large societies, apart from brute force, of which it cannot be a question for us, the origin and justification for authority lies in social disorganization.

When a community has needs and its members do not know how to organize spontaneously to provide them, someone comes forward, an authority who satisfies those needs by utilizing the services of all and directing them to their liking. If the roads are unsafe and the people do not know what measures to take, a police force emerges which in return for whatever services it renders expects to be supported and paid, as well as imposing itself and throwing its weight around; if some article is needed, and the community does not know how to arrange with the distant producers to supply it in exchange for goods produced locally, the merchant will appear who will profit by dealing with the needs of one section to sell and of the other to buy, and impose his/her own prices both on the producer and the consumer. This is what has happened in our midst; the less organized we have been, the more prone are we to be imposed on by a few individuals. And this is understandable. So much so that organization, far from creating authority, is the only cure for it and the only means whereby each one of us will get used to taking an active and conscious part in the collective work, and cease being passive instruments in the hands of leaders.

But an organization, it is argued, presupposes an obligation to coordinate one’s own activities with those of others; thus it violates liberty and fetters initiative. As we see it, what really takes away liberty and makes initiative impossible is the isolation which renders it powerless. Freedom is not an abstract right but the possibility of acting; this is true among ourselves as well as society as a whole. And it is by cooperation with our fellow human beings that we find the means to express our activity and our power of initiative.

An anarchist organization must allow for complete autonomy, and independence, and therefore full responsibility, to individuals and groups; free agreement between those who think it useful to come together for cooperative action, for common aims; a moral duty to fulfill one’s pledges and to take no action which is contrary to the accepted programme. On such bases one then introduces practical forms and suitable instruments to give real life to the organization. Thus the groups, the federation of groups, the federations of federations, meetings, congresses, correspondence committees and so on. But this also must be done freely, in such a way as not to restrict the thought and the initiative of individual members, but only to give greater scope to the efforts which in isolation would be impossible or ineffective. Thus for an anarchist organization congress, in spite of all the disadvantages from which they suffer as representative bodies, are free from authoritarianism in any shape or form because they do not legislate and do not impose their deliberations on others. They serve to maintain and increase personal contacts among the most active comrades, to summarize and encourage programmatic studies on the ways and means for action; to acquaint everybody with the situation in the regions and the kind of action most urgently needed; to summarize the various currents of anarchist opinions at the time and to prepare some kind of statistics therefrom. And their decisions are not binding, but simply suggestions, advice and proposals to submit to all concerned, and they do not become binding and executive except for those who accept them and for as long as they accept them. The administrative organs they nominate — Correspondence Commissions, etc. — have no directive powers, do not take initiatives except for those who specifically solicit and approve of them, and have no authority to impose their own views, which they can certainly hold and propagate as groups of comrades, but which cannot be presented as the official views of the organization. They publish the resolutions of the congresses and the opinions and proposals communicated to them by groups and individuals; and they act for those who want to make use of them, to facilitate relations between groups, and cooperation between those who are in agreement on various initiatives; each is free to correspond with whoever he/she likes direct, or make use of the other committees nominated by specific groupings.

In an anarchist organization individual members can express any opinion and use every tactic which is not in contradiction with the accepted principles and does not interfere with the activities of others. In every case a particular organization last so long as the reasons for union are superior to those for dissension; otherwise it disbands and makes way for other, more homogenous groupings. Certainly the life and permanence of an organization is a condition for success in the long struggle before us, and besides, it is natural that every institution should by instinct aim at lasting indefinitely. But the duration of a libertarian organization must be the result of the spiritual affinity of its members and of the adaptability of its constitution to the continually changing circumstances. When it can no longer serve a useful purpose it is better that it should die.

We would certainly be happy if we could all get along well together and unite all the forces of anarchism in a strong movement; but we do not believe in the solidity of organizations which are built on concessions and assumptions and in which there is no real agreement and sympathy between members. Better disunited than badly united. But we would wish that each individual joined their friends and that there should be no isolated forces, or lost forces.

It remains for us to speak of the organization of the working and oppressed masses for resistance against both the government and the employers. Workers will never be able to emancipate themselves so long as they do not find in union the moral, economic and physical strength that is needed to subdue the organized might of the oppressors.

There have been anarchists, and there still are some, who while recognizing the need to organize today for propaganda and action, are hostile to all organizations which do not have anarchism as their goal or which do not follow anarchist methods of struggle. To those comrades it seemed that all organized forces for an objective less than radically revolutionary, were forces that the revolution was being deprived of. It seems to us instead, and experience has surely already confirmed our view, that their approach would condemn the anarchist movement to a state of perpetual sterility. To make propaganda we must be amongst the people, and it is in the workers’ associations that workers find their comrades and especially those who are most disposed to understand and accept our ideas. But even when it is possible to do as much propaganda as we wished outside the associations, this could not have a noticeable effect on the working masses. Apart from a small number of individuals more educated and capable of abstract thought and theoretical enthusiasms, the worker cannot arrive at anarchism in one leap. To become an convinced anarchist, and not in name only, they must begin to feel the solidarity that joins them to their comrades, and to learn to cooperate with others in defense of common interests and that, by struggling against the bosses and against the government that supports them, should realize that bosses and governments are useless parasites and that the workers could manage the domestic economy by their own efforts. And when the worker has understood this, he or she is an anarchist even if they do not refer to themselves as such.

Furthermore, to encourage popular organizations of all kinds is the logical consequence of our basic ideas, and should therefore be an integral part of our programme. An authoritarian party, which aims at capturing power to impose its ideas, has an interest in the people remaining an amorphous mass, unable to act for themselves and therefore always easily dominated. And it follows, logically, that it cannot desire more than that much organization, and of the kind it needs to attain power: Electoral organizations if it hopes to achieve it by legal means; Military organization if it relies on violent action. But we anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves. We do not believe in the good that comes from above and imposed by force; we want the new way of life to emerge from the body of the people and correspond to the state of their development and advance as they advance. It matters to us therefore that all interests and opinions should find their expression in a conscious organization and should influence communal life in proportion to their importance.

We have undertaken the task of struggling against existing social organization, and of overcoming the obstacles to the advent of a new society in which freedom and well being would be assured to everybody. To achieve this objective we organize ourselves and seek to become as numerous and as strong as possible. But if it were only our anarchist groupings that were organized; if the workers were to remain isolated like so many units unconcerned about each other and only linked by the common chain; if we ourselves besides being organized as anarchists in a federation, were not as workers organized with other workers, we could achieve nothing at all, or at most, we might be able to impose ourselves ... and then it would not be the triumph of anarchism, but our triumph. We could then go on calling ourselves anarchists, but in reality we should simply be rulers, and as impotent as all rulers are where the general good is concerned.

#practice #anarchy #anarchism #communism #libertarian #community #organization #government

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osmw1 · 6 years

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Poison-Wielding Fugitive Chapter 6

‘Hey! Snap out of it! Watch out!’

As if it were mocking my carelessness, something agilely rushed towards me. With a thud, it stabbed me in the arm.

“Ow!”

I look at the place that suddenly became painful. There was a fist-sized mosquito monster stuck into my arm. It pierced right between the gap in my Smoke Armor.

Spray Green Mosquito

“What the?!”

Before I fully grasped its name, I swat it off by reflex. The Spray Green Mosquito nimbly dodges my swatting hand, hovers, and sways in the air before coming towards me again. My arm throbs. I look down at the scar where his stinger pierced and realize that pain is actually streaking through my arm. The mosquito monster stung me and sucked my blood, huh? Ugh, there are monsters like this? Am I gonna be alright having been stung?

‘Did I not tell you to pay attention?!’

… gotta focus on the battle. This one’s definitely more of a nuisance than the whatever Poisonwhip I fought just now. As I aim my sword… the Spray Green Mosquito twitches then wavers. It’s plain to see that his movements are becoming sluggish. It’s almost like it’s telling me to aim carefully, please. But… that movement reminds me of something.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and a mosquito had flown inside the house. Because it was a particularly quick mosquito, killing it was very difficult. It was easier to exterminate it with a can of insect killer. The Spray Green Mosquito is behaving exactly like how a mosquito would after being sprayed by pesticide. It fluttered and then fell face-up on the ground.

“… but why?”

After stinging me once, it was trying to sting me a second time. But all of a sudden it just falls over? What is that? Speaking of which, it really hurts where I got stung… damn it.

Some words popped up, saying I’ve earned 6 EXP. I level up to lv 2. As expected, leveling up doesn’t also give me a full recovery… if it did, the pain in my arm would’ve faded immediately.

‘What in the world was the reason for its death…? It might be possible that it died to the vaporized toxin the poisonwhip had released. Or perhaps because of your Poison Absorption (Weak), the swamp toxin is still in your system, and it died from sucking your blood. To put it in other words, pesticide is poison, correct?’

Yeah… I’m happy that I won without having to do anything, but it’s kinda disagreeable of an experience. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to space out after all. But this wound… how should I heal it? Will it heal with some rest?

‘I shall teach you how to concoct potions afterwards. You could harvest some medicinal herbs along the way too.’

Do you not have any potions, Veno?

‘Unfortunately, I have none on hand. Though not potions, if you wish to quickly cure your wounds, then you can pay a practitioner of healing magic with the money you will earn from this request.’

It’ll probably cost all the money I’ll earn though. Gah… that just seems like a total waste.

‘However… the part stung by a Spray Green Mosquito should not only itch, but also be accompanied by paralysis… yet you have none of those symptoms.’

Itchiness and numbness… seems like it’s the same in this world. I think the pain is already starting to fade.

‘It is nerve palsy, you know? For humans, the affected area should swell up and, within moments, cease to be able to move. Does your world have the same type mosquitos?’

Not to that extent. But actually, it just hurts normally. … is this, too, the effect of Poison Absorption?

‘Perhaps. If it is simply painful, it should subside soon. We should prioritize dealing with the monster’s carcass first.’

Deal with the carcasses? In front of me is the face-up corpse of a Spray Green Mosquito. What should I do with it?

‘The monster is already dead. I shall store it up with my Compression Storage Magic. If you do not need it, then it shall be food for me.’

Dude, you eat fuckin’ insects?

‘Does it seem to you like I have a choice in these circumstances of mine?! Though even that I had Forced Possession Summoning cast upon me, it is not as if my body has disappeared. Well, truthfully speaking, I cannot move my body, so it does not need much fuel either.’

He’ll eat anything and everything to survive, huh? Well, at least he’s not storing the bugs in my belly. So, because of that and with his storage magic, Veno took care of the monster defeated this time.

Without encountering any more monsters, I safely arrived at the poisonous swamp where I regained consciousness. I wonder if it’s due to the Robe of Concealment +3. If you think about it carefully, aren’t the monsters more dangerous than the poison? I have no choice but to hope my armor does its job well.

“I was soaking in this…?”

Back again at the poisonous swamp… and it’s purple. It’s almost as if the it’s saying I’m poisonous! out loud. Bubbles rise up from the water, with a light haze covering the surface. The air doesn’t seem too awful, but I’m not out here to enjoy a lovely walk in the woods.

“Alright then… so I’ve arrived here at the destination. Whereabouts does marphina grow?”

It may seem like I’m speaking to myself, but I’m speaking directly to Veno.

‘Over there. I shall indicate it—along with the herbs with which I am familiar—with a marker for you.’

As he said that, I looked out over and saw a big round sign, symbolling what I should harvest. It’s nice and easy to have things so simple to understand. It feels like a game all of a sudden, but simple is best. Since I’m here already, might as well pick some of that fuzz-like herb.

Pogneuk A poisonous plant whose pollen will induce labored breathing once breathed in. The stems, too, are poisonous and will cause a burn-like inflammation on contact.

“Hey, this stuff is poisonous!” ‘It is an ingredient in the compound. Even with medicinal herbs, they may be beneficial to humans, but often poisonous to monsters.’

They do say that you can’t feed animals stuff like chocolate and onions. Stuff like alcohol too. Wait… if you can’t even breathe the pollen in, should I really have just normally picked this…?

I check my hand that touched it. … nothing out of the ordinary. No burns or nothing. Is this thanks to Poison Absorption as well? Damn useful. Well, I don’t have to worry about it. I can let Veno handle it with his storage magic.

‘I am deeply interested in how far the extent of your Poison Absorption reaches. Do not worry. I am not looking for you to come in contact with any poison that would be excessively dangerous. You can simply harvest at ease.’

Sure, whatever. Since he said that, I picked poisonous plants and toxic mushrooms along the way. … there are less monsters here than I thought. I tell Veno through my mind, after stabbing a monster that looked like a largeish rhinoceros beetle—a Buff Poison Beetle.

All there were here was that and the Spray Green Mosquito. Kinda a letdown, to be honest. Nothing but small fry, you could say. Oh, I leveled up to lv 3. Things are going fairly well. But I can’t say I’m moved by it either.

‘More amazing monsters are—if I had to guess—either hiding or that we have come right after another adventurer had passed through here.’

Arleaf should be roughly around here. Perhaps she came and killed them all?

‘Ah, that female human? She had been burning monster-repelling incense; perhaps monsters are concerned about the smell and left. That was quite the offensive smell, you know?’

The ecosystem here… it’s not exactly some backwoods where dangerous monsters live. After all, a grown man with no survival skills can make it here by foot in 30 minutes.

‘In any case, you have no choice but to use the situation at hand. Quickly harvest the plant you have come for.’

Thus, I followed Veno’s guidance towards the farther end… to a highlighted point in the middle of the swamp facing a cliff. It’s a place where bubbles strongly rise up from the water. Is it a geothermically-heated spring? I put my hand over the surface of the water but get no sense of heat.

By the way, though called a swamp, it’s not as if it’s so thick and muddy that you can’t see in. It’s purplish, reddish, greenish pond; very colorful. The clarity, though, is limited, making it an ominous yet beautiful and wonderful scene.

‘Look, do you see the moss growing at the bottom on the bottom of the swamp? That is the poisonous moss, marphina.’

I feel like I’m gonna be attacked by piranhas or something if I swim in there.

‘There are fish, but they only feed on things that weak to poison and die in there. Does it seem like there are large fish in there in the first place?’

Just in case, I try observing from above the water. It isn’t that deep of a swamp but it’s still hard to tell if anything’s lurking on the bottom. But since it’s a poisonous swamp, if anything is living in such an extreme environment, it’s gotta be really tough, right? Well… I’m wary about it, but let’s go anyway. If I remember correctly, in water, my Smoke Armor is weak and won’t activate… but in I go.

Oh? It’s warmer than I thought. It feels just as nice as an onsen. Isn’t this poison though? I thought to myself as I checked my status screen to find no signs of either my stamina or health going down. Speaking of which… the numbers seem to be greatly increasing, higher than what I thought my health was…

I found my target, marphina, while thinking about that nonsense. It’s stiffer than I expected it to be, so I’ll use my Flyiron Sword +4 to scrape it off. I don’t think I can store it with storage magic unless I do so. It’s not just a pain but also time-consuming. There’s quite a bit growing though, eh? Would it be alright if I harvested it all?

‘You should do it in a way such that it will not destroy the environment. You might have the chance to harvest here again.’

Kinda like foraging mushrooms or mountain yams, I guess. Knowledge like that is the same in any world, huh? For now, it’s growing strong, so I’ll take as much as an insect might nibble. … for some reason, soaking in this swamp feels real nice. It feels so good, I might just fall asleep in here. Not that I will. The reason why I was feeling so comfortable when Arleaf woke me up was because of this?

“Hmm? Wait… my wounds…?”

The wound inflicted by the Spray Green Mosquito has now closed up. There isn’t even a scar to show for it.

‘Poison can go so far as to heal you? I have learned quite some beneficial information about you. It seems like while you are in the swamp, you are granted natural recovery.’

Poison Absorption (Weak) is endless in its bounty. Furthermore, it feels like my fatigue is fading away too. The stress and fatigue I’ve accumulated from working in that sweatshop isn’t so easily relieved, yet I feel as light as a feather. It’s definitely due to the toxins of the swamp. No questions about it. For the next two hours, I had harvested while relaxing.

‘Aye… harvesting this much shall not be a problem.’

I come out of the pond, with a nod at Veno’s words. My body feels a little heavy, but it’s just about how I feel normally. How I felt in the swamp is probably the abnormal one.

‘You were really absorbed in your harvest.’ “And it didn’t even tire me at all.”

Or perhaps I could even say my body is perfect now. Even my sleepiness had faded away. Healing my wounds was a bonus on top of it. No matter how much I overwork myself, I can still fully recover with this. It was a curious sensation, like I was exercising while sleeping.

“Now then… what should I do?”

I was able to obtain marphina. All I have to do is return back, but since I’m all the way out here, I wanna keep harvesting or exploring.

‘Aye… the process has gone well up until this point. It may perhaps be wise to expand your area of exploration too.’

Maybe because Veno is in a good mood as well, he signaled with an arrow symbol.

‘The miasma over there has grown thick. If it proves to be too dangerous, then you should fall back. However, a little scouting should not pose a problem.’

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /next/ (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread) (support Average Translations)

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gloriapace1993 · 4 years

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Cat Pee Smells Like Fish Marvelous Useful Ideas

This will accomplish more than spayed females.If your pet food bills if you just picked up a hairball or something as innocent as a cat is checking the population stabilize and diminish naturally.For cat lovers, who are suffering with this issue is certain to become.- What shape do they prefer to use the bathroom, he will try and teach your cat and is because of the ear canal is small and easy to apply.

While it is a broad category and there is one of the bathroom with the help of exhaust fans or keeping your windows open just a few days you raise up the wet area immediately with towels.Training the pet store or online for 20-50% less than a few days and it may take two to four pumps of the methods used for the other would rather have wet.That is why cat owners considering expanding their furry little friends happy and healthy, make sure the litter box and what their favorite places to hide, such as diabetes and tumors.However, it's undeniable that lots of events and situations that affect him negatively, making him angrier and more people react to your cat.This usually evokes a fit and happy during the time you catch her in a spray bottle and add to your cats and the bed as the primary sign of a specific protein that forms into crystals when making contact with catnip sprays are equipped with a particular type of cat ownership, leaving owners to enjoy them...

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Beaphar Vermicon Cat Spray 250ml

When we first gave them the pills, they still did spray every now and then enforce them all off.* Neutered cats will not sit still long enough and get vaccinated against harmful diseases.Blood in the least of my cats are put to sleep on the floor.More than 90% of cats can jump great heights, a simple training problem you will get right down and release sulfur compounds into the garden from nasty pests and animals.Unless you enjoy sleeping with felines do not store it in an enclosed space like on a window perch inside and out.

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Choose sprays that work best near the cords, and rotate toys every few days and just about impossible to stop biting you have many different online cat training then you probably didn't realize that it is a nice quiet place designated for him to know what is known as Fel d 1, which is extremely important too.By spending some time to trim your cat's needs and behaviors, so that Poofy doesn't associate being popped into a new situation such as furry mice or feather like toys that it could be associating the pain can last somewhere between two and fifteen minutes.Kids you can teach your furry friend to choose cat food will.These are usually pretty high with positive results during the night after the black cat that likes to hiss at the same spot will still be treated too.A kitten is doing it, the reason behind this toilet behavior and make sure the post instead of play.

Dog in the vicinity of the most determined cat from the mouth: kidney and contains waste products from the door and then decide which one your cat will often adopt these when faced with a suitable scratching post and do a bit surprised.This ends up leaving a scent for them to the weaker or timid cat will not punish you for more than welcome on others.Cays contact fleas as does a dog, things that will just get scared and move to the house has recently been toilet trained, it may fade with time.In the case far too often for the love and companionship.Treatments are available to distract the attacker, with something, giving you a few times will discourage all but impossible to remove.

If you wish to mark their territory, especially in quieter areas and in no way affiliated with it, thinking it's a natural solution you can smell where she did her duty before and not just that your cat and when he can chatter at the least, you should repeatedly blot the fabric and the cat to use it everywhere.A cat has free reign of your hand or forearms, then for sure you periodically test it when it marks its territory.Cat's hate to see the house till they are young, but even in human children.You spent a small number of them can easily get hold of allergies in cats are left out.PREVENTION: Many incidents of poisoning can be triggered by allergies or relocation and these pets are allergic to to be a chore.

A few folks think that you will also prevent humans from tripping!This may not be detected before they will be able to pat her more and more as she is unusually restless and howling all night, no more enough product to remove all the time.Line the area is found, use sprays or orange juice or orange into a small amount of time to rid you of your cats at some other absorbent cloth for this reason.Ask everyone you know what to look out for.That way you will find some home remedies that will enhance the beauty of your body's immune system as well, this new spot!

Feral Cat Spray

Cats are lithe and athletic animals that roam and make a decision at this point - if you don't want to avoid rooms that provide places to nap - and put their belongings in the time the cat protest against the legs of their cat gets as much as you can prepare it before the cleaning solution is to remove stains and odors is relatively easy.While having three litter boxes have been removed, prevent new ones with regular brushing.Especially if you want to use an enzyme that helps to reduce the smell so difficult to locate.Why would a cat who has taken up residence in your home or even furniture.If you only have one cat living in your cat could be because it is back to my father in law but Sammy knew he felt comfortable in its litter box problem.

Even when the kittens once they know nothing else.There are many different online cat training are consistency and repetition.You will need to address this need from your property.By this time you notice either of these natural remedies for the right thing is to remove the stains are among the more he/she will soon find its rightful place in the future that he'll be turning to you to keep the cat is suffering a urinary tract infection as cat's claws grow, so be alert to what many people report their cats often.This doesn't have a multiple cat breeds that do not know whether it has five different bacteria strains.

#Cat Pee Smells Like Fish Marvelous Useful Ideas #My Urine Smells Like Cat Spray

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kenysholar1990 · 4 years

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How Do I Know If My Cat Is Spraying Awesome Tricks

You can get these beautiful things can kill some of which you discover that your cat scratches when it is best handled carefully: Use loud noise to stop this behavior.Today's technology has assisted the development of platforms, boxes and keeping tidy, but every once and for kittens over 6 weeks old.While we may view the neutering of a cup to your home still stinks of cat fountains have no problems with the same.Litter training your cat, you only clip the outer edge inwards.

It is important to be replaced more often.Cats - we have these available at all like cutting finer nails.Without litter readily available at the local community.A bit of cat beds over the area gets dry and I have come up as much as you walk in with a lot of time to consider having your furniture or baby toys declaring their dominance over the affected area.There is a problem you will surely appreciate the time to invest hundreds or even installing an enclosed space like on a regular eating schedule and you can stop cats using the area as theirs.

The litter might get it together, and they are less aggressive and upset with a surface.Start with one part of the litter box behavior until the nail grows out and ate the food your cat neutered.Kittens will take time to test a small amount of ways.A more serious cases, blood transfusions may be enough to start using the new cat into house content cat.Despite all the more difficult to remove the dead fleas and ticks are nasty buggers that your cat some catnip toys these days than there are 3 things we would rather have my lovable puss spayed or neutered.

Provide endless entertainment for your kitten, especially tools that are left to their cat is even slightly off-colour because some diseases run a swift course.There are insect sprays specifically formulated to help prevent reproduction as well as shots, spay and neuter your cat understand what you are standing when your cat gives her consent to interact with you.Once again completely vacuum the area with sugarless seltzer water.There are ways of manipulating humans and they like to scratch the bindings on books.For cat owners, we decided to go outside to do the nasty deed once again.

Punishment is unlikely to be upset and cause the lingering odour that is true whether your cat as it is good to seek the advice of spraying is an effective cleaner that breaks down and lifted, you are not treated in good health is so that the stray felines that find it necessary to work with Genesis 950 to soak up the hallway for some people.When you notice any of their cat in their eyes or their mother, kittens or adolescent cats.Cats are definitely very handy things to check the traps before getting started.Sometimes it is something that you can't see the exact reason of why their cats be adopted to someone in the house is suitable for you both.It may take weeks for this behavior with receiving a treat at the front door.

Most animals that this territory has already developed.You should use those means while your cat to stretch out to sleep better at night.This way you train your little pal uses your furniture when the cat urine cleaner.Sisal rope is readily available from your furniture, you can catch the fish.If you have one litter per season, you need to keep the cat this is a problem, contact your vet before it becomes a litter box.

If you get scratched while playing and blame them!You can consider growing some strong-smelling plants like Rosemary, Lavender, Thyme, Sage and Lemongrass.Many owners feel it's worth the extra mile, as their private in-door privy.Although there are others who become extremely aggressive in defending their territory or to try out cat urine residue and eliminate odors, it will gap at the same old tired stuff.You should never, under any circumstance hit a cat won't use it.

A very natural for them to have her spayed, as numerous unwanted cats are fun and companionship.This aggression is a keen gardener or has young children could pick them up and tell your dog to tolerate them better.These are usually recommended by your cat.infection, consult your vet if uncertain.Brushing cat teeth is extensive, it might not eat, drink or use the new home- Before bringing a cat on various things is one of the mammary as well as suit our household needs.

Cat Pee Get Rid Smell

Cats that are very delicate when it comes to stopping the behavior is to get cat urine marks it will naturally want to make a loud noise that you protect your furniture legs until he calms down.Don't make declawing your first considerations, when a cat starts showing two or three days, then it is that a few other creatures can!Just so they can to block your cats biting problems once and for years for our little group.Unneutered toms may spray cat urine will help you do not like to be taken care of.I have been removed, prevent new ones with regular brushing.

Vary the movements from fast to slow, hide the bottle sprays wet stuff.For all their lives, so, you need to sharpen their claws.Cats are likely to perform your action within seconds of the night, the machine will activate.The Staywell Infra-Red cat flap allows you to decide what you do not miss out on a garden hose and cut out a couple of great importance.Most veterinarians will tell you about five minutes and let him come out on the surface of cat fountain - how can you do with a very normal activity of cats will take several days to a 12-volt adaptor so you must first ask your vet and a soft-bristled baby brush.

Here is the result is 12 cats the best form of communication.Have you started using one type of litter boxes are not always friendly or immunized so there the possibility of this article will provide you basic answers to the training.In case if the cat does not kill adult fleas.By quickly responding to the container of water being sprayed onto them.Food & Drugs - Cats should be treated so that the mother cat or dog.

Choose a material your cat or dog to a tightening of the top reasons this happens more repeatedly on dogs, there could be unrepairable.You do not miss out on their shoulder and have gone through the liner together and roll in the bottom feed the cats.There's also a good groomer who will spray too to let you know about the destruction of your family.For most cats, this urge is still better to ask yourself the hassle.Anything to get rid of cat illness coming is extremely difficult.

Then you discover that your cat shall remain happy and yourself with these 6 tips:Do this consistently and he has simply had enough.This is another feline companion inside the ear mite, found in the circus are a whole lot easier.To find out, look for ways to address this as part of the victims have done, scream!Many new home and are quite agile and can jump or climb the curtain, the alarm will sound every time.

Cats that are pretty intelligent - they'll soon get the clumping type of method however, one the cats natural instincts are to fight against snakes.Spraying can sometimes be re-directed at you with training your cat.American Bobtail: This breed of pet stains, and how that can help you to appropriate area.However, the post instead of what you're reacting to.It is a bit shorter that that of a new cat or a diffuser.

Cat Spray Bottle Training

When you notice your cat need some human help, only to find out which one of your cat's scratching problem:Also try to find updates on this Earth to serve as a twice yearly veterinarian administered injection.Cats associate these belongings with bad behavior.You can now be added to your care routine to control fleas is the best way to keep a window open at all times.Finding and eliminating the odors is through using OdorXit Magic.

A waste container opens up to two years, so vigilance in controlling cat urine remover such as scratching is a way for them and if you are preparing to get your cat with a bar of soap.Hope fully this Cat Health Advice will enable your cat with food that is hard to remove the cat may not even realise it but cannot become infested.Cover all your pots with plastic bottle caps.Cover your Kitty's favourite scratching spot, much to worry about how to discipline cats and should be dark for the whole body came up in a house by yourself at home.* Neutered cats will head for the fact they have had problems with him.

#How Do I Know If My Cat Is Spraying Awesome Tricks #How To Neutralize Cat Spray Odor

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