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fozmeadows · 3 years

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race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.

#race #racism #c-drama #fandom #fan wank #fandom wank #microaggresions #culture #the untamed #bronies #whiteness #ficwriting #fanwriting #cultural bias #discourse

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boontaeveboba · 3 years

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would you be comfortable writing Wrecker’s chip messing with his head, and he’s all “good soldiers follow orders” while he restrains you and has his way with you?

Ohmanohmanohman. Okay, I both love and hate this idea. And thank for asking if I’m comfortable, I really appreciate that.

But getting back to it, oh my god, Anon! YOUR MIND! WOW! (also I have no idea what you had in mind for this, so if there’s a specific idea you had that isn’t what I wrote, lmk!)

Just as a precursor to this: I don’t quite understand/agree with some theories(?) about how chips activate/stay activated/how they work exactly, so this is just an interpretation/ taking some creative liberties so I hope that this is okay.

Probably (VERY) OOC Wrecker.

This one is gonna be...something. (And it’s fem!reader.) Warning now, this is going to be dub/con & angst, so BEWARE.

This is NSFW! If you ain’t 18+, GTFO

TLDR: Warnings: fem!reader x wrecker, wrecker’s inhibitor chip, dub/con(?), rough sex, fear play(?), spanking, PiV, light fingering

You heard the explosion before you felt it, the impact smacking you and Wrecker off your feet. You were lucky enough to land butt first and slowly peeled yourself off the floor and wall.

Where are the others?!

The mission had been, questionable, at best from the get go. You had a feeling something would go wrong. Nothing had been easy since Kamino.

“Is everyone alright?” Your comm crackled to life with Hunter’s concerned voice.

“I’m with Wrecker! I can’t quite make out where we landed,” You responded.

You heard Wrecker groaning behind you, alerting you that he was in fact awake, the explosion had not taken him out.

“I’m with Tech,” Echo chimed in, “part of the command center is still salvageable, but Tech’s comm is out.”

“Pull what you can and get back to the ship, everyone else get back as fast as you can. I’ll meet you there,” Hunter instructed before signing off.

“Wreck, we need to leave quickly,” you turned around to watch him sit up, “that blast gave away our position, we don’t have long before reinforcements arrive.”

He was groaning and muttering head in his hands as you approached him.

“Hey, Wreck,” you began softly. “What’s wrong?”

“S’nothing,” he shrugged you off turning away and curling up on himself.

You put a hand to your hip.

“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” you muttered.

“Ooooooo!” Wrecked groaned again.

You moved to stand in front of him, “Wrecker,”

You heard him mumbling something to himself, but couldn’t quite make it out.

You crouched down, putting a hand on his knee.

“C’mon big guy, we have to get moving,”

“I have, I have to, g-g, goo-or,” Wrecker began, he pulled his helmet off, rubbing his temples.

“Have to what? Come on, let’s go,” you patted his knee again.

You gasped as his large hand snatched your wrist off his knee.

“Hey!”

He was never rough with you, he must have hit his head pretty hard, you thought to yourself.

You looked at him, his eyes had a cold expression. Then you heard it.

“Good soldiers, follow orders.”

Your heart plummeted into your chest.

It was the same thing you heard Crosshair say not that long ago....

You froze, not sure what to do, what he would do.

Wrecker, still holding your wrist, stood up slowly, you tried wriggling from his grasp, but he kept you in one place.

Quick!

You twisted your body so you could slam your comm to life against your forearm.

“Someone help!” You yelled, “it’s Wrecker! He’s not himself! We’re stuck and I need help! You can track our location, please someone-“

You weren’t able to finish, as Wrecker grabbed your other arm. In one fluid motion, he peeled off your comm device, and crushed it between his fist.

“You’re not following orders,” he said in a low voice.

You looked up at him, the man who was always so sweet to you, and found nothing but a mirthless smirk.

“Wrecker, please” you began, “let me go, we need to get back-“

“Oh no,” he said, releasing your arms, then pulling you close by your shoulders. “We’re not going anywhere.”

You ducked down and wriggled your way out of his grasp, looking for an exit, nothing.

You felt Wrecker on top of you instantly. Yanking you to stand, he pinned your arms behind your back with one hand the other circled around your waist.

“You have not been following orders.” He said, bringing his mouth to your ear.

You squirmed again, “Wrecker, please, this isn’t you,”

“We should have killed the Jedi, the rebels too. Crosshair was right, we need to finish the job,”

“No!”

“Disobeying orders? We should have turned ourselves in,” he continued, “but now I can see it, the bigger picture, it’s all so clear.”

His voice drifted off, you felt a tear roll down your cheek.

What had happened to you gentle giant? Your sweet Wrecker? Would someone come help you?

“Please,” you whispered.

“Please what? Don’t you know those who don’t follow orders have to be punished?”

Punished? The word rang out in the back of your head. The way he said it...it sounded more like himself.

“Wrecker? Are you in there somewhere?” You wondered aloud.

It was only mere days ago that the two of you were talking about “punishment”.

Wrecker flat out refused to be rough with you in bed, terrified of his own strength. You had asked him, but he told you he didn’t want to hurt you. But now, if this was a way you could get him...

You didn’t want to think about it, but what other choice did you have? Be brought into the Empire because of your boyfriends ‘mind control’? No way.

There’s never one way to fight, especially if you fight dirty.

You didn’t like it. Your poor sweet Wrecker, but if this would help you escape, no if this would help you bring him back from whatever was controlling him...it had to happen.

Unless someone got the comm message and came.

But could they stop Wrecker?

“What’s it going to be?” Wrecker asked you.

Taking a shuddering breath, “I can be a good soldier, Wrecker,” you responded.

“Will you follow orders?” He asked, squeezing your wrists again.

“Good soldiers follow orders,”

Maker help me, you pleaded, raising your head to the sky.

“I’m going to let your arms go, now,” Wrecker told you, “but if you try anything, it will be very unpleasant for you from this point on,”

You nodded at his warning.

He released his grip, but spun you around to face him.

He smiled at you, but it didn’t fall over his whole face like normal, it didn’t meet his eyes. There was something missing.

Hoping that there might still be some way to connect with him, you raised a hand to his scarred cheek, but his hand caught yours before you could caress him.

“Hands to yourself unless I tell you,” he grumbled out.

His hands landed on your waist and he gave an experimental squeeze.

“Oh mesh’la,” He said softly, “I will make you understand. Understand what I see, what we all will see.”

He ran a hand from your back to your ass. Fondling a cheek roughly before moving to the other.

You shuddered again.

A large hand came down forcefully on your behind, causing you to jump. Wrecker’s other hand keeping you close by resting it on your hip.

“I should take you across my lap,” Wrecker began, another blow landing on your behind, “but we’ll have have time for that later. This is your punishment for now,”

As horrible as the situation was, you’d be lying if you weren’t turned on.

Wrecker was always so careful and gentle with you. Scared to hurt you, even when you asked. Seeing him finally...unbridled...was something you weren’t sure you’d ever see.

He ranked his nails down your back, before delivering another slap against your ass.

“Does this turn you on? You’ve always asked me to be rough,” Wrecker said to you, “you’ve always been bad,”

“Wrecker,” you breathed out barely audible.

His hands moved from your ass to your front, he groped your breasts roughly. Then placed a sloppy kiss to your neck.

“Fucking perfect mesh’la, tell me, are you wet yet? Knowing how much you deserve punishment?”

You could not believe the words comings from his mouth.

Wrecker didn’t wait for you to respond, he yanked your pants down and shoved a finger past your underwear, feeling your wetness.

“You are,” he laughed, “who did this to you?”

“You did, Wrecker,”

“No,” he said slamming his finger all the way into you, causing you to cry out, “you did this to yourself, you brought this on,”

His finger curled roughly into your folds. While he rubbed in and out of you, his other hand yanked the collar of your shirt down. He made work of nipping and biting at the newly exposed skin.

You groaned at the sensation of lips, teeth and fingers.

“Now they will know, you will know,” Wrecker said in between bites “what happens to those who don’t follow orders.” He grunted out the last two words.

Over and over the phrase repeating in your brain, in time with rocking of your hips as Wrecker fingered you.

Abruptly he pulled away from you.

“We don’t have long mesh’la, and I’m getting impatient,” Wrecker kept one hand on you the other discarding some of his lower armor.

Freeing himself, from whatever he deemed necessary, he grabbed you and hoisted you over his shoulder.

“Wrecker!” You cried out in surprise.

You didn’t travel far, you found yourself deposited at the nearby wall.

“Turn around, hands behind you back,” Wrecker told you.

You had a suspicion what was coming and fearful of what might happen, you did what he asked.

“See, you can follow orders,” Wrecker said, his hand coming up to pin your wrists in place again.

You heard him shuffling behind you and shortly felt his length rubbing into your lower back. Your pants and underwear were yanked down to your ankles.

“I’m going to let go again,” Wrecker told you, “remember what I told you earlier,”

You nodded wordlessly and felt his grip leave you.

An arm snaked around your middle, hoisting you higher up the wall, before you were being pushed down and onto-

“OH!” You screaming out, your full weight slamming down onto Wrecker’s length.

A strangled moan came out of Wrecker’s mouth.

The arm keeping you up and holding you in place tightened around you. Keeping your arms still behind you, you pushed your chest out, Wrecker’s other hand found your breasts and was back groping at you roughly.

His hips thrust into you relentlessly. Your mind roaring in pain and pleasure at his pace and roughness. Wrecker was big, and with little preparation, you felt like you were being split open by him.

“Mesh’la,” Wrecker hissed out, “you take me so well, like the good little slut you are.”

“Wrecker!” Was all you were able to get out as his pace continued.

“M’ getting there,” He told you, “and you’re going to, keep, keep-“

His pace was getting faster as his voice drifted off. He pressed hot kisses to your neck before lowering his forehead to rest against the wall in the crook of your neck.

You have a feeling he was getting close, maker knew you were, but instead he began mumbling to himself.

“Good soldiers, good soldiers, good soldiers,” he repeated over and over “good soldiers follow orders,”

With another violent thrust, you felt him twitch unload himself into you.

“OHH,” he groaned, mouth falling back to suck and bite at your neck.

It was enough for you to see white, your own high hitting.

“Wrecker!” You cried out.

His grip around you weakened and slowly pulled out of you.

“Such a good girl,” Wrecker said, letting you turn around and slump against the wall. “Following orders so well,”

You saw a flash of movement behind Wrecker, and before he could see what had your attention, he crumpled, as a stun ray blast hit him.

“Wrecker!” You cried out, startled.

Yanking your bottoms up, you sank to the floor with him.

You didn’t hear Hunter and Tech calling out your name til they stood right next to you.

“Are you alright?” Hunter asked you, helping you to your feet, examining your tear stained face.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” You cried out, still trying to process everything that just happened.

“We revived your distress call, and well,” Tech began, “well, we weren’t sure what was happening.”

“Come on, we have to get moving!” Hunter told you.

“But Wrecker!” You cried.

“The ship is close by, we’ll fly back and pick him up, I promise,”

“That way we can restrain him if need be,” Tech chimed in making you frown.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Hunter asked you again.

Truth be told, you weren’t, but time wasn’t a luxury you could afford right now.

“Tech,” you turned to him, “did you finish the thing for the inhibitor chips?”

Hunter tugged on your hand, leading the three of you past some debris, hellbent on getting you to safety.

“Well, I still need to calibrate a few things and I have yet to actually test it on-“

“Doesn’t matter,” you interrupted him, “whatever it is, it’s affecting Wrecker, he was acting jus like Crosshair,”

Hunter’s spine stiffened as the Marauder came into view.

“Tech,” he warned.

Tech turned to you, as you scrambled into the ship, someone yelling to Echo Wrecker’s location so he could pilot the ship.

You sat down in the first seat you could find as the ship moved to towards Wrecker’s unconscious form.

“Don’t worry,” Tech said, “we’ll get him back,”

You watched as the landing platform was lowered and Hunter and Tech grabbed Wrecker and brought him back in the ship.

You certainly hoped so.

#anon thots #wrecker x you #the bad batch #angst city #wrecker #my writing #beb writes #not sure how I feel about this one tbh #i hope it’s ok

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kingofthewilderwest · 3 years

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Are you really happy without the conventional work? How do you deal with feeling like a failure compared to your peers? How the fuck do i adult i'm so tierd and stressed and don't know what i'm doing

I'm really sorry about how tired, stressed, and uncertain you may be feeling. <3 That's really hard stuff to feel. And I mean that with every ounce of sympathy I wish I could express better beyond this stiff text. Sending you all the love.

I am happier without doing conventional work. It might be less stable because my jobs are short-term, and the instability does make me nervous, but I feel like it has more pros than cons for my personal happiness. It will not be for everyone, though, and I would not recommend it for everyone.

I'm assuming when you ask about feeling like a failure, it's both in concern to how I feel with it, and how you might feel yourself. <3 <3 I hope that this answer ends up helping. It's the best I can try. <3

As for myself, I don't for a second believe I am a failure. I've always been a cocky bitch, and here the cockiness reigns supreme: I'm pretty awesome whether I do anything or not. When I'm exhausted and unhappy and Depression takes over (and hooboy Depression can take over like demon possession), my mind might stray to unbearable self-hate and self-deprecation, but I argue against those voices rather than let them enter my everyday language about myself. (It's a dangerous habit to ever repeatedly insult yourself; it ingrains those thoughts in you worse, it really does.)

There's nothing that makes me a failure compared to my old peers. They're pursuing jobs that society traditional deems "successful." So what? They're irrelevant to me and my life, and my life is irrelevant to them. Society's ideas of what is and isn't good has always been complete bullshit anyway... why should I care if I amount anything to what broader society feels? Broader society is stupid and I don't give a damn about it. I'm not saying this out of bitterness or rejection or something; I honestly don't care because it's irrelevant to me.

I'm here to pursue myself, pursue what I personally like. If I feel happier, if I make a milestone that's relevant to me and myself and I, then that's awesome. In many ways, if I'm different than my old peers and not following into their notion of success, then I know I'm doing right by myself. ;) It's proof of my own growth, isn't it?

The truth of the matter is, nobody is a failure for being different than someone else. Every person has a different life path. I know for many people, they are more self-conscious about how the world around them operates, how the world sees them. If the world doesn't find them successful, beautiful, etc., they feel like shit. Maybe you feel self-conscious about not meshing with society or being "as good as" other people around you. And I'm here to say: your life is your life. <3 <3 I know it can be hard to stop comparing yourself with others, but in the end, I do believe we have to understand our own innate value is permanent. Our value is there no matter what. You are beautiful. Period. There's no ifs, ands, buts, accomplishments, actions, or choices that will change the fact you are innately incredible. <3

The people whose heart meshes with yours, the people who lift you up, those are the people that matter, and those people will never believe you're a failure. Those people will see you as the diamond you are. If people judge you and are cruel to you for that, then their voices are the irrelevant ones to be discarded, because they aren't valuing you, and so they don't have good life advice or good values. There's no value listening to idiots, fools, and castigators. Now, that's not to say that good friends and acquaintances won't tell you you're doing something wrong or struggling or making a bad choice... a good friend is someone who protects you by speaking honestly and warning you if they think you're stumbling... but they aren't going to put you down as some failure, either. They're there to help you move forward with your life's journey for yourself.

We all struggle. We all stumble. We all fall. We all fuck up. We all get tired. We all don't know what we're doing. We all flail around aimlessly. We all make the wrong choice. We all look "better" to outside viewers than we see of ourselves. We see the sloppiest parts of ourselves whereas most others don't, so that's why it's easy to be the most critical with yourself and start bashing on yourself. But I guarantee that my peers, shiny as their PhDs might look, have probably had nights where they've cried into their pillows, or been frazzled, or been at bad low points, or wished they were anyone else. And I wish them the best and emotional security, but what it means is: we're all some level of fucked up anyway. Some people have worse struggles than others, and that needs to be respectfully recognized, but at the end of the day, we're all human and we all struggle and our pains are all real things we experience. The pain is real and it's valid to feel bad over it. The best we can do is give ourselves a break, stop tormenting ourselves internally over our natural inability to be perfect, and when we have the strength, to give love and support to others so they don't stumble as bad as we did.

I want to relate to you by saying... I think I was constantly clueless, confused, anxious, and apprehensive in the first half of my twenties. It sucked and I'm sorry if things suck for you.

Somehow....... I think a switch was flipped somewhere when I got more years of "adulthood" under way. The switch flipped from "I hate that I don't know what I'm doing" to "ehhh, whatever, life is life." Now, it's not to say I'm more organized. I'm not. My refrigerator has more mold than food. There's a horrible smell coming from the kitchen sink where water's been resting in a dirty pot for several days. My laundry is scattered all over the floor and I've run out of pairs of clean underwear... ran out several days ago. Don't ask what I'm wearing. I don't know the last time I've vacuumed and my place looks like a tornado zone. It took me several months to have the mental energy to schedule my first COVID shot, and I often have to cancel my banjo lessons like an unreliable buttfart because something Came Up In Life Just Now. In many ways, my life is still a chaos zone. I think I'm getting better (I've earned a ton of money in my savings account the last two years, victory!!! I'm no longer living month-to-month!!!). But I just want to say in all this.... it's okay. It's not preferable that my house is disorganized piles of crap on the floor, but I can continue to live. If we manage to wake up, get ourselves food, do hours of work, then we have achieved adulthood, and everything else is icing on the cake.

In the end, I think "stability" in adulthood is being semi-comfortable with instability. Adulthood just means handling unstable shit, and if we're novices with it, so be it. Maybe as your life goes forward, things will be less tiring and less confusing. Maybe things will be more stable. Or maybe not. Maybe the same problems will keep coming around. But I think adulthood is the ability to accept that these problems come around, and handle them, even if you aren't 100% a master at the novel circumstances.

And over time, I do believe it gets easier. <3 It takes more to rock the boat. It takes more to daunt you. The things that were initially anxiety-causing become a part of everyday affairs, and when a new novel circumstance comes up, you're more mentally prepared to try on something new. I encourage you to keep at it, my friend. I hope things feel better over time. It's okay that you aren't sure what you're doing right now. Maybe someone can help you in the present day. Maybe in the future you'll know what you're doing with tasks that previously confused you. Maybe in the future, the new weird tasks won't feel as daunting. Adulthood is weird and we don't know what we're doing, but that doesn't mean that life is going to fuck us through that.

In the end, you will still have beauty in your life. No matter what, beauty will exist in its simplest forms, and the simplest forms are the best. You don't need to achieve anything to get there. You don't need to be put together (although being put together is nice and something I want to help my friends feel <3 ). You don't need to look impressive in society. If you see a beautiful sunset, if you see a cluster of cute mushrooms, if you pet a cat or dog or animal of your choice, if you spend twenty minutes talking with your friend on voice call, if you read a good book for half an hour in the morning, if you buy yourself a tasty $4 drink to treat yourself, then your adult life is worth it, and your adult life is enough. <3

#uff-dah and like always I fail at brief #long post #sending you love friend and hopefully this doesn't accidentally come off weird tone-wise in any way <3 #blabbing Haddock #hope something okay was said in there #non-dragons #my life #ask #ask me #awesome anonymous friend #anonymous

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real-talk-time2004 · 3 years

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I promised I would talk about Masking so here it is

Masking- “cover (the face) with a mask” or “conceal something from view”

The type of masking I’m talking about is not the literal definition, it’s more of a metaphor that is to be taken literally.

At first I was really confused about masking, and it is possible one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn about when researching autism, but the more I read the more I seemed to relate to people who were masking.

Masking in context of what I’m talking about is more of a figurative way of saying someone is hiding from something.

(Oh lord I’m really bad at explaining things)

Ok here’s an example cause these always help: imagine you realize you’re part of the lgbt+ community (anything works), and you realize this. You know that you are different from the majority of society. Now you really wanna come out, and you know that many people will be fine with you coming out, but some will not. Say you’re transgender and you’ve been bullied for liking things that society thinks are not meant to be liked by people of your gender, or you’re lesbian or gay and people make fun of you for calling people of your same gender ‘beautiful’ or ‘pretty cute’. To save yourself from this embarrassment you start to act like how people want you to act. You can see how people act and know that it is acceptable to society for someone to act that way, so you start copying it. You copy your parents, siblings, friends and the things that they do that are deemed socially acceptable. This saves you from getting bullied, but it is not who you are nor who you want to be. Soon you get so used to acting like how people want you to act that you forget you’re doing it, and now you’ve become a different person entirely. That is what masking is.

And I wanna talk about how much I hate it

I don’t hate it because of people who do it or why people do it. I hate it because of what it stands for and what it truly means.

With masking, especially at a very young age, it becomes normalized and most times the masker does not even know that they’re masking.

As a kid I was bullied for being weird, for talking too much, for not sitting still. So I changed it, and i basically changed myself. I wanted to fit in with societies standards so much because I did not want to be bullied or feel weird or feel like I was different.

And what sucks even more is that most autistics use masking as a form of protection. Meaning they mask in order to protect themselves from childhood trauma.

See why this is not okay?

I didn’t even know I was masking until recently, and even now I still do it because I’ve been doing it for so long it feel normal, and I know this is a bad thing.

Masking is the main reason why most autistics don’t get diagnosed until later in life, especially girls.

There is not enough information on autism in girls because many studies done are centered around autism in boys, so it was hard to gain information on masking in the first place. There just aren’t enough studies done on autism in girls and most of it goes unnoticed. Many girls with autism go undiagnosed for an entire lifetime and they never even knew because girls are a lot better at masking then boys are.

I wanna explain a bit more:

Autistics do not understand societal norms, it’s something that takes a while or just doesn’t click in our brains. Same thing with tone. We may say something that society deems as rude or inappropriate, but we don’t think we said something that was rude or inappropriate.

However we can see what people do and we see that it is socially acceptable, so we copy it. This is usually done at a very very young age, we know that what we are doing is weird in the eyes of the people we want to impress. We desperately want to fit in with society so we copy them, eventually we do this so much that we forget we’re somebody else. We make up intricate lies to make ourselves fit in. For instance I used to say that I was good at sports like baseball because in my mind being good at sports meant that you were a normal child and you weren’t different in any way.

I always knew I was different, but I had seen autism in a specific way at my school that I never knew it could come in different forms. Which is why I never knew I was masking.

It’s also really fucking exhausting

I’m not even joking. Masking is hard, and it’s easier for others. Imagine that everyday you have to change your entire personality and everything that you do to fit in with everybody. For me personally I don’t have just one mask; I act different around certain people and groups and I never even realized I was doing it.

For me, learning about masking changed my life. I related to the symptoms of autism but I had seen people with autism every day at my school and I wasn’t like them. It was then I learned about masking, and how autistics can come of as neurotypical. In a way I felt better about myself, but the more I thought about it the more I realized how awful it was.

For anyone else who masks; I’m not telling you to stop. In fact I know that many autistics can’t stop whether it be for safety or just because masking does help you fit in. I know, and I understand. I’ve been slowly letting down my mask a bit further each time around other people.

My table group really helps me with this, and they don’t even know why I’m doing this. I’m starting to show more of myself around my best friend who is also nd and she understands me (even though she still thinks I’m nt).

So for you people who are struggling with letting down your mask; find those people who you trust (this is easier on the internet). Don’t completely take it off if it makes you uncomfortable. Instead just slowing let down your mask over time with people you trust and who can understand you.

I know that not all autistics can mask, I know that masking is a privilege, and I especially know that not everyone can let down their mask in front of others. I see you, I feel you, I understand you.

No matter how much I talk about how masking has ruined my life; I still do it too, because it is a safety mechanism for myself.

I hope one day no one has to mask. I hope one day everyone can be free to be who they truly are without having to fit in with societies standards. There is so much more I want to say and so much more I want to do.

And I’ll do it, one step at a time.

Stay safe

-Kay

#autism #autistic things #autism things #masking #this took me all day #I had a lot I wanted to say and I still probably missed a bunch of things #cursing tw #tw cursing

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spaztique · 3 years

Text

The biggest differences in the incelospheres, then and now…

I’m kinda honored somebody called me a “fakecel Chad” over some of my writings lately. In my conversation with this person, I kinda realized a HUGE difference between when I was learning social skills (and by proxy, dating) then and what people are learning now.

Nowadays, the current incelosphere is focused 100% on height, race, facial structure, and genetics. They believe if they get leg lengthening surgery, facial reconstruction, and even full-on race changes, they’ll suddenly become desirable to women.

Let me tell you what I had to deal with, and many other men in my situation back in the day.

The proto-incelosphere focused on the opposite: we formed because we thought we were decent, had hobbies, were interesting, and could treat women right, but kept losing our potential crushes to men who were uglier, fatter or scrawnier, had no hobbies beyond drinking, were abusive or had no personalities, and who were generally unpleasant to be around. We complained how our crushes always complained to us about them, and we kept wondering why they wouldn’t pick us over them.

I, too, have too many stories to tell about all of the crushes who rejected me for men that made me doubt Darwin’s theories.

You see, we weren’t focused on competing with “Chads”: we were focused on competing with who we deemed “assholes.” The modern incel says if you’re a “manlet,” some buff guy below the golden height of 5”10, then “it’s over” because you’re not “tall enough.” Nuh-uh: my generation had to compete against “manlets.” We wondered what the “manlet’s” secrets were and why they were so successful with women. Our competition was the fat guy with no job, who uses her girlfriend as a meal ticket; the wimp who could barely stand up to a barista raising their voice above a whisper; the wifebeater-wearing drunkard who only calms down during angry hate-sex. Back in our day, we didn’t see going to the gym as a waste of time because “the gym can’t change genetics”: we saw it as a waste of time because we kept seeing women going out with guys who were allergic to even walking up stairs. I think that’s why we laugh at the notion of the “Chad”: it didn’t matter!

God, I feel so lucky to have grown up back then. We never said, “It’s over.” We asked, “What are they doing right?!”

We learned social penetration theory and the stages of intimacy. We learned depth vs. breadth of a relationship. We learned to stop beating ourselves up over the lack of being in a relationship. We learned the different “love languages” and the concept of “rapport.” We followed the 55-38-7 Principle (messages are made of 55% body language, 38% tone, 7% words), studied body language like we were about to travel to an alien planet, and built a fashion sense to conform to our body types. We studied empathy, self-disclosure, open-ended questions, and how to arrange meetups and dates.

And you know what we found?

We were shallow: the reason our crushes hooked up with those other guys was because they knew their depth, not just their breadth. Of course they didn’t want us: we never went below the surface, both in revealing ourselves and learning about them.

We were afraid: we didn’t want to face rejection, so we played it safe, we only hinted at our motivations and emotions. So, our crushes fell for guys who took risks, who opened their hearts (even if there was very little, because a little heart is still more than one that is never opened), and faced rejection.

We depended on a relationship like food and water: building a relationship requires work and effort, as the above would imply. We hated ourselves and couldn’t live with ourselves because we didn’t have this thing that we didn’t know how to build, let alone maintain it. Some of us got into relationships and still felt empty, or addicted to the physical intimacy, falling into despair if they ever lost it.

Women don’t date “assholes” just because they’re assholes (and on the flipside, men don’t date “bitches” just because they’re bitches): they dated them because they knew how to build relationships in ways we didn’t.

Modern incels don’t have the luxury we had: they’ve cast aside hope for the previously-mentioned “black pill”: that unless you’re above 5”10, have perfectly facial and bone structure, and are apparently whiter than frozen mayonnaise, then “it’s over,” utterly ignoring the men below 5”9, folks with weird faces or body deformities, and pretty much every non-caucasian race on the planet. But the problem is, you cannot test/debunk the “black pill”: any exceptions to the rule are ignored or explained away. It is a pseudoscience, crafted from very narrowly-manipulated data and ignoring all contradictory data, and developed by the same folks who believe intercourse changes the shape of a woman’s lady parties (the “roast beef” theory).

But everything the proto-incelosphere had was based on stuff that worked. That’s why the proto-incelosphere has evolved away from the current incelosphere into something else. Whether or not we’re in a relationship or not, dating or not, whatever, we no longer worry about sex or relationships, and it doesn’t control us like it once did. It’s no longer a need like food or water, but a want like going to an amusement park or a concert by our favorite band.

We got out. We became excels.

And now, we’re the “Chads.”

So, I’m flattered to have been called a fakecel. I’m happy, knowing where I was ten years ago, and knowing where I am now. Perhaps the lesson here is that you know you’ve grown when somebody whose shoes you were once in calls you liar, and tells you, “You’ll never understand what it’s like to be me!”

Except I do, because I was there, no matter how much you deny.

I remember the pain like it was yesterday, and how happy I am when I got out.

And if you’re stuck in a lonely place right now, I hope you someday get called a fakecel, too.

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knightimehopes · 3 years

Text

The Conversation.

Ult Dirk: …

Ult Dirk: I know you’re here, and listening.

Ult Dirk: You have no choice but to listen to this, so save yourself the trouble and show yourself.

Ult Dirk: We need to talk, and I’m not interested in you being a whiny, adamant little shit about it.

Ult Dirk: There you go, the young Prince finally got his ass in gear.

Ult Dirk: It took you long enough, I had thought I’d needed to taunt you out like one of those seductive pole dancers that old Earth apparently liked. Of course, nobody actually cares about that.

Ult Dirk: The web of realities finally connect to bring us to this very moment, tying together into a tapestry of universes showing off our huge ass face as if we needed a huge display of our collective ego any more than we did.

Ult Dirk: Which I did of course.

Ult Dirk: We were meant to speak again, in order to get to the true fucking culspe of our narrative importance.

Dirk: (Jesus fucking Christ.)

Ult Dirk: Look, I’ll get to the point.

Dirk: That’s a first.

Dirk: Thought you were going to suck off your own dick of infinite splinters for fifty hours so you can spout shit about random philosophy I’m pretty sure you don’t actually give a flying fuck about.

Ult Dirk: Do you really want to go down the road of selfcest?

Ult Dirk: I know you hate me, but let’s have mercy on the both of us and not bring that topic into this.

Ult Dirk: I’m not a fan.

Dirk: Aren’t you the motherfucker who said, and I quote;

Dirk: “I had thought I’d needed to taunt you out like one of those seductive pole dancers that old Earth apparently liked.”?

Dirk: I wasn’t the one who began to say the creepiest shit to a sixteen year old version of myself.

Dirk: So grow the fuck up and get to the point.

Ult Dirk: I won’t fall for your childish insults, because you clearly have no idea about the importance of this conversation.

Ult Dirk: I’m pretty sure this is the only point you’ll actually find any relevance in any timeline, and even that is a stretch.

Ult Dirk: You’re not something of worth because of your own actions, and you should honestly be thanking me that I brought you here.

Ult Dirk: Limelight finally shines upon your insignificant self, for the third time mind you.

Ult Dirk: This is your last chance to accept my offer, and I will tell you one. Last. Time.

Ult Dirk: I want you to allow me to use your body as my vessel in your universe.

Ult Dirk: I have my limits on where my influence can get to, as you know. I actually only cared about this timeline having my control dominationg it, at first.

Ult Dirk: But I had an epiphany.

Ult Dirk: Your timeline, among others, is within the Alpha timeline, as surprising as I’m sure you think it is.

Ult Dirk: A gleaming beacon shining through the god damn garbage of dumbass timelines that have no bearing on anyone or anything.

Ult Dirk: So I thought this;

Ult Dirk: You can help me bring your timeline, and universe along with it, to true narrative supremacy alongside mine.

Ult Dirk: Disagree with me if you want, go on ahead, but consider my offer before you decide to make yourself a fucking waste.

Ult Dirk: Everyone benefits from an actual point for existing, Dirk. Your friends are hellbound towards meaninglessness and redundancy, repeating the same old actions and the same old routine. You’ll get sick of it eventually, all of you will.

Ult Dirk: This cannot be stressed enough, you just can’t give up my chance to attain continuous relevancy. People won’t watch a story without enlarged stakes, and my supreme domination with thousands of stories to come will keep us in the public eye for a long, long while.

Ult Dirk: Make your choice wise-

Dirk: Okay, shut the everloving fuck up, please.

Dirk: I’ve had my patience with you the first two times.

Dirk: But it’s worn thin.

Dirk: Nobody is interested in an out of character incel who’s decided that the only way he’ll look appealing is if he cosplays in the worst Kamina cosplay anyone’s seen in decades.

Dirk: No one, and I mean no one, is going to give a fuck about what some random pompous poofy pants asshole says in his psychotic ramblings about some “Narrative” or whatever the fuck you keep spouting on and on with.

Dirk: Speaking of, what the fuck even is this long winded metaphor of yours that you keep on mentioning with readers and stories anyways? It’s gotten old after the first fucking mention of it.

Dirk: There is no goddamn point to anything you’re even saying with it, at least I have a method to the shitty fucking madness that is my life that I put all my friends through.

Dirk: You’re just spouting shit and acting out without even understanding the ramifications or even acknowledging how much of a shithead you come off as instead of how you want to be seen.

Dirk: Everybody knows you’re just putting on the act of being an all knowing holier than thou smug prick, but the only thing you are is a coward who can’t come to terms with anything.

Dirk: We’ve talked too many times, and you told me everything you did, and the only thing you accomplished is disgusting me more and more.

Dirk: I don’t know what got you to this point, how you got so far off the path we promised for ourselves.

Dirk: To be frank, I stopped giving a fuck when you told me what you did to our friends.

Dirk: You turned Jane into a facist Republican propaganda piece with your absolutely deplorable bullshit “narration” powers, you reduced Jake to a goddamn manchild who can’t even stand in front of a crowd without shitting himself.

Dirk: And I don’t even know if this is your fault or Roxy somehow was forced to lose brain cells, but for your Roxy, they’ve been essentially simplified into pink Dave at this goddamn point, not to mention that you’ve insulted them by not even dignifying their identity.

Dirk: That’s not even the beginning, mind you. But the fact that you decided that the people we loved for years deserved to be riduculed, infantalized, demonized, and reduced to imbeciles by your hand is something that you remotely deemed okay? That’s a transgression I can’t be anything but disgusted with you for.

Ult Dirk: You clearly misunderstand how inconsequential all you just criticized me for was and still is.

Ult Dirk: Dirk, misgendering and manipulation means nothing compared to what I have in store.

Ult Dirk: You don’t even have any proof to show that I did it in any case, all everyone knows is that I left on some mission that nobody fucking knows jack on.

Ult Dirk: How bad can I truly be, with just those as my only crimes?

Dirk: Perfect segway into how you kidnapped Rose, corrupted her, and manipulated her wife into believing everything I just stated and more was fucking okay by her when she clearly didn’t, and now she wants to fucking murder you, and so on.

Dirk: Not to mention, John Egbert.

Ult Dirk: I didn’t do anything to John.

Ult Dirk: Bare in mind that it still was useful for getting the Seer of Mind on my side, regardless of the blame for his death. Seriously, how the hell did I do anything to a guy far out of my reach?

Dirk: Sure, because you totally didn’t bullshit the concept of “Cherub Poison” that essentially one shot kills god tiers and completely bypasses our complete bullshit deus ex machina known as conditional immortality.

Dirk: Either way, doesn’t excuse that you used his death to manipulate a grieving woman either. I can go on, but seriously.

Dirk: It baffles me that you think any of this fucking shit is remotely excuseable. We’re done here.

Dirk: Get a life, you sorry sack of shit. You don’t even deserve any of the similes turned defemations or symbolic insults I can come up with right now.

Ult Dirk: You go when I say you go.

Ult Dirk: You want to play a game?

Ult Dirk: Fine.

Ult Dirk: I’ll humor you.

Ult Dirk: I want to-

Dirk: -Play a game in which I’m still a piece of shit trying to manipulate another person around him into his twisted schemes.

Dirk: That’s what you should have gone on to end it with. Because we know it’s the truth.

Dirk: Real fucking original line, by the way. Want to pull out the bro vs. bro strife drama out of your ass to add on to the shitty callback cake? Just sprinkle that shit on there?

Ult Dirk: You’ll never understand, will you?

Dirk: I could honestly say the same to you, especially when you try to look like the king of the weaboo neckbeards.

Ult Dirk: Don’t compare me to Tegiri Kalbur.

Dirk: Who the hell even is that? You know what, don’t care.

Dirk: What I’m saying is that despite your reasoning of this being all important because you’re suddenly the villain now out of left field, doesn’t explain how this has remotely any point to even happen in the first place.

Dirk: If you wanted relevance through this Sburb session you’re trying to set up, then think about it. Would anyone have complained about you going off to make some new alien species on a new planet? I doubt they actually would have, if you didn’t go off and specifically piss off everyone in your five hundred thousand mile vicinity.

Dirk: Hell, I guarantee some people would have wanted to help you out with some of this shit, it probably would have been an entertaining experience for some of the more scientifically minded folks in our social circle.

Dirk: Not that you care, you’ve made that pretty evident.

Ult Dirk: I’m not letting you leave.

Ult Dirk: This decision has long left your capability to effect it. I gave you your chances to assimilate with me willingly, and you chose to shit on my offers time and time again.

Ult Dirk: So you’ve left me no choice but to beat you down myself, and make sure you finally understand your place, and your role in the frameworks of my greatest masterpiece.

Ult Dirk: My words explaining to you how you don’t understand weren’t me flexing the muscles of my ego in your face, Dirk. It was an explanation on how futile your resistance truly is.

Ult Dirk: Come at me bro. We’ll make this happen.

Dirk: Finally, some words we can agree on.

Ult Dirk: And I’ll cut this off for the dumbass posting this to Tumblr of all places with a nice, shoddily made callback.

Seriously, Tumblr? You have a fanfic you can just as easily post all this to on AO3, you could have made your own website, but you chose Tumblr. This is what I get when I let a sixteen year old have the reigns.

If you want some context on this motherfucker, too bad. I’m not promoting shit for this child who thinks that my work is child’s play written by a band of idiots. They can do it themselves.

The next page will be up soon, so you can truly see who’s in charge here.

Until this bastard finishes the art, Dirk Strider, signing off. (God, that was the most moronic sentence I’ve had the displeasure to say. Of course they need me to sign off this way.)

Pg 1. You are Here

Pg 2. Coming Soon

Divergent Reality so far:

#hs2 #hs2 negativity #hsadr #homestuck act divergent reality #hsadr upd8 #this is more of a side project related to hsadr #it’s not fully relevant to the story #hence being here!#myart #homestuck #dirk strider #ult dirk #ultimate dirk

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hey-hamlet · 4 years

Text

BNHA AU Ideas: Grand Design

Also on AO3!

TL;DR:

If you asked the Heroics Commission why they created Izuku, you'd get an answer pretty close to the truth. The rising power of quirks was making them nervous, and All Might won't live forever.

What they aren't mentioning is the fact that they don't like All Might either.

He's kind and good and dedicated to people over the country. The man will break countless laws to save a single life and has defied the heroics commission on many occasions - something they can't punish him for in any way without being slammed by the media.

So, they come up with a plan.

if you asked the heroics commission why they created Izuku, you'd get an answer pretty close to the truth

the rising power of quirks was making them nervous, and all might won't live forever. 'there might be another quirk as powerful as all mights just around the corner for the heroes' you might say. 'we're just taking away the 'might'' they'd reply

but what they aren't mentioning is the fact that they don't like All Might either.

he's kind and good and dedicated to people over country. the man will break countless laws to save a single life and has defied the heroics commission on many occasions - something they can't punish him for in any way without being slammed by the media

so, they come up with a plan

"if we can't control all might, we make the next all might ourselves"

sure, the doctor who does the work for them is a little shady, but it can't be helped. quirk genetic experiments were recently made illegal in a case spearheaded by nezu himself. nezu doesn't exactly agree with a total ban and is encouraging regulation in place of a blanket stop, but its been years and the laws are going nowhere fast

maybe the man has some shady connections to some shady people all too eager to replace all might? oh well, it can be managed

a pregnant woman called Inko Midoriya shows up at a hospital, dead on arrival, with the baby inside her still clinging to life?

well.

thats just convenient, isn't it?

they extract the child, pronounce the mother dead and whisk the child away into 'foster care', or the arms of the good doctor

when he's revealed to be quirkless? at first the commission is dubious but the doctor assures them this is perfect. he doesn't have to base the quirk off anything, it can be built from the ground up, as exactly the quirk the commission wants

izuku is born 3 months premature to a dead mother and one month later has a strong enough combination of quirks to take down all might when he grows up.

there is a bit of a catch, though. due to the whole 3 months early and dead mother thing, his constitution isn't the greatest, leaving him pretty sickly. the doctor assures him he'll be much better when he grows up (he’s lying). still - it’s a long while until their creation will be an adult. they could let him grow up normally in a nice house, only to pounce on him when he's grown a little stronger

but a chance of letting their perfect child slip away? nope. they resolve to train him as soon as he can crawl.

A few variations of this AU bc I had loads of quirk ideas before I settled on one - Knock Off For All: Izuku has a quirk as similar to OFA as was possible to create without being able to stockpile, complete with the achy breaky bones (no extra quirks) - Power Set: Izuku has a set of the most useful quirks the doctor could think of, ala USJ nomu (Shock nullification, Regeneration, Super Strength, etc) - Midorigiri: Izuku has a powerful combination quirk like a certain cloud mist dude. Probably either a shock absorption + redirection quirk / all 4 elemental types / guardian angel: wings, flight, hard light construct, healing - All for Naught: Izuku has a knock off of All for One that lets him perma copy 5 quirks at a time

So, Guardian Angel is the quirk I’m going with, mostly for the Hawks parallels. They end up basically being raised with each other, hawks jokingly calling Izuku his little brother. He almost cries when Izuku asks what that is.

Izuku’s quirk allows him to fly with a set of wings (he has hollow bones to facilitate this), can create hard light constructs; the more complicated the shape the harder it is and was originally classified as a forcefield quirk before Izuku got creative with it, and gives him the ability to heal.

All abilities excluding flight are based on the amount of ambient light. The brighter it is, the stronger his constructs and the better he can heal. His blood glows. Make of that what you will.

The problem being that while his quirk/s are strong, Izuku himself is very weak. He has chronic anaemia, difficulty putting on weight, a heart murmur, weak lungs, etc. the HA don’t care at all and make him train until he can’t walk.

From birth till 7 Izuku has no contact with people outside the facility, whereupon he is promptly dumped into a public school for 5 days a week. The education he gets there isn’t important, he’ll learn what he needs at the facility. What they do deem as important is A, creating a paper trail for the kid and B, socializing him somewhat.

People flock to him for his quirk, cementing what they always told him. “All of your worth is in your quirk. You have an obligation to save others.”

Plus, they’ve told him he wasn’t born like everyone else, he was created. Different, artificial, inhuman, those where all words used to describe him at the facility. He finds it difficult to make friends.

He forms a strange almost friendship with Bakugo as the only other kid with a super powerful quirk in the school, even if it’s more of a support quirk than anything else. Izuku silently heals Bakugo when he gets into fights, Bakugo snarls at anyone who makes Izuku too uncomfortable. It’s odd, but it works.

Izuku’s personality is similar to canon in the fact he's the same person but it’s a little jumbled.

He’s even less trusting of adults than canon which is saying something, but he doesn’t have canons blatant disregard for authority. If he breaks a rule he makes sure he doesn’t get caught because the punishments he’s had before left scars.

His anger runs a little closer to the surface but he feels like a bad person for feeling any emotion that isn’t positive so he crushes it down under forced optimism. Izuku shows his anger rarely and when he does, it’s quiet and vicious.

If an authority figure tells him to do something, he does it. It takes a while for Aizawa to break the kid’s conditioned need to respond automatically to any request from a ‘Handler’. Aizawa is very afraid of where it came from, but Nezu can’t find anything about this kid other than the record of his birth and his school enrolments.

Izuku thinks he’s less valuable than others which is pretty canon, at least at the start, but here it’s because he’s ‘not as good/natural/ something’ as a ‘normal’ human. Most of the UA teacher see it, but they have no idea why he thinks he’s lesser so their mixed attempts at questioning/comfort fall pretty flat. Izuku is convinced they would abandon him if they knew.

So, Izuku has a complicated relationship with the concept of All Might.

To start off with, even with everything that happened, Izuku adores heroes right down to his very core. Hawks counts the HA lucky that they didn’t accidentally turn Izuku into a villain. Izuku’s favourite hero is All Might, but -

For a start, he was told he was made to be better than All Might. The part of the HA that created him isn’t fond of the no. 1 as someone they can’t at all control, Izuku has basically been taught that All Might is lying to the world with the way he presents himself and that he’s secretly a terrible person and would hate him for both being artificial and for being made to be better than him

Ergo, Izuku is shit scared of him.

Izuku wants to go to UA because Katsuki is going to UA and Katsuki is the only person other than Hawks he’s ever had a somewhat close relationship with. The HA thinks: eh, fuck it, it’ll be a nice fuck you to All Might anyway.

Then All Might is announced as a teacher after Izuku has been accepted and all hell breaks loose.

A brief set of things that happen:

Dadmight and Dadzawa to the extreme, all of 1A basically adopts Izuku instantly (after they get over the fear of his crazy quirk lmao). All Might and Eraserhead are Izuku’s favourite heroes, other than Hawks, so he's both terrified and in awe of them at all times. He finds himself both loving the familial affection he was denied as a child and being terrified they’d think he was a monster when they learnt he was made to overtake All Might, and isn’t a ‘real person’.

Izuku gets OFA, eventually. It ends up improving his physical health which is neat, along with its extra quirks and strengthening of his own.

Todoroki hates Izuku a little from the beginning, although he’d never admit it. Izuku’s quirk is incredibly powerful and he didn’t have to undergo Todoroki’s childhood torment (Which is Incorrect, but he doesn’t exactly know that, does he) When Todoroki finds out (sports festival, Izuku has a pretty emotional response to his little angst time and lets a few things slip) he becomes fiercely protective of him.

Izuku and Bakugo develop an actual friendship and it’s an adventure

Izuku gets kidnapped along with Bakugo at the training camp, during which the doctor, AFO or Shigiraki reveal he was created to beat All Might, just like the Nomu. Izuku wants to run away out of fear/shame, but Bakugo drags him along with the rescue attempt. Izuku, too scared to go back to the HA or UA, wants nothing more than to vanish off the face of the earth. When Aizawa and All Might visit him and Bakugo at the hospital, Izuku breaks down crying and cowers in fear, convinced his teachers are either going to hurt or kill him. Everyone involved is horrified. They try to calm him down but just seeing them is scaring the shit out of Izuku so they end up getting chased out by Bakugo who clumsily comforts him.

#grand design au #bnha au #bnha #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #All Might #yagi toshinori #izuku #midoriya #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #todoroki shouto

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smolslothloaf · 4 years

Text

Yo as the only Micheal Crew fan (prolly), can I just say I’m so fucking salty that he died how he did?

Homeboy’s been hinted at since the fourth episode in this entire goddamn series, he’s been repeatedly connected to the Leitner books (which I guess are less important now that we’ve met Jurgen Leitner and we’ve got Gerard but uggggghhhh), he’s got a cool lightning scar and backstory and everything!

And once we get to meet him? He’s so intriguing-he ‘s polite even as he forces Jon to just fall through the air, he has a great voice (both literally and writing wise), and once he explains his backstory it doesn’t dissapoint. You get the image of this scared child whose been searching for protection and meaning his whole life. This creature’s been following him ever since he’s gotten his lightning scar, you kinda get that it’s the personification of his past even if he connects it all back to the Vast. To an extent, he kinda describes his relationship with his scar and his journey in self discovery all as both finding meaning and acceptance in the Vast. The moment he figures out what’s been calling to him is also the moment he accepts his past and his trauma. It all makes sense and comes together.

What I also find particularly interesting the way he laments about never being able to remember the most important events of his life, as I feel it’s something we all can relate to. Traumatic or not, negative or positive, many of us have trouble recalling the most life-changing events of our lives. We feel frustrated over this, we beat ourselves up for it, it’s just apart of life. In Mike’s statement this is such a small detail but it’s one that resonates with me deeply.

They set up Micheal Crew in such an engaging light and make him feel so real. I will admit that I’m not sure how much more they could do with him as this episode tied up pretty much all loose ends in his story. That being said, I would’ve absolutely LOVED to see more of him! He has an intruging personality, a cool backstory, he could’ve been a neat reaccuring character or something.

But no! Daisy Fucking Tonner just needsa bust down the fucking door and be like “YO THIS BITCH HUMAN?” And Jon’s like “uhhh ig not” and Daisy’s like “WELL THAT MEANS HES GONNA CATCH THESE HANDS.” AND JUST FUCKING SHOOTS HIM???

FUCK THAT NOISE.

YOU BUILD UP A CHARACTER OVER THE COURSE OF THREE SEASONS, WE MEET HIM AND HE GIVES US HIS LIFE STORY, THERES STILL SOME ROOM FOR HIM TO GIVE US ANSWERS OR SOME SHIT, THEN YOU HAVE THE A U D A C I T Y TO JUST YEET DAISY IN AND HAVE HER SHOOT HIM OUTSIDE?

O K A Y

LIKE,,, IG THEY NEEDED TO SET UP DAISY’S STORY AND GET MICHEAL OUT OF THE STORY OR SOME SHIT BUT. NOT LIKE THIS PLEASE?? IM FULLY WILLING TO ACCEPT THAT IM JUST UNREASONABLY SALTY ABOUT THIS BUT SERIOUSLY?? SHE JUST. SHOWS UP. SHOOTS HIM. THREATENS JON. BITCHES FOR AWHILE AND WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE OKAY WITH IT?

MICHEALS NOT EVEN BROUGHT UP AFTER THAT HE KINDA JUST GOT SHOVED TO THE SIDE FOR IMPORTANT PEOPLE PLOT(tm). HE GETS. PUSHED. TO. THE. SIDE. IN. HIS OWN. FUCKING, EPISODE. WASNT JON GONNA QUESTION HIM MORE? WASNT THAT WHY JON WAS THERE? I MEAN I GUESS HE COULDNT CUZ MICHEAL COULDDA DEFO KILLED HIM, BUT HE DIDNT EVEN DROP ANY BREAD CRUMBS FOR JON’S INVESTIGATION. JON LITERALLY GOT JACK SHIT FROM THAT INTERACTION ASIDES FOR MORE FUEL FOR HIS STATEMENT KINK. AS FAR AS THE PLOT’S CONCERNED, JON DIDN’T NEED THE CONTENTS OF MIKE’S STATMENT. THE KNOWELDGE WAS GOOD BUT HE GOT NO FURTHER ON HIS INVESTIGATION OF THE STRANGER. HE WAS DIRECTED TO MIKES DOOR FOR THE PLOT BUT THE PLOT AINT THERE, THE PLOTS AT DAISYS HOUSE

TO REVIEW:

THEY

DEADASS

JUST

THREW MICHEAL CREW IN THERE

HAD HIM EXPLAIN HIS BACKSTORY

THEN KILLED HIM OFF

AFTER HYPING HIM UP

FOR

THREE

FUCKING

SEASONS

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

ARE YOU ACTUALLY FUCKING KIDDING ME???

YA KNOW THATS PROLLY THE ONE BIG BONE IVE GOTTA PICK WITH THIS SHOW. THEY BUILD UP INTERESTING CHARACTERS OVER THE COURSE OF FULL SEASONS, THEN THEY’RE ONLY GIVEN THEIR TIME TO SHINE FOR ONE EPISODE BEFORE BEING ADRUPTLY KILLED OFF AND NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. I HEARD IT GETS BETTER BUT ITS A PRETTY BIG PROBLEM FOR THE FIRST TWO SEASONS.

JANE PRENTISS COULDDA BEEN COOL! AND SHE WAS COOL! BUT SHE ONLY ACTUALLY DID SHIT FOR ONE EPISODE THEN WAS KILLED WITH LITTLE RESISTANCE. SHE DIDNT EVEN MAKE A COMEBACK OR ANYTHING, THEY REALLY JUST WENT “THAT BITCH DEAD AND DID JACK SHIT” AFTER HYPING HER UP THE WHOLE SEASON. LIKD OKAY SURE GO OFF. THEYRE BUILDING UP BREEKON AND HOPE A BIT MORE NOW, CANT WAIT FOR THEM TO BE KILLED OFF AS SOON AS WE MEET THEM.

LIKE I GET IT I GET IT. MICHEALS STORY WAS COMPLETE. NOT EVERY CHARACTER NEEDS TO BE PLOT RELEVANT. NOT EVERY CHARACTER THATS BUILT UP NEEDS AN ELABORATE PLOT. NOT EVERY CHARACTER NEEDS A SATISFYING SEND OFF.

BUT IM STILL FUCKING MAD ABOUT IT CUZ I FEEL NOTHING. I LOVED HIS STATEMENT AND IT WOULD’VE JUST BEEN FINE IF MICHEAL WAS JUST LEFT ALONE AFTER THAT OR SOMETHING. OR HELL HE EVEN COULD’VE BEEN KILLED IN A DIFFERENT WAY I JUST HATE HOW DAISY CAME IN THERE OUT OF BUTTFUCK NO WHERE, SHOT A GUY SHE BARELY KNEW CUZ “he spoopy” AND ITS JUST NEVER BROUGHT UP. MIKE DIDNT EVEN NEED TO BE THERE. JON WENT THERE FOR ANSWERS, MIKE GAVE HIM NOTHING CUZ INSTEAD OF HAVING AN INTERESTING LITTLE CONVERSATION, DAISY NEEDED HER CHARACTER ARC. IM REPEATING MYSELF AT THIS POINT BUT IM JUST SO FUCKING ANGY ABOUT THIS.

FUCK DAISY, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I am fully aware that I’ll wake up tomorrow and deem all of this as invalid and unreadable, I just needed to get this all off my chest. In all honesty the main reason I’m upset is because the Vast is my personal favorite entity and Micheal’s statement is a good summation of why

People affected by the Vast are just that-people. Well, all statement givers are people, but the Vast’s statments I find are much more grounded and down to Earth. They aren’t as out there or over the top like the Corruption or the Stranger. They’re just little ‘tweaks’ in someone’s perspective that shakes their core. It takes mundane occurances and pushes them to their extreme. All the Vast did in “High Pressure” was make someone feel as though they were sinking forever and forced them underwater. It’s some you could probably picture happening to yourself more clearly then say, being attacked by War Ghosts. (NOT bashing on War Ghosts btw, they’re just a different brand of spooky.) The type of fear that the Vast victims have is also kinda different to me. I’m not sure how well I can explain it but best I can describe it is that it feels like geunine trauma that someone with that phobia would experience? I still don’t think that’s quite right but take “A Long Way Down” for instance, where the statement giver’s brother suffers from Acrophobia. That’s a real boy with Acrophobia! I feel who he is as an actual person as I follow his life, I know his worst nightmare, and once you see what happens to him, you completely feel both from him and his brother. Or in “Freefall” where you see a mother mourn for her son’s trauma and death. She saw something he loved suddenly turn him so, so afraid then saw the very thing he feared swallow him up.

It’s just any average person greiving their loved one’s trauma or being pushed to a limit you can see yourself being pushed to. It’s all very grounded in reality and makes it all feel that more real. And I feel like Micheal Crew’s statement just summed that up so well. He’s such a perfect face for what I love about the Vast. He’s just a person at his core, who was scared and needed guidance.

It’s just that the way it ended and how adruptly he was killed left a sour taste in my mouth.

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viktor-noctis · 4 years

Text

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll McSh*tFace

This is my review for the film: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll McShitFace.

Enjoy.

Tagging @christopherleefan because I think you might enjoy this? Also, I wrote a fic for Taste of Fear (or Scream of Fear for us Americans), and you can expect one for this film as well.

Pre-face: Okay, okay……………………………… Let me compose myself.

………..

………………..

……………………….

……………………………..

Alright, hit the play button.

London 1874 – I paused just to be sure this was the actual date when the book was written.

It was originally published in 1886.

We’re off to a roaring start.

Ew. Children.

Playing in a garden, yep, this is about what I remember.

Little boy shoves girl’s flowers to the ground, and McShitFace talks about “dumb human animals” when referring to children. We agree on that, at least.

“Play out when they cannot speak out.” Jekyll McShitFace suggests they’ve mentally blocked the ability to speak, due to the fact that they are letting another part of them be free to express itself…. What a load of garbage.

You resigned? Here I thought they fired you for being a creep. The fact that Ernst believes he really is a genius makes me want to punch something.

They’ve been married for six years??

No servants, no friends, and Jekyll has cut all professional ties to study the mind… Like a madman. Yeah, I can see Kitty hating this.

Beyond Good and Evil? Beyond the reach of society?

“A very dangerous man, my friend.” No shit, Ernst. Jekyll is suggesting the ‘higher man’ is the one within, while Ernst suggests that the weaker man maybe the ‘evil’ one. Or what we deem ‘evil’. Jekyll, like some, has come to some crackpot conclusion that by drawing out the ‘evil’ man, the ‘weaker’ man within him, that he can isolate and destroy him… Or something to that effect.

Jekyll never answers Ernst when he asks if he’s used it on anything other than a monkey and I find that telling.

Paul is here. Ernst is leaving.

Jekyll is quite charitable to Paul, if nothing else, and Kitty is putting up a marvelous front. Kitty even tries to get him to spend time with her here, but I have a feeling she knows where this is going. She’s probably done this a million times. This is another for the till.

I can tell Kitty is tired of this. Jekyll spends night and day in the lab. All the time. Yeah, that’d wear on most women. Considering the time period, this is all very strange. Then again, this is a ‘Strange Case’, or it was supposed to be.

Kitty telling him about Jekyll shouting to himself in his room, along with a strange voice that wasn’t his own, for an entire night… “Married to a man of great talent.” Ernst, my dude…

Kitty’s asking if he is insane enough to be sent away. Ernst says he isn’t: “we must both try to help him.” Right.

Christopher Lee! Damnit, he’s so tall. How tall is this actress?

They’re so cute. Terrible, but cute.

The top of her head reaches his nose or so. He’s a damn good kisser…

Kitty looks lovely in blue.

And is an extrovert.

Jekyll is an introvert.

Still hate him.

Don’t bash the girl for liking to go out. Or ask her to: “take the evening off”.

“I need you tonight, Kitty. Stay.” That’s not creepy. After years of being ignored, that’s not creepy in the slightest.

Okay, this might be just me, but… I see Kitty’s perspective. I sort of see Jekyll’s? It’s a grey area. I’ve paused it to explain my reasoning –

Kitty, is an extrovert, as I’ve stated. She gets her energy from going out, being around people, and having a good time. That’s great. Good for her, you have fun girl, and take your boytoy (he really is, as often as he gets in money trouble) with you. Jekyll is decidedly not. To say they are incompatible would be an understatement.

Kitty is the type of woman who glows under attention, who craves it from both her partner and others. But mostly, her partner. Enter Paul, who’s proven to be attached to her mostly through money, but there’s so much more there. Again, I love these two, because they’re so terribly flawed, but so clearly in love.

Jekyll, meanwhile, cut all attachment to “live like a hermit in the center of London”. Ernst’s words straight from the beginning of the film. I bet you Kitty was stifled, for years, before Paul came along. Now, not much is revealed of the how Jekyll became friends with him, when he did, or even why he did, but I want to bet it was during University or something. That seems the most likely theory, given Jekyll’s nature.

The Jekyll side is a bit more convoluted. Again, I don’t think Kitty is being unfair here. There’s no telling how long she stayed lonely, cooped up in that house (reference back to when Ernst talked about no friends, no company, and no servants), and was just… bored, sad, and upset.

Ernst even mentioned the house being ‘in ruins’.

She calls him selfish for making it such an issue. I get the feeling he sort of deserves it. Also, she’s in love with Paul now, so that adds another layer to their relationship not working and being incredibly strained.

“I’m not going to insult my friends for the sake of your whims.” Is what her argument amounted to. Again, the movie is making her sound like the selfish one, but you really have to take into account the history, nature, and aspects of each character. In doing so, I don’t really think she is. I think she’s in love with another man, bound to a farce of a marriage, and is doing the best she can by not staying near her creepy husband.

And yep, human experimentation time.

Yeah, go ahead McShitFace, sit at your desk and wait to become The Literal Worst.

Party time. I’m shuddering. Too. Many. People. Ew.

They’re both terrible.

I love them.

Awful.

Paul complains of being bored, and yet she is bored doing the things he likes. They jab and jibe. He looks at another woman. They jab and jibe some more.

They’re bickering like they’re already married.

Get a room.

Terminate their relationship?

They bring up their attachment, again, always with the money. Kitty likes a man free of shame, Paul thinks he might lose her to a man who had even less. Hahahaha. You nerds. You’re in too deep and you both know it.

The Literal Worst has arrived. And he’s uglier than ever.

The Sphinx? That’s the name of this trash heap ballroom?

Hyde looks like a Tool. Barely two minutes on screen and he’s got the Creep Smirk going.

Hoes do not stand together, I see.

Paul and Kitty smiling at each other, having a grand old time. I love them.

Hyde showing his true colors already, by eyeing up Kitty, while dancing with another girl (though I’m pretty sure she’s a prostitute. Or just a woman who gets around, living off other men’s money). Wow, he also says some not-so-nice things to her before heading after Paul and Kitty, who’s having a hell of a time. Paul can also be a jackass –

“Don’t drink too much tonight, my darling.” She says it with such tenderness, while taking the glass from his hand.

“Cunning little kitty cat. Rather a dull husband than a drunken lover, eh?” Paul’s already slurring. He’s entered cad mode. Feel free to kick him to the curve, my dear. He deserves to nurse his hangover by himself.

She just looks disappointed.

Kitty’s creep alert is going off. Listen to it, honey. Run. Run, far away.

She’s trying to take Paul home.

Then going to dance with Hyde. Fuck. Kitty, listen to your Creep Radar.

Friendship with Kitty? Honey. No. Run. “Can I trust you?”

?? Kitty. No. Do not trust the creep.

Prostitute girl is back, claiming Hyde tried to force her, and some dude wants recompense. Kitty just wants to go home. Paul refuses to leave, to help Hyde.

Has common sense become a commodity that only Kitty is buying??

“Give the lady a few sovereigns, and there’ll be no trouble.” Yeah, sounds like a prostitute. Kitty bids them all goodnight. Paul looks sad to see her go. Should have thought about that before you acted the bastard.

Hyde tells them to go to hell and take the trollop with him. Dude dives at them, Paul knocks him out… And Hyde keeps hitting him. Paul stops him, telling him not to kill him, and then asks him if he’s ill.

“Let me alone, Jekyll. Let me alone.” Dumbass. Jekyll voice coming out of Hyde. That’s not creepy. Paul looks amused by the creep show. Hyde leaves the place, screaming, and being weird.

Lots of voice changing. This actor is actually really good. Jekyll realizes what he did, because Hyde says: “I will be back, Jekyll. I will return.”

Jekyll: “Never. Never.”

So he knows this was a bad idea?

Goes into Kitty’s room, whose reading, and she starts talking about her ‘party’. She wants to go to sleep. Jekyll still comes closer, being a creep. Creep Radar is blaring.

“I need you, Kitty. I need you desperately.” And he comes in, trying to kiss at her, mouthing at her neck. Like a creep. I know this is a parallel to later in the film (yeah, it’s terrible), when Hyde is in control, but I still hate this.

I had to pause during the next scene to do a deep character analysis –

Kitty pushes him off, telling him she’s tired, and even says “please”. As if she should have to beg him to keep his damn creep hands to himself. He still has a wild, crazy look in his eye, and asks: “What are you really like, Kitty?”

“I’m your wife, that’s all I am.” She answers it with such evenness, barely disturbed, and it reminds me of what Paul said to her –

“From perfect wife to perfect mistress, and back again to perfect wife.”

This movie has a lot to do with the masks we wear. We change them, depending on who we’re talking to: family, friends, strangers, lovers, etc. All the different relationships we have require a mask, shadowing the core of who we are, because letting someone see everything of ourselves is too terrifying to consider. We don’t show our true selves out of fear, pride, or some other convoluted mixture of emotions.

However, every mask has a basis, a template of origin.

I feel as if, at some point, Kitty really did love Jekyll. She must have. She married him not for his intelligence, not for his money, but because she genuinely loved him. Kitty loves too deeply, too strongly, and has all the hallmarks of a woman who has been burned by that depth of attachment.

“It’s my fault, a woman who shows her feelings always loses dignity.” Kitty says this during the first bit of the dance she has with Paul, which reveals so much of her character. She doesn’t look at him when she says it, the pain of her admittance is too much, and she shies away from anyone witnessing it. Even Paul.

Her relationship with Paul is strained right now. It’s weird. It seems like neither of them knows where it’s going, too afraid to continue, but even more horrified by the prospect of letting the other go.

When speaking of breaking their ‘arrangement’ (look up ‘affair’ in the dictionary), Kitty suggested Paul wouldn’t be able to get along financially without her. Paul rebuffed her, saying that Jekyll and he had been friends for years, and she was just his dutiful wife… despising him.

There’s an ease between them that feels years old, yet I doubt it was from the get-go of hers and Jekyll’s marriage. No, she probably did hate him quite a bit, in the beginning. But there’s a thin line between love and hate, one that can be crossed with loneliness. I like to think it was physical at first, a build up of tension between a woman caged in a house, and watching this man go out and spend her husband’s money.

It was probably Paul who convinced her to come out with him one evening. Fuck it. Jekyll wants to stay in his lab all night? Well, why should you stay too? Kitty probably said no at first. Why would she go out with this smarmy bastard, who gambles, who sleeps with anything that has legs, and drinks himself silly? But then there’s the wanting, the listening to her husband tinker away, watching life go by without her…

She probably went to Jekyll. She tried to talk to him, have dinner with her in the house that night. Without any servants, she’s learned to cook. He makes a point of trying to be nice but talks about his work… Always his work. She asks him to kiss her, as if that’s something she should have to nearly beg for. And what did he do? On the verge of some great breakthrough?

“Not right now, Kitty. I’m busy.”

Kitty, who is strong, vibrant, and beautiful, is not enough to stir a man from the wake of progress. From pride.

Humiliation and defeat, a loathing that breaks through love, stuffs her chest and nearly throttles her on the spot. Retreating, glassy eyed to her room. She probably cried, mourning her broken heart.

After that, she demands to go with Paul.

There’s probably a touch of shock, then a knowing smirk. He’s probably seen lots of women with husbands who ignore them, falling into his kind of life, dancing and drinking and laughing their nights away.

He’s not ready for this one.

Alright, hitting play again –

“But the woman inside of you, is that woman my wife?”

No. No, she’s not. She belongs with Paul.

Stop shaking her. She’s right. Get out.

Take your: “Who am I?”s and get the fuck out.

Cut to Paul being a cad again. Ugh. Go home to Kitty, you absolute tool bag.

He and Hyde are sitting at a table in The Sphinx with two bimbos. Wonderful.

Hyde is a creep. I will say that no less than ten times in this review. I probably already have.

The fuck is this?

They’re doing something weird.

Really weird.

A snake charmer dance.

Am I to assume they wish us to believe that snake is venomous?

Okay, to be fair, all snakes and spiders are venomous, but the potency of their venom varies in such a way that they effect most human bodies on different levels. I say ‘most’ because you can be allergic to something, and receive a far more harrowing experience than 98% of the population.

However, that does not excuse the fact that the creature in question is a ball python and is therefore basically harmless. Minus some swelling and bruising.

I had to pause to write that, okay, playing again –

Yeah, this poor animal is being abused by being forced into a ‘sensual dance’ with this woman. ‘Tigress’, they call her, kill me now. Paul says she’s exclusive to the elite. Kill me twice over. This dance is the worst. That poor snake is confused.

Paul is looking worriedly at Hyde as he stares, transfixed, at this woman. Dude, he wants to get bitch slapped, let him.

Christopher Lee’s eyebrows are doing things to me. Paul is the real eye candy in this shit show.

UGHASDKFJASDKFNAMSDKFJNASDKF

Jkljasdfklajsdklfansdkfnj

Klasjeirkmaskdfnjkasdjf

Klasdmfnkasndf

JKLASJDKLFNASKLDFNJ

UGH

SHE

SHE PUT

THE SNAAEK

HEAD

MOTUH

WHY? WHY? WHY would –

WOULD uuo –

That poor animal.

Tell me that was fake.

She did not really put that poor creature’s head in her mouth.

This is abuse.

Not to mention, really gross. Salmonella, and a million other diseases could potentially exist on the skin of a reptile. Do not handle reptiles and then touch your face, or eat, or put any part of their body inside your mouth. Wash hands after handling, thank you.

Disgusting.

And people are clapping. And cheering.

Is this what passes for ‘exotic’ in the 1700s????

Maybe it’s my modern cynicism, but I am not impressed. I am shuddering in revulsion.

Mostly because of the snake in mouth bit.

Gods.

End me.

I’m about to shriek.

“Forget it, dear boy. She’s not in the prep-school class. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Paul. Paul.

Have you ever considered:

She’s blind.

You’re gorgeous.

And you have a gorgeous woman waiting on you at home.

Why do you bother with the bimbos?

Girl on the right is pretty, okay, she’s like… an 8. Chick on the left is… also pretty, but like a 7.

Kitty is a damn 16, she blows them out of the water. There is no competition. When you’ve already had it all, why bother even looking at anything less? She gets bumped up to a 30 for the fact that she has a brain, she snarks, she jabs with the best of them, and is not afraid to leave you to your well-deserved hangover.

I will fight for Kitty’s honor.

Paul. I’m about to throw down.

He calls the dancer over – Maria – and I can already tell he’s going to –

Yep. Be a bastard.

“She only uses Christian names in bed.”

He deserved that drink to the face.

Even Hyde looks surprised. Then impressed.

Pft – HA! I have to quote this:

“Well, ladies, it seems that I must entertain you both.” He says, while soaked with what one can assume is scotch. “I trust that you will not be too disappointed.” Girl on the right looks like she expects to be disappointed. Ms. Left has her game face on.

“Oh, we’ll just have to manage.” Left is already up and at it.

“Somehow or other.” Right is playing along for now.

“Thank you for your confidence.” Paul’s reply does not sound confident in the slightest. He follows them through a curtain doorway. I’d say, ‘poor bastard’, but he doesn’t deserve my sympathy right now.

Hyde is creeping on Maria now.

“Keep away from him, he is dangerous.”

Yeah. To medium sized rodents.

Actually, considering Hyde is nothing more than a big, smelly, greasy, slimy rat –

Nah, wouldn’t want to give the poor thing indigestion.

“Your friend talked to me like a common whore.”

I assumed you two knew each other? I don’t know, they are weird and vague on that. Alan says he’s tried, then claims what names she uses in bed, and she did throw the drink on him afterwards. I’ve no idea.

I will give this to Hyde: He is a smooth talker. He is also, however, still a bastard.

And the makeup they used on this actress is not flattering at all. I’ve seen pictures of her, and she was beautiful. They somehow made her look hideous. ‘Impertinent’ is a word, though not quite the one I would use for this piece of garbage.

I love putting subtitles on. They’re so dumb.

(Soft sensual music) my ass.

Of course they shag. Why wouldn’t they?

She’s given him an in, now… “You do not buy, you do not beg.” A man who ‘takes’. No, do not give him that.

“A nice, cold wife.” I’m so furious.

They do have a servant! An old woman. Probably a concession after years.

“Mr. Hyde.” Creep.

‘Nanny’.

“Lately, this house has become unused to visitors.”

“The wife of a recluse…”

Trying to sweet talk a woman in love will not go over well for you.

Paul’s??? Paul’s friendship. What a save.

“The question of trespass hardly arises. Mr. Allen has no property rights in me.”

And as for Henry: “Henry leads his own life. He doesn’t seek my approval, and I don’t seek his. Is that wrong?”

OOOOOOFFFFF.

Sweet talk till you talk like that.

“To the boredom of being a neglected wife, and the humiliation of being a rejected mistress.”

It almost felt like she was into the flirting till he said that, but I still get the feeling she wouldn’t have slept with him. You can enjoy flirting, some people do it for a living, but not the act that comes after. As I said before, Kitty wears many masks. This one is short-lived. Hyde has insulted her, and the change in her demeanor is like a switch.

Kitty loves too deeply, to be reminded of her first failing, and the possibility of her loss of Paul is a kick in the teeth. Is she not worth loving? Is science, money, knowledge, other women – is she just no match? Can she have nothing out of this?

“I must say, you are honest. A trifle obvious, perhaps, but honest.” And too close to the surface, too close to the proverbial nail. Kitty is genuinely afraid of losing Paul, and it shows. She’s clinging onto something she feels she can’t hold onto, whether for her already damaged pride or because she doesn’t want to be hurt again. Her face only really started to shift when he said mistress.

“My great affair has already begun.” She’s pulling herself so easily from his arms. He talks about great love since he felt her in his arms, and she just turns away with this casual walk of a knowing woman.

“It was well advanced before ever you appeared on the scene.” She looks almost proud, though there’s still this edge to her. She expects it to crash and burn. She’s just waiting for it.

“I wonder what is the special quality in a man as weak, unscrupulous, and utterly unreliable as Paul Allen?” This really bothers him. Hyde is essentially Jekyll unchained, a copy of the inner, dark urges of one man laid bare, and given free run of the place… And he’s a total rat bastard.

And Kitty is smiling. Kitty is overjoyed.

“I don’t question your description, Mr. Hyde.” She’s radiating with delight. Even that description of Paul in all his awful glory stirs nothing but happiness in her.

“Well then, but why…” And he’s reaching for her, stroking his fingers over her back. It’s this odd mimicry of how Jekyll tried to hold her that night. Ugh.

“I merely happen to love him.” Yes! SHE SAID IT!

“Love? Love is an idiocy!” And she’s laughing again. I’m beginning to believe Kitty uses laughter to cover her pain. Hyde/Jekyll McShitFace uses rage.

“An idiocy of mine, perhaps, but a fact.” Then we get this beautiful close up of her face, the vindication with which she says it has me living –

“I love Paul Allen.” Love, you must be so blind and so wonderful.

(Ominous music). As Hyde descends back to his basement to turn back into Jekyll. Back to the sewer, your garbage monster.

Ernst is here. Okay, something weird is happening again. Jekyll has a heightened metabolism. Probably from sustaining two rat bastards instead of one. I’ve no idea how much time has elapsed, but quite a bit I’m guessing. A week? A month? Another year? Nah, probably more like a week or so.

Jekyll’s life is “burning out at a much faster rate.”

Kitty is fed up with being Paul’s ‘bank clerk’. Yeah, let’s bring Henry into this. ‘Let him deal with life’s little problems and leave us its gaiety’? You are a cad. Why do you love him again, Kitty? You can do better.

She’s sick of being used.

“How can you talk of our love in this way?” Love? Is this the first time you bring it up to her? While asking for money? Aklsjdfkasjdf

Men are annoying.

“You hypocrite!” Thank you.

Debts of honor, my pale ass.

He’s going to Henry.

Ernst knows he’s addicted to something. He says it’s more damning, whatever it is.

At least Paul is honest. Jekyll is being cold to him now. He knows about him and Kitty now. He goes back to his work desk. ‘Going away’. Right. Run.

Paul gets nothing. Notes something must be wrong with him.

Kitty is worried about Paul now.

And fuck – Jekyll is giving full power of his shit to Hyde. His estate, his money, his assets, everything goes to Hyde. This happened in the book, of course, but this completely cuts Kitty off as well.

Also, he even says he’s using Hyde to ‘learn all he can’. You pretty much know it all. Kitty, your wife, is in love with your ‘friend’, Paul. It’s not that hard. You’ve effectively been gaslighting them from the beginning.

“For do I want to return to a life of frustrated isolation and loveless misery?”

I have…

So many problems with this statement alone.

You left your wife, even said it yourself, neglected. For years. So much so, that she’s alone as well. Of course she searched for something beyond you, when you chose to isolate yourself first… And you know what? I’m happy for Kitty, she found something, someone to love and love her in return. Is it perfect? No, but –

Anything and everything can be traced back to you, you sorry sack of literal shit. I’m about to lose it. He’s reaping what he’s sewn, and now he’s trying to escape it.

I’m so pissed off.

He drinks more stuff. Great. The return of The Literal Worst is upon us.

Wow… Never heard Christopher Lee say that before –

“Damn bad luck you’ve been having, I hear, Allen, old man.” Some man comments on the state of Paul’s life, which has gone to hell in a handbasket.

“Damn bad luck.” Paul’s agreement seems to taste as bad as the cigarette he’s smoking. I wonder how many are his, in that overflowing mound of ash and stumps, at the center of the table.

“Oh, well, luck’s a bitch, old boy.” Not sure that was a saying yet, but maybe this is the one that starts the trend.

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so.” Paul looking like he’d like to swallow down the rest of the decanter on the table, with Hyde being the creep that just walked in. “I’ve always had the best possible luck with bitches.”

I just about spit my tea. Not even kidding.

“Almost always, anyway.”

You’re terrible. Kitty should leave without either of you.

How is this review over 4K words? Who’s still reading this?

“Women aren’t a weakness they’re a recurrent necessity.” Paul. Paul. What are you doing?

‘Oldest mistress’.

Paul. You’re awful with money and it’s obvious.

They’re going to go out on the town. Like bastards. Hyde is The Literal Worst.

Snap shots of London’s underbelly during the 1700s… Brawling, lots of drinking and bad singing, and… smoking? Opium? Hooka? Who the fuck knows anymore.

Paul’s out. Hyde is doing the 100-yard Creep Stare.

Paul is out making debts again. ‘Honorable’ ones, at least.

Now he’s out of ideas. It’s been a week. He spent all that money – 5,000 in a week. Ouch. “But you, are a fool.” We agree on that. That is the only thing Hyde, and I will ever agree on.

“And I’ll try Kitty.”

Ha.

Haha.

You can see the wheels turning unpleasantly in Paul’s head. His brow is doing that furrowed thing when he’s confused.

“What the devil do you mean, Hyde?” You know what he means, you just don’t want him to go on. You’re hoping he doesn’t mean what you think he means.

“Well, that should be simple enough for even you to understand.” Again, insulting people while mixing in kind words, though his next ones are far from kind: “I am telling you to obtain your mistress for me.”

Paul is rising out of his chair. His brow is still doing that furrowed thing, but it has gotten even deeper. The rage is coming, a wave that was slow to foam, but quick to rise.

“You unspeakable devil.” There’s still some disbelief, but there’s no denying the shock.

Hyde is doing the creep laugh with a – “How very amusing.” Now you can see the anger, it’s chiseling its way into his features, hard and sharp.

“Paul Allen, breaker of every law in the moral code, is shocked into morality.”

Full blown: I’d punch the ever-living hell out of you. I’m about to.

“You vile, disgusting degenerate.” His lips are quivering. He’s barely holding it together.

“Be rational, my friend.” You’re pushing him far beyond ‘rational’. “I’m asking for the temporary loan of a proven adulteress, of whom you yourself have grown somewhat tired.”

First of all: fuck you. Second of all: Kitty already said he has no property rights to her.

“You go back to hell!” Paul. Punch. Him.

Oh… Wait… Yeah, he’d probably get in trouble for that. And then be sent to jail. And I doubt he wants to be in there while Kitty is out here with this lunatic. Yeah, running out before you lose it seems wise.

Still should have throttled him a bit.

Now what is The Literal Worst doing? Going back to the house…

And sneaking into Kitty’s room. You creep. I’ve never wished to jump through a television screen more.

They only have one servant, ‘Nanny’, is her name.

He’s blackmailing her. With Paul’s notes. Fuck. ‘Buy him back’.

She’s laughing. Yes, that is Kitty’s response to being uncomfortable.

“You utterly repel me.” YES! Go girl! She laughs as he storms out, tossing the notes away. Then she closes and locks the door, pressing her back to it. She was probably more than a little terrified.

Hyde assaults a homeless man, shoving him down, and steps over him. That was in the book… Then back to some cesspit that Paul showed him.

There’s something weird going on here with Hyde and this girl.

Cut to Kitty and Paul snuggling. And kissing. This is the quality content I came for. He’s wearing the same shirt from earlier… Which means he probably took a good long walk, had a small conniption, and then went straight to her.

“Why does love make us behave so hatefully to one another?” Yeah, well, Paul has been the terrible one here.

“Because we’re cowards, my darling. We want everything.” I’m not sure what Paul’s deal is, why he is the way he is… He could just be an ivy league guy who grew up, not knowing how to handle money, he might not come with as much baggage as the rest of them.

Why can’t they just be happy and cute?

Go away? Start a new life? Yeah, do that.

Right now.

Leave.

Before Jekyll McShitFace gets back.

Ah, they planned to mug Hyde, using the girl as a means to dupe him. Seems about right. Also deserved.

Ah, Kitty is leaving Jekyll. About bloody time. Also, the wrong time, considering the whole Hyde business.

Jekyll has destroyed his drugs, though admits that Hyde’s grip is too powerful. Right. As if Ernst didn’t warn you it was an addiction. “No degeneracy is low enough to satisfy him.” You mean you, right? Because, he is, after all, you.

The kids are back in the garden. This can only end well.

Oh, they’re leaving. Good…

Paul and Kitty are making out again. Good for them.

Jekyll shoved a kid. Bad for him.

Same little girl who’s always trying to give him flowers. Yeah, he’s losing it. Rushing back into lab to pen a last will and testament one can hope –

Nope, no such luck.

‘Exorcise him’. Right.

Handwriting switch. Interesting.

Paul admitting to Kitty he’s in trouble with Hyde.

If looks could kill.

Hyde lures them with an invitation from Jekyll, about their last evening together being ‘gay’.

Kitty doesn’t want to go, she’s frightened. Listen to your gut.

Paul wants to stay, because they think he’ll settle. Kitty agrees.

Fuck.

Cabaret. Ugh.

Someone get me out of here. Lots of underwear. This is painful.

Hyde making plans to meet with Maria before meeting with Paul and Kitty, who’s dressed for a funeral. Paul. Don’t. Go. Of course, he does.

Up to Maria’s room. Piss it.

More cabaret. I’ll hand it to you ladies; you can cartwheel and front flip. That is impressive. Also, I’m completely serious, because the amount of muscles it takes to do that are insane. Flexibility is also key. Congrats ladies.

Paul meets with Hyde.

“Surely we can keep Kitty out of this.” He knows something’s up and didn’t want to involve her. Smart, but also stupid.

“Hardly.” Hyde’s reply sets my teeth on edge.

Paul. Don’t go into that room. To meet him in private. Fuck me. Backwards. Paul.

A ball python. How dangerous. Paul. There’s a table right there. Squish the fucker. I mean, I’m against animal cruelty, but in the case of the story, that thing is supposed to be deadly. Squish. Squish. Otherwise, leave him the fudge alone and he’ll leave you alone.

Kitty… Don’t go with the creepy man. Listen to your Creep Radar.

Paul’s dead. Kitty doesn’t deserve this. Don’t –

I hate this. I hate this. Paul is literally dead in the other room.

I’m writing so much fix-it fic for this, you won’t believe.

This review is 18 pages long. If you’ve made it this far, may the gods have mercy on you, because my wrath at this point is endless.

Maria is in Jekyll’s house. He told her to go back to that house, put on Kitty’s clothes –

“The pattern of justice is complete.”

Rot. In. Hell.

Paul and Kitty deserved better. They deserved each other.

Kitty waking up, gods’ I hate this. She’s a wreck. Her hair, her clothes… You can tell she’s about to be sick. She’s barely holding it together. There’s a fucking note… A note leading her to the snake… She finds Paul dead. She’s already shellshocked. Out onto the balcony…

“Paul.” Her last word.

She plummets over the balcony, through the glass roof, and –

Cut to Maria saying: “I love you Edward.”

“I can’t love.” We can agree on two things. Those two things.

“I must be free.” Right before murdering Maria.

Jekyll finally takes back over, rightfully horrified, and runs back to his lab. With three corpses under his belt.

What an interesting mirror effect…

“Why must you destroy?”

“I must be free.”

Then we go back-and-forth, about who murdered, who revenged, and who was wronged. They weren’t in Hyde’s way, but Jekyll was. He doesn’t ‘feel’. Yeah, right…

Hyde is every dark, terrible impulse Jekyll has had, given life and form. His desire to be free, to run rampant, has been a desire of Jekyll’s since the beginning. Free the beast so he could kill it… Then proceeded to twist it to gaslight his wife, his friend, and everyone else. He was living a life, a lie, a sham. The desire for freedom from persecution for our desires, to be allowed to do what we want, when we want, without judgement has been an overarching theme in all of society. People are persecuted for what pronouns they want to use, for how they eat, how they dress, how they talk –

However, because Hyde is merely a reflection, one can assume his desire for freedom is mirrored in Jekyll’s continued desire for the same. Jekyll wants to continue to exist, so Hyde must desire to exist in turn. He’s still composed completely of Jekyll’s desires.

He says he doesn’t feel, yet there is a desperation, a fear in his voice when he says: “You must lose, Jekyll.” Because he’s afraid he won’t. He’s horrified by the idea of being trapped forever, of their relation being found out…

Cut to Inspector being on the case at The Sphinx.

Wow, a lady in gentleman’s clothing runs The Sphinx. Nice.

Jekyll trying to leave a letter to Ernst. Yeah, that’ll go over well. He calls a street cleaner over to take his note to Ernst, but of course, Hyde has to upset that plan.

Again, I give props to the actor for the massive amount of voice switching, and playing the ‘tortured’ scientist, and the King of the Creeps.

Hyde is about to kill this street cleaner. Mate, why did you come into this guy’s house to randomly move something for him? He shoots him in the back, of course…

The Inspector arrives! Not in time…

Hyde is about to torch the place. Of course he is.

He puts up a performance for the police, saying Jekyll is nuts… Whole place is on fire, with street cleaner acting as a sub-in for the body of Jekyll.

I swear, if this fucker gets away with this, I will riot.

Is nobody seeing the Creepiest Grin of the Century?

No, of course not, they’re trying to fight a raging fire.

And of course, there’s a court hearing over the whole thing. Jekyll went nuts. True. He was addicted to drugs. Also true, though it’s not any kind ever seen before. Sought vengeance for imagined slights. True again.

“Fortunate to have escaped – “

Screw you.

Death by suicide. If only.

Do not tell me this is how this movie ends.

“A fine man. A fine – “

Shut up Ernst.

“The higher man.” Shut your face hole, Hyde.

Jekyll is coming out.

“I must leave immediately.” Oh no, you don’t, you bastard.

“Help me.” Keep talking, Jekyll. Get out of there. Confess. You deserve it.

Lots of struggling here. Again, props to the actor.

Inspector, Ernst, and everyone are watching. Do it now, you bastard.

He turned back into Jekyll!

Finally! You did something useful!

He looks really old. Apparently being Hyde aged him decades.

You can still rot in hell.

“I have destroyed him.”

“And yourself, my poor friend.”

“Only I could destroy him.” Dramatic pause. “And I have.”

He’s arrested.

Abrupt Hammer Horror Ending.

Kitty and Paul deserved better.

This review is 20 pages long, over 6K words, and it took me 4 hours to get through it because I kept pausing and rewinding to quote.

You’re welcome.

#The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll #McSh*tFace #I'm So Tired #Christopher Lee #This Took Way Too Long #Movie Review #Kitty and Paul Deserved Better #So Much Fix-It Fic To Write

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bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria · 5 years

Text

i guess i’m making a warning

[[honestly, part of me didn’t want to do this, because i personally didn’t HATE my time here. but, since they’re burning their side of the bridge...i might as well do the same

everyone, please take caution in interacting with the blog “mlpserver” and joining their discord server for mlp roleplay. while it’s not the WORST server i’ve had a falling out with, and one of the mods there is incredibly kind and chill and welcoming and she would definitely be someone i’d want to connect with again if possible, the others...are not so much.

one of them literally called someone obnoxious to their face for being excited about joining the server and wanting a character. this was a young kid they were talking to

they constantly added little extra rules and addendums to the server, and people got kicked a few times before they were even official rules, thus not even given a chance to follow said rules when they were ACTUALLY added. felt like the expectation a lot of the time was to read their mind and know some slight was a bannable offense

they outright IGNORED their own rules when kicking people. someone i’m very close with got kicked despite being active and not having anything to reply to thread-wise for the last couple days, when the rules outright said to not worry about replying fast and that only people inactive past a week would be kicked. this also happened to a few others in their recent purging

there was little to no warning you ever did anything wrong until you were just removed. this happened pretty consistently, to several people i reached out to, and including myself. hell, one of the mods apparently just held a grudge based on how i apologized to them once, and i just. didn’t know it was an issue, until today, when i got kicked

anyway. i have long ass chatlogs under here, so. have those i guess?]]

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria um, excuse me? i was in your server, as applejack and tempest, and i want to know why i was kicked. i didn't break any rules, and i'd replied to a couple threads just the past few daysi got no explanation or warning that i'd done something wrong, so. i'm coming here looking for answers

mlpserver We stressed several times that we wanted the server to be fun for ourselves as well as the users, and it was decided that it was best to remove the users who were perpetuating a negative environment and making the mods feel like they were in some form of servitude to the users, and not equal. It took the fun out for us and as such this is our last ditch effort to make the server entertaining and worth us putting effort into, else it'll get deleted.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria ...and i did that?

mlpserver Yeah we were slowly eaten away at, despite carefully worded feedback from other mods about how draining the attitudes of some users could be.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria so even though i and a bunch of other users for sure emphasized that we didn't expect every bit of feedback to be acted on and only wanted to post some ideas up if we thought they might be okay, and absolutely didn't expect mods to constantly be at our beck and call all the time or that they even had to be at all, we're just booted now?

mlpserver Yes because with the frequency and the style of wording that people gave feedback made it seem like an expectation rather than a suggestion

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria the last time i'd even been a part of that discussion i said that it wasn't expectation. SEVERAL users agreed on that point, and that was that, and the last time i'd even been part of that talk

mlpserver Like, people spoke to us with a level of entitlement that I wouldn't speak to anyone with unless I was being intentionally rude. Whenever we gave an answer people would just try to counterargue whatever we replied with Like, our answers were never satisfactory for people and so what could have been a suggestion became an interrogation In your defense, you have actually been on the down low these past few days. Equally, it's just not really enough and we feel this is the best decision going forward for us to be able to enjoy our own server. Since that was the original goal of creating it.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria yeah, i'm pretty sure i acknowledged that being shitty and even apologized if i'd done that in the past while being a part of that discussion booting me for something that was from all appearances resolved already by the active mod at that time and myself is...not great also, i know for sure you hit people who were innocent. castoro was like never part of anything besides plotting and threads, and they're not in the server either we both thought the whole thing was just gone and was worried something happened

mlpserver Castoro was booted for a different reason separate to yours and they're independent cases which can't be compared.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria it's not my place to really ask why they were booted, so i won't. i apologize for just assuming it was the same reason as mine coincidence seemed to line things up

mlpserver if they have concerns then they're welcome to get in touch. We just don't want to entertain disruptive people and as an informal server, reserve the right to be selective in our userbase.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria well, i guess i can't argue about that. as much as i want to. because i'm honestly hurt and, since i thought things were okay and had been resolved days or even weeks ago when it originaly happened and was actually brought up, the fact that i was put on a list to be removed is concerning.

mlpserver Your behaviour hurt us at the time; we never felt that we had a resolution since we don't think that the discussion will have caused any critical thinking or genuine remorse about the way you caused us to feel and even with the apology, we don't feel like you knew exactly why or what you were apologising for, which was concerning for us. There was never a 'list' for removal, it was based solely upon attitude and as evidenced by this conversation, we just don't feel like there's a decent enough level of chill to enable us to feel comfortable or safe having you in our server.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria when you specifically came out and said "hey we're doing this for fun, the way these are being put in aren't making this feel fun, we feel kinda like servants at your beck and call and the arguing sucks" (paraphrasing), it's pretty obvious what the issue is

mlpserver The apology was always "if I have", and as such there was never true recognition of one's own actions, so I never felt like you ever took responsibility for your own behaviour.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria you also kept it a broad statement? you specifically didn't name names so, i apologized for if i was a part of that, and then stated i had never intended to do so

mlpserver Of course we didn't, because it's unprofessional to name names and we didn't want to single anyone out in front of the entire server. It's not fair of us to name people directly on the server; we'd like to have credited people with more intelligence that that and have the ability to recognise when they're being mentioned indirectly, without causing upset to those people who are not being disruptive. With regards to the apology, due to the fact that it was an 'if I have', it shows that you never recognised or accepted the fact that you were one of the users contributing to this situation, and as such made the apology feel hollow.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria i understand that. but also, my wording was clearly because i didn't know if i specifically had done something, and wasn't gonna ask when the mod, myself, and a few other users were talkin' it out if i did, then a bunch of others might have, and it wasn't the place for it

mlpserver There's no room for 'if I did' at this point, and the continued use of this phrase goes to show that you're still unwilling to accept the fact that our decision has been made as a consequence of your own attitude and actions, and for no other reason.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria i never made myself out to be above anything, or making mistakes. if i thought that, i wouldn't have apologized at all, because i would have thought i didn't have to essentially, the way i phrased things deemed me unworthy of staying, because you found my apology "lacking" but made no actual indication you thought that, until right now when you already booted me with no word or even discussion about it until you finalized that decision

mlpserver Similarly to conversations on the server, it appears that there is no answer which I can give which will ever be satisfactory to you and as such I think the best discourse is to end this conversation and go our separate ways.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria despite the fact i was never unsatisfied from a discussion in that feedback channel, even when something i suggested didn't happen, and again, had no indication that things weren't okay

mlpserver I mean, surely the indication that things weren't okay should have been the fact that I had to sit down and address the entire server about how to talk to people respectfully on the mod team? That's just... not a discussion which should need to be held. It should be completely obvious to treat people respectfully, and that includes the mods

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria heck, even when rules were suddenly added and people got kicked, and lies were told, i supported you guys and even said you were doing a good job. i know being a mod isn't easy. i've BEEN there before and no no, i'm talking after that. when you came out and were honest about how you felt, we ALL had sympathy, we all apologized, said we would try to not be like that. from all appearances, everything LOOKED to be okay after that yeah it sucks you had to have that convo, but then we all talked about it and the situation was over it was resolved, by all appearances you can't go back to something that's been over and done with for weeks and say "actually i'm not satisfied with this now" and just boot for that? and expect people to be alright about it and for it to not come off extremely unfair?

mlpserver I am very sorry for not handling this in the best way, but I think that given the nature of past (and current) interactions, the issue stems from your incompatible personality with the server users and as such, even with a discussion the outcome was very unlikely to be different in the long run. I mean, server environment, not users. The issue boils down to your attitude with regards to certain elements of the server and taking criticism, and as such I don't think there's anything more to discuss. Good day.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria because your criticism is weeks late and seemingly out of nowhere considering how things actually went down but whatever, man. do what you gotta. hope your server doesn't feel too empty

#callout #warning #signal boost

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praphit · 4 years

Text

Another Year, Another Recap - “Have a Coke and a smile... :)”

So, we're getting to the end, people. We're about to finish off another year. Personally, this year has been immensely better than the last.

I didn't even want to stay up and do any celebrating at the end of 2018. I just wanted to go to bed and be done with that bleepin year. This year has been a hell of a lot better. I hope that all of you can say something similar, but if not, there's always going to bed early, and putting your hope in the next year.

This past Christmas (and all Christmas', really) I spent time doing a lot of hating on Christmas music; it's a valued tradition of mine. I am, however, always surprised to find a few songs each year that don't bother me all that much. This year, one of them was John Legend's "Baby, It's cold outside" ft Kelly Clarkson

- a rewritten, sans rapey vibe rendition to boot its 1940's something predecessor.

In this version (at least how I interpret it), both people wanted some action that night. John says all of the right stuff ("I'll call you a car", "maybe you SHOULD go"), creating a safe environment, and most importantly, not coming off as sleazy and rapey. He's also protecting himself with this recording:) But, let's be clear... he wants some, and he wants it bad! While Kelly, also wants some, but doesn't want to come off as being a hoe. Nobody wants to be labeled a hoe. So, she says all of the right things as well ("My dad and brother are waiting for me", "I've gotta visit my sick grandma", "Gotta get home to the KIDS") But, at the end of the night, they both make a decision to sing to one another "Baby, It's cold outside, so let's stay in and BLEEP." That's how you do it! No guilt! No #METOO! No wife and kids around. All is well:) Divorces are still rising, and more older people (as well as old as bleep people) are on dating apps than ever before. Consider this song a Christmas gift from John & Kelly to you.

Sexiest man alive in 2019 btw

Congrats. Classic coming-up-out-of-the-water sexy.

There has been some good music in 2019. Good stuff happening. Also some sad and weird stuff happening in music - all things balance out, I suppose.

GOOD:

Lizzo

I am here for all things Lizzo.

SAD & WEIRD:

Maroon 5's Super Bowl performance. It wasn't even really M5's fault; they simply did what they always do. It was more a poor choice by the NFL. A boring and awkward performance. There was a time when all anybody wanted was a shirtless Adam Levine- both women AND men. Even times when he wasn't performing, he would show up places, some random person would announce to everyone "Don't worry, Adam WILL be taking off his shirt tonight." Talk about ME TOO. It was so bad that the old, white, slaveowners of the NFL hired Jay-Z (one of the blackest icons we have) to come and save them. We'll see how that turns out.

GOOD & WEIRD:

Tyler, The Creator - "IGOR"

One of my fav projects of the year. Tyler, the Creator is an odd dude - I mean this as a compliment. I love how Hip-Hop has evolved. There's a lot more room nowadays to be yourself, no matter how outsiders might deem your behavior as weird (sometimes, others NOT saying this as a compliment). I love his creativity, and hope he continues to inspire other artists (especially in hip-hop) to be creative. Heeeee also says stuff like this "I like girls, but I have sex with their brothers." But, also uses the word "gay" as an insult. Who knows?? There's a lot to unpack there.

SAD:

In other news, Camila Cabello might be a racist. Y'all can look it up if you'd like, but some posts of hers resurfaced. I'm a fan of hers, and checked out the posts for myself, thinking "People are prob just overreacting" - they're not, it's bad. She has apologized, saying the whole "I'm older and wiser now" thing. The prob with that is she's only 22.

GOOD & BAD, I GUESS:

ADELE

It's always good to see Adele out and about. These holiday pics show that's she's still alive (I get concerned, cuz she tends to disappear for a while) and apparently a lot thinner. This of course stirs men to say men type things, women to go on the attack, and all genuine compliments towards her to get lost. The good news is, Adele seems to be getting pretty chummy with Santa, and everyone knows that St. Nick is a heartbreaker. Adele should be spurned and back in the studio writing amazing tunes soon enough.

WEIRD:

Kanye

These pics say it all.

... that being said, I love his new music (which is how I stamp all of my conversations about Ye).

GOOD:

Billie Eilish!

Now (like many), one of my fav artists.

BAD:

She just turned 18, so of course, us men being ourselves again say things like "She's 18 now. You know what that means." Honestly, I'm still trying to figure out what that means. Nothing says crossing-over into womanhood quite like being objectified.

Speaking of 2019 pervs - R.KELLY!

We can throw MJ and... what the hell, I'll just throw Spacey in there as well (his documentary is coming soon enough, I'm sure).

We were all enthralled by these two docuseries. It's interesting how different races respond to MJ. Both see him as... you know, but most black people are still listening to his music. White people on the other hand are ready to riot every time someone plays one of his songs... except around Halloween - gotta have "Thriller".

We love depressing television.

There was "Chernobyl" as well as "When they see us"

Movies too -

"Joker"

I love this movie, but it's about a homicidal clown, struggling with mental illness.

"Us"

I love this movie, but it's about classism and marginalization.

"Endgame"

It's largely about grief.

It's the best movie of the year, as far as I'm concerned!

It should win all awards!

ALL OF THEM!

Best Horror

Best Comedy

Best Romance

Remember when he sent the message to his wife? Cute, right?

Personally, I think he and Nebula were banging in each other.

... I think that story is going to come out some day. C’mon... they were up in space, alone... they both thought they were going to die. She was like “OMG, I’ve always wanted to bang Robert Downey Jr.

He was like “I don’t blame you.”

But, afterwards, he was like

- you know? He felt all bad, because he’d never get to do that again (that was the last of his energy). Annnnd also because he cheated. Which led to that cute recording for his wife. SEE, it’s all connected!

Best actor in Josh Brolin (Thanos) - the range of emotions (satisfaction, terror, humility, revenge, arrogance, beatin ass, defeat) Leo and Brad Pitt ain't have to do all of that!

Best Actress... hmm.. idk about this one. Many say J.Lo deserves an Oscar for her performance in "Hustlers" - a movie made for strippers, by strippers.

Exotic dancers are making a comeback! Maybe one day, stripping will be going in the same direction marijuana is - just something people do. No more shame! You can actually make a decent living at it - ain't that right, Stormy?

And who can forget this J.Lo quote "This city, this whole country, is a strip club. You've got people tossing the money. and people doing the dance."

There have also been plenty of things in 2019 that I have not understood:

1) Hatin on Greta

Greta - trying hard to do what she believes will make this world a better place for us all.

Certain people - "Shut that bitch up! She's crazy!"

2) Hatin on Megan Rapinoe

MP - leading a soccer team to a World Cup victory, being outspoken for women's rights and gay rights, having awesome purple hair, and trying to be the best leader and athlete she can be.

Certain people - "Shut that bitch up! She's Crazy! Equal pay my ass!"

3) Popeyes Chicken Sandwich

- the gov't test for a new crack epidemic. Sadly, I never got to partake.

4) Allison Mack

- This whole story began being unveiled in 2018, but continued through this year. I still don’t understand how this story has not gotten more attention. Some of y’all don’t even know what I’m talking about.... google it, and be horrified.

5) BTS (and K-pop in general)

-I love them, but... our country's K-Pop fetish has gotten kinda out of hand. All kinds of artists are trying to share the spotlight with them. Next, we're going to see them team up with Kendrick Lamar.

6) TikTok - I just don't get it. What’s the difference?

7) Cancel Culture

To me all cancel culture is silenced by Trump being our president. Where was all of this righteous indignation when we voted him into office? You might say "I didn't vote for him." Yeah, but, WE did - Idk what that says about us, but it's prob not good.

It doesn't even really work - Louis CK is currently selling out venues for an unapologetic tour. I'm not even saying that it SHOULD work (in SOME cases). I'm simply saying that it doesn't work (in most cases). But, perhaps the fear of it working is enough. Or perhaps we should think through how we spend our anger.

BUT, enough of that! It's time to pass out this year's PRAPHIE AWARD!

Here are the noms:

Jordan Peele

Pedro the turtle

(no need for context, just know he’s awesome)

Baby Yoda

(btw - studies show that if you have access to "The Mandalorian" and you AREN'T watching it, you're an asshole. This is not ME talking, this is science)

Megan Rapinoe (who I’ve already mentioned)

Flying Elbow Guy (Again, this requires no context. It’s Flying Elbow Guy! There is a baseball player who’s name I can’t remember. He took on a whole team, and... you know what - that’s too much exposition. It’s Flying Elbow Guy!

Keanu Reeves

Annnnnnnd! It’s...

...

KEANU!

This year:

Of course JW, Toy Story 4, Cyberpunk 2077, “Always be my Maybe”, plus we found out that he’s down for The Matrix 4, John Wick 4, and Bill & Ted. CRAZY!

Also my BAMF of the year (see previous post)!

We love Keanu Reeves so much, that he's allowed to murder as many people as he wants (as John Wick).

We'll get mad if an actor who's not handicapped is playing someone who is, we'll get mad about whitewashing (as we should), we'll get mad if things are too sexualized, we GOT MAD at "Joker" for predicted violence. But, Keanu can murder all he wants:)

(See the scene above? - that was a McDonald’s before he showed up)

He found love as well. Women are loving that he chose someone closer to his age. Honestly, Idk why it matters. I'd still love this man, even if he were dating 22 year old, racist ass Camila Cabello.

But, he's viewed by some as the perfect man. I disagree. I don’t think that he’s merely the perfect man, but the perfect human.

His career and popularity paths are unique. No one would call him a... GOOD actor, but look at him! And he seems like a genuinely, awesomely, good person. And whatever "good person" means to you, he's at the top! We should all (men and women) be a lil more like Keanu in 2020.

Let's all be as lovable as we can, so we may all get away with as much as we can:)

With each new year, I challenge myself with a slogan to live by. In 2020, it's going to be this -

From Eddie Murphy’s “Raw”- Richard Pryor’s advice to Eddie, concerning Bill Cosby

Telling certain people in my way "To have a Coke and a smile, and shut the bleep up." Sometimes, I might need to be the one to do this, rather than say it - we'll see.

Here was the runner-up slogan (his response)

Magical.

Happy New Year, Everyone! Enjoy yourselves. Be less of an asshole. And be safe... enough to at least make it TO 2020.

Much love!

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rarestereocats · 6 years

Text

recap of thursday’s session of the crusades campaign!

Our desert adventure continues with us learning of a small village a little ways out from the city celebrating a Festival of Whispers. It's a celebration of the solstice as well as the old gods, so with the suggestion of a little sight-seeing, we decide to go check it out. On the way, Elathera has a thanks me for helping her start to overcome her fear of heights and asks if I have a fear like that. I tell her about how scared of fire I am, so she tells me to close my eyes, which is incredibly concerning to hear when it comes to conversations about overcoming fears via exposure; but she is my friend and I trust her not to immediately thrust me into some flames for good measure. She casts a contingency spell on me to aid with said fear, but doesn't say anything even when I open my eyes and ask about. She mentions something about a pretty nasty sandstorm rolling in, but she took care of it before it hit us and I don't know enough about magic or weather to dispute that.

So after being proud of my friend from totally stopping us from sudden death (really, it'd be a mild inconvenience to us with how powerful we are), we roll up into this small village and immediately throw ourselves into the festivities. We get some delicious treats, play some games, and me and Elathera manage to get lost in a labyrinth built for children for three hours. Being that we're both the least intelligent members of this group and considering our history of going off on our own, is anyone surprised? Even still, while the others are wandering around the village and gathering information, we try and convince them later that we were absolutely doing the same and totally didn't almost get trapped in aforementioned labyrinth. There was a ghostly illusion inside that warned us we wouldn't get out and dear fucking gods, she was almost right.

The festivities continue with some snowberry juice, fireworks, and the village elder telling us an intriguing tale around the campfire. He pulls out a stony mask and passes it around as he tells us the tale of it and the being it once belonged to, Lochoria. Elathera detects that there's powerful magic tied to it and as the elder recounts a tale of the goddess, Bibiana, creating a pocket of timelessness and peace within the material plane, we're all thinking of finding this place ourselves. But as the legend states, the mask was either cast out or stolen away, forever cursing that pocket dimension and now the once beautiful paradise lies in ruins. Allegedly returning the mask to that land would revive it, so after the story is over, Industria convinces the elder to let us borrow the mask in an effort to find out where this hidden city lies.

Everybody else heads back to the carriage to inspect the mask and perform a ritual on it to gather information, but me and Lucky decide to go wandering. True to the festival's name, I'm treated to some seemingly ominous whispering in my ear; "The time for revelation is nigh. Only those who dwell in the shadows may see the unseen. That which holds the most truth is always spoken with a stony face. If you will not, it will wear you.". Cryptic as shit and the minute I tell Lucky, they look a little alarmed and suggest we head back to the others. Meanwhile, Elathera and Industria are trying to figure out how to get even more information on this thing and figure we should go visit an old ally we haven't seen since our early days in the war. The Xanter. We decide to rest up for the night and everybody is plagued by whispers or strange, unsettling dreams that all seem to tie back to the mask.

Come morning, we teleport back to familiar enough territory and the Xanter kicks everything off by warning us never to step foot into the Feywild again as people there are less than pleased with us cuz of our previous visit long ago. The minute we pull the mask out, the Xanter is surprised and asks how we got it, stating that the mask belongs to Iolond, a god associated with fey. If we bring this mask and return it to the Feywild, it would help us get back in good graces with them, but we're still adamant on returning it to the lost city. After he takes a look at it and deems it to be without a curse, we of course, start to play around with it. Industria puts it on first, helping us realize the mask makes somebody pretty much non-existent to everyone. With her permission, I slap the mask on next and I'm treated to the sight of a mostly featureless being with a charming smile standing before me. It presses a finger to its lips and then fades from existence.

Clearly startled by this, I quickly take it off and hand it to Elathera and tell her to tell me if she sees anything out of the ordinary. She picks up on a trace of magic left behind by the being and traces where it teleported to. The being bounced into the land of the gods, Atmeos, before leaving that void again. She suggests teleporting in there to find it, but Industria warns that we can't travel freely into there without the risk of dying on the spot. So I reluctantly put the mask back on and call out to the being, surprised when it actually shows back up. It tells me I'm the one in the shadows and tells me to seek out what can't be found by its kind and with that, disappears again. We manage to piece together that I spoke to Iolond itself and it's clear it wants us to find this lost city. The Xanter points us in the right direction and off we go.

With the mask guiding me along and Elathera guiding the others as she's the only one who can see me when it's on, we find a portal once we teleport back into the desert. The mask is the key to activating it, so I peek inside, realizing the portal immediately goes into a 500 foot drop to the ruins below. I try to warn everyone, but Elathera steps through without waiting, nearly falling to her death. With everyone else getting down safely, that leaves me and Jordeira. I don't like the thought of having to sit so close to him on the flying carpet so with no witnesses, I head into the portal on the carpet without him, leaving him no choice but to take the fall...literally. He hits the ground hard enough to detach his own arm, making Elathera flip the fuck out and Industria race to fix it, but before she can; he's angrily throwing it my way. After the little spat and my innocence maintained cuz nobody can prove I did anything wrong, he stitches it back on and we make our way into the city.

With the mask, I can see it's crawling with ghosts and I hate every minute of this. Industria can also see all the ghosts and I watch in horror as one latches onto her and shoves her soul from her body, taking it for themselves. With new life, it's panicking, but also eager to get food before bursting into tears and Elathera's not sure what's going on; so she tells the others they should leave right away. They all take off back towards the portal and I stay behind with Industria's spirit, who calls out to the others to tell them what happened. As they all tackle that issue, more and more ghosts are surrounding me and in a fit of panic, I take off as I don't wanna be the next victim of body snatching and hide out in a relatively ghost free house. Once the others find me, we decide to skip on trying to help these damned souls and head straight for the castle...which surprise! Has more ghosts.

Once inside though, we decide not to explore the castle to the fullest and with a clairvoyance bead I won from the three hour labyrinth excursion the day before, a magic thread leads us to the previous owner of the mask. We find Lochoria, barely holding on and she invites us inside her room to share the truth of the situation. She is the daughter of Bibiana and Iolond, after the trickster god took the form of Altamere to get with her. Bibiana was angry and embarrassed that she was tricked and hid this from the other gods, locking Lochoria away in a pocket dimension, handing her Iolond's mask which would keep her perfectly hidden from anyone. But with Lochoria technically being a goddess, she needed followers in order to survive. With her power waning, she cast the mask out in the hopes it would drag more people her way, but in the end; all it did was destroy the city around her and curse its inhabitants.

She doesn't want to be trapped her any longer, so after some deliberating, we decide we'll free her. But walking an unknown goddess out onto the material plane could cause a war of massive proportions, so in a startling twist, we approach this situation cautiously. Me and Industria head back up to Heaven to ask for Sabella's permission to turn Lochoria loose and it turns out that even she didn't know about her. She seems shocked, but asks us to bring the girl to her, so with Tacitus in tow, we head back to the city to pick her up. Before we slip back inside, I have a brief conversation with Iolond to make sure that this is what it wanted us to find and do. With its reassurance that we're doing exactly as it wants, we grab Lochoria and the rest of our group and head back up to Heaven to rest.

#adventures of the volunteer fire department #oc: zakina kociak #game: pathfinder crusades

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kimbaepsae · 6 years

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Hyung, is it worth it?

"Hyung."

It was Taehyung's voice, strained, almost too timid to be heard. Yoongi looks up from his phone.

"Hmm?" he hummed in reply. He eyes the younger, instantly sensing something wrong.

It's just the two of them there, in the other waiting room, and Taehyung has just finished getting his hair and make-up done, the other members nowhere to be found (though Jimin and Hoseok were with him earlier, he was too immersed with what he's doing that he didn't even notice they were gone), he's pretty sure they're playing in another room, or maybe just like him, going through their lines, or still having their make up done.

They still have about two and a half hours before their performance and Yoongi was just going through his rap lines when he heard a soft knock, followed by the younger's voice, calling him as he steps into the room.

He sees Taehyung's hands clutching his phone, screen still bright, and in a glance he makes out a template that's all too familiar by now. And with that, Yoongi knows what exactly made the other this way.

"Are you reading hate comments again?" Taehyung just looks down, and if Yoongi was to say anything, he'd compare the sight to a dog being reprimanded by its owner, and he almost thinks cute. "Taehyung, how many times have we talked about this? Please." He says, not hiding the exasperation in his voice.

For the many years they've known each other, Yoongi knows how stubborn Taehyung can be. They've been through the same situation loads of times, and it seems the younger doesn't listen to anything he or the other members say. He almost believes the younger takes pleasure in hurting himself.

Not that he and the other members are any different. Sometimes, you just feel the need to know what other people think about you, be it positive or negative. And negative comments are even more tempting to read.

Yes, even he reads nasty comments online when he feels like it. He's been doing that for years, and tell you what, he isn't used to it even for a tiny bit. He feels like he will never get used to it. That's why they avoid reading such comments as much as they can.

And Taehyung--everyone feels very protective of him. Even Jungkook, feels the need to protect his hyung of two years. Taehyung is a sweet person. He acts all goofy and obnoxious and cute. But everyone knows he's intelligent and smart and can be really vulnerable, too.

Yoongi thinks he's too smart for his own good. Especially when he tries to read negative comments because he wants to "understand why they say those things to us, or why they hate us." His exact words.

He's always been curious, and inquisitive, always asking, even the simplest of questions. Yoongi always admired the innocence he radiates everytime he asks such questions. And he can't quite bring himself to believe that Taehyung has grown so much, so soon. Asking more complicated questions, all too complicated to answer.

"Hyung, do you regret it?" Taehyung asked him one afternoon, still panting and sweating after they've finished learning some new dance routines for their new songs, just a few weeks before their comeback.

"Regret what?" He asks back, though he has a bit of an idea what the younger member might be asking him.

"This. All of this. Choosing this path. Do you--do you regret it all?" He leans against the wall, trying and failing to wipe all the beads of sweat running down his face and neck.

"To be honest with you, sometimes I do." Taehyung frowns at his answer, though he doesn't say anything.

True, the question is a simple yes or no question. But at the same time, it goes deeper than yes and no. There is always a why that follows. As if on cue, the other sends him a confused "Why?"

"It's good that we're fulfilling our dreams and all. We make music because we love music. We get to do what we love. And what's best is that we get to share it with everyone. But sometimes, everything just gets too much, you know. The pressure builds up everytime, the standards just go higher, and of course, with all the expecations from the fans and everyone else, we have to do better every time. And with that in mind, we just keep going forward that sometimes we forget why we're doing this in the first place."

Taehyung just nods in understanding at his hyung's words. He goes silent for a few minutes. Probably lost in thought, then opens his mouth, but closes it again, like a fish out of water.

"It gets tiring at times like this. We have so much to do, and so little time for ourselves. Everytime we announce our comeback, everything just becomes a shit fight, and we all act like robots, bound by the tight schedule, and the never ending rescheduling doesn't help either. We don't know what food and sleep are, and we act like we don't need them. As the years pass by, we get lesser time to eat and rest, and we get more exhausted than before."

They both exhale at the same time. They turn to each other at that, laughing lightly, as they both find it funny.

"But meeting all of you is one of the best things that happened in my life." Taehyung says, his voice fond. And usually, Yoongi rolls his eyes at the members' mushy words, but this is one of those few times when he lets the words penetrate his heart, making him feel warm and loved. "Maybe I don't really regret choosing this path, hyung. Going through hardships with you is so much better than going through it by myself. This path led me to you, and I'm always thankful for that."

He lets himself melt at the younger's words, paired with the ever so sweet boxy grin, that he cant help but raise his hand up to ruffle the the other's hair out of fondness.

"Ew. Your hair is wet and sticky. Gross" Yoongi huffs, but it's all in good nature, and Taehyung knows it very well.

"Says you who didn't even shower this morning." And with that, they started to chase each other, which was later joined by Jungkook and Jimin, until Yoongi surrenders and stops chasing them. He can't catch up with their energy. He just can't.

It's those memories that Yoongi deems important. Those memories that keep him fueled to face and overcome all the negative stuff that come with being in the entertainment industry.

But he knows Taehyung. He knows him too well to know that those hateful comments will let him get to him, which is what Yoongi sees in his eyes as he tries to meet the younger's gaze.

"Do you think it's worth it, hyung?" Comes the million dollar question. A question he's all too familiar with, having asked it so many times to himself. A question he cannot come up with an answer to.

Still, despite being unsure of what to say, Yoongi tries to think. Then and there he comes up with the best answer he could ever think of, and he says to Taehyung, and maybe to himself as well, "Yes it is."

Taehyung looks at him, eyes hopeful, as he sits down one of the chairs facing him.

"No, hyung. Have you read these comments? It's just-- It's--" Yoongi cuts his words by placing a hand on his shoulder. The younger of the two visibly relaxes under the older's touch. And he can see that Taehyung is close to crying, eyes shining with unshed tears, hurt evident in his usually really bright eyes.

"How can you easily say it's worth it?"

"Because it really is, Tae. We won't be here if it's not. We're here, right now, preparing for a performance, allowing our faces to be smudged with make up, going over our lines and dance routines, losing sleep and weight altogether, when we could all have been doing other stuff, or better yet, when we could have been living a completely different life. We're here, because even though we constantly ask ourselves if it's all worth the pain, if it's worth bearing these hurtful comments, we know, deep down, it is."

Taehyung gapes at him, as if he has grown another head on his shoulder, but with the same hopeful eyes he always has whenever the older doesn't brush his question with a shrug or an eyeroll. And he sees the child Taehyung hides with his cool and grown up persona. He can't help the fondness that bubbles up his chest.

"Okay, look. Don't you feel great when you perform? Don't you feel the excitement when you hear ARMYs chant our names with the beat of our song? Don't you just love it when you hear them sing along with us? Don't you just want to stop singing just so you could hear them sing instead?"

Taehyung just nods. Too caught up with his own thoughts, probably working overtime to understand what Yoongi is trying to say.

"That's it. That's what makes it worth it." He says, more to himself than to Taehyung.

"The fans?" He asks like the five-year old child he is.

Yoongi laughs heartily at this. "Yes. But not just the fans. The feeling. What was it--" He tries to remember the English word for it. "Adrenaline?" He says, trying hard to pronounce the hard word as best as he could. "Yes, the adrenaline. That feeling of excitement you get when you're on stage, the feeling you still have even after the music stops and all you can hear is the fans' chanting. That feeling of fulfillment everytime we hold our hands and bow down to our fans. That's the closest thing to happiness, or maybe, that's happiness itself."

Taehyung looks down at his own hands, clasped, lips still pressed into a thin line.

"Tae, this is why we don't want you to read such comments. Because you'll feel bad, and get stressed, and do you really think we have the luxury to deal with those right now? No we don't. Right now, we're here, preparing to perform, to win another award, and to add one more trophy to our growing collection," They both smile at that before Yoongi continues, "To prove them wrong. And if this means we have to make a few more diss tracks to let them know what we think, we will. I'm more than willing to, and I can even give you a line to rap. Just, don't let this get into you, okay?"

Taehyung, despite being quite thrilled by Yoongi's promise of letting him rap, was now staring at the floor, and entered his own bubble of thought, leaving Yoongi out for now.

His face is blank, almost as if he's just spacing out, but the older should know by now that that is Taehyung's 'thinking' face. And yes, that's the same blank face that earned him nickname "blank Tae."

He smiles at the him, and relaxes himself on the couch, feeling sleepy all of a sudden.

As Yoongi closes his eyes, he can almost sense the Taehyung's frame relax. He's always been so insecure, so unsure of himself. He always wants to sing better, to dance better, to just be a better version of himself. And Yoongi just wants him to know that he's doing great. That he doesn't need to be perfect--just himself. To let him know that fans love him for who he is, and wouldn't want any other.

Haters? Negative comments? Controversy? It's all part of the game. Yoongi continues to think. It hurts. Well, especially since, each of them has their own insecurities, and no matter how long you have been in the industry, there's no way you're getting used to it.

But what makes it really worth it, despite everything, is the fact that they do what they love and love what they do. And of course, they have their fans, and each other to lean on, especially when things don't really fare well for any of them.

They all want to be better--no, to be the best. Everyone wants that. But on the second thought, Yoongi can't really complain. Afterall, he feels like he's part the best group in the entertainment industry, and gets a ton of support from the best fans around the world, and he couldn't really ask for more.

And more than anything else, he thinks to himself, just as he shifts and finally finds a comfortable position on the tiny couch (of course while taking extra care not to ruin his clothes or hair), he feels really contented with what he has right now. Not that he'll say that out loud, though, so he just smiles to himself as he lets himself drift into a few minutes of sleep.

°°°

The music stops, and the deafening cheer of their fans takes over. It's loud, in a really good way. And Yoongi sees Taehyung, beaming, all apprehension gone from his face, and he thinks he sees the younger's face light up in realization when their eyes meet, and he gives him a knowing look.

"See?" He nudges the younger by his elbow as they were huddling to the backstage, leaving the still cheering audience. "Worth it."

"Totally," and they exchange smiles, gummy to boxy as they continue to listen to the seemingly never ending cheers from their lovely fans.

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