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greenglowinspooks · 7 months

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(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 3)

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Tw: Vivisection mention, torture mention (GiW agent receiving), me not actually knowing how telegram works

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually.

(Pt. 1 here) (Pt. 2 here) - (Pt. 4 here)

(Masterlist/subscription post)

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It’s an average, ordinary afternoon in Gotham, and Jason is in hell.

Specifically, Jason is in hell because he’s been researching the GiW for the last week or so, ever since a cryptic message from Scarecrow of all people.

He still hasn’t gotten anything substantial out of it that Scarecrow hadn’t already provided. Most location data had been previously scrubbed from the database, weaponry details were apparently all stored physically, and the experiment logs seemed to be only accessible from within one of the bases, whose locations Jason did not have.

Apparently Babs and Tim were having similar issues with gathering information. He had sent a copy of the files over to them in a moment of weakness, but they were having the exact same results as him.

To make things worse, the GiW was more active than they had been previously, combing through Crime Alley and the rest of Gotham tirelessly. At least they weren’t harassing him anymore, he thought, but now he had even less of a clue what they wanted.

And to top it all off, the Joker had escaped Arkham a few days prior to Jason receiving Scarecrow’s note, and he still hadn’t done anything. That could only mean that he was planning something big, which meant more grief for Jason, because the clown was obsessed with him.

So yes, Jason wasn’t having the best week.

He got up from his computer, stretched, and walked over to the window.

The sky was Gotham’s usual grey, clouded with a toxic miasma made up of traditional pollutants and the aftermath of gas attacks both, which could generously be called ‘smog.’

The streets seemed busier than usual, or maybe that was just because Jason was having a hard time keeping his eyes focused.

With blurry vision and a dull ache in the back of his head, Jason paced through his apartment, going through everything he knew.

The GiW, or Ghost Investigation Ward, were part of a secret government project having to do with ‘ecto-entities,’ which were mostly made up of ghosts.

The GiW was able to kidnap and steal away anyone who was ‘ecto-contaminated’ to be dissected, and it was completely legal.

According to the non-censored patrol reports he was given, Jason himself was considered ecto-contaminated. So were Bruce, Damian, Steph, and Cass.

There were also several rogues that were in the same boat, but their names had been redacted, presumably by Scarecrow. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he guessed it was either for leverage or privacy. Knowing Crane, it could be both.

Anything useful about the GiW seemed to be stored physically within their compounds, or on an operating system that couldn’t be accessed outside of certain areas.

Anything useful about ghosts was conveniently removed by Scarecrow.

And, lastly, he knew from capture logs that they had numerous captive ghosts which were definitely being experimented on. One of these ghosts was named Daniel, last name redacted, and had been turned over by his parents in return for allowing them to run their own experiments on the boy.

From what he could tell, it had been around fifty two days since he had been turned in.

Fifty two days of experimentation and dissection.

Jason had to find him.

But first, he had to find the locations of the GiW bases, and plan his entrance carefully. He couldn’t let them get away because of a simple mistake.

The only location data he had been able to find was on a picture of the boy, Daniel, a picture of a vigilante in a red suit, and a quick note left about Daniel which hadn’t been transferred into the main database.

The note was…

Jason had been around crime for a very, very long time. He understood it intimately, in a way most people would never hope to achieve.

He understood hatred, too.

And yet, the words in that note were almost incomprehensible to him.

They were mockery of a child in pain. A child that was not seen as human. A child that was seen as a threat, a monster.

The man had detailed the security surrounding the child being cut back. Apparently, the kid had some sort of sonic scream. They were removing the muzzle that inhibited it because he had screamed himself hoarse, and he couldn’t make a sound anymore.

He also mentioned that the kid was cut open at least once a day, sometimes multiple times. He was opened up, played with, and sewn back shut.

The man joked that they should just put a zipper on him, so they wouldn’t keep wasting their stitches.

Jason really, really wanted to kill that guy.

The metadata on the note traced back to a newly-bought building in Gotham’s financial district, while the photos both came from Amity Park, Illinois.

Amity Park, Illinois did not exist in any official capacity.

Tim, who had taken the Batplane to check the precise location listed in the metadata, had reported that there was a town there after all, and it was on complete media lockdown from the rest of the world. He hadn’t even been able to use Bat, Justice League, or Young Justice channels to message anyone outside of the city until he left.

Jason had checked the building in the financial district firsthand, and found that the man who had submitted the note had done so while resting on a patrol of the city. He seemed to go there often to avoid his superiors, and Jason found it easy enough to get the drop on him the third time around.

His advanced interrogation techniques hadn’t been enough to get the man to name any locations. Worse, the man definitely recognized Red Hood, and would definitely tell the rest of the GiW about what had happened as soon as he left.

So, Jason did something about that. He couldn’t kill him, unfortunately, so he did the next best thing.

The GiW sent him to a public hospital within a few hours of finding him with shattered hand bones, broken arms, and a throat with near-permanent damage. The man wouldn’t be able to speak for a month at least.

He might never write again.

Jason, having read the note over and over until the words stained the backs of his eyes, thought it was the least he deserved.

Jason sighed, stopping his pacing. He wasn’t getting anywhere with this. If anything, working himself up was only going to lower the chances of him magically coming to a realization about where the kid was or what in the hell was going on.

He walked into the kitchen, popped some leftovers into the microwave, and started them up.

Once they were done, he brought them out to his desk, intending to eat as he continued to work on the GiW case.

When he saw his screen, he froze.

Telegram had been opened to a new chat with someone he had never messaged before.

TooFine: who are you?

TooFine: why are you looking into the giw?

The messages were a couple of minutes old, probably sent while Jason was spiraling pacing. He just stared at the screen, dumbstruck.

Shakily, he responded.

RedDead: How the hell did you get my contact info

Whoever was on the other side of the screen paused for a second. Jason considered sending a quick text to Babs to tell her what was going on, but he decided that he could handle this by himself.

TooFine: got it from the backdoor I put into the giw system.

RedDead: Shit

TooFine: ok your turn

TooFine: why r u looking into the giw? seriously man

RedDead: I don’t have a single reason to tell you. Give me one and I might answer your questions

TooFine paused again. Clearly they both had issues trusting someone over the internet, and rightfully so. What they had both admitted to doing was incredibly illegal, and if someone turned them in, they would be in deep shit.

TooFine: ive been trying to take down the giw since it was created. I can help u if ur honest with me

RedDead: Oh yeah, because no one has ever lied to another person on the internet before

RedDead: But fine

RedDead: I’m looking into them because they’ve been shadowing me for over a month at this point, among other reasons

TooFine: other reasons?

Jason sighed. He shouldn’t have added that. He knew that the other guy would ask, but he said something anyways.

RedDead: They’ve got a kid. I don’t like it when people hurt kids

TooFine: Danny? he’s alive?

RedDead: From what I can tell

So he knew the kid. Or, at least, he was pretending to. It would make sense for him to be cagey about his intentions, and for him to be desperate enough to reach out.

TooFine: oh my god

TooFine: do you know what city? fuck

TooFine: fuck fuck fuck

TooFine: I need to find him man please

RedDead: He’s somewhere in Gotham

RedDead: I’ve been trying to find him for a week now but no dice. They keep everything important on separate servers

TooFine: listen man you’re a good hacker but you’re not as good as me. you need my help if we’re gonna find Danny

RedDead: Okay, what are you trying to get me to agree to?

TooFine: i’m coming to gotham and we’re going to meet up

RedDead: Hell no

RedDead: Stranger danger

TooFine: if I tell u who I am will you say yes

RedDead: ?? How am I supposed to verify if you’re telling the truth

TooFine then sent him what seemed to be a selfie. Jason’s jaw dropped at the kid’s sheer audacity.

RedDead: There’s something seriously wrong with you

TooFine: my name is Tucker Foley. i live in amity park. i’m in 10th grade

RedDead: ???????? WHAT THE HELL

TooFine: i can send u my address too

RedDead: PLEASE DON’T??

RedDead: WHAT’S YOUR FUCKING DAMAGE? DON’T DOXX YOURSELF TO ME

RedDead: WHAT IF I WANTED TO KILL YOU OR SOMETHING? WHAT IF I WAS A FED

TooFine: i have to take that chance.

TooFine: Danny is my best friend. they’ve had him for over a month and no one’s doing anything to help. mr. Lancer was the only one who cared and he gave up after they blackmailed him

TooFine: they’ve had him for OVER A MONTH. I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD.

TooFine: Sam and Jazz and I are coming to gotham and we’re going to find him no matter what it takes

TooFine: you have to help us

Jason considered, for a second, the choices he’d made in his life that had led up to this moment. He also considered, if he was in this kid’s position at his age, if he would be doing the same.

He decided to throw the kid a bone.

RedDead: [4735.jpg]

TooFine: HUH

RedDead: I’m guessing you know me

TooFine: RED HOOD??????

RedDead: No I’m just a very dedicated LARPer

TooFine: am i gonna die for Danny right now

RedDead: If I were literally anyone else, probably

RedDead: But no, you’re not. I’m gonna help you find your friend

TooFine: your username is red dead and you’re. yeah ok

RedDead: Oh come on, it’s funny

TooFine: Danny would love you

RedDead: So Danny clearly has great taste in jokes

TooFine: nope. literally loves puns and wordplay

RedDead: Nevermind

They both paused for a second. Then, Jason had a thought.

RedDead: Wait you’re in the 10th grade and you’re hacking into government databases?

TooFine: please don’t tell my parents.

RedDead: And how are you supposed to explain a sudden vacation to Gotham to your parents?

TooFine: wait so you’ll help me?

RedDead: I really hate to say it but I’m not the best at hacking, and my usual help is busy trying to track down the Joker. So, yep, we’re teaming up

TooFine: LET’S GOOOOOO

RedDead: God. I’m asking a 16 year old to help me take down a government agency and save another 16 year old

RedDead: I feel like the bat

TooFine: oh my god this is awesome. Danny is gonna flip when the actual real-life Red Hood comes to save him.

RedDead: I already regret this

TooFine: too late.

TooFine: btw do u have any place for 2 teenagers and 1 adult teenager to stay in gotham? preferably without dying but yknow.

Jason groaned. He was really, really gonna regret this, and he knew it.

Still, the alternative was some overeager kid dragging two other idiots to Gotham to find their friend and getting themselves killed. At least this way he’d have help, and damn good help at that.

He really was turning into the Bat, wasn’t he?

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#dcxdp #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #dc x dp fic #liminal scarecrow #Tucker doxxes himself as a power move and immediately regrets it #Jason knows for a fact if he doesn’t agree Tucker is gonna get himself killed trying to do this without him #Jason: holy shit I need to find this kid #meanwhile in Crane’s apartment #Danny: hey dr. crane would you still love me if I was a worm #sorry this took a long ass while btw I had no idea what I was doing LMAO

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helluvaloverx3 · 1 month

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Johnny Slaughter Sawyer NSFW Alphabet

A/N: we need more johnny fanfic!! please 🙏

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A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Johnny isn’t the comforting type— not vocally at least. In the beginning, he just turned onto his back and lit up a cigarette. You didn’t blame him, you didn’t know each other fully yet of course… it was all lust before the love. If he started to like— even love you he’ll hold you while you quivered from the pounding he just gave you.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His arms. He worked hard for them— working on cars, working out, he was a mechanic in his free time… killing people that talked to you a little too much— he needed those strong arms. They got rid of most of his problems.

He loved your hipdips. He loved rubbing them with his dirty hands under your sundress as you made sandwiches and lemonade for him after a hard day of working on your car. His rough large hand were able to grip them as your body slammed down onto his cock, giving you leverage and aid in pleasing him.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

He loves to cum on the cheeks of your face and tits. He bathes in the visual— the cum drip down the dip from your face onto your chest. His second favorite place to cum is in your pussy of course, it’s only his second favorite because he plugs your pussy up so it doesn’t leak out but it also means it’ll be the last time he cums in your hole for a lil while~

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Before you ‘met’ him, he stalked you. You don’t know about this. That’s why you were suprised when he took you to your house without you even telling him directions. He said it was intuition, “as the hippies called it.”. His hands and lips that night in his truck stopped you from thinking about it thankfully… you believed it just enough so that he could sneak into your home with your unlocked windows and steal your diary. Oh the things you wrote about— you always wanted to be choked and treated like an absolute whore! Thankfully he knew this, and your first time together was glorious. He still has it to this day and you wonder what happened to it…

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He is very experienced. He was… experimental in his younger age. As he got more handsome there was more girls on him like fleas. You’d assume he took advantage of this, of course.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Cowgirl. He loved the idea of knowing that even if you were on top he could still have more power over the whole situation. However, if you decided to do something you’ll regret— trying to slap that beautiful ass of his— you will have your face in a pillow and your ass being pounded.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Expect no funny moments when you get Johnny in the mood. When he’s horny, everything else in the world is radio silent in his head. Even if you tried cracking a joke he’d probably wipe that smile right off your face by slapping your ass and slamming his lips onto yours. But I know you’d gladly kiss him back, won’t chu’?

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He’s fairly well kept. He cares about his looks! He doesn’t let anything get too out of hand, but he will make sure that it isn’t bare either. The bare skin freaks him out…

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Everything else seems nonexistent. His energy is so dominating and rough that your body just gives yourself to him.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He rarely masturbates, why would he when he had you on his couch with you face down ass up?

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

We all know this man is kinky, just listen to his voice lines! Degradation kink, choking, hair pulling, and definitely a sub and dom dynamic is in the big book of kinks of his.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He will do it anywhere. He doesn’t care if his family walks in, he doesn’t care if he fucked you in front of a dead body. As long as he can have his hands on you? He does not care.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Killing. Every time he kills someone he needs to let off steam. He just killed someone… he deserves praise, he deserves some pleasing— I’m just gonna get straight to the point, he deserves you on your knees sucking his cock.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Someone else touching you. Doesn’t matter what kind of touch. If a victim even tried to touch you while trying to escape the family, best believe the body won’t even be recognizable when he got done with them. God forbid if it was a man who touched you, consider him missing the next day and Johnny fucking you while he watched, “Ahaha! Ya wish this was you, huh? She’s all you could ever want.”

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

While he loves eating you out and watching you squirm beneath his tongue and feeling your thighs squeeze around his head, he enjoys getting blowjobs unshamfully more. He loves the way you would take all of him at once, and the feeling of your warm mouth all around his hard cock. He likes how your eyes teared up when placed his hand on the back of your head and slowly guiding you deeper and deeper onto his dick. The way your hair got messy while doing it made you seem like something out of the porn magazine he used to look at. Don’t even get him started on when you licked the underside of his dick while staring up at him with those pretty little eyes, he will make sure his tip kisses your cervic when he fucks you.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

This man loves it fast and rough. He just really fucking enjoys pounding into you more than anything. But, if you really impressed him and made him proud— like killing someone for the first time— his touch is as gentle as a butterfly. His lips slightly graze your skin as his rough fingers rubbed your clit in slow circles.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Loves them. He lives for way your ass looks in that short summer dress, lives for the way you gasp and whine when his fingers go under your dress, lives for the sheer joy of how your fingers frantically grasp at his belt to fuck in the bathroom of his mothers place. God forbid if Nancy heard you too…

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Abso-fuckin’-lutely. He loves taking risks, it gets him going. He almost constantly gets caught killing people— he loves the thrill. Johnny will definitely take risks. The thought of being caught almost exhilarates him. Almost. But the idea of the man that tried to swipe you off your feet was the same man hearing Johnny slam his hips on your ass in bathroom? Oh~ He loves that.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

He can go for a couple rounds until he finally gets tired out, and he can definitely last a while too. That’s actually very surprising because of how much he smokes. But the last round will always be him pumping him warm thick cum into your aching pussy. It gives him a strong sense of pride knowing you’re walking around with his cum in you.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Collars. He would love to put a collar around your pretty lil’ neck. Some of the leather collars hes collected has engravements of ‘Johnnys’ Property’, and ‘Johnnys’ lil’ Slut’. He loved pulling the metal chain, forcing you to sit in his lap. Tugging on the chain he manipulated your body into bouncing on his cock, when you’d cum he’d tighten the collar to overstimulate you, of course. He loved when you bounched your ass onto his length as he tugged on the chain too.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Your whole relationship is unfair, what did you expect? You don’t get to tease Johnny, if you somehow did… Sometimes he’ll go along with your teasing. He thought it was cute how you thought you were the one in control. You better hope you’ll be able to sit down due to the hand prints on your ass cheek later.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Grunts and growls echo in the shack. He loves dirty talking to you, “Like that? Like that you dirty whore? Who knew you’d be so… fuckin’— Mmh— slutty?” With how much he smokes his mental pain away, he huffs and pants more than he’d like, his lungs are slightly given out… it sounds really hot when he’s out of breath at least.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

When you drink with him? Oh, he will make out with you. He loves the taste of your tongue when you’ve drunken his favorite alcohol. He loves the way you in your drunkened state sloppy grabs at his shirt and how your tongue rolls out only for him to lick yours back up. Be the time y’all jaws are weak from making out you’ve both passed out on his couch.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

His cock is fat, around 7 inches and even though he isn't abnormally big, the way he's gets balls deep into you makes it feel like he's fucking huge, pushing against your cervix at all times. The girth though, fuck, it stretches out your pussy so much, it hurts every time but when the pain subsides? You’re gripping his hair as your calves rest on the back of his ass pushing his hips closer to yours.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

His sex drive is through the roof, by the time you were pulling your panties back up after a quickie his cock was already standing tall once again. The amount of times he’s grabbed your shoulders pushing you down to your knees to fix his raging boner has been… way too many times. “What can I say? It’s your fault. Won’t chu’ fix it for me, sugar?”

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He won’t fall asleep, it’s very rare that he doesn’t. The only times he will fall asleep is if you too were drunk of your minds. He has chores to do around the property, as much as he’d love to cuddle you he has to make sure his mother doesn’t kill you because to her youre a ‘distraction’… at least you’re a pretty distraction.

#johnny sawyer #johnny sawyer fanfic #johnny slaughter #johnny slaughter fanfic #johnny slaughter x reader #johnnysawyer #johnnyslaughter #johnny (texas chainsaw massacre)#tcmgame #x reader #johnny slaughter smut #tcm johnny #johnny tcm

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nonotnolan · 10 months

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The Great Gym Shift

Day 15 of life after the body swapping incident that affected downtown Washington DC, and life was still weird as shit. Some people were calling it the Great Shift-- a government cover-up for a science experiment gone wrong. I don’t think a two mile radius really deserves a “Great” moniker but I had to admit it was catchy. Others were calling it a terrorist bioweapon meant to cause havoc across the nation’s government. That did seem possible, but the terrorists had terrible aim if that was the case.

A few people even said it was a plan to put key politicians into younger, healthier bodies, but... I know for a fact that one isn’t true. I was there at ground zero when the swap occurred, working as a personal trainer at the gym. All those desirable bodies, mine included, went to some of the most pathetic white collar workers you could imagine. Whatever happened, it was definitely an accident.

It’s been a month, and I still haven’t gotten used to my reflection. I hope I never do, to be honest. The government is working on getting this whole mess resolved, and I can only hope it will be sooner rather than later. I’ve never had hair this long, and I am in desperate need a of a haircut. Since it’s not my body, I’d have to fill out a requisition form, and I keep hoping it won’t come to that.

One of the first things the Government did was send in the National Guard to put everyone affected into a quarantined hotel area, and then they started drowning us in regulations and paperwork. I’m still working as a personal trainer... only now most of my clients are lazy office drones. Those desirable bodies I mentioned? I’m in charge of making sure their new owners keep them in shape. I’m slowly losing my sanity.

“Mitch! What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” I said, walking out into our shared kitchen. Uncle Sam was putting us up in some very nice accommodations, I had to admit, but my clients-turned-roommates left a lot to be desired.

“C’mon Grady, it’s Saturday,” he said, as if that was supposed to be an answer. I kept starting at him until he continued. “Saturday is my self-care day, and today that means Netflix and cookies. I don’t see what the big deal is...”

“Absolutely not,” I said, holding out my hand. “Give me those, that is way too many calories for one serving. We’re sharing those with the whole floor.” He rolled his eyes and sighed at me, but at least he obeyed me. I can’t help but feel self-conscious bossing all of these men around, especially when they’re large enough to beat me to a pulp if they knew how to leverage their strength. The real Mitch was a lanky college intern who had no idea how to build or maintain muscle mass. Russ would’ve had a heart attack if he was here to see even half the things Mitch wanted to do in that body.

As I walked the plate of cookies out to the common area, I couldn’t help but notice that Larry was still sitting at his room’s computer desk, shirtless and surrounded by a few wadded tissues. Gross, but... I’ve seen Larry’s old body. I can’t entirely blame the old pervert. “Please tell me you didn’t stay up all night watching porn again.”

He just smiled at me, his bloodshot eyes telling me everything that I needed to know. “So what if I did, Grady, it’s Saturday. The fitness schedule you made for me says I don’t have to work out today, and a sleep schedule isn’t a part of the body cohabitation contract we all signed. As long as I still eat three healthy meals today, you can’t make me do anything. So how about giving me some privacy?” He was right, of course. Larry was one of my most frustrating clients, because he knew exactly how to do the bare minimum and nothing more. Tana was one of the gym’s biggest over-achievers, so seeing his body do a complete 180 had been quite the adjustment.

I knew better than to engage with him right now-- better to save my strength for fights that I would be able to win. I set the cookies down in our shared kitchen, waved at a few of the other guys, and retreated back to the bedroom I shared with one other man.

Simon smiled at me, and I could feel my frustrations starting to lift away. “Good morning, Grady. Rough start?” he asked, looking up from his book. Simon was a licensed psychologist who happened to be at a nearby Industry Convention when the Great Shift happened, and I was so glad to have his assistance dealing with all of the heated emotions that boiled over during the aftermath. Furthermore, Simon had ended up in my body. It was a relief to know that my body was being controlled by someone responsible, even if seeing myself each day came with its own set of weird situations.

"You have no idea,” I said, shaking my head. “Or rather, you have an exact idea, because you’ve also had to deal with those guys. I don’t suppose you would be up for some... stress release?” I asked, peeling off my tank top and tossing it onto the floor.

He laughed, quickly setting aside his book and his glasses. “In this body? Always!” Was it weird that I was having sex with my own body? Maybe, but honestly, our daily hookups felt like one of the least weird things about this whole mess. I always knew I was an attractive man, and I’ve always been attracted to anyone who keeps themselves healthy, regardless of gender. Presumably that’s how Simon now felt-- I know that ever since I’ve been in this new Twink body, I have only felt attraction for hairy men. Sexual attraction seemed to follow the body, not the inhabitant.

“Do you ever worry that we’re complicating things?” Simon asked. “For whenever the government is able to switch everyone back into the right bodies, I mean. They’ve told our loved ones that we’re in quarantine, but... how can we go back to normal life when this is all over?” I understood where he was coming from-- his real body was at least twenty years older, and while he didn’t like sharing too much about his life, I’d gotten the impression he had a wife and maybe a few grandkids waiting for him back home.

Simon clearly had a tendency to overthink everything, and I was now used to offering friendly advice while his warm load was still inside of me. “Honestly, I think we’re dealing with a stressful situation, and we’re all just coping however we can. There’s nothing wrong with two consenting adults having sex. And I don’t know about you, but... if I didn’t try to get a wide range of experiences inside of this temporary body, I think I’d regret the missed opportunity forever.”

He smiled at me. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, as he sipped on cheap hotel coffee. “’In sickness or in health’ wasn’t really meant to cover something so impossible. And I’d rather seek forgiveness than forever ponder what might have been.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said, smiling back at him. I think we both knew it was a bit selfish, but how else could we be expected to process these strange new desires? Yeah, I guess I felt a bit guilty having sex with someone other than my girlfriend back home, but... when else would I ever get an opportunity to have sex with myself? I don’t think there is a person alive who could blame me.

#male body swap #gay body swap #after the swap #muscle jock #great shift

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nostalgebraist · 1 year

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gpt-4 prediction: it won't be very useful

Word on the street says that OpenAI will be releasing "GPT-4" sometime in early 2023.

There's a lot of hype about it already, though we know very little about it for certain.

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People who like to discuss large language models tend to be futurist/forecaster types, and everyone is casting their bets now about what GPT-4 will be like. See e.g. here.

It would accord me higher status in this crowd if I were to make a bunch of highly specific, numerical predictions about GPT-4's capabilities.

I'm not going to do that, because I don't think anyone (including me) really can do this in a way that's more than trivially informed. At best I consider this activity a form of gambling, and at worst it will actively mislead people once the truth is known, blessing the people who "guessed lucky" with an undue aura of deep insight. (And if enough people guess, someone will "guess lucky.")

Why?

There has been a lot of research since GPT-3 on the emergence of capabilities with scale in LLMs, most notably BIG-Bench. Besides the trends that were already obvious with GPT-3 -- on any given task, increased scale is usually helpful and almost never harmful (cf. the Inverse Scaling Prize and my Section 5 here) -- there are not many reliable trends that one could leverage for forecasting.

Within the bounds of "scale almost never hurts," anything goes:

Some tasks improve smoothly, some are flatlined at zero then "turn on" discontinuously, some are flatlined at some nonzero performance level across all tested scales, etc. (BIG-Bench Fig. 7)

Whether a model "has" or "doesn't have" a capability is very sensitive to which specific task we use to probe that capability. (BIG-Bench Sections 3.4.3, 3.4.4)

Whether a model "can" or "can't do" a single well-defined task is highly sensitive to irrelevant details of phrasing, even for large models. (BIG-Bench Section 3.5)

It gets worse.

Most of the research on GPT capabilities (including BIG-Bench) uses the zero/one/few-shot classification paradigm, which is a very narrow lens that arguably misses the real potential of LLMs.

And, even if you fix some operational definition of whether a GPT "has" a given capability, the order in which the capabilities emerge is unpredictable, with little apparent relation to the subjective difficulty of the task. It took more scale for GPT-3 to learn relatively simple arithmetic than it did for it to become a highly skilled translator across numerous language pairs!

GPT-3 can do numerous impressive things already . . . but it can't understand Morse Code. The linked post was written before the release of text-davinci-003 or ChatGPT, but neither of those can do Morse Code either -- I checked.

On that LessWrong post asking "What's the Least Impressive Thing GPT-4 Won't be Able to Do?", I was initially tempted to answer "Morse Code." This seemed like as safe a guess as any, since no previous GPT was able to it, and it's certainly very unimpressive.

But then I stopped myself. What reason do I actually have to register this so-called prediction, and what is at stake in it, anyway?

I expect Morse Code to be cracked by GPTs at some scale. What basis to I have to expect this scale is greater than GPT-4's scale (whatever that is)? Like everything, it'll happen when it happens.

If I register this Morse Code prediction, and it turns out I am right, what does that imply about me, or about GPT-4? (Nothing.) If I register the prediction, and it turns out I am wrong, what does this imply . . . (Nothing.)

The whole exercise is frivolous, at best.

----------

So, here is my real GPT-4 prediction: it won't be very useful, and won't see much practical use.

Specifically, the volume and nature of its use will be similar to what we see with existing OpenAI products. There are companies using GPT-3 right now, but there aren't that many of them, and they mostly seem to be:

Established companies applying GPT in narrow, "non-revolutionary" use cases that play to its strengths, like automating certain SEO/copywriting tasks or synthetic training data generation for smaller text classifiers

Startups with GPT-3-centric products, also mostly "non-revolutionary" in nature, mostly in SEO/copywriting, with some in coding assistance

GPT-4 will get used to do serious work, just like GPT-3. But I am predicting that it will be used for serious work of roughly the same kind, in roughly the same amounts.

I don't want to operationalize this idea too much, and I'm fine if there's no fully unambiguous way to decide after the fact whether I was right or not. You know basically what I mean (I hope), and it should be easy to tell whether we are basically in a world where

Businesses are purchasing the GPT-4 enterprise product and getting fundamentally new things in exchange, like "the API writes good, publishable novels," or "the API performs all the tasks we expect of a typical junior SDE" (I am sure you can invent additional examples of this kind), and multiple industries are being transformed as a result

Businesses are purchasing the GPT-4 enterprise product to do the same kinds of things they are doing today with existing OpenAI enterprise products

However, I'll add a few terms that seem necessary for the prediction to be non-vacuous:

I expect this to be true for at least 1 year after the release of the commercial product. (I have no particular attachment to this timeframe, I just need a timeframe.)

My prediction will be false in spirit if the only limit on transformative applications of GPT-4 is monetary cost. GPT-3 is very pricey now, and that's a big limiting factor on its use. But even if its cost were far, far less, there would be other limiting factors -- primarily, that no one really knows how to apply its capabilities in the real world. (See below.)

(The monetary cost thing is why I can't operationalize this beyond "you know what I mean." It involves not just what actually happens, but what would presumably happen at a lower price point. I expect the latter to be a topic of dispute in itself.)

----------

Why do I think this?

First: while OpenAI is awe-inspiring as a pure research lab, they're much less skilled at applied research and product design. (I don't think this is controversial?)

When OpenAI releases a product, it is usually just one of their research artifacts with an API slapped on top of it.

Their papers and blog posts brim with a scientist's post-discovery enthusiasm -- the (understandable) sense that their new thing is so wonderfully amazing, so deeply veined with untapped potential, indeed so temptingly close to "human-level" in so many ways, that -- well -- it surely has to be useful for something! For numerous things!

For what, exactly? And how do I use it? That's your job to figure out, as the user.

But OpenAI's research artifacts are not easy to use. And they're not only hard for novices.

This is the second reason -- intertwined with the first, but more fundamental.

No one knows how to use the things OpenAI is making. They are new kinds of machines, and people are still making basic philosophical category mistakes about them, years after they first appeared. It has taken the mainstream research community multiple years to acquire the most basic intuitions about skilled LLM operation (e.g. "chain of thought") which were already known, long before, to the brilliant internet eccentrics who are GPT's most serious-minded user base.

Even if these things have immense economic potential, we don't know how to exploit it yet. It will take hard work to get there, and you can't expect used car companies and SEO SaaS purveyors to do that hard work themselves, just to figure out how to use your product. If they can't use it, they won't buy it.

It is as though OpenAI had discovered nuclear fission, and then went to sell it as a product, as follows: there is an API. The API has thousands of mysterious knobs (analogous to the opacity and complexity of prompt programming etc). Any given setting of the knobs specifies a complete design for a fission reactor. When you press a button, OpenAI constructs the specified reactor for you (at great expense, billed to you), and turns it on (you incur the operating expenses). You may, at your own risk, connect the reactor to anything else you own, in any manner of your choosing.

(The reactors come with built-in safety measures, but they're imperfect and one-size-fits-all and opaque. Sometimes your experimentation starts to get promising, and then a little pop-up appears saying "Whoops! Looks like your reactor has entered an unsafe state!", at which point it immediately shuts off.)

It is possible, of course, to reap immense economic value from nuclear fission. But if nuclear fission were "released" in this way, how would anyone ever figure out how to capitalize on it?

We, as a society, don't know how to use large language models. We don't know what they're good for. We have lots of (mostly inadequate) ways of "measuring" their "capabilities," and we have lots of (poorly understood, unreliable) ways of getting them to do things. But we don't know where they fit in to things.

Are they for writing text? For conversation? For doing classification (in the ML sense)? And if we want one of these behaviors, how do we communicate that to the LLM? What do we do with the output? Do they work well in conjunction with some other kind of system? Which kind, and to what end?

In answer to these questions, we have numerous mutually exclusive ideas, which all come with deep implementation challenges.

To anyone who's taken a good look at LLMs, they seem "obviously" good for something, indeed good for numerous things. But they are provably, reliably, repeatably good for very few things -- not so much (or not only) because of their limitations, but because we don't know how to use them yet.

This, not scale, is the current limiting factor on putting LLMs to use. If we understood how to leverage GPT-3 optimally, it would be more useful (right now) than GPT-4 will be (in reality, next year).

----------

Finally, the current trend in LLM techniques is not very promising.

Everyone -- at least, OpenAI and Google -- is investing in RLHF. The latest GPTs, including ChatGPT, are (roughly) the last iteration of GPT with some RLHF on top. And whatever RLHF might be good for, it is not a solution for our fundamental ignorance of how to use LLMs.

Earlier, I said that OpenAI was punting the problem of "figure out how to use this thing" to the users. RLHF effectively punts it, instead, to the language model itself. (Sort of.)

RLHF, in its currently popular form, looks like:

Some humans vaguely imagine (but do not precisely nail down the parameters of) a hypothetical GPT-based application, a kind of super-intelligent Siri.

The humans take numerous outputs from GPT, and grade them on how much they feel like what would happen in the "super-intelligent Siri" fantasy app.

The GPT model is updated to make the outputs with high scores more likely, and the ones with low scores less likely.

The result is a GPT model which often talks a lot like the hypothetical super-intelligent Siri.

This looks like an easier-to-use UI on top of GPT, but it isn't. There is still no well-defined user interface.

Or rather, the nature of the user interface is being continually invented by the language model, anew in every interaction, as it asks itself "how would (the vaguely imagined) super-intelligent Siri respond in this case?"

If a user wonders "what kinds of things is it not allowed to do?", there is no fixed answer. All there is is the LM, asking itself anew in each interaction what the restrictions on a hypothetical fantasy character might be.

It is role-playing a world where the user's question has an answer. But in the real world, the user's question does not have an answer.

If you ask ChatGPT how to use it, it will roleplay a character called "Assistant" from a counterfactual world where "how do I use Assistant?" has a single, well-defined answer. Because it is role-playing -- improvising -- it will not always give you the same answer. And none of the answers are true, about the real world. They're about the fantasy world, where the fantasy app called "Assistant" really exists.

This facade does make GPT's capabilities more accessible, at first blush, for novice users. It's great as a driver of adoption, if that's what you want.

But if Joe from Midsized Normal Mundane Corporation wants to use GPT for some Normal Mundane purpose, and can't on his first try, this role-play trickery only further confuses the issue.

At least in the "design your own fission reactor" interface, it was clear how formidable the challenge was! RLHF does not remove the challenge. It only obscures it, makes it initially invisible, makes it (even) harder to reason about.

And this, judging from ChatGPT (and Sparrow), is apparently what the makers of LLMs think LLM user interfaces should look like. This is probably what GPT-4's interface will be.

And Joe from Midsized Normal Mundane Corporation is going to try it, and realize it "doesn't work" in any familiar sense of the phrase, and -- like a reasonable Midsized Normal Mundane Corporation employee -- use something else instead.

ETA: I forgot to note that OpenAI expects dramatic revenue growth in 2023 and especially in 2024. Ignoring a few edge case possibilities, either their revenue projection will come true or the prediction in this post will, but not both. We'll find out!

#ai tag

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bunny-underground · 23 hours

Text

¬ BTD Guys As Songs From My Playlist ¬

//Warning it's my opinion//

Strade (Lights Out - MSI)

Lets be honest most MSI songs fit Strade but lights out is so damn catchy. Also I feel like his character isn't that fleshed out compared to everyone else (YKMET will hopefully give him a little more depth, I'm feral for the man)

Technically it's about challenging authority but tell me that this wouldn't accompany his live streams?

"Punch your lights out, hit the pavement That's what I call entertainment"

Ren (Christmas Kids - Roar)

Is this projecting slightly? Yes but that's not the point. Ren, even with the death of Strade, is still stuck with him. He's still in his house with his rotting corpse and is suffering from guilt, Stockholm syndrome and trauma.

Christmas Kids while based on a true events is ultimately singing about no matter what this person does to leave their partner/Situation they'll never truly be free of it.

"You'll change your name or change your mind And leave this fucked up place behind But I'll know, I'll know"

Lawrence (Bit by Bit - Mother Mother)

You thought I was going with Oleander huh? As much as that's my favourite song it's about needing someone even though you're toxic, which I just don't feel is Lawrence

Bit by Bit on the other hand is about disappearing into the wilderness and getting away from everyone and yourself (or at least your problems)

"I'ma gettin' on a mountain Far away from the people on the ground"

Derek (Upper Class - Seb Lowe)

If you're not from the UK I apologise, Seb Lowes music focuses on a lot of social-political issues from over here because classism is a fucking joke.

The song focuses on a young man who's part of the upper-class, better put by Music tell "wealthy, entitled, and detached from the plight of the average person."

"Got a fine for assault, his money will cover it His money, his father's money a generational covenant Family are a pack of feening wolves at the chase Pant over a half-dead corpse on his estate"

Mason (Weight of the World - Sheyfer James)

Tell me this man doesn't advocate for a state of nature. Mason views humans and animals in the same vein, the weak die and the strong continue. In one of his endings he even seems somewhat impressed/proud of MC for being able to best him.

Weight of the world is about just that, a commentary on survival of the fittest and how that's just how the world works.

"That's just the weight of the world The weak and the weary will never survive"

Celia (Maneater - Nelly Furtado)

It's basic but come on- We know she's not with her husband for love but rather for business. Not going to say girl boss because she's clearly unhappy but she's leveraging the relationship for her own gains.

Maneater is about exactly that, a woman using her hold on the men she's with too financially bleed them dry before discarding them.

"When she talks, she talks like she can handle it When she asks for somethin', boy, she means it"

Fox (People Ii: the Reckoning - AJJ)

May have gotten a wrong read on his character but- To me in the DLC Fox comes across completely detached from MC (compared to Strade who was very much into what he was doing) It almost comes across methodical with him only getting into it later on (Almost looking guilty about it). With certain dialog it's almost like he just accepts this as being the way that it is, refusing to believe Stade had anything to do with how he turned out.

This song ultimately is about Nihilism and how nobody is an inherently good person and those choosing to be good are ultimately fighting a loosing battle. I'm stuck between two lyrics for him so...

"But there's a bad man in everyone No matter who we are"

and

"So here's to you, Mrs. Robinson You live in an unforgiving place"

Jack (Mr. Apples - Madness)

Madness is an older UK band perfectly suited for an old man like him. I think its overall theme goes well with him in regards to the whole corrupt officer life he's got going on.

About a well respected member of the community who knows how to leverage the system in his favour, in private he is up too no good.

"But when that old sun go down He's heading off up the wrong side of town"

#boyfriend to death #boyfriend to death 2 #tpof #btd 2 #btd strade #the price of flesh #ren hana #btd #strade btd #tpof fox #tpof jack #tpof celia #tpof mason #btd headcanons #headcanon #tpof derek #boyfriend to death strade

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getvalentined · 4 months

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Angeal for the ask game :D

ANGEAL HEWLEY

🎟️ SEXUALITY HEADCANON: Heteroflexible and biromantic. He prefers women, physically speaking, but could have an intimate relationship with a man. One man in particular.

⚧️ GENDER HEADCANON: Angeal is hard to get a read on, for me, since he's another of those characters who exists in a position that he seems to believe requires a hypermasculine presentation. I read him as cis, but I can see just about anything for him.

💕 A SHIP: Unrequited Angeal/Sephiroth is really the only ship I have for Angeal—I genuinely believe he's utterly in love with Sephiroth, and he never ever said a word about it to anyone.

🖇️ A BROTP: Angeal+Lazard is probably my biggest one, only because the mental image of both of them trying desperately to keep Genesis and Seph in line is so clear in my head it might as well be made of crystal.

🚫 A NOTP: Don't garotte me for this, but honestly Gengeal? I don't like the way he talks to or about Genesis; I've heard people say that they're like a divorced couple, but if anything they read to me as siblings desperate to get out of each other's orbit and utterly unable to escape their shared history no matter how they try. (Given that they seem to both have Gillian's mtDNA based on explanations in-canon, and we know that they can be considered siblings based on Weiss using his connection to Genesis as proof that he's also Angeal's brother in DFFOO, I feel like that's a fairly accurate read.)

💭 A RANDOM HEADCANON: Angeal didn't actually join SOLDIER at the same time as Genesis, and not only because he didn't particularly want to—Angeal is over a year younger than Genesis, and was just too young to enlist when Genny left Banora. It was almost a year before Angeal was able to follow him to Midgar, by which point Genesis had already formed a fairly solid relationship with Sephiroth, and Angeal was more than a little put-out by the idea that his position as Genesis' only friend had been taken by this weird kid with weird hair and weird eyes that Genesis kept clipping photos of from the newspaper. When he got to know Seph, though, he changed his tune pretty dramatically—and fell for him almost as hard as Genesis. This is one of the reasons that he inserts himself between them at every opportunity, not only because he doesn't think they're good for each other, but because he doesn't think that anyone is good enough for Sephiroth, not even himself. And if he isn't good enough to be Sephiroth's one and only, then Genesis (impulsive, arrogant, troublemaker Genesis, who spent days exploring a monster-infested cave system as a boy without a thought of the danger he courted in doing so, who already had everything he ever needed or wanted and still leveraged his obsession over a hero he hadn't met into an invention that garnered recognition in a way that Angeal never could) definitely wasn't. This is how the whole relationship fell apart.

🗣️GENERAL OPINION: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the saddest thing about Angeal is that he's the only one who couldn't bear to live with himself. I'm not a huge fan of the character as a person, but he's fantastically executed as a character. His story is legitimately one of the most heartbreaking in the series—He had a whole host of people who loved him so deeply as to be fathomless, and it didn't matter. His story is a tragedy not because of how he was made or how he died, but because of why things turned out the way they did. So much of the suffering he went through was self-imposed, and that's the saddest part of all.

(For the character ask game.)

#angeal hewley #headcanon warning #angeal critical #maybe #I don't think it's particularly critical #to talk about his canon characterization #but it's upset people in the past #so there's the tag!

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 years

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Raven I have a question and would like to hear your thoughts?,theory??,so after playing a bit of the en book5 something that didnt occur to me till after something kalim said is that how much do you think of the main cast outside of (yuu,duce,ace,crowley,and grim) actually know yuu isnt from this world?? cause kalim said “you were just late for the ceremony right?” Or something along thise lines

I'm not sure if this is something warranting a whole theory, but I'm under the impression that no one outside of Adeuce, Crowley, Grim, and Yuu themselves are aware of the whole "Yuu is from another world" thing.

I don’t recall there being a blatant instance in which characters outside of the aforementioned select few acknowledge their awareness that Yuu is from another world. (EDIT: It seems that Heartslabyul knows about Yuu coming from another world; Trey says in front of Riddle and Grim that Yuu comes from a world without magic in chapter 5; Kalim also mentions Yuu being from another world, but this occurs in the Scalding Sands event, and events are not necessarily in the same timeline or universe as the main story.) At most, they know that Yuu is incapable of using magic and is staying at Ramshackle on account of having witnessed the Mirror of Darkness declare that they do not belong to any dorm (in the prologue). The dorm leaders (Lilia instead of Malleus) escort all of the newly sorted students OUT of the Mirror Chamber, leaving Crowley and Yuu alone with the Mirror of Darkness. It is THEN that Crowley asks the mirror to bring Yuu back to their home, since Yuu was judged to be incapable of using magic. It is the mirror that reveals to Crowley that Yuu does not come from anywhere in Twisted Wonderland. This seems very deliberately timed in the story such that no one else BUT Crowley would be around for the revelation that Yuu is from another world. (And, if I recall correctly, Grim, Ace, and Deuce similarly learn this same information directly from Yuu later in the prologue.)

I think part of the reasoning for this is, from a meta perspective, that it’s not necessary for people outside of those very close to Yuu (Adeuce and Grim) or direct figures of authority (Crowley) to know that detail for the story the devs want to tell. From an in-universe perspective, NRC is a school full of scoundrels who might misappropriate or misuse that information on Yuu if they got their hands on it.

Note that the students that have already tried to take advantage of Yuu don’t really do so to gain access to anything pertaining to their past, but rather their vulnerable position based on the limited information they have. Jamil enticed Yuu to come to Scarabia because he wants them to report to Crowley about their “situation”. Azul makes a deal with Yuu because he wants the property Yuu is staying at. Malleus develops and interest in Yuu because they’re a rare instance of a person that is unaware of who he is and what his status is. None of these directly implicate that they know Yuu is from a different world, but rather that they are in current circumstances which may prove to be useful to them in their personal goals or desires. If you were a student as conniving as Azul (or anyone else for that matter), don’t you think it would be far easier to get Yuu to play along with your plans if you dangle the possibility of them being able to return home (compared to waiting for however long it will take Crowley to do it)?

If people already knew about Yuu being from another world, I don’t understand why more characters wouldn’t try to use that as unfair leverage against them (because as unremarkable as they are, they DO have ties to school administration, they have a whole building to themselves, and, if the latter two aren’t appealing enough, Yuu can always be forced to be someone’s errand runner or lackey because let’s be honest here, NRC is full of mob students that are generic bullies). it’s similar to the explanation given for some characters choosing to hide their unique magic/signature spells: if everyone knows what it is, then they can prepare and plan and scheme to use that which makes you “unique” against you.

Alternatively, using a reason I mentioned before, it’s also possible that everyone does know about Yuu’s situation, but just choose to not comment on it or bring it up unless it is relevant. Most of the time, it isn’t because they don’t really concern themselves with Yuu and are focused on their own goals and ambitions.

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papirouge · 1 year

Text

NEVER forget despite what pathological liars say, mainstream medias were in their vast majority, pro Amber.

Social media/the people, on the other hand, was siding with Johnny.

That's why so many pro Amber freaked out at the actual hate movement against Amber : they simply cannot stomach the fact that media don't control people anymore and that the common citizen can now make their own voice heard (no pun intended) loud and clear.

It was very interesting to see pro Heard complain about "the media circus" surrounding this case, as if the "society of spectacle" wasn't already a well documented observation of modern communications dynamics for the last few decades - and most importantly, not exclusive to the Depp v Heard case or society's (alleged) rampant misogyny.....

They precisely act like legacy medias which, feeling their power & influence significantly lowering by the time, attempt to remove any credibility to grassroot reinfo movement, calling them conspiracy theorists, fake news, etc.

... this reminds you of something? Pro Heard obsessively called the movement in support of Johnny "PR smear campaign" or bots. It wouldn't remotely occur to them that Johnny Depp overwhelming support in the general public was genuine, and could be rationally explained by the fact he's been one of Hollywood's most popular actor for decades with iconic roles (Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow, Cry Baby, etc.) and mostly importantly interpreted one of Disney live action movie most beloved character: Jack Sparrow. Heard was a literally a 'who' next to him, which explains why she would never be able to leverage support in such a conflicting case (so no, it doesn't necessarily has to be misogyny)

They are obsessed in controlling the narrative, even if that means lying consistently about factual reality.

Look at them obsessively keeping tabs on whoever liked Johnny Depp first post trial Instagram post, and making entire lists off of them to be canceled....

Unsurprisingly they also suddenly started cussing out popular jury who aren't "law professionals" just because the court decision didn't give the ruling they expected... Those activists pretending to care about the people are actually the biggest elitists.

Their coping about "the tide is turning" or "I can't wait for the documentary exposing how we all wronged Amber Heard" never fails making me wonder: "who's the we?" Mainstream media were and are still in their vast majority pro Heard. The general public? They mostly moved on and rejoiced at Depp winning his case. They will never apologize or feel sorry for Heard because they don't think she deserves any apology. People don't owe nothing to celebrities. Crime of thought or opinion isn't a thing.

This is the internet: Amber Heard is not the first, last, or the only laughing stock it collectively decided to pick on for any season. And the internet will never feel sorry. Deal with it.

Tbh I also blame the #freebritney movement that made too many of you believe that TMZ and paparazzi harassing celebrities represented regular citizens and that people actively sought out to ruin her... Zoomers don't seem to grasp early 00s people were much more removed from "field reportreport" as we are today, which means they had a more apathetic perspective on celebrity struggles. If media decided to milk this repentance shtick regarding their collective coverage of Britney antics back then to revamp their image, that's on them, but expecting this dynamic onto random people (not media news) who didn't have any say on media narrative is wishful thinking....

Amber Heard is none of your friend, sister, wife or mother. None of you know her. None of you talked to her, and never will. So it's weird to me how some of you are hellbent acting like we owed anything to her.

Why elevating your parasocial involvement in a millionaire celebrity civil case as a cautionary tale for ALL women?

#just some thoughts before going to sleep #papi watch #Amber Heard #Johnny Depp

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threadsun · 1 year

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Ooorrr maybe I just suck at lying so AHA! GOT YOU THERE! Gotta use those breathing exercises to make sure I can focus typing so I don’t think I COULD lie if I wanted to. I’m just THAT confident that’d I’d win~ Or maybe I am lying and don’t want to admit that your words are affecting a lot more than I say. That I’d rather just submit because it would feel so nice to be used and manhandled like you said, to let my mind break~ But then again, you’d never know it because I’m just that good at hiding it~ ;P Oh well, such a shame! I feel like pain and pleasure go hand-in-hand the same way that praise and degradation do, so of course it’d make sense that if I actually WANTED to submit, then I’d try to withstand as much pain as possible. I easily bruise and my pain tolerance is super low so it’s not hard to make me yelp, but that’s only if you can get me down. I guess I’ll just have to get closer, won’t I~? 😜

In any case, I’m going to just add that punishment to the VERY small list of punishments that actually work so thank you for enlightening not only that, but for me being a brat too. Taking notes here lol.

!!! I’M LOVING YOUR THEORY!!! See, I just FINALLY started looking at the other characters more deeply (ghost tiddies were distracting me for a long while) so I haven’t been able to put anything cohesive together yet. Your theory on Ian’s mother planting seeds of doubt in his head seems like the most realistic reason as to why he may have cheated. Like you said, she’s not above sending people to stalk him just to gain leverage over his emotional and mental state so if she disapproves of M/C, then I can see her trying to split them apart. Definitely a lot more in character for Ian than what I said! I swear this is why I love discussing theories with others instead of trying to figure it out all on my own. I definitely don’t see him cheating just cause, so having a more solid foundation to build off of is nice.

Hey! I like Joesph in uniform too, no shame here! But like, fireman Joesph getting you a collar that you must wear at ALL times, no exceptions. Having to walk around on all fours while Joesph parades you through the firehouse leash in hand. “Good puppies don’t speak for their treats, they bark for them. Don’t you want a treat, doll?” Joesph slowly starts to unbuckle his belt, his form intimidating from this angle. He bites his lip as he peers down at you.

“Then beg for it~”

AHHHH! Listen, I’m not super into petplay but I’d bark repeatedly at this man, I swear! 🥴 But holy shoot, going for a fireman AU overall for all of them? Can I buy one of those pin-up charity calendars from their firehouse?

YUS! Imma be like a hawk and lazer focus on that bad boi when it drops. 😂 Oh! I think I remember reading about the herbal cigarettes on your page! But ooooo, what do they usually smell like? 😗 I’m all about those scents and perfumes which speaking of, I imagine that Joesph would smell like the cologne Obsession and Jack would be more of fresh, gourmand smell, maybe even citrus, but I can’t pinpoint an exact fragrance.

Also, waxplay? Holy hell that sounds extremely hot from how you described it (no pun intended)!

-🎃

Awwww so cute~ It's okay, I'd let you have your fun before I broke you. I'd let you believe you're a true brat, only to show you that deep down you're really just a needy little masochist. And then we'd have plenty of fun seeing just how nicely you bruise! But as you said, you'll have to get closer first. I'll tease anyone, but I'll only put real effort in for money or friends~ Can't just go around giving away the goods for free, you know. No matter how tempting it is to take my sadistic urges out on a silly little vocal brat...

I've been thinking about it for a long time now because the cheating just seemed so... out of left field? I guess? But then I realised it's only surprising if you assume he did it for fun. A lot of people seem to think he takes mc for granted, but throughout the Afterlife we see him over and over again being thankful for their presence and not considering himself worthy of them. But what we also see is some of the lengths to which his mother will go to make him be who she wants him to be. And given that we know mc is the one who's helping Ian cut her out of his life, it's no surprise she'd want to break them up. idk I just think it makes more sense with Ian's character than just like... he felt like cheating and assumed they'd forgive him?

😳 Joseph introducing you to all of the guys as the stations new pet, making you greet them on all fours and letting them know you're free for any of them to use when they need to blow off a little steam~

Ooooh yesssss they absolutely make those firefighter pin up calendars and I would order a hundred of them!! The real question is would they do "sexy firefighters with kittens/puppies" calendars as well? Cause those would be hot and cute!!

>:3c Joseph is gonna get his whole life ruined and it'll be beautiful~ Yeah, herbal cigarettes are cool cause they just smell kinda like burning herbs/flowers. So like floral or herby and smoky too! Like when people burn lavender and stuff! But yeah, I can imagine Ian smelling like them because I feel like there's a lot of pressure for actors to smoke but he wouldn't want nicotine or weed. Joseph definitely smells like Obsession!! And yeah, I could see Jack smelling of grapefruit tbh.

Waxplay is very fun!! And hot, it's fun to watch someone squirm while hot wax drips on them >:3c

#sunshine #asks #🎃 anon

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halliescomut · 5 months

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V Random SKZ post

I watched a TT, I'm not posting it here, because I already know this person is probably gonna get dogpiled by rabid Stays, and I won't contribute to that, but I have so many thoughts and nowhere to share them. Their TT was about how they feel like SKZ and 3Racha have been coasting the last couple of years and they're not doing anything innovative and that they're not using Seungmin to his full potential, nor IN. But everything they bring up regarding the last couple of years is just their title tracks. Saying that the songs always a have a formula, that they've become predictable, and I do agree with that point...however, I believe it's intentional. Since....I would say Go Live (or God's Menu), I think that their title tracks have followed a formula. It's something I talked about on my own SKZ TT when RockStar, and also maybe 5 Star came out, when I did a first thoughts on those albums. Their title tracks, very much in the last 2-3 years, have felt like they are SKZ sort of playing the KPop game. These are the songs that need to catch a general audience, that's their purpose. They're intended for radio play, they're intended to hopefully win on music shows, to bring in new listeners. That is their purpose. That is the purpose of every title track by every artist in the industry, both KPop and western. It feels, to me, disingenuous to almost write them off because their title tracks don't push the limits enough, while ignoring their B-sides.

You want to talk about how their first few albums were no skips, but it seems like you're not even listening to the full albums they've put out in the last 2 years. I would argue that I think Miroh is one of their most cohesive albums musically and tonally, and it is certainly a no skips album. But I'd say that Maxident is also no skips. And you say they aren't being innovative, when Case 143 is one the most experimental songs they've done in terms of concept. It's a song that was VERY MUCH not the expectation after albums like Thunderous and Oddinary. And setting aside the title track, to look at the B-sides, you have unit songs, some of the most well known and well liked songs of that album, with 3Racha, Taste, and Can't Stop, which also have three DRASTICALLY different tones. Give Me Your TMI is almost the yin to Case 143's yang. Instead of showcasing the disbelief and confusion of falling in love like Case 143, you're instead seeing this full acceptance and desperation. Then look at songs like Chill and Super Board. Super Board's lyrics read like a mad lib, but the point and the purpose are still clear, that if you're focused on chasing them, you'll eventually be left to watch them soar. Chill follows in the proud tradition SKZ is known for of songs whose upbeat tone doesn't match it's devastating lyrics, talking instead about ending a relationship that was already over. Leaving aside Super Board and 3Racha, all of the songs on the albums address and express the varying different aspects and feelings of love that people might experience, giving nearly every person listening an entry point into emotionally connecting with any of those songs. And even if you're not at the level of seeking out the translated lyrics, the songs are still definitely a bop.

In regards to the misuse...or lack of use for Seungmin and IN. They've certainly created opportunities to allow both vocalists to shine and show different aspects of their talent. The SKZ Players and Records offer a unique opportunity for all of the members to showcase they're abilities and to experiment musically in a way that doesn't have to be 'approved' by JYPE the way that album tracks do. Is this the perfect solution? No. Wouldn't it be better/preferable for them to be able to showcase their skills on their regular albums? Absolutely. But they still have to play the game. I truly feel that only NOW, like right now, has SKZ reached a level of success where they have the leverage to take risks creatively. I think after their Kingdom win the reins were loosened a smidge, but they still had to tread carefully, and toe the company line. Following the records they were able to break this year and the opportunities and recognition they've received globally, I think they're now in a position where they have the leverage to start taking more risks. They've proven themselves. I really think this coming year we'll start to see even more creative risks being taken. And I think we'll see a different utilization of their vocals. We've seen them disregard their established positions, essentially since Woojin left, and maintain that type of mindset ever since. And when given the opportunity they do work outside of the 'established norms' of KPop. Look at their most recent album, Rock Star. You have Cover Me, a song that fully utilizes and embraces Seungmin's vocal abilities, as well as showcasing rarely seen sides of Changbin and Felix's vocals. I could literally go on for hours about how well thought out and constructed that song is as a vehicle for showcasing all of the member's vocal abilities. Hyunjin created such an elaborate and seemingly simple song, that effortlessly blends together the voices of the members in a way we hadn't seen before, something I truly believe only Hyunjin could imagine. You have Megaverse, where Chan very particularly wanted to have IN to show a different vocal style than he's had before.

You have Leave, which not only offers a 'softer side' of the member's who normally would rap, even in slower/more heartfelt songs like Winter Falls or Scars, but also Comflex, which gives Seungmin a chance to do something in a melodic rap style. To hear Chan talk about the skills the IN and Seungmin have, while he may not be able to provide them with the perfect vehicle to show case that, I believe he's trying and he wants to. I do not doubt for a second that he's working on tracks that would showcase different sides of their voices in particular, but it takes time, and humans aren't a bottomless creative well.

I feel like it is easy to 'expect more' from SKZ because we know that they are self-produced, and that very little of their work is done by outside persons (and those that are credited appear over and over again in their discography, which indicates to me that their input and skill is respected by 3Racha), but they are still under one of the big 3 idol companies. The truth of it is that the larger the entertainment company, the less likely they are to take risks creatively, because they have more to lose. That's why you see indie artists able to take some of these bigger creative risks, they don't have a lot to lose. And if you're a big fish in a small pond, like Ateez under KQ, then you're gonna have more leverage because those corporations are smaller, and they won't risk their largest moneymaker choosing to break their contracts over creative differences. But SKZ isn't that under JYPE. While I can imagine them not choosing to renew their contract and separating as a group or 3Racha/Chan potentially starting their own production company once their contracts expire, it would take an egregious breach of trust on JYPE's part to make them leave that company now, when their contract is literally due to expire in March of 2025 at the latest. So it's also entirely plausible that at this point they're biding their time, especially if they do plan to continue as a group post enlistment. But circling back to my point, to believe that because they are self-produced and they write their own tracks (almost 100% at this point) does not mean that they have full creative control over every aspect of their work. They have a say, and a level of input, but they also still have to submit their albums for review and approval just like every other idol group under JYPE.

i don't know if I have a way to sum all of this up, but I guess the easiest way would be to say "Don't Judge a KPop Group By Their Title Track."

#Stray Kids #Bang Chan #Changbin #Lee Know #Han Jisung #Hyunjin #Felix #Seungmin #Jeongin #Stray Kids Stay

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pleckthaniel · 1 year

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it’s about the Thing: on toxic femininity

the privileged white lady Thing. the karen Thing. the dance moms Thing and the wholefoods housewife Thing. the Thing where your emotions are always everyone else’s problem, where anything that decenters Your feelings is the worst fucking thing in the universe, regardless of the material reality of the situation or how anyone else’s feelings factor in. total entitlement to the inner lives of the people around you. because you’re an empath. and a nurturer. and a mom. so you understand everyone and you, the perpetual victim, are never fully understood, and even if someone tries they can’t completely upend this dynamic because to do so would be to limit your access to the Thing.

this is the Thing that has so long prevented me from having emotions. partly because Mom does it, and her mom too. within the framework of the Thing, there is a hierarchy of Thing users. the alpha bitch is the one who is most frequently and openly allowed to do the Thing. betas are only permitted to be unpleasant either when the alpha isn’t present - making them a temporary alpha - or when it suits the alpha to step into her nurturer role. otherwise they have to grin and bear it, with the promise that one day they’ll have their own families on which to inflict the Thing. the Thing is your birthright. it’s the Thing that allows you to survive your own mother, this thought of becoming her to your daughters. it’s the payment for pushing all your unpleasantness down for a few decades: being able to spew it all out on your family and community for the rest of your natural lifespan.

it’s part, i think, of why so many women seem to view their eldest daughters as threats - not because they truly believe, deep down, that their daughters are going to steal their husbands or whatever but because they recognize that another adult or “adult” woman in the house is a threat to their position as the sole user of the Thing. suddenly, she is no longer the only one who can leverage victimhood and tears, and in fact might be at a disadvantage since the other user has the advantage of innocence on her side.

the other reason the Thing has prevented me from developing any meaningful level of emotional intelligence or maturity is because, as a beta bitch and a people-pleaser, i was nearly always on the receiving end of the Thing for the first two decades of my life. when young, i tried to leverage it to my own advantage, as anyone would. screaming, crying, manipulating and externalizing, without ever engaging in the kind of self-reflection, calm expression, or open conversation that could prevent those things from needing to pass. this is understandable, since i was a child. what’s disturbing is how much this behavior was mirrored and encouraged by the adults around me. when i engaged in the Thing unsuccessfully, my punishment was to be the victim of it from my mother. when i was successful, though, i was rewarded with the unquestioning obedience we’re trained to meet the Thing with.

when, in middle school, i first started to notice the Thing and how bad it felt to be targeted by it, i wanted out immediately. i did not want to ever again be the one inflicting the Thing on another person. but when you’re raised in an environment where nearly every adult woman you know is a frequent dallier in the Thing, and you are the only one who seems to see anything at all wrong with the Thing, and people are actively gaslighting you about the harm that the Thing does, you don’t magically develop emotional maturity just by deciding that you don’t want to do the Thing.

people deal with it in different ways, probably, but i dealt with it by turning off my emotions. i couldn’t risk becoming my mother and doing the Thing, but as far as i could tell from my life experience, the Thing was the only possible way to deal with emotion. the only other model i had for inner life was the Thing’s opposite: toxic masculinity, and the associated cycles of shame, internalization, self-denial.

it wasn’t like i sat down and planned it, but watching the Thing play out over and over in front of me, the only option for living with it that looked remotely appealing was in the blank faces of the checked-out fathers and husbands accompanying their alpha bitch wives. be supportive, keep all your shit to yourself, deal with it later. or don’t deal with it; if you bottle it up well enough, you don’t need to. now that seemed like a plan.

so i quit having emotions. or at least, i tried. you can’t actually do that, it’s impossible with how the human brain is wired, but i turned off all my immediate emotional reactions and all my self-awareness and it seemed good enough to adolescent me. of course, no longer cognizantly expressing your emotions does not mean they are no longer being expressed, it just means that you’ve avoiding the problem. they tend to leak out.

for most men, this leakage comes in the form of excess anger, one of the few emotional expressions that men are socially permitted to engage in even by the toxic law of the Thing. for me, it came in the form of happy tears. i started to be known as a crier whenever any good thing happened. id never been this way before but i took it as a good sign. wow, how mature and evolved i must be to be so in tune with my own joy as to cry from it!

whoops, i would realize years later. that was my brain jumping on the single opportunity available to me where shedding tears was seen as OK and normal and i could therefore rid myself of a yearslong buildup of sad chemicals in my skull. because i was still a teenage girl, i had to abide by the laws of the Thing which declared i could not be sad unless my mother had pre-condoned it by asking me about something she decided was wrong and invited me to share about my feelings on it. but because i had subscribed, unconsciously, to a different Thing, i was playing by the rules of two games at once and this was the only overlapping opportunity. or maybe it was just the only way i could consistently emotionally overwhelm myself enough to provoke an undeniable reaction. joy was rare for me at that time.

both of these Things are two sides of the same self-harming coin that tells us emotion is a bad thing. under the model of the Thing, the goal is not to experience our lives and emotions but to avoid dealing with the things that make us unhappy at all cost, because to do so would be to rock the boat, incite change and that is far more uncomfortable, the Thing tells us, than just not dealing with your shit.

i’ve started working on having feelings again, which is to say that im learning for the first time how to identify feelings in my body and in my thought patterns, and how to live through them instead of being immediately triggered into the panic that the Thing encourages. to be honest, i kind of hate it a lot of the time. when i ignored my emotions all the time, i felt more efficient. i was productive, and i was good at making friends, and my life looked right from the outside.

this is the goal of the Thing: allowing us to build a house of cards. a castle, even, if we so dream. but as soon as you take the first steps toward an actually healthy experience, the entire Thing collapses. the shivering child inside is left out in the rain, and, since our journey is just beginning, we’ve only got a brick or two with which to shelter him.

sometimes i feel like a robot who’s just woken up to find i was freed and reprogrammed without my consent. i was perfectly well-adjusted, i was happy, i want to say, but i can’t because i didn’t even really know what happiness was before, i was just not sad because i wasn’t anything and that seemed like it was as good as it was ever going to get. and it makes me bitter, ungrateful even because this change is not something that the old me wanted, at all, and it is not something she thought she needed, at all.

i do need it, i know. and i want it now, too, even if it is exhausting. i’m just really not prepared to face myself. it’s bizarre after being told for years that i was ‘mature’ and ‘self-aware’ to realize that those things were not even remotely true for most of my life. people talk a lot about how ‘mature’ is teacher-speak for an emotionally neglected child, but ive never seen anyone talk about how ‘self-aware’ is therapist-speak for the same thing. it means “you’re easy like this, so i’m not going to bother actually helping you.” fuck those teachers and fuck those therapists.

i guess the point of all this is to say that i grew up seeing two sides to every story : the male and the female. two sides of the same coin both embossed with the very same Thing, and neither ever getting the full picture. it is a cycle of emotional neglect and violence that is deeply, deeply embedded into white middle-class american culture and which those of us who live there steep in for decades without ever being fully aware. it is a cycle that for the most part, we can’t address because we fucking idolize it. or at least we tend to idolize our own side of the coin, and villainize the other. this, too, is part of the Thing. we can’t keep blaming outgroups for our own emotional toxicity.

the way forward: it’s neither male nor female. neither externalizing nor internalizing. it’s just having the courage to fucking face your shit like an adult and take responsibility for it, and fucking gender roles while you’re at it because why not.

at least, i think. i’m still at the part where i only have a couple bricks, a pile of cards, and a shivering small wet thing next to me in the rain. but i do prefer this to the house of cards. at least this way i can acknowledge the problems.

#scout talks #this is largely unedited and partly ripped from my journal #but yknow idk. take it it's like an essay or something #sociology major on main #q #scout.txt

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ina-nis · 2 years

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I feel worthless not because I feel inferior per se.

It probably because I see relationships as a hierarchical pyramid when they’re more like an spectrum in actuality.

I don’t see myself as some horrible being, who is alien to others - even if it feels that way most of the time - it’s more like I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time around the wrong crowd... all the time, or something.

Even if I recognize my worth is immeasurable and independent from any thing and any one...

It still hurts to see that I’m only deemed fit for friendships, or scapegoated as a “helper” or someone useful of some sort. One could say, I’m subjecting myself to such things and while that can be true, it’s also true that enforcing my boundaries and unwilling to be “cooperative” doesn’t make anything much better.

It still hurts to see people getting away and staying silent when I show symptoms - me, who is chronically ill and who has a bunch on mental health issues that I’ve been in treatment for years, and probably will stay in treatment for years. Don’t get me wrong, I understand it can turn things sour and toxic but it still hurts to receive little or no support (even more for a disease that causes you to be Chronically Alone And Without Support Whatsoever). I’m doing the best I can, if people want “normal and stable”, they would have better looking elsewhere.

Even if I tell myself I’m lovable, even if I tell myself I would make an amazing partner because I know how loving and caring I am. That still doesn’t change the fact that I’m very much alone and have been all my life - as much as it’s embarrassing to admit, I could never jump from relationships to relationships as people would “normally” do growing up, and experimenting. I didn’t really have had any good experiences, and the ones I did have were extremely traumatic (and this is just the romantic ones).

Even if people tell me there’s no relationship better or more important than others, what I have learned and observed throughout the years is that romantic partners seemed to have the closest and most secure attachment of all, that and parents and their children. Those were the ones I’d see people prioritizing most, while juggling several others. It doesn’t mean they were good or bad, just that they seemed secure.

And not ever once I completely isolated myself from people. I always kept seeking others. The reception was always similar... and when romance was involved, there was always a catch and it was always traumatic, and I always thought it was something personally wrong with me.

But maybe it was just the wrong people.

Where do I find the right people?

Even right now, the same is still happening and I feel powerless to stop it. I have a lot of peers and “friends” but everything is superficial, with zero intimacy and basically all my needs remain unmet. I can’t tell people I’m looking for a partner without looking like a desperate nutcase (and I don’t want to be seem as such), I don’t want people to push me to the side and treat me like their sweet little friend, a “side dish”, while they bask in their “main courses”. What I end up doing though, is pretending everything is ok, it’s better to look and act friendly - and highly masking, can’t let the symptoms ruin things over and over, I learned the hard way - and maybe hope someone will see through the bullshit and take interest in me or something.

In the end, I know maybe not even a partner would be able to sooth the anguish but fuck! I wish I could at least experience it once. Experience it in a way that’s not awful and traumatic once. Have something going on so I can have some leverage to prove my brain wrong because... the way things are going, nothing is getting better - on the contrary, it’s just becoming harder to bear and more difficult to cope.

#avpd #avoidance #avoidant #avoidant personality disorder #inanis post

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trivalentlinks · 2 years

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ask game: aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life? papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with? [honestly, reroll as needed <3] abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

Hello friend! <3

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

(Copied from where I answered this here.)

Close platonic friendships. Especially long-standing ones. My partner is my best friend and I love him and he’s wonderful, but it’s not the same, you know? He has a couple friends he talks to and plays video games with a few times a week (not for very long each time, but enough to catch up), and yeah, I get a little envious.

He went to school with these guys from age six to the end of high school, so he did have the advantage of living in the same small town until college, but I don’t think this is the only reason. I think it’s more that I just don’t really know how to maintain long distance friendships? Like, I did make friends in high school and college, but we fell out of touch for the most part. We call each other maybe once or twice a year now, if at all.

On a more light-hearted note: Pets! I really want a pet cat. Never had a pet, always adored little furry animals. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get one soon, since I’ll be settling somewhere more permanent.

papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with? [honestly, reroll as needed <;3]

Sadly, the answer is probably the good ol' four minutes, thirty-three seconds. (I.e. no music.)

I don't really have a general playlist. I didn't grow up listening to music really--we didn't have anything that played music at home. When I'm working, I sometimes wear headphones, but without playing anything. Usually it's because I watched a video at some point earlier and forgot I was wearing them. Or because I don't want people to talk to me.

Sometimes when I'm having difficulty concentrating, I'll put on one of those "deep focus music for concentration" videos on youtube, but I've been doing that less since they started having more ads.

I do have a playlist for when I write Leverage fic, but it mostly consists of every Quinn + Eliot fanvid on youtube, plus a fanvid that I cooked up myself that's just goes through the Quinn+Eliot art I commissioned played over the song Dear Fellow Traveller by Sea Wolf.

abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

(Copied from where I answered it here.)

The first part no, but the second part, unfortunately, yes, in fact most of my jewelry.

I generally don't wear jewelry when I go out--can't actually remember the last time I did, possibly for a high school dance?

But when I go to a department store, I love to go look at all shiny jewelry and admire how much they shimmer in the light. And when I went with a parent, sometimes they'd be like, "you seem to like that $5 jewelry set, I'll get it for you", which they did because I was very hard to shop for and generally didn't like things.

And I did (and do) like the jewelry. I just... never really think to wear any.

Though sometimes as a kid I would put all of my jewelry on at once and pretend to be a treasure hunter/pirate who just found a pile of treasure. Think this:

(And sometimes when I consider getting rid of my little box of jewelry, I still just look at it and go. Hm. We could get rid of this. Or we could… see picture above.)

Thank you so much for asking! <3 <3 <3

#ask game #mention of leverage

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theflagscene · 2 years

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Hello! New-ish follower here. I would like to ask your opinion on how the think the reveal of the connection betweek Aye and Teacher Dika will go? It seems the guys at the school are really fond of him but think another school bought him or something? early on he was called a traitor, wasnt he? Anyway, I wonder if Akk and his friends will somehow find out about Aye and Dika or if Aye will tell them himself. And if at some point Aye is at his limit and would just yell it out? What are your thoughts?

Hello! Welcome to my insanity 😊

Yes, Dika is definitely seen as a trader by the boys that were close to him, especially since he apparently went to work at the rival school. That is probably just the cover that Chadok and the other teachers gave the school, I think Dika killed himself when he was still working at Suppalo, which is why none the the students know he’s dead, because the teachers lied and said he chose to transfer to their rival school. Which tainted his reputation among the student body, had they said he died, he could’ve easily become a martyr which is the last thing the teachers in charge want. I think Chadok knows who Ayan is, it’s clear something was going on between Dika and Chadok, be it friendship or something more, but either way he is aware of who Ayan is which is why he took an instant disliking to him yet in his own way was still soft on him. Think about how Ayan responded when Chadok tried to take his uncles necklace, how he spoke to Chadok, how he physically pulled the necklace away. Do you think Chadok would’ve let any other student besides possibly Akk, get away with that level of insolence? No, he did because he knows Ayan is Dika’s nephew and Dika meant something to Chadok.

As for how Akk and the others will react, what I’m hoping for is a big ass group hug and a lot of crying. But what we’ll probably get is Akk saying something stupid and Ayan decking him again, or attempting too but one of the others get between them. I don’t know why, but I get this feeling like he won’t tell Akk about Dika first, it feels more like he might tell Thua or Kan first, I think Akk is going to find out that connection through snooping and then have to sit with that heavy knowledge all on his own before he figures out how to confront Ayan about it. Ayan wants desperately for someone to share his pain with, someone who saw Dika in the same light he did. Those people are the other boys at school, the World Remembers Gang, the Perfects, all of them saw Dika as the guiding calming light in their lives just like Ayan did, that became clear when Kan pretended to be him during their game at the beach. Ayan just needs to trust them enough first to be able to share that pain with them, but also be able to withstand their pity, which I don’t think Ayan would take kindly too.

Ayan doesn’t need pity, he needs answers. In episode eight we found out that Dika did have a history of mental health issues, specifically depressive disorder, but he also had attempted suicide in the past, which was apparently tied to Chadok as well. While Dika was shown to be living ‘out’ in Ayan’s memories, he was clearly still in the closet at work and living that kind of double life while also battling depression and possibly a hidden love affair, no wonder he was driven over the edge… uh, no pun intended.

With only a few episodes left, isn’t that sad, I doubt it’ll be as huge of a reveal as I really was hoping it to be. If anything, Chadok might use it as leverage against Ayan or Akk or both, after all, the eclipse is closing in and he’s got a cult of impressionable youths to control under a guise of a fake curse he made up himself. The last thing that he needs to have mucking that up is Ayan parading around the memory is Dika to Chadok’s most loyal perfects, because I think if anything could put an end to it all, is simply saying “Dika wouldn’t want this.”

#the eclipse #the eclipse the series #the eclipse theories #anon answered #tw suicide #tw mental illness

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sanders-sides-fic · 2 years

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I'll be good

He laughed, honestly happy in that moment. His heart swelling fondly, he pressed a kiss on his lover's forehead. "That's just not how it works, love. You know that."

Gasping for air, Nightmare desperately fought to get back up. He ignored the tears in his eyes, the screams in his head, the tick layer of fear in the air that seemed to beg him to play with it, its constant threat to suffocate him if he left it alone. There just wasn't any time for any of that. Not right now. Not even for him.

"Oh? So how do your powers work, then?” Janus looked up at him through his thick eyelashes, a content smirk on his face as Virgil played with his hair.

His eyes, dyed purple with his powers, flickered in between the hero and the other villain. Nightmare knew he had one more shot in him. Or two very ineffective ones. The point was, he couldn't take care of both of them. But with powers like his, it didn't really matter which of the two he aimed for. He knew he'd succeed, especially with the tension around them. It'd be harder not to fire a shot right now, really. Who to aim for, though?

“I can hear their fears. They scream in my head, and I can feel their anxiety on my skin.” Virgil thought about how to best describe it, fingers changing directions to trial the snake tattoo Janus had on his left cheekbone. “It’s like static in the air. And I can either wait until it explodes, or I can let it free. That’s what those lightnings are, just… The tension from the air gathered into sheer fear. If I condense it enough, it makes them pass out from fear.”

He could… If he wanted to, he could make the hero pass out and be done with this. He'd save himself that way. But then the people here would be in danger by the other guy. Nightmare wasn't even sure what his name was, really, but that guy most definitely was about to hurt a whole lot of people.

Janus sighed, mismatched eyes closed. “Mine’s so stupid in comparison. So I can control metal that looks like animals, wow. It’s useless, really. Like, what am I? A fucking jewellery box? Stupid!”

And, like, sure. Nightmare was a villain. And he was feared far and wide, the worst of the worst, enemy of the people number one, yada-yada. Still, though, this situation left a sour taste in his mouth. He… He didn't want the other guy to get his way. He didn't like this situation.

Virgil couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, yeah. But it’s fine, isn’t it? Since I was able to capture you that way. If you hadn’t become my hostage, you wouldn’t be with me right now.”

But what could he even do? Making someone black out cold was so much more easy than getting someone to stop doing whatever they were. Nightmare was tired. He'd been fighting all night. He didn't have it in himself to do that kind of precision work right now.

“Like me!” The two of them startled, looking at the man hanging upside down from the ceiling. “Though I suppose I’m less hostage and more freeloader…”

And if he started now, he'd be in for a whole world of trouble. He'd have to take out that villain's entire group, and he'd have a shit ton of enemies he hadn't had before. Villains didn't take kindly to one of their own "switching sides". But on the other hand…

“You both are technically freeloaders,” Virgil corrected with a smirk “and I didn’t kidnap you. You followed me and begged me to take you in because your brother’s my enemy. What was it again that you said?”

Nightmare's eyes locked onto the unconscious hero the struggling reinforcement had managed to pull behind himself. The Prince was his enemy, but his friend would be sad if something serious were to happen to him. And the other one… Well, Nightmare didn't really know The Brain but he was sure that one was a really good guy. Like, not pretending to be one but actually one of the good ones. It'd be a shame to see one of those rare people get crushed here.

“I’m leverage so you don’t kill him! So I am a hostage. A willing one, though. And it’s not bad, you don’t torture me or anything. You’re surprisingly gentle for a villain…”

Well. Nightmare hadn't ever been that good at being a villain anyways. Well, he was good at doing the whole villain stuff, but he was terrible with the moral stuff that came with it. Being ruthless was taxing.

“Yeah, well, I… It just happened. If I'd had the choice, I…”

He wasn't cut out for it, really. And he'd never actually wanted to be one either. It was just… He couldn't do anything else either. this had at some point turned out to be the only thing he could chose, the only place he could go. And that had been that.

Janus sat up suddenly, a serious look on his dolled-up face. “But it did happen. And that’s good, because there’s no way either of us-” he pointed between Remus and himself “-will be on any other side anymore. It’s too late for us, and we like it here. And you do too, right?”

And he knew, Nightmare knew all to well that no one would be grateful if he helped the hero. He'd just earn the ire of every villain in the world, on top of the ire of every hero that he'd already earned. And a bunch of vigilante's ire. So it really was a horrible idea.

Virgil looked at the eyes of the man he loved, the man who he pretended not to know had bought a diamond ring just a few days ago. And he couldn’t answer. So he just sighed and kissed Janus's forehead instead.

But for some reason, there was a horrible, terrible, awful flame burning in some corner of his heart still. He couldn't ignore this. He just couldn't. It wasn't possible. That flame wouldn't let him, because that flame was only horrible, terrible and awful towards himself.

“If you ever change sides” Janus muttered as he snuggled back against Virgil “I’ll come and terrorise the entire world to get you back.

So he finally resigned himself to his fate of being buried under a mountain of consequences because of an unthankful decision. He just hoped that he would get a chance to explain himself to the people that the villain cherished outside of his villainous deeds.

The fire crackled in the chimney. Virgil once again kissed the top of his lover's head. But he still didn't say anything. He couldn't. Janus would know every lie, every half-truth. So he just kept silent.

Stepping up, Nightmare gathered the fear around them, let it gravitate towards his hands. It was painful after the fight he'd just had, but he was used to doing this so he could handle it. He could do this. He would.

"I’m no hero, but I’m on the right side.” Virgil didn’t see it, but he knew Janus’ face got considerably darker when Janus filled his silence with that sentence. “So I’d sacrifice the world for you.”

Nightmare cleared his throat, getting the attention of both the cornered hero and the overly smug asshole of a villain. But what could he say? It wasn't like he could just suddenly pretend he was a hero.

There was another beat of silence. Remus was hovering somewhere in a shadow, but you could tell that he wholeheartedly agreed. And yet, without Janus talking, there was no words to fill the air. Because Virgil still had no words to say.

"It is incredibly rude to interrupt someone else's fight, you know?" Nightmare finally settled on, air around his hands lighting up with purple lightning "Besides, civilian hostages? Really? What are you, an amateur? That's just pathetic."

“I’ll never forgive you if you leave.”

"What?" The villain Nightmare still didn't know the name of seemed pissed off about his comment. Understandably so. But Nightmare didn't bother to react to his threatening tone. Instead, he stealthily begun to lead the fear towards the other.

Virgil didn’t plan on leaving. Of course he didn't. He had never planed on leaving Janus. Looking into his eyes, there were no words in the world to describe how little Virgil wanted to leave. If only he had the power to freeze time, then he'd be able to stay in this moment forever.

"I said what I said." Nightmare clicked his tongue. "Just beat it, or you'll have to go through me to continue this." That actually earned him confusion all around him. Startled whispers from the civilians, a distrustful look from The Brain, a smugly unbelieving smirk from the nameless other villain.

"Don't worry," he was finally able to say, one hand caressing Janus's face, the other patting the armrest next to him where, little later, Remus just all but appeared "I'd never leave you. Where else would I go? I'll come back no matter what."

"I can't believe this. The mighty Nightmare, standing in between a villain and the citizens of this city. Are you playing hero now? Switching sides?" The villain snarled. "You are the number one villain here, and you're abandoning that position for what?"

It was Remus this time, the one to mutter something. And he did so in a voice that was too small, to vulnerable to ever be acknowledged as his should the moment pass: "You promise?"

Nightmare increased the level of fear directed at the other villain, slowly increasing it until the other's grasp on his power loosened. Slowly enough for the other not to notice his barrier flickering, letting the first few civilians out. Good. A glance at the hero confirmed that he had noticed, so Nightmare could probably let the expert handle the hero work.

Virgil chuckled again, surrounded by the two most- or, well, the only two important people in his life. And he affirmed, pulling both of them close: "Oh, I swear it."

"What is it to you?" Nightmare asked, trying to keep the attention of the other villain with him. "It's not like I have ever pretended to care about those labels. I do what I want to do, that's it. If that makes me a villain, fine. If it doesn't, that's fine too. You, on the other hand, seem to care about your reputation a lot. So if you don't want to ruin it and be known as a scaredy cat, I suggest you don't bite off more than you can chew."

There was a long beat of silence before Virgil spoke up again. Hesitantly, this time, he opened his mouth and glanced at remus from the corner of his eye. "By the way… I'll have to get going later. There's still something I have to do tonight. I… Might run into your brother."

"What? I'm not scared of you!" He was obviously lying, especially since Nightmare knew he was supplying the other with a constant stream of extreme fear by this point. It was a bit impressive that he wasn't showing it on his face, really.

"I see…" Remus nodded, trying and failing to hide his frown with a pout. "Don't traumatise him with your little foggy trick. That's my job."

Nightmare made sure once again that The Brain had figured out the perfect opportunity to save the civilians that he had created. When he was absolutely sure that the hero would be able to handle whatever would happen next, Nightmare smirked at the other villain, leisurely looking at the sparks forming around his hands still. "Oh, really? Let me change that, then."

"Oh please. Virgil doesn't do trauma, you of all people should know that! Besides, he didn't do it in forever." Janus smirked at the memory, though Virgil wasn't sure if the shudder was from fear or excitement at the memory - or both. "Not since that time I distracted him enough to make him loose control, that is…"

And for the first time in a while so long that he was sure everyone else had already forgotten he was even able of doing this, Nightmare released his raw power. The other, nameless villain screamed in horror as the fog engulfed him, slowly seeping into his skin and painting his eyes black.

Remus laughed delightedly while Virgil hid his face in his hands. He, apparently, was the only one who didn't care for that particular memory. Why he had no idea. Well, maybe it was because they hadn't needed to live with the horror that they had caused. Or the constant fear-supply from everyone in the vicinity because of it.

The world seemed to screech to a halt as the last of the other's power crumbled, rendering the citizens free to leave but also putting them in danger of being squashed by rubble if The Brain didn't react fast enough. Shooting just the smallest bit of fear at the hero was enough, though, to remind him of where he was. Nightmare redirected his attention to the other villain.

"Well… I'm just saying~ After all, I would kind of loose my raison d'être as a hostage otherwise." Remus chuckled delightedly.

A terrified gaze clouded over by Nightmare's fog and a thick layer of tears fought and failed to meet his even as the other villain screamed so loud Nightmare wasn't sure he'd ever be able to use his voice after this. "As I said: Taking hostages is pathetic. See? This is how a real villain fights. I even gave you your chance to bug off out of my fight… A piece of advice? Next time, don't pretend to be braver than you are."

Though Virgil was unbelievably grateful that the conversation had gone back onto another track, he couldn't help the indignant scoff that escaped him. "I- You're not a hostage. You're a freeloader who keeps bugging me to spare his brother when I never even thought about execution or something like that!"

Nightmare watched his victim crumble to the floor, mind unable to take any more of the fear Virgil had shoved down the villain's throat. He tried not to feel too guilty about it. The effects of his power would subside soon. And, with a lot more time and a very good therapist, the trauma caused by the memory of it might do the same. But either way, he had saved people. No one had died. That had to count for something, right? It ought to soothe the unbearable feeling of guilt in his gut soon enough. Right?

"You're a ruthless villain, darling. If he was a mere freeloader, would you really have stood for all of… that?" Janus smirked as he gestured to Remus from head to toe, who in turn wiggled happily like that'd been a compliment. "No, no, no. Remus is… Hm~ Our cute little pet?"

When he was sure that he had his powers under control again, Nightmare looked over to the people around him. The Brain gave him a weary look as his eyes kept flittering over to the unconscious bodies of his friend and his enemy.

Virgil raised an eyebrow. "Cute? He just ate my carving knife again - yes I know, don't look at me like that. Bit annoyed, honestly. It was a good knife, too." He ruffled Remus's hair, his hand coming away a bit goo-y.

And Nightmare knew that he owed the hero an explanation, that he had to somehow save his face as a villain before it was too late, that he should fight the hero. But he also knew that he had to get out of here. Fast. Before the fatal flaw of his powers, the backlash of overuse caught up with him and was revealed to the world. Before he, too, collapsed and was send to prison forever. Together with the other villain. Whom he'd just overused his powers on. Shit.

"I'm cute as fuck!" Remus exclaimed, proudly puffing his chest. "Your cute little homicidal pet cryptid!"

"Well…" Nightmare finally sighed as dramatically as possible, trying and failing to keep the quiver completely out of his voice. He hoped everyone else was terrified enough not to notice. "The mood is ruined. Let's keep it at that for today." He could see the hero's hesitance. Shit, shit, shit! He couldn't keep fighting, he had to leave, right now! So Nightmare opted for curling a bit more fog around his hand, taking on a mocking tone as he pointedly looked at the hero's injuries. "Unless you'd rather keep going? There's enough fear to go around."

"Every good villain has a strange cryptid at their side." Janus nodded with conviction Virgil couldn't understand. "A strange cryptid and a strong spouse~"

Thankfully, the hero stepped back. The citizens also didn't dare standing in his way, parting like the red sea for him. Soon but not soon enough, Nightmare made it out of there.

Virgil ignored the excited flutter in his chest, knowing that the love of his life was very much testing the waters. He knew that Janus had bought the engagement ring already, and he couldn't wait to say yes. Spending the rest of his life with Janus was the best thing he could imagine, the thing he wanted to most in the world.

He would hide inside an abandoned ally, unsure if he'd make it home on time. No, actually sure that he wouldn't. Hoping no one would find him, he succumbed to the stream of memories drowning out reality. He thought that he might not come to for a while - and he knew the memories wouldn't be pleasant. Those were his last thoughts as he left for good.

A little while later, Janus stood up announcing that it was time to take the quiche out of the oven. And as he parted from Virgil and Remus with a kiss to the top of the villain's head, Virgil could have sworn he heard the love of his life mutter under his breath: "You swore to stay, so don't forget."

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #sanders sides au #villain and hero au #this will be a series #I’ll properly tag this later #maybe #if i remember

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