#with fiction writing I am aware that it’s practice and aware that I’m bad at it

[cyber-neptune]

I also really like Megatron, and hate when he is written as a creep. But I don’t see the logic in turning around and writing Starscream as a ped0, and then complaining that people write your favorite character a certain way? You’re allowed to vent through fiction but people are going to be offended if you preach one thing and then practice another, especially when you run the risk of triggering those fans in the same way which you were triggered. Starscream has a lot of fans who are abuse survivors themselves so the logic evades me. Although it’s good to see that you tagged it as thoroughly as you did.

You can write the characters however you want. And they can as well. It’s just the slight hypocrisy that was a little offputting. Most normal people won’t bat an eye at your fic if they don’t like it…but seeing you do a 180 on another character who is also canonically abusive is a little bizarre.

This isn’t meant to come off as hateful. I was just a little confused and irked by the discussion. I apologize if this offends you. And I’m sorry to hear your experiences with the character’s fanbase were pretty sour; you’re allowed to dislike a character for any reason. This ask isn’t meant to be hate, just input from one fan to another trying to prevent you from having other fans who noticed these things angry with you.

Thank you for the lengthy ask, Anon.

You are absolutely right in saying that this sounded hypocritical of me to say those things. I don't usually think straight when under strong emotions which leads me to make idiotic decisions. I want to apologize to the people I might have accidentally offended and hurt from making this fic, even if it was a vent.

I was hurt, angry and let my thoughts and emotions i've been keeping inside get the better of me and ended up metaphorically vomiting it publicly to get it out of my system.

My shitty mental state doesn't excuse the fact I might have hurt and triggered people from it. I truly am sorry.

It was a terrible decision to make Starscream like that and I fully admit it was shitty of me. I was just so tired of a character I love and identify as turned into a twisted caricature of something he isn't over and over again. Which is pretty ironic in a way.

TFP Starscream is a character I associate with a lot of my abusers and overall terrible stuff. I was angry and made him into something he isn't. Was I in the wrong for making him a ped0? Yes, absolutely. But was I allowed to have him associated to bad things? Also yes.

I want to mention that I am aware Megatron is a terrible person and abuser. And no, I do not stand by his actions. I just think making him a massive creep and rapist is wrong because he wouldn't do that.

I never really expected people to see/read my vent fic since it's a vent. Even so, it just felt like the obviously right thing to do to tag it as throughly as possible because I didn't want people accidentally stumbling on it and being shocked if I didn't tag it correctly/enough.

Which is something I think certain people should do when writing Megatron as a creep/rapist. Even tho I don't think this is going to happen since I'm a single offended idiot.

This probably sounds like im doing nothing but apologizing. I'm frankly pretty bad with words. I never meant to hurt anyone. I was just angry and didn't think about it. I will delete my posts related to the vent/the vent itself if asked to or if I find it necessary. I'm sorry if people misunderstood my hate on Starscream.

#tw pedophila mention #tw rape mention #thank you for the ask #starscream #megatron

[headdypidgeon4180]

The Tale of getting Hawk and Flo Made Part 1

Greetings dear reader, I am HeaddyPidgeon. I make a webcomic series currently called Hawk and Flo 2: Ice Cream Truck of Doom. Now you may have read my comic before or you may be someone who has never even heard of me until now (that being the more likely case). Now you may have noticed the eponymous 2 in the Hawk and Flo 2 and come to the conclusion that there is a Hawk and Flo 1. Well you would be correct dear reader there technically is a Hawk and Flo 1.... It just isn’t finished even though it technically was finished 2 years ago.

What the heck does that mean. it’s finished and it’s not finished at the same time? how is that possible?!. Well the reason why is because during the  Pandemic I completed Hawk and Flo: Last Space Wizard. It was Inked, coloured, lettered with all of the bells and whistles added from the comfort of my own bedroom. The physical manuscript version is finished. The digital version which I sometimes refer to as the webtoon edit is still in production. When I made the physical version I thought I could just scan the pages and then upload it on the internet, but that sadly didn’t work which meant that over 200 pages then had to (and still have to be redrawn all over again from scratch. Ouch

This is but one chapter in the story of what might be one of the worst production hells in the history of fiction writing let alone comic books. Behind every piece of art there is an artist, behind every novel there is a writer and behind every story there is the story of how it gets made. Let it be known throughout the cosmos that whilst in the year 2022 we’re getting to see the brother and sister from Bermuda fight space armies and crack jokes. Getting it up and running in the first place was a daunting, absolute, nightmare of a quest undertaken by an individual with absolutely no clue what he was doing and whose only credentials were..... ok basically nothing.

I’ve only really been at the process of trying to make my comics for a few years now, Last Space Wizard may have had it’s first chapter in November of 2021 but before that I was pretty terrible. So Terrible that I realised I needed to practice at making comic books before I even got onto the internet. if I was aware of how truly awful I was at doing it all The Internet was certainly going to have had a field day with many of my earlier attempts at comics. Now the  (not so) strange thing is I studied English so the stories themselves were pretty well written. The Jokes landed the characters were likeable, it’s just everything else was terrible. The art was terrible, My Lettering was completely Illegible, I couldn’t even draw anyone moving. So my first ever attempt at a Hawk and Flo comic was a script I had from a complete Turkey of an episode I had called ‘My Worst Fear’. I considered it the worst script I had ever written for anything but because the characters mostly stood around and talked I threw caution to the wind and gave it a go. i Showed it my friends and they found it hilarious which is what encouraged me to try learning to draw on my own. I started with A3 sketchbooks I'd buy from the Range. I would then turn on them on their sides then draw all of the action (or lack thereof in my case I was so bad it wasn’t funny) big and bright because I struggled a lot with drawing small and my consistency was awful. So when I very first started I drew character design sheets then I would trace my own drawings so it would turn out consistently LOL. 

We all have to start somewhere If somehow someway I one day take off as some kind of famous writer/artist know this I had no idea what I was doing I’m just as clueless as anyone else. It’s just I understand I'm getting older, after trying and failing so many times to look for artists to draw my comics, whether it be my ex girlfriend, or friends I knew from High school I realised the only way any of this was ever going to get made was I had to do it myself. It came with some heartaches, i’m still gutted that I wasn’t able to get my comics off the ground at the time the storm Area 51 event happened in 2019. it would have been so perfect if a series about space armies invading planets came out that day... but It wasn’t to be I wasn’t ready to be out there. When I tried to scan my sketchbook art I just wasn’t able to do anything with it, the pages weren’t edited out properly and none of it was the right format. So when I got better I started drawing on A4 sheets of paper which I then couldn’t get to upload due to file size limits and such so I had to start doing everything digitally. I couldn’t figure out how to scan and upload my A3 books or A4 manuscripts I still don’t know how XD. Shout outs to anybody who did figure that out I still haven’t to this very day.

#hpkomic

[estrangedaframian]

MOBILE-FRIENDLY GUIDELINES

Do

Send ic asks and memes! You are never bothering me with these, no matter how many.

Talk to me about your ideas for ships, threads, plots, etc. You may come into my inbox or DMs at any time, day or night. I LOVE hearing from my rp partners :)

Write me starters and tag me in stuff if you’re compelled to (provided it doesn’t break one of the below rules).

Don’t

Ask me about my day, my life, or anything overtly personal. I make exceptions for good buddies of mine, but I can’t stand it when people I don’t know from Adam start prying. I am in a bad situation that I can’t get out of; it burns when I have to be reminded of that. I’d rather not have to lie, ignore, or make something up just to satisfy someone, you know?

Reblog memes from me if we haven’t interacted. Please use the source whenever possible.

Say ‘Hi’ or [insert generic greeting]. Again, this doesn’t apply to my close friends. You KNOW who you are.

Ask me if I want to rp with you. If you wish to start writing with me, I expect you to do the leg work. Also, I expect you to have read my rules beforehand.

Expect romantic ships with Harry Warden or Soldier Boy; Harry is single ship with @pasiphaedemetriadevil’s Isis, and Soldier Boy aka Ben is single ship with @lovelylostminds’s Charlotte as female muses go and selective with male muses.

Fetishise LGBTQA+, religiousness, children/youth, or animals.

Send me random pics of my muse(s) faceclaim(s) or give me updates on their activities. I am am aware of the fact that I’m weird for being this way, but actors as themselves ooc trigger me really badly.

Use imagery of spiders or spider-esque things in our interactions ic or ooc. Even stylized ones will not be tolerated.

Talk about abusing animals or use animal-abusing imagery ic or ooc.

Wincest or Destiel. I don’t ship it and I won’t rp it. Platonic is fine. Any pics of Destiel or Cockles will be tagged for shipping partners that play one of the faceclaims involved. I am not endorsing either of the aforementioned ships.

Approach with OCs who are said to be related to Sam or Dean unless heavily discussed and on the condition that I already know you.

Banned fc(s): Danneel Harris, Gen Padalecki, Jonas Brothers, Imogen Poots, K-Pop members, Jack Nicholson, Madelyn Cline

Asterisk roleplay, such as *walks over to the table*. Dialogue for roleplays must be contained within a parameter e.g. quotation marks, brackets, etc. I will not respond if your character is speaking and it blends into the general narrative.

about the mun

Older than 28, GNC, he/they pronouns. Not searching for anything remotely romantic or sexual with my writing partners; I have life-ruining celebrity crusheslike the best of us but in practice I am asexual. However, I do very much enjoy sexual themes and shipping in rps, and I can of course appreciate male and female beauty for what it is, both fictional and real. Unapologetic vegan. I have several disabilities, so please try to be patient with my speech, tone, and overall writing. I am battling SEVERE depression, and I ask you to please bear this in mind when interacting with me ooc. That said, I try my best to be a good friend and writer in the rp community.

While mun ≠ muse, Dean is somewhat of a vicarious character for me, and he and I will share similar views from time to time. This may periodically result in my portrayal not adhering to canon or popular fanon, but do not use this to attack either myself or my muse(s).

I don’t support the canon spn finale in any way, shape, or form.

If I feel I can’t read your replies, grammatically speaking, I’m just going to drop it. Hot potato-style. Same goes if I feel like you’re not giving equal effort to the thread. Oh, and I can’t see those wack formats well.

If I receive too many asks of the same nature, from the same muse, I will simply delete the/certain of the asks at my discretion.

For my own comfort, I will block any and all bloggers who are self-proclaimed ‘Satanists’ (don’t care what the suffix is).

My only hard ‘no’ with any ship is non-con. Obviously will not ship any minor characters.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Wait, isn't "anti" stuff more like "anti-pedophilia" and stuff? Like, you have a point about anti-porn attitudes, but from what I've heard just "anti" on its own means against stuff like kid porn and incest porn and legitimately f*cked up sh*t like that.

Okay!  So this, I think, is actually a great example of what I was talking about, and a really useful thing to understand.  (CW rape, child abuse, etc)

Smarter people than me have written much better essays about why policing thoughtcrimes is a bad road to go down, and I will probably reblog some of them next time they cross my dash for more context.  What I want to talk about is the trigger mechanism, the ‘oh, this looks like danger!!!’ immune response in how we look at different kinds of porn, and how that applies to anti culture.

Here’s the thing: I am anti-pedophilia.  I think that, for most people, that’s a stance that largely goes without saying!  Adults who prey on children are bad.  I’m also against incest; relatives who prey on their family members are bad.  Above all I oppose rape.  Sexual predation of any kind is bad.  In fact, I’d say that’s the most important item on the list.  There is plenty of room to argue about where the lines are between ‘adult’ and ‘child’ and how teenagers fit in the middle, and there’s plenty of room to get historical about the lines between ethically terrible incest, distasteful-but-bearable “aristocratic inbreeding” between distant cousins, and the kind of consanguinity that tends to develop in a small town where everyone’s vaguely related to everyone else by now anyway.  The core of the issue is consent, and it has always been consent.  Pedophilia and incest are horrific because they are rape scenarios where the abuser has far more power and their victim far fewer resources to cope, both practically and emotionally; because harm to children is, to us as a culture, worse than harm to adults, for a lot of very valid reasons; and because they constitute betrayal of trust the victim should have been able to put in their abuser as well as rape--but they are all rape scenarios, and that’s why they’re awful. 

These things are bad.  It is good for us to have a social immune response system that recognizes these things when they’re happening and insists we step in.  That is a good thing to develop!  It helps us, as a society.  It can help the people being victimized.  It’s the same reason educators and childcare workers in the US are all mandated reporters, why we do background checks on people working near kids.  These things happen, and they’re terrible, and it’s good that we try to be aware and prepared for them.  (Though obviously studies show we’re a lot less good at protecting the vulnerable than we’d like to pretend we are.)

The question is: why does that same social immune response trigger, and trigger so angrily, in response to fiction?

Anti culture is fundamentally an expression of that social immune response.  Specifically, it’s that social immune response when it is set off by a situation that, while it has some similarities to the very bad real-life crime of sexual predation including pedophilia and incest, is in and of itself harmless.

If you’re instinct is to flare up in anger or dismissiveness because I’m calling these things harmless, I want to ask you to just take a deep breath and bear with me for a bit longer.  What you’re feeling right now is an allergic reaction.

Humans tell and read and listen to stories about “legitimately fucked up shit” all the time.  It’s part of the human condition.  It’s part of how we process those things happening, not just to use, but to other people in the world around us.  It’s part of how we process completely unrelated fucked-up shit, playing with fears and furies and insecurities that we all have, through so may layers of fiction that we don’t even recognize them any more, playing with power dynamics in metaphor and making characters suffer for fun.  Aside from the fact that literally all stories do this to some extent or another; aside from the fact that drawing lines between ‘ok that’s good storytelling’ and ‘that’s too fucked-up to write about’ is arbitrary, subjective, and dangerous in its own right; aside from all of that, these stories are stories.  All of them. 

Even the ones about rape, about incest, about pedophilia.  They’re words on a page.  No real children were harmed, touched, or even glanced at in the making of this work of fiction.  This story, pornographic though it may be, is part of a conversation between consenting adults.  (And if a teenager lies about their age to consent, that is a different problem altogether.)

Stories in and of themselves, no matter what they’re about, are no more dangerous than a crate full of oranges.  Which is to say: utterly harmless, unless all you have to eat is oranges, all day every day, and you find yourself dying slowly of nutrient deficiency--which is why representation matters.  Or unless someone wields one deliberately, violently, as a tool to cause harm, and someone gets acid in their eye--which is the fault of the person holding the orange. And unless you happen to be allergic to citrus.

The key here is this twofold understanding:  First, the thing that hurts you can also have value to others.  Real, legitimate value.  Whether you’ve undergone trauma and certain story elements are straight-up PTSD triggers or you just don’t like orange juice, that story, those tropes, that crate of oranges may be somewhere between icky and fundamentally abhorrent--but we understand that that is still your reaction.  Even if you don’t understand how anybody could ever enjoy it; even if every single person you surround yourself with is as sensitive and disgusted and itchy about this thing that makes your eyes hurt and your throat stop working as you; that doesn’t make it true for everyone.  That doesn’t make oranges poisonous.  No real children were involved in the writing of this story.  It is words on a page.

But, secondly: the thing that has value to others can also hurt you.  Just because a story isn’t inherently poison doesn’t mean it can’t cause you, personally, pain.  That’s what a PTSD trigger is: an allergic reaction, psychological anaphylaxis, a brain that’s trying so hard to protect its own from a threat that isn’t actually present (but was once, and the brain is trained to respond) that it causes far more harm and misery than the trigger itself possibly could.  And no, it’s not just people with PTSD who sometimes get hurt by stories.  There are many, many ways a story can poke the part of your brain that says, this is Bad, I don’t like this, I don’t want to be here.  The story is still, always, every time, pixels on a screen and ink on paper.  The story causes no physical harm.  But it can poke your brain into misery, it can stir up your emotions, it can make you want to cringe and run away.  It can make you want to scream and fight and go after the author who brought this thing into existence.  It can make you hurt.

This is an allergic reaction.  This is your brain and body, your reflexes and instincts, trying to protect you from something that isn’t really happening.  And just like a literal allergic reaction, it can do actual harm to you if it gets set off.  This is real.  The fact that stories can upset you to the point of pain and mental/emotional injury is real, even though it’s coming from your own brain and not the story itself.  There are stories you shouldn’t read.  There are stories I shouldn’t read, regret reading, will never read, because they hurt me.  That doesn’t mean they’re the same stories that would hurt you.  That doesn’t mean they don’t have value.

And, finally:

If getting upset about stories is fundamentally an individual person’s allergic reaction, their brain freaking out and firing off painful survival instincts in the face of a thing that isn’t, in and of itself, a threat?  Then the anti movement is a cultural allergic reaction.

Fandom as a whole has a pretty active immune system, which doesn’t mean we have a good immune system.  We try very hard to be aware of all the viruses and -isms and abuse and manipulation and cruelty, both systematic and individual, that exists around and within our community.  We’re primed and ready to shout about things at all times.  The anti movement is that system, that culture, screaming and shouting and fighting at a harmless thing on a grand scale.  It wants to stop that thing, that scary awful thing that trips all of its well-primed danger sensors, at all costs.  It’ll swell up and block off our airways (our archives) if it has to.  It’ll turn on the body it came from.  It’s scared and protective and trying to fight, and it’s ready to fight and destroy itself.

Luckily, fans and fanfic and fandom and fan culture are a lot bigger and older than they often get credit for, and it’s not like these cultural allergies are anything new.  We could talk about shippers and slashers in the X-Files fandom in the 90s.  We could talk about the birth of fandom in the days of Star Trek.  We could talk about censorship and book burning going back centuries.  We survived that and we’ll survive this, too.

But god, does the anti movement my throat and eyes itch.  Man is it irritating, and sometimes a little suffocating, to realize how many stories just aren’t getting told out of fear of what the antis will say.  And that’s the real danger, I think.  What are we losing that would have so much value to someone?  What are we missing out?

#fandom #anti culture #anti-anti #I guess? #asked and answered #you are not WRONG or BAD or BROKEN if a story hurt you #but neither is the story #Anonymous #anti discourse day

[raifenlf]

Why Loki’s Sylvie Is A Mary Sue

So I am firmly in the camp that Sylvie on the Loki series was/is a Mary Sue.  The last episode made me feel better and like maybe the show was doing a thing where they were faking you out that she was a Mary Sue only to show she was actually sort of a bad guy and I liked that.  But all the recent interviews make me think the show wants to go back to her being a Mary Sue.

But I feel like when I call her out for being a Mary Sue people tell me what are you talking about, she’s not a Mary Sue, bad things happen to her, etc.  But that doesn’t actually make her not a Mary Sue.  

Also, before we start, I know some people find Mary Sue sexist.  But I personally use the term for guys and girls. I don’t use the term to belittle women.  I use the term to criticize a poorly written character.

And I know Mary Sue is often used to describe fanfic characters.  But to me, this series is kind of like a fanfic because the writers took a character who had been in canon MCU material for ten years and then created characters around that character.  So, I kind of review it like I would a fanfic.  It’s very different than if the writers had created a brand new show with all of their own new characters.

Anyway, if you are not totally familiar with the Mary Sue term, then check this out:

I know the term Mary Sue probably means different things to different people.  But I have always used these guidelines when I write my own fanfic to make sure my characters never come off as a Mary Sue.

This article really gives you a full scale of what a Mary Sue is.  If you start reading it, you’ll immediately see why Sylvie is.  But I’m going to take out the parts that most fit Sylvie just to highlight why I believe she is a Mary Sue.  I apologize for this being so long.

Mary Sue Character Traits

Personality

Erm... what personality? The typical Mary Sue doesn't have one per se, because she isn't meant to be a character; rather, she's an entity by which the author makes cool stuff happen.

I feel like that is Sylvie in a nutshell.  She doesn’t have a personality.  I feel like even though she ate screentime, I still don’t really know her at all.  The writers love to say she’s badass.  That’s not a personality.  

Sometimes when I am writing stories for fun and creating new characters, I like to take surveys as my fictional characters.  Like the kind of surveys you’d see in a magazine, like personality types, what’s your dating style, etc.  I figure if I don’t know what my character would do in any of those situations, then I need to keep working on my character.  And if I was trying to fill out a survey pretending I was Sylvie I would have no idea what to answer because she doesn’t have a personality.  She’s just “cool”.

What little personality a Mary Sue has isn't as important as how other characters react to it. No matter how shy or socially awkward Mary Sue is supposed to be, other characters will be inexplicably drawn to her

This is so Sylvie.  Loki falls in love with her...why, exactly?  He falls in love with her in the big Nexus event moment...why?  Because she had a tough childhood?  Mobius spends like two seconds with her in a car and goes from hating her to saying she’s his favorite Loki.  For. No. Particular. Reason.

She's extremely persuasive; everyone finds her opinions to be better than their own

She enchants Hunter B-15 and then immediately Hunter B-15 makes it her whole entire life mission to back Sylvie up.  

And occasionally she'll be a complete asshole...This can manifest itself in several ways...The author wants to write a badass but doesn't know how. This leads to a character who mistreats everyone around her and is never called out on her abrasive, casually abusive behavior.

Sylvie talked down to Loki and treated him like garbage for all of episode three, but it was never portrayed as a bad thing and we never got any impression Sylvie later felt bad for the way she treated Loki

The author doesn't know how to hold back the character, meaning that she will succeed at practically everything. This means that when she encounters rules or authority figures who would otherwise prevent her from doing what she wants to do, she rolls right through them (and they praise her for her "boldness" in defying regulations). If a bad guy is violent and aggressive, she can beat him by being more violent and aggressive (with all that entails). It's impossible for her to go overboard because she's protected by Protagonist-Centered Morality.

Sylvie is shown as a kid to immediately be able to grab a Tempad and run away.  And she can kick ass way better than Loki, for no known reason.  She is always able to fight back against the TVA when they attack her.  And she can kill lots of innocent TVA agents but it’s okay because TVA bad, Sylvie good.

Skills

She will always be superior to the canon characters, regardless of what canon has established they can do or whether it makes any sense.

Whose skill was needed to defeat Alioth?  Sylvie’s.  Of course.  Sylvie needed to teach Loki her skills in order for him to succeed (!).  And again, she is literally called the superior Loki.

Relatedly, there's no effort to her skills. She never actually trains or learns anything to become more powerful; she just wins the Super Power Lottery, or is a freakish natural learner, or is just Inexplicably Awesome

We’re told Sylvie literally taught herself magic.  She literally taught herself to enchant people.  That. Makes. No. Sense.  Like, I have so many questions.  Like, why would it even occur to her to teach herself that?  And how????????????  This is really lazy writing.

Canon Character Relationships

Mary Sue is often designed to hook up with another character, often as a form of Wish Fulfillment. This isn't that bad in and of itself (okay, it is kinda weird), but Mary Sue accomplishes this without any sense of realism. She just grabs her lover's attention straight away, and their relationship will never face any obstacles or tension; it's true love from the start and nothing else. The biggest giveaway is if the love interest is explicitly the author's favorite character, and she essentially "cures" him of all the angst that ails him (at the expense of his characterization).

Yeah, so...this one should be pretty obvious to anyone who watched the show.  Loki literally falls in love with Sylvie immediately, and then he suddenly turns from “villain” to “hero” just because of loving her.  And this was definitely at the expense of his characterization.  And Loki just knows he falls in love with her.  There’s not even any moments of hmm what do I feel for this person?  It’s just true love, immediately.

She will be related to a canon character in some way. This (marginally) helps explain such phenomena as her being a Copy Cat Sue and other characters accepting her so easily.

Sylvie is a Loki variant.  They use this to help explain why Loki is drawn to her and why their falling in love immediately “makes sense”.

Most characters give her more heed than they normally would. The good guys never stop praising her

Seriously, it was so over the top and OOC for Loki to gush over her.  He literally tells her she’s amazing.  They don’t even make it subtle.

Characters' previously established personalities change in reaction to her. Proud, arrogant gimps suddenly acknowledge her superiority in everything. Reckless youths will listen to all her advice. Responsible leaders will defer to her instead. Villains will obsess with her to the detriment of all else. Extremely competent characters will become stumbling buffoons who require her help to do anything. Sweet, mild-mannered characters whom the author doesn't like turn evil and insult her. They all become unnaturally focused on her in some way.

Again, Loki’s whole personality changed in reaction to her.  He became a buffoon who needed her help to enchant the Alioth because of course he couldn’t do anything without her!  Hunter B-15 goes from doing whatever the TVA said to fighting the TVA just because of Sylvie.

Story Elements

Mary Sue is without exception a single-person Spotlight-Stealing Squad. The entire story hinges on her existence; if you removed her, there would be no story. 

Sylvie undoubtedly drove the whole story this season.  It all became about HER meeting the TVA heads because of HER trauma.  Loki’s life was only saved at the beginning because the TVA was trying to capture HER.  And SHE was the one who started the whole multiverse (!).

Mary Sue is The Chosen One, even if the setting already has one. There are many ways she can accomplish this: she can be a Sailor Earth type who "shares" the position with the canon hero; she may be vaguely "destined to help the destined one fulfill their destiny" (i.e. do all the work except the final blow so that the prophecy is still technically correct); or the canon hero may be revealed to be a Fake Ultimate Hero all along. Being the Chosen One doesn't necessarily involve her being a God-Mode Sue, especially as authors become aware of the phenomenon and try to avoid it, but it does make her critically important to the world and allows her to continue stealing the spotlight without the "god mode" label.

HWR wanted Sylvie to come with Loki in the end, like she was chosen all along right alongside Loki.  Like one of the most important characters in the entire MCU is now this character who we only met a few episodes ago.

Most Sues have an unusually Dark and Troubled Past. It's often used to create a Sympathetic Sue, but any type of Sue can have one

They tell us, over and over, how hard Sylvie’s life was because she was kidnapped by the TVA in order to create sympathy for her.

She almost never does anything wrong. In the rare instance that she does, it's usually; (a) a way for the author to disclaim her being a Mary Sue by introducing a single imperfection (that has no bearing on anything anyway), and (b) designed to show her smarts by making her feel instant remorse, and she'll be Easily Forgiven anyway:

So this one hopefully will not come true, as a lot can change between now and when the show is taped. But if the show goes on the way the behind the scenes team is talking, Sylvie immediately felt remorse for betraying Loki, and Loki has already forgiven her and is desperately looking for her.  Ugh.

Alternatively, she is more than capable of doing something wrong, be it in general moral terms or something that goes against whatever code she abides by, and she maybe even frequently does so, but don't expect the other characters or the narrative to ever acknowledge or comment on it in any real capacity. If the other characters do call her out, expect them to be treated like they're the problem for daring to criticize her at all.

Mobius calls her out for killing people, but Sylvie immediately says he’s a bad person and then Mobius agrees, because, of course.

She will often suffer from Special Snowflake Syndrome; i.e., she has a trait or backstory that sets her apart from her group or race.

She is the only female Loki, thus making her the special one among all the Lokis in episode five.

Presentation

In visual media, the camera just can't stop staring at her.

The camera would follow her in fight scenes rather than Loki.

Mary Sue Tropes

Okay, so there are specific Mary Sue tropes that Sylvie is.  One of those is Copy Cat Sue, which I think was referenced before.

Copy Cat Sue

A lot of fanfic writers...start to write something because of their passion for this character, but they find something about the character that doesn't mesh well. Maybe they're the wrong gender or are otherwise not close enough to the author's expectations...In any case, rather than put them through the Possession Sue process, they just get a Clone-O-Matic™ and out pops a Copy Cat Sue...the character might be intended as a replacement for the canon character, but without whatever icky traits the author hates. They'll then rob the spotlight, prove the canon character to be unworthy of his/her position, and either relegate the character to obsolescence or, perhaps, even remove them entirely.

Sylvie is basically a clone of Loki, she is a variant.  But she absolutely robbed the spotlight of Loki’s, and they literally call her the superior Loki.  I mean, they are literally not even being subtle about this.  And there was a feeling by myself (and a lot of other viewers) that Sylvie might ultimately replace Loki in the MCU. 

Black Hole Sue

Much like a black hole, this is a Mary Sue who "sucks in" the plot and characters to her. Characters will behave outside their personalities, logic will be defied, and rules will be broken for her sake.

Sylvie really does suck up all the plot and Loki definitely behaves outside of his personality just to fit the Sylvie show.

Jerk Sue

A Mary Sue who is mean or maybe even cruel, but are still treated as an ideal person.

Once again, Sylvie is basically a jerk all of episode three, but you’ve got Loki falling over himself to call her amazing in just the next episode.

Relationship Sue

A Mary Sue who exists to be the perfect mate for a specific character...this character has everything in the plot conspiring to enforce this One True Pairing...in Fanfiction, they are the perfect beloved of a canon character.

They literally have Mobius speculate that Loki falling in love with Sylvie is so extraordinary that it causes an entire Nexus event, that’s how huge this One True Pairing is (!).  And Sylvie is the love interest of Loki, the only character who had been around before the beginning of the series

TLDR: Sylvie has all the tropes of a classic Mary Sue character.  So calling Sylvie a Mary Sue isn’t being sexist or just randomly hating on the character.  If you use common Mary Sue characteristics to examine the character, she just has too many of these characteristics to ignore.

#loki negativity #antisylvie #loki critical #loki criticism #antisylkie

[nightowlfandom]

CEO! Min Yoongi- My Favorite Secretary

Why hello there!

ANON ASKS

Hi! Want to make a nasty petition pls. I want CEO Yoongi but he is so mean and strict with y/n he discharges all his frustrations and stress on her until he gets to fuck with her. I want a hard smut plsss

With these :

3, 15, 21, 60, 66

OOOOH FUN!!! LET’S GET INTO IT I was not too proud of this one...but here you go! Yo this one was LOOONNGGG, like shit. 

3- I said FUCKING BEG!

15- Whose gonna stop us? I own this fucking place, baby.

21- That’s right, you fucking worship me don’t you? Look up at me like I’m your god.

60- I found that little journal you made about me. I think it’s so cute how you fantasize about me, darling.

66- I’m gonna corrupt your mind. I love to play with you like you’re a fucking violin.

CHECKOUT MY MASTERLIST HERE!!

leggo!!

... (Monday)

“You’ll have to redo these reports.” a stack of papers was thrown onto your desk. You stared up at your boss in disbelief. 

“And just what’s wrong with them?” you raised an eyebrow. 

“There are exactly 15 typos in these reports and since I don’t care enough to go through them with you, I want them redone.” 

Min Fucking Yoongi. CEO of Bangtan Enterprises. You of course were a humble secretary who wrote reports on every idol and client that walked through the damn door. 

“I spent hours on those!” you tried to defend. “I already deleted the stupid file to save space on my computer!”

“You have until the end of the week.” he walked away without another word. 

“Sora didn’t even turn in her reports because she stayed up playing fucking Doki Doki Handsome Husband Haven and you gave her an extension!” 

Yoongi didn’t respond as he turned the corner. 

“Are you fucking kidding me.” you seethed. 

... (Thursday Afternoon)

“Y/N!” you heard the horribly scary voice. 

“What now?” you whimpered. You turned around in your chair to see your boss fuming. “Yes, Mr. Min?”

“YOUR REPORTS ON MY CLIENT ARE LATE!”

“No they aren’t! They aren’t due for another three days!” you tried to defend. Everyone else was starting to stare. They all knew how they treated you and they all felt super bad that he chose you to bully. 

“I SENT AN EMAIL YESTERDAY SAYING I WANTED IT TODAY AT 10:00 IT’S NOW 2:00!”

“No you didn’t! I would have seen it-” you tried to speak.

“YOU HAVE TWENTY MINUTES TO HAVE IT DONE OR YOU CAN SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR JOB.” 

“Y/N, don’t cry...you’re doing that thing you do when you’re about to cry.” your friend came over to your side. “Don’t waste your tears on that asshole.”

You inhaled dramatically, starting to type furiously through your blurry vision. You felt the tear slip down your cheek and you went to furiously wipe it.

...(Lunchtime: Thursday Afternoon)

Sobbing in the bathroom was a thing right?

Your two friends, Dahyun and Sana stood outside the bathroom stall as you sobbed into your hands. They were convincing you to not quit.

“Y/N, You know this is the only job that will let you live comfortably in this city. Other than being a teacher...and who’d want that?” Sana shuddered. “He’s done this more than TWICE now.” (...I’M NOT SORRY)

“I HATE HIM! I FUCKING HATE HIM.” You cried. “WHY IS HE ALWAYS MEAN TO ME!” You furiously wiped your eyes.

“Y/N, Open the door.” Dahyun sighed. “Let us in.”

The stall door slowly open and your two friends were met by a totally distraught woman. Your hands were stained with your eyeliner that you hand managed to completely wipe off leaving your tired face. 

“Y/N, he’s working you to the bone. You don’t even smile anymore.” Sana kneeled in front of you, taking your dirty hands into hers. “Why do you let him bully you?”

“Because if I don’t, I won’t have a job.” you sniffed. 

“Is someone dying in here?” you heard Miss. Hyuna, another boss walk in. “Aw honey, did a boyfriend break up with you...do you want me to ‘accidentally’ get his car towed?”

Miss Hyuna was both Sana’s and Dahyun’s boss, you guys just liked to have lunch together.

“It’s Mr. Min.” Dahyun spoke for you. “He’s working Y/N to the bone. He only ever bullies her and no one else. I’ve seen it personally.”

“Is that so?” she raised an eyebrow, looking less than happy. “Is that true Miss. L/N. Is Mr. Min treating you unfairly?”

You couldn’t speak, so you just nodded. 

“All he does is yell at and belittle her every chance he gets.” Sana looked at Miss. Hyuna.

“Hm, I’ll go talk to him, right now. If he fires you, he’ll answer to me.” was all she said before she walked away. She ignored Sana trying to hold you back from stopping her.

Hyuna walked out of the bathroom with fire in her eyes. She walked by your desk only to see what looked like an open notebook with the words ‘The Min Yoongi Files’ written in permanent marker on the first page.

“This must be her case.” she shut the notebook, ignoring the childish looking anime stickers on the inside page. “I should take this for evidence, I hope she won’t mind.”

“Yoongi!” Hyuna stormed into his office, shutting the door behind her.

“Hey Hyuna, what’s up?” Yoongi looked up from his lunch. “What can I do for you?”

“What’s this I hear about you mistreating a worker? One of YOUR workers?”

“Pardon me?” he raised an eyebrow. “Mistreating?”

“Two of MY workers are busy consoling Y/N L/N in the ladies restroom on their lunch break of all times because according to all three of them, you’ve been unfairly treating her!!” she glared. She slammed the notebook down on his desk. “This should speak for itself.” she sighed. 

“I don’t mistreat Y/N L/N, She’s insolent! She needs discipline.”

“SHE’S YOUNG.” Was Hyuna’s comeback. “You can’t treat her like she’s a piece of garbage just because she makes one typo!” 

“Her typos cost us time.”

“So does your shameless reprimanding her for missing a semicolon.” she rebutted. “Think about it! Are men always this stupid.” she looked him up and down before walking out of his office.

Yoongi watched dumbfounded. He took at look at the notebook she left behind.

“Property of Y/N L/N.” he read aloud. He flipped it open to the first page to see a bunch of shiny and matte stickers all over the inside cover. “The Min Yoongi Files? Speak for itself, huh?” (read more below the break)

...

(The Next Morning) (Smut Warning)

You begrudgingly trudged into the office. Not only were you tired, but you were dreading. You had multiple deadlines.

“L/N, MY OFFICE.”

“Shit...” you seethed. You walked past your desk into Yoongi’s office. He was sitting at his desk, flipping through the pages of a very familiar looking book. “You wanted to see me sir?”

“Yes, I did.” he shut the book and slid it over to you. “Care to explain?”

“Holy fu- ” You had forgotten you left your diary on your desk. How did he get a hold of that?

“ I found that little journal you made about me. I think it’s so cute how you fantasize about me, darling. Hyuna gave it to me thinking it was a list of every terrible thing I’ve done to you. I didn’t know it would be a list of every terrible thing you wanted me to do to you.” his face spread into a smirk. 

“You read my property-”

“My name is on it, which means it’s company property by association.” he was still smirking. “Y/N, Y/N Y/N...I didn’t know you were such a needy little girl. On my desk, in the breakroom? The elevator of all places?? I didn’t even know you enjoyed when I raised my voice.“ he raised an eyebrow. “You do realize I could have you fired for writing about me in such a way.”

“Yes sir.” you whimpered. “I’ll have all my sh-..stuff off my desk by-”

“Y/N what on earth are you talking about?” he raised an eyebrow. “Surely you don’t think you are fired.”

“I’m sorry?” you raised an eyebrow, becoming very confused. 

“Even though I’m an asshole, a big jerk, and the bane of your existence, you still want me?” he raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you have more of a backbone than I thought. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to miss a chance to break that spirit of yours.” he rose to his feet and walked around his desk to face you. “Get over here.” he urged.

He grabbed you by the hand and yanked you to his chest. He crashed his hot mouth over yours, capturing you in a kiss. He held both sides of your face gingerly. In a shock, you held onto his blazer jacket to stop from falling over.

“Hmm.” he moaned. 

“Mr. Min!” you gasped. “We can’t- I’m your secretary!! And I don’t know if you’re aware of this but you hate me.”

“ Whose gonna stop us? I own this fucking place, baby. “ he laughed manically. “And who the hell said I hated you? Plus you want this. I know you do because you wouldn’t have written about me throwing you on my desk and eating that little pussy...fuck that was my favorite story to date.” he spoke in a babyish voice. “Shit I’ve always loved what that ass does to me.”

You felt yourself melt in every way. The thought that someone would storm in didn’t even cross your mind. He back you up against the table, sitting you on the desk. Yoongi tore off his blazer and hastily undid his necktie.

He broke away from you, allowing you to suck in air. You took a deep breath as you felt your lips. He practically tore his shirt open, buttons flying everywhere to reveal that body. To say you were taken aback was the understatement of the century.

“ That’s right, you fucking worship me don’t you?” he smirked as you stared him down “ Look up at me like I’m your god” he quoted the exact words from the entry you had written just 5 days ago. 

“Oh, you read the whole thing.” you squeaked. “I am so fucked.” you whimpered.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve been needing a good way to unleash my stress.” he shrugged. “This is perfect..” he motioned, tugging the hem of your shirt, playing with and unfastening each button. “I can take out my stress and you get to feel the real thing instead of writing shameless fan fiction.” he laughed. “Don’t make any mistakes,” he drank in your body. “I want this to be more than sex.”

Before you could say another word, Yoongi wrapped his arms around your waist again. He leaned down and softly kissed your lips. You just prayed he didn’t taste the bacon, egg, and, cream cheese bagel you ate this morning. You didn’t know what to do, so you shyly returned his affections.

“Come on, act like how you write about. Moan for me, grab my hair-” he mumbled through kisses. “Kiss me like you hate me.” he grunted. “Unless-...”

He abruptly yanked down your skirt along with your panties. “Maybe we should do this right. Spread em, secretary.”

He wasted no time in hooking your legs around his shoulders. 

“Mr. M-min.” you whimpered, feeling something wet trailed up your slit. 

“Shit...you taste so fucking good.” he moaned. “Damnit Y/N, you coulda told me you wanted me earlier.” he flicked his tongue against your clit. “Maybe if you had a good fuck, your reports would be more punctual.”

“That report wasn’t due and you know it.” you found it in you to reply. You tilted your head back, feeling his fingers be introduced into your tightness. “F-fuh”

 “Come on, you love this shit.” he laughed, lashing his tongue against you. “Beg for me, beg for my mouth, beg for me to make you cum.” he moaned into your heat. “I said FUCKING BEG! ” he thrust his fingers even deeper. “Come on, scream my name.”

“M. Min, I- we- you....”

“Not that...my first name...fucking say it I wanna hear it. I wanna hear if its as cute in my mind when I read how I made you squirt all over my fucking desk.” he kept moving his mouth and fingers against you.

“Y-yoongi.” you obeyed. This only encouraged him.

 “I’m gonna corrupt your mind. I love to play with you like you’re a fucking violin.” he giggled.

(3 days later... )

You were sitting at your desk when a stack of papers was thrown on your desk.

“There are 8 typos, fix them.” was all he said before he walked off. 

“Not again.” your work friend, seethed “what is it this time.“ She didn’t look up from her computer as you flipped through the pages.

My office, now secretary ;). Followed by a whole bunch of gibberish that lasted several pages.

“I’ll go talk to him” you rolled your eyes, taking the pile with you. You walked into his office. “Okay sir-” you began, walking through the door. You closed it behind you. “What seems to be the-”

Before you could talk any more, you felt his hand trail under your skirt. You felt his breathy laugh on the back of your neck. 

“I was hoping...we could go over your reports last week. I don’t think we got enough done, do you?”

(I was on a deadline....BUT I DID IT, my head is POUNDING)

#nightowlfandom #hoseok smut #taehyung smut #jimin smut #namjoon smut #jungkook smut #yoongi smut #seokjin smut #kpop imagines #kpops cenarios #kpop smut #kpop x reader #hoseok imagines #taehyung imagines #yoongi imagines #jimin imagines #jungkook imagines #seokjin imagines #imagines #min yoongi smut #bts au #bts x reader #bts smut #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi imagines #bts ceo au #yoongi x reader #boss x reader #smut #smut imagines

[writingwithcolor]

Announcement: No Longer Answering Rubber Stamp Questions

Introduction

Here at Writing With Color, we’ve noticed a shift in the questions we are receiving. In the past, the majority of questions challenged the necessity of diversity in fiction or asked for assistance in making diversity seem more plausible in world-building. We also received many questions on how to describe and characterize people of color in respectful ways that didn’t demonize different races, ethnicities and religions.

By and large, we see that our followers understand why these concepts are important, and for that we congratulate you! This kind of progress takes real, long-term, internal work. Our team hopes that any advice or input you received from us over the years has helped you continue to develop as a writer. We hope you will continue to support us in the future and are especially pleased to hear from our non-white commenters who have let us know when our content has let them feel seen or heard.

However…

We have noticed a recent trend in asks that is discouraging. Many askers seem concerned with receiving our blanket approval of a particular concept or character. These asks often don’t provide us with the direction and context crucial to providing advice from a race or ethnicity-based perspective. Examples include:

“I’m writing a character from [insert background] who has [insert traits]. Is this ok?”

“I’m creating a world where I have made [insert concept] the basis of my world-building. Is this allowed?”

Hi, I’m a [insert identity]. Is it problematic to have [concept/ character] in my story?

“I’m creating a [Race A] character with [these] traits, a [Ethnicity 1] character with [those] traits, a [Race B] character with [some other traits] and a [sex/ gender minority] character with a [different set of traits]. Is this combination offensive?

We call these questions rubber stamp questions. If this describes your question, there’s no need to feel bad. We realize that there was never an explicit explanation of this concept. In addition, our team is mindful of the changing demographics of tumblr that might make it mean we are receiving questions from a younger user-base are not yet familiar with many of the principles we outline on this website. However, on that note…

What is Rubber Stamping?

Rubber stamping refers to the practice of seeking an endorsement without questioning or seeking to alter the status quo. The purpose of Writing With Color is to be a focal point for discussion about diversity in writing rather than simply prescribe a series of corrective measures. Without knowing the asker’s intent (Which we can’t, since we aren’t mind readers), our moderators are not in a position to provide you with carte blanche for your writing concept in the name of all other non-white people. Yes, we have a certain level of skill and expertise on many of these topics, but we are not here to take on the burden of all PoC to approve your writing choices. Nor would it be fair to other PoC if you took our response as a reason to dismiss the perspectives of other PoC (An unfortunately common phenomenon).  

Bluntly, on the moderator end, these asks are also incredibly frustrating because they are vague and thus:

Time consuming

Labor intensive (mentally and emotionally)

The last example from the previous section (AKA “Laundry lists”) is particularly time consuming because multiple moderators must collaborate to produce an answer that boils down to each moderator saying, “I guess it depends??? *shrug*” but in slightly different ways.

Perhaps the biggest problem with rubber stamp asks is they feel (to us) like they are more about the asker’s desire for closure/ approval/ virtue signaling than a willingness to participate in the kind of education and discussion on diversity we are trying to foster on this blog.

To that effect: We will no longer be answering such questions.

(If you sent in such ask before this goes up on November 15th, 2020, a moderator may reach out to you individually to better address your inquiry as submitted.)

However: Don’t worry! We also are here to teach you how to makes these questions better!

Fixing Rubber Stamp questions:

1. Be specific.

Instead of Can I/ May I, try “How can I” or “When can I” or “What can I”?

Thus instead of: “I’m Christian. May I create a Jewish character seeking to become an actress in 1920s Hollywood?” —> “How do I, as a Christian, create a compelling Jewish character while being mindful of the interplay between my own intrinsic bias and historical accounts of prominent Jewish figures in early Hollywood?”Or, instead of: “I want to write a story about a modern day piracy in the East Indian Ocean, but with magic. Is this problematic? —> “Given the continuation of modern day piracy in the East Indian Ocean, what are some tropes I should avoid if I decide to go with a modern fantasy set in this region?”

2. Remember: The goal is improved understanding, not approval. Sometimes, you really just want to know *why* you can’t use a particular concept, and that curiosity is good! Questions that ask “Why?” in good faith are often how you can learn a lot about your own intrinsic biases and the limits of your own knowledge.

Thus, instead of: If I write about [controversial topic], am I a bad person? —> Why is it better for someone like me to not write about [controversial topic]?

This approach has the bonus effect of making us feel like you actually care about what we think.

3. Write your question as a draft: Edit your ask at least once or twice to provide as much information as possible while being concise. I’ve told this to college students before, but I can tell when a person wrote their assignment by the quality of the writing. Writing done late at night, when sleep deprived and without at least one edit contains extraneous information while not having a clear point.

Going through your question (Preferably a day after you wrote it) will help you narrow down what you really want to know.

Remember: You all have free will and can write whatever you please. We presume that you seek WWC’s input because you wish to write on issues pertaining to people of color with greater levels of awareness. On a practical note, we recognize that social media, trolling, call-outs, doxxing and other dimensions of cyberbullying make writers online hesitant to do anything unless they think they have the majority of the public on their side. There are times when it is obvious that the asker is asking more because they need approval to feel less anxious when they share their work with others.

However, if the above is your worry, either you aren’t ready to write on this topic or you need to rethink the boundaries you set with the online communities/ individuals you interact with as well as how you manage your internet presence. With respect to personal anxieties when it comes to writing, morality, your conscience and so forth, we recommend turning to your own support systems IRL. As relative strangers on the internet, we are not well-qualified to allay personal concerns.

Remember: Writing with diversity is like training for a marathon. Give yourself permission to expand your comfort zone at the pace your research capabilities and experience allow!

We appreciate that you all trust us to provide helpful, well-thought out feedback for your ideas, and we also thank you for respecting our perspectives even if you may disagree. In the same vein, we request that you put the level of thought into your questions you think appropriate given that another human being is going to spend, at a minimum, several hours coming up with their response. We look forward to hearing from you! 

- The WWC Team

(A link to this article will be added to the pinned FAQ for everyone’s reference)

#WWC #Announcements #Housekeeping #FAQ article #Rubber Stamp #Question Guidelines #Updates #WWC Updates

[rpd-rookie]

HOLIDAYS - LEON S. KENNEDY X FEM!READER (PART 2)

Summary: Leon meets Y/N again and let's say she isn't done playing with him. You don't mind company in your hot tub, do you Leon?

Author’s note: Sorry about the long wait. I know it's been a while since I haven't updated this fanfic or posted a RE fan fiction. I was busy with work and writing for other fandoms. Hope you'll forgive me and that you'll like this chapter.

Tags: NSFW / Flirting / Slow Burn / Teasing / Seduction / Roleplay / Hand Jobs / Slight Angst / Explicit Sexual Content

(Part 1)

PART 2: The Game

Men are foolish to believe they have no weakness. All men have weaknesses. And even if Leon wanted desperately alcohol to be his only one, he had to admit there was another. One more pleasant and yet sometimes as hurtful and as destructive. Women. Sultry strong women. Those who steal your heart, toy with it like a cat plays with a mouse, crush it with their sharp stilettos to finally throw it back at you without an ounce of remorse or sympathy.         How many times he had fallen for those women! How many times he had hurt himself! … And asked for more.

There was possibly something rather addictive, something even rather masochist in doing so. And the fact that he was aware of it showed how stupid he truly could be.

It was a lovely night, slightly cold but starry. The fresh marine wind was blowing softly in the trees and the bursting bubbles of the hot tub massaging his tensed muscles were filling Leon’s ears with a peaceful melody he would gladly listen to for hours.         Eyes closed, he could almost imagine what it truly meant to be on holidays, what it truly meant to relax, to forget. Almost.  The truth was he could not escape Raccoon City … as he could not escape Spain, or Tall Oaks or any other place he had been, any other place he had survived, any other place he had lost. They always knew how to creep into his brain, always knew how to tie his stomach in a knot, how to make his heart heavy, sometimes –often- in moments when he was the most eager for peace of mind. They were doing it right now. They had been doing it for quite some time now. Since the bombing in DC or maybe before.

“You almost make brooding look hot, you know?” Leon immediately jumped and turned around, startled by the cheerful voice pulling him out of his dark ominous thoughts. A reflex he had acquired and sharpened over the years fighting deadly BOWs.    But when his blue eyes lay on Y/N (or Y/SN; He didn’t really know how he should call her), he relaxed and allowed his tightened lips to slightly curl into a weak but sincere smile. “Years of practice.”             “Then that explained the wrinkles on your forehead.” She approached him soundlessly, leaving the shadows in which she had been watching him, and squinted at his face, possibly trying to detail all the little aging signs carving his skin. “Is that why you’re wearing a fringe?”      “It’s not a fringe!” He replied rather offended and yet perfectly aware that she was merely teasing him the same way she had teased him in that bar a couple nights ago. But his hair was sacred! And he hated when someone was making fun of it.    Too bad his little attempt at sounding aggressive only made Y/N laugh and want to mock him a little bit more. Just for fun.            “Well, it looks like a fringe… An emo fringe.” Leon frowned and without realising it brushed his hair aside with an annoyed pout the woman found just adorable. “Wow. You’ve got two eyes. Who would have thought?”          “Are you done?” She chuckled, eyes shining with mischief as she sat on the edge of the hot tub, legs crossed so as to deliberately show her bare smooth thighs no longer hidden under the white hotel robe she was wearing.       Leon couldn’t help but gaze for a second or two, suddenly wondering how that beautiful skin would feel against his calloused fingers, around his waist. Probably amazing. Electrifying. Damn she was good! He thought. Pulling him out of his traumatising memories to throw him deep into a well of lust. Not many women could do that. And it was annoying as much as it was endearing.  “Would you like me to keep you company in there?” She offered in a voice that could not disguise the lewd seconds thoughts she had in her mind. But then again, disguising them wasn’t what she wanted. And they were both adult and experienced enough to know that a woman offering to join you in a tub wasn’t doing it to have a chat about the weather. And that was fine. Leon could use some distraction right now.       “Depends. Will you keep taunting me?” He questioned trying to resist her a little bit longer even though, for some weird reasons, watching her fingertips touch the bubbling hot water and softly caress the surface was making him suddenly aching.         It was as if he wanted his skin to be the water, as if all the things she was doing –even the one that should be innocent- were purely sensual … sexual even. Whether it was always fully voluntary of not, Leon wasn’t sure. But damn, she was surely making her way under his skin.   “Well you have to admit my little taunt got your mind of whatever you were thinking about.” She smiled and brought her fingers to wet her neck as she discreetly and proudly peeped at Leon who was observing the droplets running down her skin with dilated pupils. “You’re cleverer than what you let on.” He admitted. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re playing with me or if you’re just flirting.”          “Why not both?” Her fingers fell to the collar of her robe to slowly brush the soft fabric off her shoulders, revealing more burning naked skin that made Leon briefly fidget under the water. Was he that touch-starved? “Why not something else?” Could she hear his erratic heartbeat in his chest? His brain screaming at him just to grab her and pull her in his laps? See all his attempts at keeping his cool slowly crumbling to let the obscene fire growing in his loins take over?        Her mocking smile made Leon think she probably could.         “And what would that something else be?” He asked, curious.

He watched her take a step back. And unconsciously, he leant closer. Like a magnet. Not willing to be left alone or to let her go. And miraculously, unlike many women before her, she didn’t leave. She simply stood where she was and brought her hands to the belt around her waist.             “What do you what it to be?” And Leon stared; hypnotized again by her enticing moves he wished were quicker. “Or better question. What do you want me to be?” She unknotted the belt and let her fingers crawl back to the collar of the robe to open it slowly. The mere sight of her décolletage made Leon gulp and suddenly all his tries to keep his eyes on her beautiful face became vain as they always found their way back between her breasts. “A college student with daddy issues …” She opened the robe wider, showing more of her skin “…who’s eager to spread her legs for a married man who lost wife, kids and beagle to his best friend? Or…” more of her breasts, her rosy nipples, her belly, offering a glimpse of her young body “A very naked young woman seducing an old –clearly naked as well- emo boy in a hot tub?” The robe wasn’t covering anything that should have been covered anymore. Leon could see everything, everything enough for his cock to harden under the water and for him to thank for the bubbles hiding his arousal.           “Is that what you really are?” She entered the hot tub, towering him like a naked Venus calling to be touched. And god knows how hard it was for Leon not to touch her or to stop thinking about pressing his face against her womanhood. “That looks like what I am right now. Don’t you think?” She let herself slowly sink in the water, not taking her eyes out of him. “And that looks like something you like.” She purred and when Leon thought that she would sit on him, straddle his legs and finally feel his aching member against her… “Only a fool would not like it.”            “And you’re not a fool … Leon.” … He froze.

Leon’s eyes widened. Did he hear that right? “What did you just call me?” His tone, though tinted with surprise, had recovered its seriousness and gravitas. But it didn’t seem to unsettle the young woman before him who was still keeping her aura of sensual cheekiness.    “Isn’t that your name?” Leon frowned, wondering how she knew and what the hell her intentions were. “You know it’s hard to pretend to be someone else when your name and photo was shown on national TV barely a week ago. Leon S. Kennedy the national hero who saved America from bioterrorism yet again.”        “ So you knew all along?”    “ I call it naked truth.” She smiled proudly and he couldn’t help but laugh a little at the pun. “What? You said it yourself, I’m cleverer than what I let on.”           “ So this little game … What was it for?”  “ We can continue if that’s what you want.” She came closer to him, (colour) eyes staring deep in Leon’s own.           “ Cause we haven’t stopped playing?”     “ Well, I’m still playing.” She put a hand on his sculpted pectorals.

The contact, warm and delicate, made Leon slightly shiver and he looked at her palm slowly going down his firm chest, caressing his skin down to his carved abs, following the line of hairs below his navel until it finally reached his still hard sex  “And with what I’m feeling right there. It looks like you can still play with a little help.” He winced as he felt her delicately grab his shaft.           “ You’re impossible.” He managed to say between gritted teeth.        “ I know. You told me last time... You want me to stop?”  She murmured in his ear, her hot breath tickling him in a pleasant way.    “I didn’t say that.” His eyes found her face again but only for a short while. Soon they focused on her lips, now so close to his. “Good.”

For an instant he thought she would kiss him to eventually put an end to that game of theirs. That would have been the perfect occasion for them to finally let go to their most primal impulses. But she did not. Instead, she remained the way she was, her face a couple inches away from his, her parted lips so close to touch his and her eyes locked with his. Perfectly in control and taking an excruciating delight in watching Leon lose his composure as her hand was slowly toying with his manhood under the bubbling water. “I think you needed that.”  “ You have no idea.” A guttural moan escaped the barrier of his lips and his stomach tensed. Leon could feel his member throbbing in the girl’s grip. He was close already and not even slightly ashamed about it. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For him to crumble under her touch. And maybe that was what he wanted too now that he was thinking about it.          He closed in blue eyes to focus only on her, on her touch, on her hand, moving up and down in cock, again and again, on her fingers, sometimes caressing the tip, sometimes tracing the prominent veins of his shaft, slowly, oh so slowly. A pleasuring torture he almost wished would be never-ending.           “ You know, if you want me to fuck you, you should stop with that amazing hand of yours and quickly climb on top of me.” She chuckled at the sudden dirty talk and surge of confidence, happy to finally see him that way.          But as his hands grabbed her hips to bring her in his laps she purred “As much as I would love this, we still have more games to play, Agent Kennedy."

Leon's eyes opened in a flash. Flabbergasted, he felt an atrocious void and a terrible discomfort when, completely powerless, he watched the girl stand up and leave him with nothing less but a smile and a wink. But as much as he wanted to be vexed or resentful, he couldn't help but laugh, thankful that somehow she had managed to take his nightmares away for the night. Sure he had blue balls but those were the best blue balls of his life. " We sure do, Y/N"

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x reader #resident evil #resident evil fanfic

[0aurelion-sol0]

Yo~

What's your opinion on the Will Byers DID theory? If you like it, which version do you like better? Both interpretations seem cool to me, though I personally like strangertheory's version better ^.^

Hi!

That's a very interesting question. I want to start by saying that I am a singlet, so I don't have DiD or OSDD. My knowledge of this condition is primarly known through medias I consume or some more "advanced" psychiatric documents or researches.

DiD is a condition that hasn't been always best represented or accurately represented since this condition varies from people who have it and so while there are similarities, the experience of it is very much unique and personal. It is also something that in a fictional setting with different genres, themes and tones is very hard to pull off or represent unless you go for the very realistic take on it.

It is bound to be, like many other things in fiction, dramatized. And speaking from a singlet perspective, who also had particular problems represented in fiction, I think it's okay as long as it's done right, in the setting, tone and genre it is in.

For example, we have today a lot more LGBTQ+ representation and like everything, unless you go for the fully realistic route, it's going to be simplified and dramatized. There's so many gender identities and sexual orientations today, you have to simplify it. And that goes for many other things that people care about in media, it has to be done right, but the writers still have a story to tell and unless that subject is the focus of the story, they're not gonna always spend their time talking about that. There is a story to tell.

Secondly, if it is the main focus of the story, that is where people have to do their research and really represent what they are talking about. Not some half-baked representation with dull arguments and points that come from a capitalist and conservative worldview. (Looking at you Disney.)

Now what you are referencing are @strangertheory 's and @kaypeace21 's theories which are about the show being about a DiD system where we see different alters evolving in said story with the host being Will Byers.

There is a lot of evidence pointing towards it, I'm gonna let you go see their posts and read it.

But their theories are very different in the way that they see the show portraying DiD, I have actually find quite a great way to describe the two takes.

@kaypeace21 's take is that elements of the DiD system have been externalised through science-"fictional" or supernatural means. Similar to Legion from the Marvel universe.

(David is a powerful mutant with DiD where each alters, if I remember correctly, has a different power or powers. (Which to this day is still one of the most BADASS thing I have ever come across though it must be quite terrifying for David.))

@strangertheory is an internalised POV on the DiD system existing in the show. She believes that what we are seeing right now is what is exclusively happening INSIDE the DiD system and that what we are experiencing is not our standard definition of the "real world". As in the physical world we all know. This would be in very vulgar terms happening inside Will's self, head, mind or brain. In a sense, it would be a more accurate representation of what DiD is about. A Shyamalan twist if you prefer.

(Though right now I don't have any word for word examples of such take, there is a show called MR.ROBOT that fits a bit of this description since there are moments in the show that we are seeing are only happening in the DiD system itself.

I recommend this show A LOT. It still is a bit dramatized but from what I know the DiD representation is quite accurate and pleased a lot of people with DiD. Also some people on the Stranger Things crew worked on that show.)

Now do I love the DiD theory ?

Heck yeah, I fucking love it! And with a big L! (Am I right "The First I love you?").

And I Love both of the takes and I think each one works at explaining the mysteries of this story. I even think that in some ways both could work well together.

I believe that DiD can be, without the meaning of being used, like many things a powerful storytelling "device" since it is connected to so many themes and other writing tools and is linked literally to the psyche, emotions and personalities of the characters.

I can understand why some people like both or one or respectfully and logically dislike both or one of the takes. But it is close to my belief about what the show is about or were even before I came into this fandom or on the internet, not as complex and thought out as the theory itself but pretty close in the overall themes and aspects of it.

(Though it bewilders me how much people lack imagination or are scared of such twist when I have seen so many of those types before whether it's done well or not, accurate or not.)

Now both @strangertheory and @kaypeace21 are intelligent people with very nuanced takes. And they had their fair share of completely unjust controversies coming from either rabbid ignorant shippers, far too sensible people or downright ignorant stupid people, most of the time 16 year olds. I am not saying that they are perfect, no one is, but the hate they have received is completely unjust.

And I am gonna lay it down right here, they are begging for an accurate representation here, they are not doing this because it just sounds cool and is edgy, they are actually wanting that The Duffers pull this off well. They would be very mad if they use all the imagery just to make it look cooler or scarier.

They are not bringer of truths, they are just like us. They are theorists, they believe in something that they think can explain the story they love and are experiencing. And so far, they have a pretty damn good track record.

They are analysing, dissecting the show because it's what they want to do and they believe in it and they believe the Duffers wants them to do that (I mean how come no one believes it when watching a show like that set in the 80's with so many references ?).

It is also supposed to be fun. Have fun for God's Sake! You can disagree with it but calling names and being disrespectful because somehow they don't agree with very basic, lazy and cliché theories (and no it's not being hypocrite, a lot of people barely do the work.) or are not on board with your creepy projection over the characters IS not okay.

And no, they aren't supporting p*d*philia as some people have claimed. How can you read these theories and come up to that conclusion ?

Most people haven't even read the DiD theory or have gone all the way through with it because they are lazy, easily bored people who don't have the time to just relax, process and think.

Stranger Things is not a kids show, some dumb teenage romance drama show with cool monsters! It's a very mature show, with real problems that are treated, out of which is trauma and mental health. Kids are killing people and even dying on this show. There is sexism, racism, abuse both physical and psychological.

It is a very mature and dark show. And you are being disrespectful to the Duffers when you say they are not that smart or that isn't that important. They are putting a lot of thoughts into this and the fact that no one really recognises this annoys me.

Or people only think it's important when it is only about the things they enjoy in the show. (Which is more hypocrite to me.) OR people are very stupid if they truly think that or are just jealous, bitter that two women have more imagination together and individualy than all of them or that person alone.

Color and costume choices, subtext, context, camera angles, directing, VFX, music, editing, sets, props, script, acting and editing are very important. All must be carefully done or you get very bad or generic stuff if you don't. If you love and you are passionate about the work, you put all the details you can into it.

And the Duffers and all the people working with them have already referenced those sort of things AND the practice of what we do on the internet. They are aware, they know because they have been in the same place too. They grew up with stories too, they made theories too whether it's on the internet or not.

At the end of the day, it is just a theory. An explanation of what is unfolding, may unfold or may have unfolded. I believe in it, I think it is reasonable, it has logic and it makes sense. It also has a lots of elements backing it up.

And the Duffers don't even have to go with DiD or mention it. Will creating some of the characters and supernatural events from his trauma is also similar and more accessible to the masses. But a Shyamalan twist can also work if it is done well.

And I am also open to other possibilities and theories, if they make sense and have enough elements IN THE SHOW and everything connected to it backing it up.

If the Duffers write something completely different but it is as good and also explains even better than this theory than I'll be okay. I love being wrong, it makes me learn new things and enhances the way I approach stories in the future.

If the Duffers only used this as some very inaccurate and disrespectful scary/abstract subtext without commiting to it. That is where I will have a problem.

Or write something completely incoherent with the rest of the show with a bad plot twist catering to the main public masses to sell the story even more and just make money so that they are safe with a fallacy of a work of fiction. Because they are cowards who didn't know how to manage themselves and baited entire audiences or listened to some crappy executive who didn't understand shit about the story. (wink wink, looking at a certain something...)

So yeah, I do love the DiD theory and both of it's takes and if it happens and is done right, with of course my perspective on the thing and PRIMARLY the perspective of people who have DiD or know a lot about it, I'll be pleased with it and I think it could be something very important for stories, people, the world and "art" in general.

Thank you for the question it was really fun! I hope I described the theory and the condition in the right way @kaypeace21 and @strangertheory and also the people who are concerned or know about it if I didn't let me know. Also, if you disagree with what I said, the way I said it or the subject itself let me also know IF it's respectful of course.

#stranger asks things #stranger asks #did theory #the did theory #will byers #will the wise #willel #stranger things

[bubblegumbeech]

The Librarian’s Trick

Day one Ectoberhaunt: Trick or Treat

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34213519

 1:

 Wes was certain this Cassius guy was a ghost. He had to be. Humans didn’t live on the outskirts of town in large decrepit clock towers that Wes was      pretty sure didn’t exist last week    .

 Humans didn’t have red eyes and white hair (unless they had a condition called Albinoism, Wes had looked it up. But Albinoism      also     meant they had no melanin      anywhere    and Cassius Dark was decidedly tan in an admittedly attractive but decidedly not Albino kind of way)

 Humans didn’t have fangs when they smiled but normal teeth whenever Wes tried to point out that      He had FANGS. They were right there!!!  

 Humans didn’t spend all their time either with Danny Fenton (who was Also very much a ghost!! Which should be in the list of proof but no one believes it so it’s seperate but still!) or mysteriously absent.

 And humans didn’t seem to know everything all the time but talk like a bad astrology website.

 So Wes was going to find a way to prove it.

 His first try had him sneaking a “ghost translator” he didn’t remember the stupid name Fenton’s dad called it when he bought it with his allowance, into the library where Cassius Dark supposedly worked.

 Supposedly, because while he could be found there, Wes had never actually seen him doing anything other than reading. And it was never a book Wes recognized, like, he wasn’t reading the Twilight series or anything. The last book Wes saw had been a large ancient looking tome written in a language Wes didn’t recognize. But Everytime he tried (subtly! He was super nonchalant about it!) to take a picture it ended up blurry!! And No Kyle, it wasn’t because he was      bad at taking photos    .

 But that didn’t matter because Wes had a different plan now. He was going to use the Fentons’ new version of their “ghost translator” thing, and see what happened. It was supposed to be both a translator and a truth decoder at the same time. So no matter what a ghost said, the device should say what they actually mean. Or something.

 With Danny, a bunch of innocuous stuff went off around him, but people always hand waved it as faulty tech. Wes wasn’t sure that was the case, in fact he was positive it wasn’t. But if he could get something useful to build up from, that would be a good start. And every good reporter needed a start.

 He stepped up to the Library’s front desk, where Cassius was sitting reading what was      clearly     a spell tome if the different summoning pentagrams in the open page Wes could see were anything to go by.

 “Welcome Young Weston,” Cassius said, the hint of a smile hidden behind his red eyes as he closed his book. Wes could swear they were glowing slightly. Geez did this guy get his ‘how to pretend to be human’ classes from      Fenton    ?

 … that would certainly explain why no one ever believed Wes, since that was a long beaten dead horse in his closet.

 He, very discreetly, had the device hooked up to one of his earphones, which he kept in one of his ears like any normal less than perfectly mannered teenager as he asked Cassius Dark his questions.

 “Excuse me sir? Do you work here?” he started with, it was a more or less innocuous question and one he actually wanted the answer to.

 Cassius Dark smiled. “I do.”

 My Job is all that was, is, and shall be. That which I set as my goal is beyond mortal comprehension and those I call master shall fall to my machinations. But yes, I get paid for sitting at this desk and answering questions sometimes. I am a ghost, fear me.

 Wes tried not to sweat too obviously. What the fuck?

 “Can you tell me where the journalism section is?” Wes decided to make a tactical retreat, at least his voice didn’t crack.

 “Straight back for eight shelves and then turn right. It’s next to the Non-fiction books.”

 I know what you’re looking for, I know why you are here. I know the exact time of your death and what will happen next. Your efforts amuse me though. I am a ghost, fear me.

 What Wes did next was not      exactly     fleeing. But it wasn’t      not     fleeing either.

 He’d have to try something else.

 2:

 The next thing he wanted to try was a bit riskier. If you thought about it a certain way. But it also wasn’t if you thought about it the way Wes did.

 He was going to use a phase-proof net.

 Genius, because unlike the translator machine thing, it would actually stop the ghost from attacking Wes if it got angered. Which it would, probably, since Wes was throwing a net at it.

 The plan was really simple though, he’d gotten a very large net, paid extra for the little aim thing, practiced half a billion times of his brothers before they went to the parents and got him grounded for a week, and then memorized the path Cassius Dark took in the mornings to go to his “job” at the library.

 Right now he was hiding in one of the leafier trees, right above the path that Cassius always used, waiting.

 And waiting.

 And…      waiting.  

 Honestly he was about to go home and was fairly certain this guy was going to be like, super late to work, when he finally appeared.

 Wes wasted no time aiming, making sure the trajectory was absolutely perfect, and firing the net off. He was just about to jump in celebration, watching the net as it curled slightly around its target, but before it could hit and wrap around him, Cassius was suddenly not there.

 Or he was, but just a little bit to the left, so that the net sailed harmlessly past.

 Wes cursed.

 3:

 The third one was fool proof. It had to be.

 Which was why Wes was staring at a large conspiracy board, covered in paparazzi-esque shots of the librarian and random notes he’d taken, all connected with a dizzying amount of red string.

 “Kyle, seriously. I need to figure out what kind of ghost he is or he’s always going to have the upper hand!!”

 Kyle just rolled his eyes and continued playing his video game, as if he didn’t care that Wes had set up his very important planning and plotting in the middle of the living room so long as it didn’t interfere with his own plans.

 “It has to be pretty powerful, he was able to dodge my net before it even touched him. And the translator thing clearly said ‘my goal is beyond comprehension’ or something,” Wes mused, “and he also said his job was like, everything?”

 Wes checked his notes, “yeah, ‘all that is was and shall be’. What could he mean by that?”

 His very annoying and clearly not taking this as seriously as he should brother just chuckled. “I don’t know Wes, maybe he can see the future?”

 That… no. That’s way too OP. Just the thought of it sent a shiver down Wes’ spine. There was no way a ghost could see the future right?

 Right?

 He had to test this theory.

 But how do you even test something like that?

 “Kyle, how would you test if someone could see the future?”

 “Throw something at the back of their head and see if they dodge?” He answered way too quickly.

 Wes thought about it for a moment. “No, what if they just have really good reflexes?”

 “Oh huh, I guess that could be true. No idea then.” He shrugged and Wes had to fight the urge to throw something at the back of      his    head.

 Whatever. He had to make plans.

 He’d tried just throwing things. It was risky, and kind of terrifying, but Kyle was right it      was     the first that came to mind.

 But Cassius never dodged. He was always just, not where Wes thought he was. Or Wes had      really bad aim,    which he didn’t!!! He was a basketball ace!! He had great aim! And great situational awareness!!

 So why couldn’t he hit Cassius Dark?

 Obviously it was because he could see the future. And the smug smile he always had when he knew Wes was looking reminded him an awful lot of a certain other Phantom.

 4:

 Ask him about his family.

 Easy enough. Especially without the Fenton’s weird translator because that might have been a bit terrifying. And also this time he had back up.

 He dragged Kyle by his sleeve into the library.

 “Mr. Cassius!”

 Cassius looked up from his book, removing the delicate reading glasses balanced on his nose. “Can I help you Mr. Weston?”

 “Yes!” He smiled broadly, taking out a small notebook that he had used to take notes on the suspicious and ghoulish things going on around town until it was mostly shreds of paper. “I’m writing an OP ED on the town library, and would like to know more about the librarian. Can you answer a few personal questions?”

 Kyle snorted and Wes had to elbow him in the side to get him to shut up. He was here as back up, not to ruin his plan.

 “So,” he began, “is Cassius a family name?”

 “No.”

 Wes nodded. And then frowned. Did ghosts have families? Supposedly they were alive once right? At least that was the general idea, Wes thought.

 “So what can you tell us about your parents? Like, what’s your father’s name?”

 Cassius raised an eyebrow, and had a soft smile filled with good humor. Wes felt it hit him like a threat. What was this ghost hiding?

 Well, other than the fact that he’s a ghost.

 “I can’t tell you much I’m afraid. My mother is long gone and I never had a father.”

 Kyle grimaced and elbowed Wes himself before saying, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

 “It’s no matter,” Cassius replied, still smiling, “I may yet see her again.”

 Ah, so either she wasn’t dead or he’s convinced she became a ghost too. That made sense. It could be his unfinished business as they say among the paranormal hunters. At least, the not fight-y and crazy ones.

 “So Dark was your mother’s name?” Wes asked, wondering if he could maybe find any records on her where he had failed to find them on Cassius himself.

 The smile slid right off his face. Wes and Kyle both felt the subtle chill in the air as Cassius leaned back and looked off to the side, as if to glare at something that wasn’t there. “No, I’m afraid Dark is my ex-husband’s name.”

 “Why keep it?” Kyle asked, completely ignoring the danger of the situation.

 The smile came back, except this time instead of soft and barely there as if he were indulging a child, it was sharp and twisted. He chuckled at an inside joke no one else in the room would ever understand and then he said, “Well, it’s not like      he     has any use for it now.”

 Wes paled. Had he killed his husband?!

 5:

 After a hasty retreat from the library Wes treated Kyle to a milkshake and fries at the nasty burger just as he had promised. Payment for going along with his ‘weird ghost theories’.

 But Wes couldn’t eat, he was too busy thinking. This one actually helped! He found information about the ghost’s previous life! He had a mother, but not a father, and had a husband.

 With the current politics it was one of two options. Either he was from a previous culture that allowed men to marry each other, or he was a more recent ghost than Wes had been expecting. He had already taken out his laptop and was scrolling through obituaries with the surname Dark, trying to think if he knew any off the top of his head that might have been in town when they died.

 Nothing particular came to mind.

 Wes’ thinking was interrupted by a loud, obnoxious slurping noise from his brother. He shot him a glare, but Kyle didn’t react. Wasn’t even looking at him. Instead he was looking out the window and watching one of the daily ghost attacks with Phantom playing hero as always.

 “You know, it’s kinda cool that they’re hiring actors to build the town’s lore like that,” he said, clearly ignoring the obvious evidence of ghosts right outside his window.

 “What the      hell     are you talking about?” Wes groaned, rubbing at his eyes. He needed coffee or something, it was a shame the Nasty Burger only served sludge no sane person would drink.

 Kyle finally looked away from the window, his eyes wide as if      he     was the one confused. “You know, how they got the librarian to say he was married to Pariah Dark? And then imply he’s the reason he’s a ghost?”

 Wes felt like the seat underneath him had suddenly disappeared. “Where did you get      That    from?!”

 “He said his ex-husband was named Dark! Pariah Dark’s Ghost Zone show is the first thing that comes to mind!” Kyle argued back. “Isn’t it?”

 Holy shit this guy was married to the ghost king.

 He thought back to the ominous answers he’d gotten that first day from the Fentons’ translator. Maybe he should leave this one alone.

 +1

 Wes was at the library, studying quietly and absolutely avoiding the librarian. Not that he’d seen him today, but it didn’t hurt to keep his head down. With any luck the guy had a short memory and would forget Wes had been trying to find a way to out him to the town.

 A portal ripped from the air in front of him, sending a static energy throughout the library and causing Wes’ hair to stand on end. It was a swirling purple, deeper and more… well      more     than most of the natural portals that Wes had seen appear around town.

 He wanted to scream, but years of living in Amity Park had fully trained that out of him. Screaming was the number one way to get a ghost locked on you as their first target. Especially if you were there when the portal opened.

 Before Wes could even think to duck under the table he was using a figure stepped out of the portal, poised and composed. He had a deep purple hood that seemed to swirl with the fabric of galaxies and a large ornate clock embedded into his chest. His skin was a rich blue and he had glowing red eyes.

 Wes recognized him immediately.

 “Oh, hello Mr. Weston, is there something I can help you with?” Cassius Dark asked.

#Danny Phantom #ectoberhaunt 2021 #clockwork dp #wes weston dp #background dark ages #Bee's writing #fanfiction

[parvulous-writings]

Medbay magic // Angela Ziegler (Mercy) x Reader

Request:    Ello, It's me,Ya bor. So I wanted to request a lil' something- Can we get a one shot where Angela (Mercy, for those of yall that don't know (: )nurses the reader back to health, but ends up falling for the reader with all the time they spend together? Then she's super confused about her feelings and doesn't know what to do about it, and she's too scared to tell the reader, but... turns out the reader has always kinda liked Angela too, and they confess to Angela-And they all live happily ever after- 😭🤌No but fr ily bor ❤

Requested by: @rey-is-not-a-skywalker​​

Summary: The reader and Doctor Ziegler develop feelings for each other :)

Warnings: N/A

Words: 1.3K

Notes: I would like to thank one of my old classmates for the word soup conversation :) My requests are currently open! My pinned post (found here) contains both a list of characters I write for, and a masterlist!

Not my gif

You had been in the medical bay for nearly a week now. It wasn’t so bad, you supposed, you were being looked after well enough. You were frequently seen by several different doctors, one whom you greatly preferred over the others. Your favourite doctor was none other than Angela Ziegler, the best medic on the force. This wasn’t just your opinion either, this was just a common fact that everyone accepted. Under her care you had been nursed back from near death to almost perfect health. You swore on your own life that she was magic, it was like nothing you had ever seen. That wasn’t the only magic she used though, you were sure of it. She had managed to work her way into your heart as well, and you held her higher than any other. 

During your time in the medbay, you had several deep conversations with Angela, when there wasn’t all that much for her to do, and she needed something to keep her mind busy. Most of the time they started as nonsense words that she would respond to fondly- word soup, she dubbed it. It was mostly obscure facts or some line of thought that didn’t make much sense.  Angela’s personal favourite conversation was one from when you were half sedated due to the pain of your wounds, and you started spouting drivel about Sciron- an old figure in Greek mythology, who would ask passers by to help him was his feet.  When they knelt before him, he would suddenly give them a kick over the cliff into the sea, where the victim's body was devoured by a huge monstrous sea turtle which used to swim under the rocks. How you remembered about such an obscure figure in common knowledge Ziegler didn’t know, but your words were even stranger.  “What if the turtle was Sciron’s brother?” You posed, staring up at the ceiling as Angela patted down your bed, making sure you were comfortable. She laughed quietly at the absurd idea and shook her head slowly.  “As interesting as the theory is, I do not think that that is what the Greeks were striving for when telling that tale...”  “But why else would he feed the turtle, well, people?”  “I do not know- but there are many instances of strange stories such as this, yes?”  “I s’pose so..” You mumbled, pursing your lips in thought. “But like it could be his half brother, right? Cause that would explain-”  “Quiet down now, you need rest, not stress over fiction turtles and the men who feed them.” 

Why was this Angela’s most fondly remembered conversation? Purely because of it’s ridiculousness. It wasn’t often that such strange topics popped up; no matter what Captain Amari would have had people believe.  Plus you didn’t remember it, and thus she could use it to entertain you in future.

Soon enough, Angela was conflicted as she walked to deliver you the news of your discharge from the medical bay. She was happy for you; she understood how frustrating it can be to be cooped up in one place for any prolonged amount of time. But she was almost... Melancholy, beneath that joy. With you leaving the medbay, she was unsure when she’d get to see you properly next. She didn’t get much free time when off the field or out of the medbay. Most of that free time was spent taking care of herself and her mental health, and was often only late at night. She wanted to spend more time with you so badly, that it made her heart practically ache from the thought of not seeing you for an extended amount of time. She had become enamoured with you, as unprofessional as that was.  As she approached your bed, clipboard in hand, she took a deep breath. She forced a wide smile onto her angelic features, and cleared her throat to capture your attention when she got close enough.  “Any news, Doc?” You ask with a small smile, to which she nods.  “Yes, actually. You’ve finally been deemed fit to leave the med bay.” At this information you looked rather happy, and Angela couldn’t fault you for such a feeling. 

As you started to sit up and swing your legs over the side of the bed, Ziegler also moved round to offer you some help should you require it. Your legs are a little weak after staying in bed for so long, so you are a little wobbly  when you first get to your feet, but you don’t fall over, which is a very good sign in Angela’s eyes. “Thank you, Angela...” You smile at her, referring to everything she had done for you during your time in the medical ward.  “Bitte.” She replied, quite curtly. “Before you go, actually, there’s a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about...” Your brows furrow as she keeps talking.  “Is... Is something wrong?”  “No, no, not at all.” Angela assured you, understanding why you may be anxious about her words- usually when doctors or medical practitioners say something like that it’s never really good. “Far from it, actually.” This put your mind partially at ease, but not by much. She tried to give you what was an encouraging smile, but all it really managed to do was set your heart a-fluttering. Angela cleared her throat quietly.  “So- it may seem a little bit out of the blue for me to say something like this, I am well aware.” She started, trying to keep herself calm as she started to open up a little bit. “During your time under my care, I have... Grown rather fond of you; attached even.” With every word that passed her lips, you found yourself more and more awestruck. You silence seemed to unnerve Ziegler, causing her nerves to skyrocket. She remained outwardly calm, though. She didn’t know what to add to what she had said to improve it or make it less awkward, so she just stood there, tapping her fingers anxiously against the others. 

“Really?” Is all you can think to ask, your voice laced with an incredulous wonder that sounded closely akin to adoration. You would have asked if she were joking, but you knew very well that Angela wouldn’t joke about something like this. “I...” You trailed off, trying to think of how to phrase your next sentence adequately. “I’m rather fond of you too.” You settled to using her own words to describe your feelings. The look on Angela’s face told you that she probably didn’t think she’d get this far. “Oh...” She seemed at loss for words. 

You both stood their for a moment, trying to think of what to say to each other in light of these revelations. After about a minute or so, you broke the silence. “So.. Would you want to get a coffee, or tea sometime?” Your words seemed to break Angela out of a daze, and she gave you a rather large smile.  “Ah, yes, that would be lovely... Tea, and maybe some chocolates? I can bring some Swiss chocolate... It’s the best.” She told you with a quiet chuckle, and you nodded eagerly.  “That sounds good to me... What about time- when are you free?”  Angela had to think for a moment, “I’m off shift next Thursday.. What about five o’clock?” She asks, and you nod happily. “Wonderful!” She chuckled. “I shall see you then... I think you should get going before Morrison starts complaining that I’m keeping you back unnecessarily... I do believe he wishes to see you.” She informed, the fondness starting to show through in her voice.  You nod in gratitude.  “Thanks, Angela... Could I call you Angie, now?” You asked, rather cheekily. Angela rolled her eyes a little bit at the question.  “We’ll see. Now get going.” She hit your shoulder playfully, before moving away to fill in the paperwork about you being discharged. She gave you a final wave, and blew you a kiss as you walked out. 

#mercy #mercy overwatch #mercy x reader #angela ziegler #angela ziegler x reader #overwatch #overwatch x reader

[beautifulsnake2162020]

Ikevamp headcanons after watching Hamilton

Quick disclaimer: Yes I know this is a show about people who had owned slaves and slavery is bad. Having said that there's a reason why we suspend disbelief for a couple of hours and just allow ourselves to be swept into the story. I also love Phantom of the Opera but I also am aware that this is a story that involves an abusive and toxic relationship. The point is that I am aware that there are problems that needs to be discussed, but I still love the music, the story and the shows okay. This is just fan content not meant to be taken seriously and is just for fun. Okay? Now let's proceed.

I'll be doing Will and Arthur first since I'm currently doing Shakespeare's route and was inspired to do this after MC watches Romeo and Juliet with Vincent and I was wondering how Will would react to watching Hamilton. And Arthur is here because he is my husband/main lover. I might do Mozart and Napoleon next.

SPOILER ALERT: For anyone who hasn't seen the Disney Plus version of Hamilton, there might be some spoilers here (unless you already saw the show or know the story that is).

General Scenario:

You don't know how but Le Comte was able to get the filmed version of Hamilton, a musical which you've told Sebastian that you've been dying to see but was never able to because tickets were always sold out and entering the lottery was going to be a little too expensive for someone who lives in Japan and who doesn't exactly have the money or the time to simply fly to New York if in case she won. You were also excited because apparently Le Comte was able to modify the 21st century tech room that you use for your online classes and was able to get a wide screen and high quality surround sound which made you appreciate his efforts. A part of you was also curious as to how the other residents would react. You were scared that some of them might take offense, especially Napoleon who knew one of the characters in the show in real life. Would they react weirdly for seeing people different from them portray people that they knew? You were also wondering if they might even appreciate some of the 21st century slang that you and Sebastian would sometimes slip back into whenever it was just the two of you alone. After talking it out with everyone and explaining a few more things (like how its probably going to be different since it is a series of captured pictures-or at least that's your closest analogy- being played super fast with the synchronized sound of the actors- or what you were almost tempted to call "Techno Magic") during a dinner in which Shakespeare had decided to be present in, they were actually interested in what this show is about. Napoleon convinced you that he's fine and actually someone else playing Lafayette might even help with the suspension of disbelief since its been awhile since he has last met him anyway. Will even mentioned that while he has read and heard about stories from America, this is probably going to be the first story or production he's going to see from it. The only one who showed any hesitation - to no one's surprise - was Mozart, since he is attached to the kind of music he is familiar with (aren't we all?). But after prodding from both Jean, Le Comte and you giving him the puppy eyes, he finally relents. The day comes when everyone was once again free and for practicality everyone decided to have a meal first so that they won't be hungry during the show and also for you, Le Comte, and Sebastian to explain a few things everyone else may need to know to truly appreciate the show (like how the Presidential system and elections worked during the setting, what the word "Rewind" means, what is beatboxing, etc). So finally everyone gathered into the tech room after the meal, the lights were dimmed and once everyone was settled, you hit play. And as self-predicted of you, you find yourself crying in the end.

William Shakespeare (I'm still doing his route so please don't hate me if I get him wrong. Also no spoilers please).

- He was a bit shocked at first by how exactly up close you could see the facial expressions of the actors as well as the various ways it would cut to another person. He could now understand why you struggled with trying to explain how its played in a theatre but not exactly like the theatrical experience. But as you saw in your periphery, by the time Philippa Soo sings her first line, Will had already adjusted and allowed himself to be an audience and shut off his director and actor mindset (for the most part at least).

- While he didn't specialize in musicals, he found himself paying attention to the story of "the ten dollar founding father without a father." He knows how music could help both the actors and the audience in succumbing to their emotions in a scene and to suspend disbelief from reality. In his productions the words are not overwhelmed by any score but rather complemented to bring out the emotion he wants to evoke and for actors to show. Since many parts of the show has been influenced by the spoken word style without completely removing it from being sung, he has become enlightened with how powerful a show can be when it is done right.

- He not only enjoyed the story (especially the flow of it) and the production (especially some of the more technical details that the other residents hadn't noticed as far as a stage production is concerned), he loved that even the ensemble members had good acting and some of the onstage humor. One of the meta things he enjoyed was the obvious reference to his most superstitious work.

- Once you've seen how he loves analyzing the technical details of the production, you excitedly tell him about a special member of the ensemble who is known as "The bullet" among fans of the show. You could see him being enlightened as he watches the show with you again (this time with just the two of you) and he now sees "the bullet" and the way she interacts with the characters in a whole different light. He was so impressed with this idea that he may have adapted it into one of his new original plays (its not a copy paste of Hamilton's "bullet" but he definitely adapted assigning a member of the ensemble to have a special role that may not be significant at first, but he heavily notes that this member would have to be unique in interacting with any of the other characters).

- He didn't know what to expect from a 21st Century production but he found himself impressed with the prose and writing of various raps and songs. His favorite from Act 1 in terms of rhyme schemes was "Right Hand Man" and from Act 2 it was Jefferson's rap in "Washington by your side". And after settling down a bit his favorite emotional parts were "History has its eyes on you", "Hurricane", and "It's quiet uptown".

- He was impressed with how the double roles was given and how it actually is true for both of their roles in both acts. Ambiguity is one of his favorite things to have in a work, and he gives props to Lin for all the ambiguity he later realizes was in several parts of the show. If he and Arthur had been a little bit more closer, they probably would have bonded over the ambiguity Hamilton's comma in his letter to Angelica (see kids, grammar matters).

- A part of his brain wonders how the real life Hamilton would react to this and if him and Burr would still be enemies. But after some thinking he decides its not worth his efforts of asking anyone to bring them back since a wonderful production of their life has already been made even if it may not necessarily reflect who they truly are. He of all people knew what it's like to be inspired by great figures, it was fortunate that Lin Manuel Miranda decided to make a show about them before he had the chance to.

- You explain that in America Hamilton is one of the lesser known founding fathers of their nation and how it may be because his political opponents later on became Presidents and therefore was able to form the narrative. He becomes inspired by it and begins to search out people or stories who are hidden gems who may not be historically famous but had much more interesting stories than some of the ones he has heard of.

- Afterwards once you are sure that he has gotten comfortable enough with the genre you show him various videos of people rapping to his works and his reactions range from impressed to amused to "that's not what I mean when I wrote that" and you had to calm him down and explain that they can't hear him anyway after he started giving serious critiques on what the text means.

Arthur Conan Doyle

- While he was knowledgeable about many things, America's founding fathers was not one of them. He along with the other residents have gotten used to any rumors or exaggerated accounts of their lives and you and Sebastian have already warned that this is just a fictionalized production of the real person. As a writer of some historical fiction books he argued that he of all people was aware that any work based on history will speak more about the creators rather than the actual people they are writing about most of the time. He was nevertheless interested as to why you have become fascinated with the treasury secretary (and maybe it was with a twinge of jealousy that you began to expressly show admiration to another man even if he wasn't among the residents in the mansion). After all unlike many other residents of the mansion, on the surface it seemed that Hamilton was similar to Theo who mainly played a supporting but crucial role to his brother. He was thankful that you didn't hold it against him and was comforted that you were in a similar place. You even told him that the only thing you really knew about Hamilton before listening to the soundtrack and watching "Animatics" was that he was in the ten dollar American bill.

- And as someone who has delved into writing historical fictions, this was probably one of the most entertaining productions about a historical figure he has seen. He's going to be honest with you in that at first he was wondering if revealing Burr shot Hamilton in the opening was going to hinder him from enjoying the show; but he was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case at all. As a matter of fact it now made him want to find out who the real Hamilton was (although a part of him doubts if the real Hamilton had any regrets at all). According to him, this is why as a fictionalized historical work, the show is a success because it makes you want to find out more about the events and figures of the story (even if it means looking at darker realities that they did). And while the real Hamilton may be a lot different from what was shown, with all the things he went through and all the things he has done (for better or worse), he now wonders why exactly Le Comte hadn't approached him since he seems to be no better or worse than the average resident ("He and Newt could probably discuss mathematics all day."). You then explained that his political rivals (Jefferson and Madison from the show, and Monroe who wasn't shown in the musical) had later on become Presidents and was able to shape the narrative away from Hamilton. "Ron Chernow made Hamilton's biography because he was the lesser known founding father who was fading into obscurity among Americans and Lin read the book and recognized the story of someone who has risen through his writings. And to Lin that was also the story of hiphop." While he wasn't involved in politics as much as Hamilton was, Arthur had enough experience to know what it feels like to have those kinds of people in power. He also knows just how powerful it is to be in "the room where it happened" and how sometimes the real decisions weren't being made in an office but rather in either a private party or the right bar when people in power had their guard down and were more susceptible to being influenced.

- He could relate a lot with Hamilton on many things that he's only comfortable allowing either you or Theo to see. From being just so much more aware of death's inevitability coming for every living thing to survivor's guilt even though a part of him knows its irrational (but sometimes the emotional nonsense just overtakes our perspectives and actions). It's why he could understand Hamilton's need to write as much as he can before he dies. It's why for a time in his human life he had deviated from writing about Holmes and ventured into other genres. He could also relate to the need to prove what type of person he was, and how to go beyond his tragedies to serve people in their own ways. Hamilton did it as a soldier and the creator of America's financial system. And he is doing it as an informally practicing doctor and as a writer. It's a need that he's trying to mitigate since you've repeatedly told him that he doesn't need to prove anything to you or to anyone and to write whatever he pleases. But he also can't deny that it's still somewhere lodged in the back of his head.

- Just like William Shakespeare, in terms of the wordplay found in rap and the ambiguity present in the show and how those things were executed made him amazed and momentarily speechless. He was especially fanboying about "The comma after dearest" and how this essentially shows how important grammar was. It went to the extent that afterwards whenever he would write to you he would address you either as "My dearest, Y/N" or "My darling, Y/N" with special emphasis on the comma (sometimes you could see how there's more ink in the comma than some of the actual words. That's how much he wants to emphasize that you hold the title of dearest or darling). And you excitedly share with him some of the trivia knowledge of the show (like how in real life it was Angelica who originally made the comma mistake by writing to Hamilton as "My dear, sir" in one of her letters and it was Hamilton who was asking her what the comma means and even replied with "Ma chere, soeur") and how Angelica really did reference the Icarus metaphor in one of her letters to Eliza. And even though he wasn't a major musical nerd (he sang for fun), he would now join you in watching Howard Ho's Hamilton videos musically analyzing Hamilton (and would probably try to find a way to use this knowledge to annoy Mozart in some way).

- Speaking of music: Maybe it's because he's biased in his love for you but aside from Sebastian he's probably the one who has no qualms about the hiphop genre and was immediately into the various wordplays that rapping allowed. And because of this his favorite characters in terms of rapping are the ones played by Daveed Diggs (probably more than Hamilton himself even though you've explained that Lin is the one who wrote the whole thing). He even adapts to how Daveed as Jefferson would say Isaac's third law and incorporated it into his "let's tease Newton" kit. That's when you know he really loves Daveed Diggs ("Every action has an equal opposite -" "WILL YOU PLEASE STOP SAYING IT THAT WAY?! I didn't mind the first few times but this is ridiculous Arthur" "It must be nice, it must be nice to have a Newton on your side"). And his favorite character emotionally was Angelica (her raps in Schuyler Sisters and Satisfied may have helped).

- Speaking of the Schuyler Sisters, after watching it with you another time (this time with just the two of you) one of his favorite things to say is that you've got the best of all three sisters within you (Angelica's wittiness and intelligence, Eliza's cares for the more important things in life, and Peggy's humor) with the sexiness of Maria Reynolds. But because he sees all 4 of them in you he has the benefit of not needing to choose among them. Having said that there will be a period wherein he teases you if he makes you "Helpless" or "Satisfied" (and you respond either by kissing him or singing "That would be enough").

- Whenever you would sing as one of the Schuyler sisters he will join you as any of the male characters the moment he masters the soundtrack and could even sing it without the music. His favorite rap songs are "Guns and Ships", "Washington on your side", and of course "Satisfied". He also really loves "Non-stop", "the 10 duel commandments", and "The room where it happened". But his favorite sequence is from "the Winter's Ball" all the way to "Wait for it". Since it has romance, a shocking revelation, and gives insight to the perspective of the antagonist. He's also one of the first people to attempt to learn the choreography whenever he's in one of his mental blocks in writing. Of course he makes sure not to injure himself.

- He posts song lyrics to keep himself motivated in his times of mental block "There's a million things I haven't done. But just you wait" and "I'm not throwing away my shot" frequently appear around his desk.

-And whenever he's feeling low or insecure, just like Eliza you remind him to "Look around, Look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now."

#Ikemen Vampire #Headcanons #ikemen william #ikevamp #Hamilton #William Shakespeare #Arthur Conan Doyle #Ikemen Arthur #Lin Manuel Miranda #Daveed Diggs #Philippa Soo #Ron Chernow

[wisteria-lodge]

lion primary (bird model) + slightly burnt lion secondary

Hi there! I’m a fan of your sorting posts, and of your kind and insightful way of supporting people in finding out more about themselves. So naturally I’d be very interested in your take about my own sorting, if you’re game! :)

I won’t talk much about my Secondary, because now that I’m starting to unburn my Lion seems very clear to me, even when my explosion-prone Badger model still tries to get in the way of that clarity sometimes. The more interesting riddle is my Primary. So far I’m operating under the working theory that I am a Lion with a very strong Bird model - or is it the other way ‘round?

The supposed dichotomy between “thinking” and “feeling” in many of the more binary personality models has always bugged me, so it’s no wonder this is the area where whenever I feel like I’ve decided on who I am (for now) a new question mark pops up (so much fun!).

If ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ doesn’t work for you as terminology, it might help to think of Lion as leading with subconscious reasoning, and Bird as leading with conscious reasoning.

Instead of trying to formulate a cohesive text, which would have gotten even longer, I’m putting together an associative list of thoughts and stories that kept turning up while I was trying to figure out my Primary.

A very Lion primary way to solve a problem, not gonna lie ;)

- I think I got my Bird model from my father, who made quite an effort to teach me to look at things from all angles. As a child, whenever I got in a fight with this friend I had, he would sit me down and ask me to put myself in my friend’s shoes. It was hard, because a lot of the time my friend was being unfair to me and I actually could have used some support, someone to tell me that it was not okay to treat me this way. But I’m still immeasurably grateful for my father’s lessons, through which I’ve learned to understand peoples’ motivations and gained an understanding for the complexities of every conflict. He also taught me to doubt, to look closer, to not just believe the first thing I see, or want to see. To this day I still consider my ability to pin down the relevant factors of a situation before I make judgments one of my strengths.

That definitely sounds like a very strong, beloved Bird model.

- Whenever I had to write an essay at school or uni, I first had to come up with some aspect about the subject that I really cared about, even could be passionate about. (I am passionate about many things, so it was usually possible to find some connection to that.) Then I would use the essay to discuss this aspect in great detail, ending with a polemic flourish. I had the time of my life doing that; meanwhile the text would structure itself magically in relation to the issue I had chosen to focus on. Whenever I tried to write without such a focus, I’d get bored, stressed and the text would be of a much lower quality.

- Something similar happened in oral exams at uni: Only when I got the opportunity to bring a discussion paper (a few pointed statements regarding the exam topic) which I could then debate, I was able to recollect all the important details I needed for that. If I just had to report on the topic or answer questions, I often got confused, to the point of drawing a complete blank.

Linking things to emotion and passion - thinking with emotion and passion, basically - is a Lion primary thing. Especially if doing that makes you feel safe & comfortable & effective & happy.

- Even as a teenager I was very interested in philosophy, ethics and moral decision making.

I love teaching philosophy to teenagers. It’s the perfect time for it, they are so into it, and if it were up to me I would absolutely make it a required class.

I picked up certain philosophical ideas and concepts that I liked and integrated them in my belief system (yes, I know how very Bird that sounds).

I had my mind blown by Genealogy of Morals in high school, and I still won’t shut about Eichmann in Jerusalem. But what was so staggering to me in high school was… here are these ways of thinking that are possible and allowed. The fact that here they are in words in front of me made me a great deal more expansive.

Now that I think about it — I don’t remember adjusting my beliefs as in any way traumatic back then. The shift from a belief in the Christian God to Mother Goddess to my very own brand of agnostic paganism was smooth, natural.

Now that I think about it… I would describe myself as a mythic relativist (which is a term I just made up.) Systems of belief are metaphors, and they’re metaphors trying to describe and say something large and beautiful about what it means to be human, and what it means to live a good life. And since we are all human, they are all attempting to describe the same central, indescribable thing in different ways.

I feel this very deeply, but it took me a long while to be able to articulate it.

I constantly reevaluate, and I adapt.

You stop reevaluating and adapting, might as well be dead.

Still, there are some basics I’ve kept with me that just make too much sense to me to give up, and some that perhaps I keep because I just really like them and I’m kind of attached to them.

… somebody’s thinking with Pathos :)

- I’m a constructivist at heart, so that makes it much easier to tweak the content of my beliefs while staying true to the principle that we (socially) construct our reality, and (my take on this): that I choose what kind of world I want to live in, and according to that I make choices which are the most likely to create that world.

- At uni I attended a seminar about the development of moral judgment and action. What I remember most clearly about it is how much it bugged me that the other students didn’t seem to understand that morality always depends on the perspective. Even though I had definite moral convictions that I was ready to fight for, at the same time it seemed obvious to me that theoretically there could be a justification for every kind of moral guideline; it depended on your principles and the world you wanted to live in.

A human after my own heart.

I wanted to understand these different perspectives, not talk about empty categories like “right and wrong” or “good and evil” that meant nothing to me. I still feel that way.

Absolutely. I don’t use alignments when I DM Dungeons & Dragons. I mean, I can list evil *things* but that’s not the same thing as defining *being evil.* I want to know WHY these people did these evil things.

It just seems so impractical and complicated to base a conversation on those broad categories that don’t have any definition people can agree on instead of referring either to defined principles (in order to explain what good/ bad is *for you*) or consequences of certain actions, and whether you want them/ accept them/ don’t want them.

Oh that’s a fun discussion. Asking a highschooler to define “evil.”

(and then they have to figure out what moral systems Jigsaw, Pinhead, the Joker, and Bane all subscribe to.)

- Between “the Revolutionary” and “the Grail Knight”, I would love to be the former, but I’m clearly the latter. I’m someone who questions, not someone who knows.

Take my archetypes with a grain of salt, they are supposed to describe characters. (Who are different from people - but still useful, because they are attempts to describe us.) I actually want to write more about the differences I see between the way fictional secondaries are written and the way real-life secondaries work.

And just “knowing”... is dangerous. That’s how Exploded Lions happen. 

There are a lot of causes I find worthy to fight for, but I haven’t committed to any one, which so far I’ve attributed to my Burned Secondary (How do I do things?).

Sounds about right.

If I’m honest, though, it feels a bit strange to really, really fight for anything. I’d rather contribute to the cause by keeping an eye on whether we stay aligned to our values on every level of the fight, not by storming sightlessly in front of some army. (I got polemic again, didn’t I? ;))

So after all this Bird talk, why do I think that I’m a Lion?

… that was the Bird segment?

- I trust my intuition. It has never steered me wrong, with one exception: My Primary burned for a time when I first understood the concept of privilege and internalized bias, which was coincidentally at a time when I also went through a lot of changes in my personal life. Like many people unaware of their own privilege, I had thought of myself as “one of the good ones”. I learned that even with the best intentions I could cause great harm without even noticing it. This then also happened to me in a relationship, when I was already confused, hurt and more than a bit burned. It seemed like I couldn’t trust my intuition anymore, but I also couldn’t figure out intellectually what to believe, because I felt mentally overwhelmed by all those new concepts, all of which put my previous convictions into question. Which Primary burned then?

Been there, done that, it’s brutal. It sounds to me like a Lion dramatically changing direction - that’s what I mean when I say that it *hurts* when a Lion changes their mind. Birds see their past selves that thought wrong as almost different people. “I wasn’t aware of my privilege then, now I am, and can take steps doing forward.” But if you’re a lion it’s like… I *should* have been aware, and the fact that I wasn’t says something terrible about my moral/emotional calibration, and THAT has to be put right.

- I felt like everything I had learned about the world and myself didn’t count anymore. My concepts and my strategies didn’t serve me anymore. So I started to rebuild everything from scratch, this time with less pride and more practicality.

Yeah. That’s some Lion recalibration. With a Bird Model, to help.

- Anyway, I trust my intuition. It contains my experiences, instinct and all my accumulated unconscious observations of the situation, and it’s very reliable. Usually I use it as an important source of information which I try to back up with data/ understanding, but when push came to shove and the apparent facts would contradict what my intuition told me, I would be unable to set my gut feeling aside. I wouldn’t follow it blindly, of course. But I would never just go against it either. If the voices of my unconscious and conscious mind don’t align, I keep poking at the issue until they do. If I absolutely cannot come to a satisfying conclusion, I go with my gut. Since I know it usually knows what it’s doing, I’ll find out the reasons for my feelings later. (Weird, says my inner bird who is busy compiling these examples.)

I’LL FIND THE REASON FOR MY FEELINGS LATER. What a perfect way of articulating what is perhaps the central experience of being a Lion primary.

- Probably I’m just both, you know. Some interesting lion/bird-chimaera. I like it.

I read you as a pretty clear Lion Primary, Bird primary model. But as always, the decision is very personal.

- I have a weird way of processing information: I read/ hear it, work to understand it, work to connect it to existing knowledge in my mind, then my beliefs, my existing knowledge and my feelings about it all wind around each other, grow into each other, some dissolve together, becoming a swamp which then nourishes the plants of new ideas and connections that grow from it.

You grok it. And that’s not weird.

I often can’t remember where certain knowledge came from. I can’t take it out of a memory shelf and tell you about it. I usually remember that I’ve read a certain book and whether I liked it / it influenced me, but I won’t exactly remember what was in it, even if it was important to me. Because all that information is already processed/ digested/ transformed into something new. It’s much easier to access my memory swamp intuitively than consciously.

and you seriously had like… any doubt that you were a Lion.

In intellectual discussions I tend to get stuck because I just can’t remember enough of the details (for my satisfaction), just my conclusions about the topic and how I feel about it.

I’m inclined to think that not accessing the details is either a secondary thing, or an entirely unrelated processing thing.

What do you make of all this? I’m very curious!

:)

[On an unrelated note, I’d like to specify the compliment I made at the beginning of this post. I’m really impressed with your ability to pick up on what people need, not just what they say they want. As a counselor this is a skill I try to hone, so I know how difficult it is to not get too distracted by the story people tell and miss the more subtle cues. You have a powerful combination of perceptiveness, insight and so much kindness, which you use to effectively support people who have questions, are in distress or confused. You don’t generalize. You don’t judge. You see the people who talk to you.  I love that you’re a teacher, because I can see you’re using the influence that gives you in a way that contributes to making the world a better place. Fellow Idealist, I’d like to give you a High Five for that, if I may. :)))]

I’m not sure I’ve ever been given a better compliment. Thank you.

#submission #sortinghatchats #lion primary #lionpri #bird primary vs lion primary #philosophy stuff

[c-is-for-circinate]

So as close as I am to fully escaping Hades for the first time, I figure I might take this opportunity to write down a couple of things I'm scared of from this ending. The story is so good so far! But I have seen good stories before! And there are patterns, right, patterns it's so easy for even good stories to fall into, so yeah, I have fears, and they mostly come down to Hades himself.

(Yep, this one got long again! People seem to be enjoying my game-reaction rambles, so, for your enjoyment under the cut: themes of separation and reunion, predictions for what Zagreus is the god of, and a whole lot of discussion of familial abuse dynamics, how they're depicted in fiction, and the work it takes to change them in real life. Stay warned! Stay safe!)

(ALSO, I still haven't made it past the first couple of chambers in the Temple of Styx, so no spoilers in the reblogs/comments please! Yes, even though the whole post is me going on about predictions and hopes and concerns about the path the story might take. I WILL GET THERE SOON.)

It has been really interesting watching some of the stuff the game is doing with themes of parting and reunion, and how that corresponds to life and death. So many of our social links are about reuniting estranged loved ones: Chaos and Nyx, Eurydice and Orpheus, Patroclus and Achilles. Hades is estranged from Olympus, Persephone left. And every time we leave, or try to leave, it is both an attempt at a parting (and Meg and Than are so hurt by that goodbye, or lack thereof) and an attempt at a reunion with our mother. Every time we die it's a reunion, every time we die it's fun, it's great, we get to go back home and check in with all of our friends and be impressed by whoever made Employee Of The [Timeperiod] and sell fish to the cook and put down yet more rugs. (My Zagreus has something of a rug addiction. What can you do.)

It's at the point where I feel pretty secure in stating that Zagreus is going to discover eventually that he is both life/death/rebirth god, and god of partings and reunions. Both halves of both of those things. People leave each other when they die and re-find their loved ones in death; you go away from one group of people to come back to another; you have to depart to return, and I really think that's where we're going to end up with Zagreus. He's going to reunite his various friends with their loved ones, he's probably going to restore communications between Hades and Olympus and even Persephone, he's going to reunite with his mom, and he's going to come back to the Underworld before he leaves to see everyone up top all over again. And of course the vehicle for all of this coming and going is death, because death is the ultimate departure and reuniter. (This is absolutely a religious concept containing a whole bunch of "oh hey our culture has a lot of Christian influence, doesn't it", Greek trappings aside, but that's fine, it's a game made in 2018 not 300 BC, these things happen. They keep calling the Underworld 'hell' and 'infernal'. It's all good.) Of course he's a cthonic god. Of course he bleeds, because you have to bleed in order to die, and Zagreus has to die again and again and again. That's his whole thing.

Thing is, though, looking at those themes, I am also continually aware of the fact that some partings are for a really good reason. Some partings should not end in reunion.

Yes, of course this is about Hades the abusive dad. I have been talking about Hades the abusive dad basically non-stop since I started playing this game, where did you think this post was going.

There are a few things I'm nervous about, separate but related, and at the core it all comes down to, I'm not okay with it if we learn why Hades got to be this way, and Zagreus forgives him as we-the-audience are meant to do, and Hades promises to do better, and nothing concrete about the situation is forced to change. Actual, meaningful, practical, logistical, non-hypothetical non-metaphorical change, not just for Zagreus but for Hades himself.

Because I know how this story tends to go, in fiction. Fictional abusive parents (especially in fantasy/sci-fi stories) tend to come in two types: 'coerced their offspring into actual murder with a side of physical abuse and optional unethical lab experimentation', or 'this was here to create character conflict, we didn't mean for it to read as actually abusive, this parent just has flaws to make them a good character, we swear!' Hades isn't the first type--we have never once seen Hades strike his son, or anybody, or even come out from behind his desk--which means that the fear is, always, always, in every piece of fiction, that he's the second. That the writers are going to decide that the right response to his abuses is remorse, forgiveness, and one really good conversation. That they don't realize it's abuse in the first place.

And, like. They have to know, right? They have to. They can't have done this by accident. (Sometimes, writers get so close by accident.) They can't have done so well at drawing out this situation simply by going, 'well, people are meant to fear this god, so they'd probably react like this, and I guess based on what I've seen in other stories or vague acquaintances they'd then do this,' and never put the name on the situation. Every single time we leave to the tune of a Hades word-flash, he's being dismissive, insulting, and sometimes downright cruel. He is cruel. They have to know!!!

But oh boy have I been consuming media for a lot of years, and oh boy have I run into a lot of writers who don't know.

Reconciliation is such a loaded word, but stories about dysfunctional families really do love it. Stories based around themes of reunion are primed for it. And of course, it's nice, it ties a happy ending off with a sweet little bow, everyone gets to be with the people they love and the family is safe and nobody gets hurt, but so rarely have I seen stories that show the actual work required to rebuild those relationships in a realistic or meaningful way. So rarely do stories trying to build that happy ending actually let the victim of abuse set and maintain boundaries. The character never gets to actually just cut the damn ties to the thing that hurt them. The character so rarely even gets to be safe.

And it's so hard in this game specifically, because "THERE IS NO ESCAPE", because every single thing about this game says that the story's not over when Zagreus gets to the surface, that no matter what he's going to have to come back. It's so hard, because this is a game about reunions. I am not going to get an ending where the abused kid trying to flee his toxic home and abusive dad actually gets to leave and stay gone, not in this one. And that hurts (I have watched and supported and done my best to help multiple real-life friends get the fuck out of homes like that, and stay gone, I have seen how hard it is, how complicated, how awful, and there are never stories for that), but I can live with it, if I get an ending where Zagreus is at least safe. Where things change. Where they really change.

Which is why I need actual, concrete, material changes in the logistics and power structure of the Underworld for this ending to be okay. Understanding why Hades is Like That doesn't cut it. Remorse doesn't cut it! Because look, even if Hades wants to do better, even if he admits he's at fault and tries to be better, he is still set up in a position as an all-powerful tyrant, and trying to become a better person is hard. There is nobody around who can keep him in check when he starts backsliding, which he will. Even if he doesn't want to, he will.

Because people are people, and it's really difficult to break patterns! Especially if everything around them stays the same. Hades is going to slip at some point, be cruel, be callous, be tyrannical, no matter how much of an effort he's making. Not to mention, it is STRESSFUL to face your own crimes and improve, it sucks, it feels bad. And what do habitual abusers do when they feel bad? What's the only coping mechanism Hades appears to have established for dealing with his own shit? That's right, it's inflicting suffering on everyone else around him. (This is why it doesn't really matter what circumstances drove Hades to act this way, why it can't matter--I believe that he is suffering, but he copes with that suffering by inflicting additional suffering on everyone around him, everyone who relies on him, and that's still true no matter what made him feel bad to begin with.) So then we just get a great old guilt-->lashing out-->more guilt-->more lashing out merry-go-round of abuse even as Hades is trying to change. That's how these things work. And yes, change is possible, improvement is absolutely possible, but the environment needs to change first. The system that enables and rewards Hades for acting this way can't stay in place. Things need to actually change, with people who are around to support Hades in his growth and also check his power, people who have power of their own to stop him. And however it happens, for this story with this protagonist with these goals to feel like a happy ending, Zagreus needs to be safe.

It would be okay, though a little disappointing, if those changes were mostly based in magic and fate and, idk, divine mind-control. (This story has been so grounded in actual human dynamics that a fantastical solution to a realistic problem would feel like a letdown, but if it actually solved the problem I'd be okay with it, more or less.) It would be okay, though a little disappointing, if the responsibility for bringing Hades to heel fell upon Zagreus and Persephone, if the two family members who he hurt badly enough that they felt the need to run away from him entirely now had to shoulder the burden of helping him fix himself. (There are definitely ways to write that dynamic better and ways to write it worse, and I think I trust these writers to land on the 'better' side of the scale, but I still don't love the implications.) I think I'd be pretty into it if Hades took a vacation off to Olympus to Work Out His Shit with his own family, while a coalition of Meg, Nyx, Thanatos, Zagreus, and Queen Persephone took over running the Underworld in his absence. I think we might end up getting some combination of those things. I'm hopeful. I think these writers might know what they've written. I think they might have a sense for what it'll take to fix.

But yeah, I'm nervous. (Nervous enough that I might switch to God Mode just to get through, combat has started getting really tedious instead of fun, I want to know what happens next, and this is a game and there is no shame in making it more fun for myself by making the boring parts a little quicker and easier.) I've seen so many stories go wrong. This one has done so much to earn my trust. We'll see if it breaks.

#Hades game #Hades spoilers #driveby meta attack #C plays stuff #I have so much hope!!!!~! #I have so much fear!!!!! #DO NOT TELL ME WHAT THE ANSWER IS GOING TO BE!!!!!