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#there is no moral reading either

bethanydelleman · 5 months

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okok i was reading ur "why u should read ___" posts and it made me think of the time a friend recommended i read sense&sensibility bc she knew i was always complaining abt being a 'third parent' bc of being the eldest daughter and she was like "i think the book will speak to u on a certain level" and to this day the dashwoods' trials and triumphs are my most stressful and cathartic reread lolol. so i thought it would be cool to ask u since ur into jane austen PLUS have a cognitive neuroscience bg: what do u think a person's favorite austen novel (or heroine! or hero!) says about them? the more absurdly detailed you can get (once i saw a post "what ur favorite [tv show] character says abt u" that predicted the kinds of grades u got lmao) the better🤣

I don't think your favourite novel (Austen or otherwise) says anything about you.

My best friend is a very nice person and an accountant, she loves reading bloody thrillers and mystery novels. She ranks her favourites by body count. My favourite novel is The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey and my favourite Austen novel is Mansfield Park. I like the magical world-building in the first and the characterization in the second. I don't think either says anything about me personally (other than that I have good taste, lol). As much as my friends may joke about it, the person I married isn't even a little like my favourite character Henry Crawford.

Sometimes people really like characters that are a lot like them, but sometimes they hate them. I honestly think a lot of hate for Marianne Dashwood and Catherine Morland is people not wanting to remember when they were a dramatic or naive teenager. I personally really enjoy reading from the perspective of someone who is very dissimilar to me, like Fanny Price. It helps build empathy.

I think what most people enjoy in fiction and in real life can be very different. I made a Venn diagram recently of my three favourite TV shows and apparently what I love the most is murderous women, enemies to lovers, and people who want to die but can't because of magic and then rediscover meaning in life. I don't think that means anything, it's just something I enjoy in fiction.

That said, if you relate to Elinor Dashwood and reading Sense & Sensibility is cathartic, that's great! Enjoy! Jane Austen writes great relatable characters.

#question response #probably not the answer you were looking for #but the truthful answer in my opinion #there is no moral reading either #read whatever you want

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existencebringsonlypain · 5 months

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I may have posted about this before, but I don't understand the whole proshipper/anti debate. As far as I understand, I'm on the side of proshippers (i think fiction is fiction and doesn't have to reflect reality. because it's fiction.), but what I don't get is why there's such a clear defined binary, and why there's such animosity between the two. It's just a difference in opinion, like any other, isn't it? I understand that either group can "take it too far" (though i dont really get how proshippers could be TOO okay with problematic ships). but i really think either viewpoint is fine to a degree, they both have logic behind them, and it's just a matter of preference, isn't it?

#what i think i'm getting about why proshippers dislike antis so much is the restrictiveness?#but i dont. i doubt antis really want. like. any problematic relationship to either be eradicated or punished.#i'm willing to guess it's closer to “i don't want relationships that have issues + the narrative doesn't provide anything to challenge them #for me i think that's just kinda uninteresting storytelling but it shouldn't be BANNED. yk.#the idea of fiction is getting to see the world from another perspective.#and some perspectives are fucked up. that's just a fact. in fact it's often more fun to read fiction from someone who's “morally wrong”#because you get to see how they tie themself into knots to justify their actions.#but i completely get why someone might not like that. sometimes it's difficult to read a story where the pov is an asshole.#so just don't read it! it doesn't have to be a big deal! i dont get it #existenceunrelateds #antis #proship #proshipper #antiship #antishipper #proshippers please interact #antis please interact #i want group discussion!

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ladynicte · 6 months

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Struggling to find the right words to express this with, but I feel like a lot of the reactions antis tend to have towards TCOAAL are mostly stemmed from two things:

First, they see incest and immediately go ew

But second, they don't really know genre expectations, I guess???

Like the game is very much so openly a horror game, there's no cutesy aesthetic, or basic anime look to it. The game lets you know from the get-go that it's a horror game.

But I feel like they don't see that.

Plus, it's more specifically a horror visual novel with rpg puzzle elements, within the subgenre of gothic horror.

Which means, that murdering parents, plagues of some sort, incest between closely related family members, occultism themes, and cannibalism, are all pretty staple to it.

It's all pretty expectable, I think

But the thing is, that all of those elements are utilized as a way to symbolize decadence, and the death of morality, that the characters, and the world around them are engaging on, to the reader.

Most of those stories actually tend to end with those characters dying pretty horrible deaths, because turns out, fucking your sister, and cannibalizing your mom aren't like super good things to do, and they can lead you down a dark, and pretty logical path.

But a lot of the critism the game tends to get, is from people claiming it is endorsing doing said things.

Which is just so weird to me, because TCOAAL is very straightforward about it, it let's you know from her very introduction that Ashley, the main protagonist, is a bad person with a tar soul, who's making pretty bad decisions, that are leading her down a life of constant decadence.

Hell, the way of getting the better endings are by making her behave differently, and change as a person, cuz, you know, character development.

And it also let's you know from the very beginning, that her older brother, and her parents are also pretty shitty people, who are decaying themselves to the point where Ms. And Mr. Graves end up getting killed by their own two kids.

Kids who totally despise them, and aren't even willing to share tombs with them, after they show themselves to have become even worse people, by abandoning their children for the sake of their own material profit, and dipping on their duty as parents.

Like, idk, for me TCOAAL is just so obviously sticking to the archetypical portrayal of bad stuff that's adept to the genre, that the fact that some people can believe that any of those terrible behaviors it's portrayed in any good light, is so incredibly blind to me.

#like surprise surprise having morals not killing people not screwing your sister and not eating your parents are good things to do and when #you do them you might just be seen and portrayed by the narrative of the story as a bad person whos doing bad things and in thrn bad things #happen to you shocking i know #the coffin of andy and leyley #andrew graves #ashley graves #ms graves #mr graves #tcoaal #has anybody read the fall of the house of usher or am i just insane #either way ignore if this makes no sense im just tryna express something i been thinking about these days #luna says

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cradleghost · 11 months

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LYLA helped Miles escape Nueva York

Hear me out

- as soon as the Go Home Machine booted up she would have theoretically know about it - I’m not sure exactly how integrated she is in the Spider Society system in ATSV but my personal opinion is that she basically runs the place. + She has a connection to all of the gizmos in order to send pings and allow them all to communicate

+ constantly scanning for anomalies

+ able to keep track of and record information across dimensions

+ Miguel would want her to be able to have access to basically everything because he has severe FOMO and wants to be in-the-know everything in order to keep a handle on it — and LYLA is the only one he trusts to do it.

- with all that, Miles didn’t Sabotage anything when he returned to the base, he simply booted up the systems, which would immediately alert LYLA

- My Guess is, that since she has such a close relationship with Miguel, she has seen the downward spiral he has been on, and knows that Miles fighting back and not following Miguel’s orders was the final push for him to snap (I have other thoughts about this in regards to both LYLA and Peter B. that I will get into later.

- Because she knows that Miguel has tipped over that edge, and what she is capable of, once she receives the notification that the GHM Is active (after “seeing” the whole chase and, again — theoretically, hearing the conversation between Miguel, Miles, Peter, and Gwen, she makes the decision to help Miles.) + she does this by letting the program run, letting Miles boot the systems and filling in what he missed in the startup that he didn’t know about, allowing him access to the hand-scan and admin protocols.

- when Margot trying to figure out what was going on, LYLA kept throwing screens in front of her, and distracting her

+ if she is as integrated as I believe she is, she wouldn’t have had to ask “what’s happening” — it would have been simple: ALERT: unknown admin access — no designation (which should have been denied (she’s a super computer, she could make an educated guess that after they all lost track of Miles that the attempted access was him)), SCAN: earth-42 (which, if she is able to access a database of dimensions, like when she was tracking spot, she knows is one with no registered spider-person, which again, educated guess could tell her that Miles (who she knows is from Earth-1610 and who was bit by a spider not from his home dimension)) was the one booting it up.

- with all of that: Miguel knows that Miles’s DNA scan would come up with something other than Earth-1610 (he’s a geneticist in the comics so I’m translating that into him in ATSV, and knows that the scan would be funky with it). While he may not know Exactly what universe Miles’s dna would show, he counts on LYLA to send him wherever the GHM sent Miles when Miguel opens his own portal, and because he is so in-the-moment and pissed, doesn’t double check, ending up in E-1610 where LYLA knows Miles Is Not Currently Located.

Anyway I’m sure I’ve missed some things but these are just some of my Many Thoughts on the subject

#I’m having a lot of thoughts #lots of Feelings #about Miguel and Lyla and their work/life relationship #also read the 1992 comics they’re 10/10 #I’m taking a lot of their relationship from that and merging it with astv #to Make it 10x what it is in either #basically Lyla knows Miguel better than he wants to acknowledge and despite her being a computer program she Cares A lot #talk to me about it #across the spiderverse #spiderman 2099 #LYLA #miguel o'hara #miles morales #spiderman 2099 (1992)#ALSO Peter and LYLA talk about Miguel behind his back #miguel (affectionately derogatory)#my stuff #atsv

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deesi-academia · 1 month

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rough ttpd review because i need to get it out.

people who love this album, don't read it.

if news came out that taylor's ex thought of another woman in bed while dating taylor... if the ex told her taylor to get over her depression quicker so that they can get married and have a happy-ever-after... if the ex rebounded to a very problematic person and defended them from everyone...

yeah that ex would be dragged into the dirtiest pits of hell by swifties. but now that it's taylor who did all that and admitted it openly?

oh then she was just going a tough time :( oh she's just being raw and vulnerable about her messiest decisions because she trusts us! oh she was in a such a bad space because her ex with mental illness was exhibiting signs of mentall illness around her :(( it really took a toll on her, she was trapped trying to fix him :(( she's lost her youth to that man!! she's sharing her regrets with us omg she's so brave!!

Meet taylor, always the victim, always the oppressed, always the wronged, and calls herself a monster in the most passive aggressive way I've heard in a song. (I've rhymed here more than 60% of the album)

I cannot, with a clear conscience, listen to this album and like it. Not to mention the downgraded lyrics and repetitive basic production which covers at least 80% of the album. Most songs feel like a diary entry she put into whatever tune she got in a second.

Some songs here and there yeah I really do love them and want them on repeat, but majorly? I can't deal with this album. This album makes me feel guilty as sin.

With the marketing of this album, I genuinely expected some dark academia folklore type vibes and lyrics. Something like 'carolina' and yes, 'the albatross' and 'so long london'. But overall the marketing was WAYYY off, specially how taylor made everyone believe for a YEAR that Joe was the one who cheated on her. Now that the album is out we know Joe was just struggling mentally, taylor got bored and went to the nearest 'spark'. She was the one who definitely emotionally cheated first, no evidence to say she actually cheated but yeah.

The entire marketing being about bashing Joe and high-class lyrics and dark academia vibes falls FLAT on its face. The album is mostly about her shitty rebound and how she suffers through all of it. It's extremely one-sided and biased ofcourse but tone deaf too, specially with that 'without all the racists' line. The line feels like she's trying to save face after defending Matty throughout the album.

The album just leaves a sour taste in my mouth and on my moral compass. The album just proves how taylor owns the double standards in her favor because of the massive fan-base she's accumulated.

Tldr; this album is for people who are ready to defend taylor because she's their icon. its not for swifties/people who can be critical of taylor too.

#swifties when they make a good interpretation of a bad decision: ITS MY OPINION #swifties when others make a bad interpretation of a bad decision: NO YOURE WRONG #well this is my opinion #i have my own moral compass to follow and im not apologetic about it. go cry.#anyway yeah this album took a toll on me in a bad way #not tagging because i dont want to get attacked #@others who read this pls dont tag it either if by chance it resonates with you

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saetoru · 8 months

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i love when a blog says “this blog is dark content friendly” in their pinned post and then proceeds to speak poorly of writers who write certain dark content genres that don’t tickle their fancy 💀

#‘ppl who write stepcest need to kys bc wtf are ur morals’#okkkkkkkkk #weirdo #u can’t pick and choose when ur supportive of dc u either respect it or u don’t #no one’s begging u to read their stepcest u lunatic #tw stepcest #tw dark content

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superfallingstars · 8 months

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wow that marauders timeline post is actually really fascinating with all the headcanons. snape is headcanoned as being homophobic and also snape’s worst memory is reframed as retaliation for him threatening to out remus as a werewolf, which like... lol.

as much as i love the marauders, i’m continually baffled by fans’ depictions of them and their relationship to snape. making the marauders completely well-intentioned and framing their bullying as justified because snape was so awful that he deserved it (?!) just completely squashes all the nuance and tragedy of both of their stories. why can’t we recognize that each of them have legitimate reasons for the things they do, even if we disagree with those actions?

flattening their motives into a basic good vs. evil dichotomy makes all of their decisions (especially later on in the series!) less interesting. and imo whatever might be gained from making characters completely morally good is absolutely not worth the cost of making them boring.

#also to be clear: this is absolutely not meant to be an attack on op pls dont read it as such #i think many marauders fans have a similar interpretation of those characters and i personally do not understand the appeal #(where my morally gray marauders fans at? come say hi. hiiii)#marauders #hp marauders #the marauders #marauders fandom #hp meta #hp fandom #severus snape #pro snape #anti marauders #<- i’m not really either of those things but i want ppl to see this post and share opinions #really being strictly pro or anti any character is what i’m arguing against lol #my posts

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whitmore · 8 months

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i can’t stop thinking about that jacaranda tree in tallulah’s flower fields there’s so many implications there. the solid information we have is that phil logged in yesterday to “organize backpacks”, the tree and dugout appeared seemingly overnight, the waypoint is called ‘welcome back, nerd <3’. tubbo says that it’s likely someone who doesn’t know the mechanics of planting that kind of tree due to the waypoint placement in midair & the secondary dig that seemed to have occurred after the player realized the initial dig couldn’t host the tree.

our two most implicated players there are wilbur and tallulah; phil even points out that while the waypoint name is wilbur’s verbiage, the heart emoticon is not very wilbur and is more tallulah. he however pointedly makes it known that it’s built very wilbur-style, with spruce and stone walls. and logistically (to meta-talk it) it was not ccwilbur; he did not log in at an ungodly hour, dig a hole, plant a tree, and not tell anyone. plus (if we’re looking past the dialect disconnect) there’s no real reason for him to make a waystone seemingly welcoming himself back, and he isn’t narratively aware that the eggs are even missing, so it can’t be a wilbur-made-structure in preparation for tallulah’s return. so perhaps we say ‘well maybe ccwilbur asked ccphil to do it for him for some presently unknown reason and that’s why he logged in and organized backpacks!’ except why would phil lead tubbo there knowing it didn’t make much sense and was seemingly unfinished in terms of both build and story? (cc)phil could have so very easily diverted tubbo and him both from visiting but he made it a point to go out there to the field; phil saw the tree first, pointed it out first, investigated first, tubbo just followed his lead— did he know what he was walking into? was it planned; whose idea was that, the name of the waystone, the materials and contents chosen?

there’s no black concrete, which makes me hesitant to allude it to a dimensional-tallulah structure— there’s nothing that indicates she’s communicating like there has been with all the other eggs previous communications, not even a pink sign, though you could make the argument that the tree itself is her sign because it’s her favourite kind of tree, and it’s also her favourite color, but i think it’s kind of a stretch in the grand scheme of things. plus in a meta-sense, especially if we’re taking into account phil’s recent backpack organizing activities, there’s no reason to believe that 02 wouldn’t just dig and plant the tree herself, which still begs the question that even if it IS somehow tallulah’s doing, what was phil doing yesterday?

#eleanor.txt #qsmp #qmeta #i split this into paragraphs for easier reading but the breaks don’t actually mean anything #if i could morally leave it as one big paragraph i would it flows better that way #alas. i split for reading ease (both mine and yours)#it’s not like it’s a hidden place really either like it’s accessed via warp place in an open air space #it could Technically be anybody truly there’s no like securitycraft rp laws to respect #*warp plate my bad #this is kind of saying a whole bunch of not much bc i don’t come to an actual conclusion #i Do think phil built it. like in my theoriest of theories heart of hearts the timing of it all is too on the nose #ccphil that is. i don’t think qphil did necessarily #but i don’t understand Why. i want to know why so bad what is the goal of it #sighs. good things come to those who wait #also this is all q unless i specify cc in the meta sections. for clarification

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clowningaroundmars · 2 months

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morales twins vigilantes: getting found out pt 1

hey yall im in my fic writing era. but i am BAD at writing LMFAO i'm really not sure i'll ever write a proper fic with a plot or anything

either way, i hope yall like this lil drabble my brain came up with on a whim of the morales twins!

it's how i imagine the way their secret would be revealed after doing the whole vigilante thing together for a lil bit. it's kind of based on the hcs i had of the twins which is here, kind of a continuation of the last bullet point there actually

miles1610 is miles and miles42 is milo bc i read a couple fics with that name given to him and now it is stuck in my heart u_u

>2nd part here<

well. uh. hope u enjoy! :)

It was a fight that went slightly awry that really did them in.

No blood, no fireworks, no loud banging or explosions or anything. No one was even so badly hurt that they almost died, either.

It was simply just… a broken mask and their father unexpectedly being on patrol that fateful night that finally brought their secret out to light.

The Morales twins had been doing their vigilante thing together for only a few months now. Miles had been Spider-man for well over a year, of course, but it was after a particularly bad fight with a rhinoceros guy (what a freak…) that went semi-viral on social media that his brother Milo finally put his foot down and pulled those Prowler gloves from under his bed. He worked hard to modify the technology to better suit him, and had all of the armor and rope he needed in order to keep up with his brother all set in as little as 2 weeks.

Miles hemmed and hawed about bringing his not-super-powered brother around for the nasty fights he usually tackled alone. But he would be lying if he said that Milo’s concern didn’t put a small smile on his face in the end. Plus, it really helped out a lot when Miles needed to be somewhere quickly but still had a criminal left to take on and web up. Milo being just one text away from springing into action took a real big load off of his shoulders in ways he couldn’t even imagine.

That was about 3 months ago.

It was relatively smooth sailing until one Jefferson Davis took a night patrol under his belt without even warning the boys.

Well, Miles thought to himself in retrospect, we weren’t really around the house to catch if he did tell anyone, so.

Miles ran along a side of a building to catch up with the villain of the week. He was desperately trying to keep this super-powered baddie off of his not-so-super-powered brother, and not quite succeeding. Miles told Milo time and again not to tease any bad guys during a fight. Keep the attention off of you, bro. You do not have superpowers. I do! Is that not what Miles said? God, it’s like in one ear and out the other with this guy. Ugh.

Currently, Milo is parrying and deflecting attacks from this shocker-looking guy, a real piece of work. He still had his hi-vis vest on-- and Miles swore he even saw a name tag on it somewhere which was just hilarious, really-- but aside from his normal-looking work outfit, everything else about this dude was definitely not normal. Like the bright electricity fizzing all over his skull that just barely concealed this man’s real face, and the giant lightning bolts shooting out from his hands as he tried to fry Milo. It was a good thing Milo had enough sense to install energy-absorbing tech into those giant claws of his, or else Miles would be in real big trouble at the ER.

Miles ripped a chunk of some abandoned demolition project that never got done and swung it with all of his might in the direction of their fight, using his webs for maximum distance. It didn’t hit electro-dude but it almost hit his brother. Oops.

“Ayo, watch it!” Prowler growled, his mask distorting his voice the same way it distorted Uncle Aaron’s back when he held the mantle. He gracefully flipped out of the way and shot a grappling hook somewhere off into some scaffolding, pulling himself away from the action to let his bro fly in and give the temporarily-distracted electric-man some work.

Miles would snap back with a retort if he weren’t so busy pummeling this villain with all that he’s got. Both boys’ curfews were about an hour ago and they just knew their mom would be fuming once she got back and found out. But this needed taking care of, and neither Morales boys were willing to leave some freak of nature to take over Brooklyn and shut down all the power lines over a bedtime. Hell no.

But this needed to end now, or else good ol’ Spidey won’t be seeing the light of day for another 2 months. And by the looks of it, neither will the Prowler. Before Miles could even think to land the finishing blow on old lightning-head here though, tragedy struck.

An all-too familiar voice hollers out those dreaded words both boys hate hearing, especially in the middle of a fight.

“PDNY! Freeze! Put your hands up where we can see ‘em!”

Everyone did freeze, Milo looking particularly shocked as his head swivels around to the sight of waving flashlights and 3 burly but familiar silhouettes making their way past the far gates and advancing quickly into the fray.

Jefferson Davis’ gun appears to almost materialize out of the shadows, his face lit up in the harsh lights of his flashlight beam, sporting an intimidating, professional look. Cop mode, is what Miles and Milo called it jokingly one day as they lounged in their room, passing a bag of chips between them and having a laugh at their dad’s expense. That was before Milo took on the mantle of the Prowler. That was before this.

Miles panics slightly as he feels the man jump up underneath him, thrusting an arm into the police’s direction, ready to fire off a bolt--

Right after Milo lunges in front of the officers, ready to take the blast.

It happens in a fraction of a second. Miles didn’t even think he had enough time to open his mouth, let alone warn Jeff of the incoming danger. He figures that’s what Milo must’ve thought, too, otherwise there really was no other explanation for this stupid decision he just made.

Sparks flew, and then the thud of a body hitting the floor seemed to echo throughout the demolition site.

Shit shit shit shit shitshitshitshitshit, was Miles’ inner monologue as he finally landed the blow to the side of the baddie’s head, knocking him out successfully. He quickly webbed the man up to the floor, restraining him fully. The way I shoulda done in the first place, damnit, Miles lamented, freezing in place after the deed was done. His brain was working into overdrive to try and think of ways he could extract his now-nearly unconscious brother from this place without raising their dad’s suspicions.

Ever since Prowler joined in on Spider-man’s “adventures”, the media became even more fascinated with capturing every single moment it could of Spidey now that he had a sidekick in tow.

Headlines splashed on magazines, articles and news feeds read: “Batman and Robin! Spider-man and… the Prowler?” and “Webbed Menace Recruits Purple Sidekick, Even More of a Menace”. They haunted Miles’ every step. Milo, for his part, was mostly amused. But every now and then he would complain about being known as his brother’s sidekick, as if that was the most egregious part of having his every move recorded and uploaded for millions to see online.

Their mother became even more suspicious of her twin sons after she watched a video of the two vigilantes stopping a runaway bus in downtown Brooklyn. They looked eerily similar in size to her own teenage boys, and even seemed to banter the same way after all of the civilians were saved and back on solid ground. The way Spider-man clapped Prowler on the shoulder… hmmm.

To say that she shared her suspicions with her husband would be an understatement. Milo and Miles somehow always managed to catch a familiar cop car slowly rolling around corners and down streets, keeping pace just behind them, watching them. Miles would always roll his eyes, knowing it was their father. Milo would be annoyed but managed to shrug and keep minding his own business, since it was very obviously their father. When confronted, Jeff would try-- and fail-- to casually brush it off as simply doing Concerned Dad things.

“Listen, you two.” Jeff started one evening after dinner. He managed to get both boys down in their room one weekend, just for “a quick talk”. His excuse was that Brooklyn was getting too dangerous lately, especially at night, and that he was “gonna keep an eye on them” as a precaution.

But neither boy missed that slight nervous shift in his stance as he delivered the news, and once their dad bade them a good night and left, they gave each other a silent look that conveyed the exact same thought they were both thinking.

They’re onto us.

Well, their parents’ fears and suspicions were definitely going to be confirmed whether the twins liked it or not.

Milo groaned on the ground, the Prowler gauntlets having taken the majority of the blast sent his way, but the mask was halfway blown off, revealing a good portion of the boy’s face underneath. He rocked in place for a moment, blinking stars and dancing lights out of his eyes for just that one moment.

“Prowler!!” Miles shouted. In his panic, he forgot to lower his voice and conceal his identity, but his feet just wouldn’t move! What the hell, Morales… get it together! His brother was just badly injured and here he was, frozen in place like a deer.

Jeff, for his part, was barking orders to his coworkers and directing them to make a sweep of the place in case any other suspects tried to make a run for it.

They both left. He finally jolted his bright beam of light onto Spider-man, simply standing there a little ways away and staring back with those unnervingly gigantic bug-eyes of his. If Jeff wasn’t in work-mode right now, he’d explode on this guy and ask about what the hell was going on here, but Officer Davis was nothing if not a consummate professional.

Plus, there were more pressing matters to attend to.

There was what seemed like a teenage boy on the ground, wearing those goddamned gauntlets that Jeff could’ve sworn he shipped off to the junkyard after Aaron’s funeral. Damnit, if this punk was running around wearing his brother’s mantle and tagging along with Spider-man just to double-cross him in the end, there was gonna be hell to pay.

Jeff didn’t know why, but he felt slightly protective of the bug-themed hero, damnit. Sue him. And those claws brought nothing but terrible memories of screaming women, dead brothers and heightened stress. He did not need this right now, fuck.

Once the boy on the ground stirred, Jeff quickly pointed his gun and flashlight beam directly onto him. “Those orders were for you, too, punk. Do not try me tonight. Freeze. Put your hands out where I can see ‘em!”

Milo froze on the ground, and then tried to twist his face away from his looming father who was only a foot or two away with the world’s brightest flashlight in his face, fuuuuck. He just knew he was gonna be feeling this headache for the next 3 days…

Tentatively, he also raised his claws in front of his face as slowly as he could, trying to cover his face even more. He propped himself up on his elbows and tried to regulate his breathing.

Having a cop for a dad was not always peachy, but it helped a lot to know exactly how an officer would react if any sudden movements were made while having a gun out, and Milo was not trying to get a bullet to the chest on top of the mother of all electric shocks as well. No thank you.

It was in this moment that Miles’ brain started working again, and he unstuck himself from the pavement to reach out to his dad.

“Offi-- ahem, ahem. Officer Davis,” he remembered to lower his tone and conceal his voice a bit as well, and continued, “what a surprise to see you here. On this, uh. This very beautiful night!”

Groan. Oh my god. Even Milo rolled his eyes a bit, trying to shuffle back.

“I said FREEZE!” Jeff roared, attention still trained on Milo.

Without glancing up, he added, “And you Spider-man. Oh, buddy you are gonna get it after I’m done with this little asshole, runnin’ around with my brother’s-- man, y’know what-- nevermind! Just stay back, okay? I got this handled.”

“But wait! Th-that’s uh. He’s not an asshole, officer, he’s my-- my sidekick! He’s the good guy!! He helped me take this guy down! And he even saved you just now!” Miles waved his hands around frantically, agitating Jeff.

Stop doing that, stupid! Milo thought to himself in a daze, still recovering from the electric blast.

“Stay back, Spider-man. I’m warning you.” Jeff growled.

Miles picked up the hint and halted his movements, giant white eyes flicking back up and down from his dad to his brother and back. He had to think of something, or else Milo would be dragged back to a holding cell and both of their identities would be out. He just couldn’t let that happen.

Biting his lip, Miles gathered some resolve and stepped forward again. “Officer Davis—”

“Not another word outta you!” Jeff swung the flashlight right back onto Miles threateningly, and then trained it back onto Milo again. “I am serious right now, Spidey. One more word outta you and I’m slappin’ the cuffs on you too, I swear to god! I got more than enough room in the back of the squad car for two freaks!”

Miles recoiled. “Freaks. Geez, is that what you think of us?”

But Jeff didn’t answer, because he was all of a sudden deathly silent.

Both of the other officers just finished their sweep of the area, and were making their way back to Jeff when he all of a sudden kneeled down, still training that gun on Prowler’s face. But his movements were slow and hesitant, as if he were performing them in a daze.

Miles’ spider senses should’ve been tingling by now, at the very least a little. Still, he stayed glued to his spot as he watched Officer Davis-- as if in slow motion-- shifting his flashlight and gun into one hand, lowering both slightly and away from Prowler’s shattered mask.

As his other hand reached out, Milo flinched, but he didn’t need to. Jeff simply carded his calloused fingers over his hair, his braid on the one side of his head, in reverence. Milo couldn’t breathe. He was too scared to speak.

And then everyone’s blood ran cold at the same time.

Jeff saw the beads of Milo’s favorite basketball team colors, ones that he was excited to get again at the barber shop last weekend, simply hanging there tied to the ends of the Prowler’s braid, sitting limply in his hand. Milo’s blood ran cold once he realized exactly what it was that his own father was looking at. He didn’t need to reveal his face whatsoever when his now-exposed hair told the whole story anyways.

Miles’ spider senses finally kicked up once Jeff looked up slowly, an absolutely ruined expression rippling across his worn-out features as he really gave Spider-man a good, hard look, eyes playing over what little he could see of the vigilante in the darkness of night.

For a split second, no one said anything.

Even electro-head seemed to be silent as he came to and tried to sneakily rip the webs off of him. No dice. He finally turned his attention to the trio not too far away and opened his mouth.

“Hey, what the hell is this, some family reunion or something? Let me outta here, man! Goddamn, what a fuckin’ punch, man… shit…”

Everyone startled at the same time, turning their attention to the villain. Damn, almost forgot about him.

The other officers finally arrived to surround the other angles behind Spider-man, one of them even kneeling down beside electric-- whatever, the villain of the week-- and started cutting him out of the sticky ropes to put him in cuffs.

“Don’t even think about it,” one of them grunted once they got to his hands and saw a tingle of electricity surging through fingertips. “We got dampeners in my squad car if you try anything cute, got it?”

Jeff slowly holstered his gun, keeping the flashlight trained on the Prowler, unable to tear his eyes from this boy lying on the ground at his feet.

“Davis…? You good?” This was the officer who wasn’t busy wrangling sticky webs off of the baddie. He had his flashlight and gun trained on said baddie of course, but his head was swiveled to look at his captain.

Jeff swallowed hard and nodded slowly, a weirdly mechanical kind of movement.

“…Okay. Hey, Spidey. Thanks for this, I guess,” said the officer, keeping his concerned gaze trained on Jeff, shrugging a shoulder. “Too bad about your friend though. Hope he’ll be fine.”

It took Miles a second to recognize that iconic mustache, and then it dawned on him that it was his dad’s faithful friend and his own sidekick, Officer Gutierrez. How ironic, Miles thought ruefully.

He turned back to his dad, who was now helping Prowler up from the ground and steadying him against his side.

“What’re we doing with these two?” Gutierrez asks, because someone has to.

Jeff startles, as if he was just asleep and happened to wake up. “Uhh, about...?”

Gutierrez gave him a look. “The mask guy under your arm. And, uh. This guy,” he points his chin towards VOTW (villain of the week) as he’s being hauled up forcibly by the other officer, now in giant sturdy cuffs binding his arms together.

“The… that guy. Electric man. Just… just put those dampeners on his hands and take him down to HQ. They’ll probably just ship him off to the Raft. Let me know when you guys get there, of course. I’ll uhm. I think I’m gonna be taking my break right now.”

“You taking the mask-man all by yourself, then, captain?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. It’s… something personal to me, to be seeing these claws on this boy. I’m sorry. I think I might explain later but right now, we gotta get that guy behind some kinda bars. Please, Gutierrez.”

Gutierrez gives him an unreadable expression, and Jeff shoots an apologetic look back.

Finally, his partner gives a small nod and turns back to the task at hand. Miles breathes out a sigh of relief.

But it was a breath too soon.

“Spider-man. Prowler. The both of you. My car. Now.”

#mine #spiderverse #miles morales #miles g morales #listen idk what's getting into me either tbh i'm just......#like this is it i guess LMFAO #i hope it's not TERRIBLE but yeah these are my brain blasts i have occasionally #i was makin dinner one night when this occurred to me #bc i was really thinking about miles and milo just teaming up and doing the whole vigilante thing.... thinkin abt how cute that would be!#but then my brain was like “ok and so when do the parents finally find out tho. cuz they're DEFINITELY gonna find out lmfao”#and an image of milo's broken mask and jeff doing his cop thing popped into my mind #btw i know that prowler miles has his braids out n everything in earth-42 #but in this particular instance he needs to keep them under wraps so their parents dont watch the news and put 2 n 2 together #so yeah #broken mask= hair fallin out. oops #oh yeah pt 2 is in the works so that should be up soon too #anyways thx 4 reading ♡ :)

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brittlebutch · 4 months

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Desperately trying to make sense of Alex's motivations in Season Two and you know, I do eventually have to wonder if maybe Alex wasn't actually lying in the majority of those tapes.

Like, we tend to assume that Alex's motivations have been a consistent throughline since the college years, but do we actually know that that's the case? Do we know for sure that Alex was acting in deliberate, calculated ways in 2006; or could it be that he's telling the Truth on those olds tapes when he says he's blacking out and can't remember what's happening to anyone? After all, if we're assuming that Season 2 Alex's motivations are the exact same as his motives in Season 3, then it doesn't make any sense at all that he spend months working with Jay to try to find Amy; Season 3 Alex would have attempted to kill Jay like, on sight just to get things over with as quickly as possible and contain the spread of contamination as best as he could.

But, maybe, if Alex really had been separated from Amy after the events of the 04-04-10 tape, and if he really doesn't know where she is, then maybe that could make things start to make more sense. Maybe he really had been watching Jay's channel, and seeing Jay start going through the same things he went through in college without things devolving into violence and disappearances, and wondered if things maybe could play out differently this time. Maybe he really did send that tape to Jay to ask him for help, maybe he really was just trying to find Amy.

But then, instead of actually being helpful, Jay makes it extremely clear that he's a lot more interested in stalking Alex than he is in finding Amy. Alex asked for help, and instead there's a bunch of masked dudes on Jay's heels that keep attacking him, Jay is breaking into his house, stealing his things, leading the Operator right to him all over again, keeps trying to get other people (namely: Jessica -- if Alex is being honest when he says that his call reassuring her that Amy had been found was an effort to make Sure she stayed away from everything that was happening) involved; and instead of anything getting better, instead of anyone finding Amy, things are just getting worse all over again.

It's not until after the incident at the tunnel that things seem to start rapidly devolving. Rather than a calculated attempt to finally follow through with his need to curb the spread of contamination, this is very clearly an outburst of rage and terror. Alex's "I told you not to follow me" line in conjunction with Jay speculating that Alex didn't know who that guy was, to me, pretty firmly seems to speak to Alex having mistaken that stranger for Jay. From his point of view, Alex knows that Jay and totheark know where he live, have broken in before, he suspects that Jay stole a key to make it easier to get into his house, and he's been followed on the daily for months -- Alex is sitting at the tunnel because he doesn't know where else he can go without being constantly surveilled, hunted, and assaulted. And instead of getting a moment by himself to breathe, Jay followed him out there all over again (it feels like Alex looks directly at the camera in Jay's footage of him from this day; he knew for a fact that Jay was there), and then to make matters worse now 'Jay' won't even keep his distance anymore.

So Alex lashes out. And it's not until afterwards that he looks down and finally recognizes that this wasn't Jay -- it was someone completely innocent. Things have finally reached the low point he was at in college all over again; maybe even worse this time. If Alex doesn't remember attacking anyone in college, but he was at least partially conscious of it this time, then things have reached an entirely new rock bottom, they've reached an absolute point of no return.

He has no idea what happened to Amy, and he's spent months trying to find her with no hint of where she could be; he doesn't know where Jay actually is or what additional trouble he could be causing at this point; he does know that now innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire (in regards to the stranger in the tunnel, and also Jessica now that Jay has her phone number, and the untold number of people Jay got involved when he started posting videos to the Marble Hornets channel); things are spiraling out of control and there's no one left to ask for help. The situation isn't getting better, it's getting worse; things aren't getting easier to handle, they're just getting more out of hand; the negative impact is spreading and who knows how much further it can still go?

So, Alex decides to go scorched earth. He disfigures the body with the rock either to hide evidence or to make sure the guy would actually stay dead and not just get back up to start his own cycle of contamination in a few years. He tries to give Jay one last chance to back off, and Jay instead admits he's been talking to Jessica, acts obstinate and lies about not having Alex's spare key, and then breaks into Alex's house a second time (minimum). If Alex doesn't stop him now, who will? Alex met with Jay planning to kill the others, and then himself, so he could put a stop to this once and for all and keep things from getting any worse than they already were.

Maybe it makes a lot more sense if, rather than being a strangely incomprehensible detour on what should have been a straight path, the events of Season Two were the breaking point that put Alex on that path to begin with.

#N posts stuff #idk!!! I've been thinking a lot lately about the tendency to take Characters at Face Value; when they tell us things we tend to #automatically believe them despite what evidence we might have to the contrary. & like when it comes to deciphering what #went down during the college film project it's mostly totheark that posits that Alex was Definitely Lying and Definitely Acting on Purpose #(even Jay is largely ambivalent - wondering which way it leans and basically saying it could go either way)#but. do we KNOW that they know that? Do we Know that they're Right when they claim that? Or are they just Assuming based off #of their own rage and animosity towards Alex due to what happened? Do we Know for Sure that Alex Was Lying in s1?#i don't know if we do!! And so without Knowing that for sure; how can we speak to Alex's motivations in season one OR season two?#now TO BE CLEAR: I am not saying this in an attempt to claim that Alex is somehow completely innocent of all guilt and that like.#Jay is the 'Real Antagonist' of the series - not at all my intention. this is just More of my usual 'look. Everyone in this series is #all kinds of Morally Grey; no recurring character in this series is free of guilt they ALL have unique fatal flaws & trends towards #antagonism that makes things worse and dooms them all' shtick - a la 'everyone Thinks they're doing the Right Thing but No One Is'#BUT i Am wondering if this Does help to like. clear up some of the ambiguity/uncertainty of Season Two - and even Season One - and #lets the series as a whole read a little bit clearer? idk i know that Jay does Claim to think that Alex was bullshitting him #the whole time & was Actually planning on tying up loose ends the whole time but AGAIN it doesn't make Sense he'd wait so long #idk - Am i making sense? does any of this track? i'm trying to figure it out; i am open to comments on the subject to help #i haven't rewatched season 3 yet today and so maybe there's stuff in there that contradicts this whole theory lmao but i'm taking a break #and just posting this anyway; we'll see what happens lol #marble hornets #mh lb

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meadowlarkx · 10 months

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One of my favorite things about the worldbuilding in The Left Hand of Darkness is the "perverts" in Gethenian society—those who are permanently in one of the kemmer forms. The "normal" person on Gethen goes through a kemmer cycle with periods of somer, but that's not every Gethenian. People whose bodies don't work this way get treated with repulsion. Genly compares them to "homosexuals" in his society, and that comparison is really instructive. Gethenians may not have gender roles and identities the way we do, but they do have societal norms, including about bodies and sexuality. And those norms leave people out. They are imperfect and sometimes they are unfair. I think this is part of the point.

In subtle ways, this theme is woven throughout the book's descriptions of Gethenian cultures. To stick to sexuality, something similar can be said about the different norms surrounding incest on Gethen and the empathic treatment of Estraven's past relationship with Arek. There is no taboo about incest between siblings on Gethen, only on siblings vowing kemmering, but if a child is born of it, the parents have to separate (and it seems like Estraven is separated from Sorve because of this). The reason for including this element, in my reading, isn't to impose our own moral standards by "showing" that Estraven's relationship with Arek was "bad" (in fact, we learn fairly little about it, beyond that Estraven cared deeply for him.) Instead, I think it's partly to demonstrate the dissonance between Gethenian mores and our own, and unsettle both. Because, like Genly, we see Gethenian norms as strange, we can notice that they bring about particular situations and cause particular hurts. Even the custom of vowing kemmering monogamously for life, which sounds more familiar, is shown as double-edged. Estraven breaks a taboo by making his "false" vow to Ashe, but was trying to build a new life with Ashe really wrong?

These things are not 1:1 to any "real life" issue, but like everything else in this story, I think they're chosen because they are provocative. It's really meaningful to me that even in terms of gender and sexuality, Gethen isn't painted as a utopia, but as a real place. Le Guin shows us two sets of norms and asks us not just "are our norms arbitrary and/or constructed rather than essential truths?" but also "are norms always socially constructed? Should we question them sometimes? What harm is done to maintain them? Who is being left out?"

#the left hand of darkness #lhod #my posts #thank you alix jouissants for reading over this and aiding me to express more clearly <3 <3 <3 #and idk i am obsessed with ''estraven the traitor'' being a name from folk legend. with the way the character who comes across most moral #and most thoughtful betrays the norms of patriotism and of prejudice against ''perverts''. vows twice and had a child with his sibling #it says something powerful i think about what is really important and more important about a person ultimately. character of all time.#this is not to say the normless utopia could/should exist or that the portrayal of gethenian cultures is wholly negative btw--not at all #constructed =/= useless or without power/meaning or completely arbitrary either #just it is such a thoughtful book. and it's saying so much on so many levels #obviously i haven't even touched here shifgrethor or suicide or the budding nationalism... and i don't have my copy on me.#maybe some of this seems obvious but it feels worth highlighting #edit: there's more to say about the sibling thing and ursula's logic in why a society that places different associations on sex might be #mainly concerned with avoiding kids born of those unions--but i'm thinking here about what we see of estraven's experience

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