#not that legal fault makes you feel any better morally | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shini--chan · 4 months

Note

Yandere ask game Alfred for Osiris, Ra, Ullr, and Xerberus please!

Gladly. The yandere alphabet: Yandere Alphabet: Gods & Goddesses.

Yandere America - Fortress

Osiris - How much would you entering their life change their lifestyle? How would they deal with abrupt life changes (accidents, sickness, ect)?

Alfred likes to tell himself that you entering his life hasn't changed his lifestyle nor him as a person. However, that would be him lying to himself. That is him desperately trying to convince himself that he is in total control of the situation, that you making pretty eyes to another person doesn't cause him to drown in jealous rage. That you leaning against him, stroking his chest and muttering that he is your hero doesn't make his confidence shoot up, doesn't cause him to preen.

In the end, he is human, all too human, and not some infallible boy king. Like any boy, he wants to impress you so badly. Given the opportunity, he'll carry you around like a princess, play sugar daddy and spend abhorrent amounts of money on shopping sprees for you and play tribute to your hobbies. While he wants you to conform to his way of life and views and morals, he finds himself adopting some of your’s unwittingly. Depending on the overall situation, this can be for better or for worse.

In terms of accidents or sickness - it probably means that you are out of commission for your usual role as his plaything, and consequently, he feels a gaping hole.

Whereas before his peer and governmental staff often remarked how calm and even tempered he has become (thanks to your presence in his life soothing over his rough edges) the people around him remark on how agitated and irritable he has become. Every now and then, he rushes to your side, full of concern, because in contrast to him, you are so fragile, so in need of protection. He blames himself for not being a better warden to you, and vows to do better. Of course, if that whole matter wasn’t intentional on his part.

Ra - Would they stalk you? How closely would you be watched while under their care?

Oh yes, Alfred will stalk you. It is an itch that he has to scratch. In the dark corners of his mind, justifications ring on how this stalking isn't a bad thing, that he is doing it for your own good. And stalking is such an ugly word, he prefers to call what he is doing "intelligence gathering". It just sounds more professional and legal that way. After all, he isn't some serial killer that is looking for the oppotune moment to slither into your humble abode and torture you. No, he is doing this to learn how to take care of you. The beginning of a relationship is all about getting to know each other, to learn what the other's likes and dislikes are. This is just him being overzealous.

Besides, you're just such a fascinating subject person to study. Can you really fault him that he finds it so cute how you struggle to keep your life in order, to do sport regularly, eat healthy and pay your bills? Watching you is better than watching TV, in his mind. Alfred will diligently take notes on your behaviour, consider what things may become a problem and how to counter them. And also, your secrets. In the beginning, he'll be all for giving pleasant surprises, and thus warm you up to a relationship. Of course, as his possessiveness grows and the need to isolate you establishes itself, the surprises will grow more nasty.

Later on, he uses his stalking methods to ensure you are honest with him - are you really going to that party as you said you would, or are you taking a "detour"? Are you obeying his rules, keeping to the media that is safe for you, not talking to unfriendly faces? It would also serve as a form of entertainment for him, to watch to undress and pleasure yourself. America is such a voyeur in a way.

Ullr - How would they deal with competition? How do they deal with threats in general?

Not well at all. Of course, that also depends on his mood on that particular day. If he is harried and stressed, his patience already stretched thin because you're just so disobedient that day, then it will be a gory mess. Perhaps he wouldn't even care if the crime scene spells murder, perhaps he'll go as far as to make it look like a sucide or an accident.

If he is feeling better, he'll just shoo them away through raw intimidation, giving them either the Johnson treatment or being flat out threatening. He isn't the sort to go easy, not even on his allies, and might just threaten to stop the money flow. Else, if the devious opponent is persistent, he'll be more decisive.

Cocaine, or even just the wrong type of entertainment material placed amongst that person's belongings and then miraculously discovered during an investigation. Then off to jail with them. This course of action has the benefit of sullying the image you have of them. Should he be feeling malicious, then he'll pull some strings so that the competition ends up being designated a prison bitch. Then, should they ever come out, they'll be too broken to take revenge.

If it is another personification that he is dealing with, then he'll have to be more cautious. Of course, he can just kill them, but they will just reanimate and then matters will be awkward. Sanctions? Slander? Framing? Any of these can work.

Alfred is all about presentation, so if he states something confidently and often enough, everybody that matters will believe him, so he is only really bared by the limits of his imagination and time. At least, that is how he sees it. Also, he just has to be the nummer 1 - in his view, in that of the world, and especially in yours. When he is suddenly degraded to second place, or god forbid, lower than that, then he becomes upset, and you don't want him upset. Thus, even the perceived threat of being usurped is sometimes enough to set him off.

Xerberus - How protective would they be of you? And of themselves? Are they guarded in personality?

The metaphor of a dragon guarding its treasure comes to mind. You see, in total, it doesn't really matter to him if you are traumatised through his actions, as long as you can still function. Connected to that, your quality of life and overall contentment only matters to him insofar as it concerns or affects him.

While he does dream of domestic bliss, but overall, he is solely concerned with his dreams and desires and not yours. If anything, you should help him reach fulfilment. So he is only protective of you due to the role you play in his life, and not because of your value as an individuell. In a way, you are to serve him, just that he won't let you leave. Therefore, the relationship to you is really a famicile - he doesn't innately trust you and problems are just swept under the rug. Alfred wants the fairy tale romance but doesn't want to do any of the gritty work that comes with holding such a bond together.

America is more than ready to labour in order to woo you, but once that is done, it is supposed to be "And then they lived happily ever after". And then you are supposed to be a perfect couple, no more questions asked, no more work done. Similarly, he doesn't take well when somebody disturbs this "happily ever after" or plays the antagonist in this tale. Though, he might be the antagonist here, with his Mother Gothel tendencies

#yandere hetalia #yandere america #yandere x reader #yandere alphabet

29 notes · View notes

mitsubinyuri · 1 year

Text

MILGRAM Guilty/Innocent verdicts, according to my father

MILGRAM, but instead of forming my own opinions I scroll randomly through the YouTube comments of each video, take the first theory I see, explain it poorly to my father and have HIM judge them guilty/innocent based off of that.

aka.

A 50 year old Taiwanese man’s opinions on MILGRAM characters. (He, as a doctor, had a LOT to say about Shidou)

[note that this was posted between It’s Not My Fault and Triage.]

vvvv

ME: State your name and occupation, please.

DAD: Dad, Physician.

----

Haruka (no. 01) (no idea how to sum up the common consensus on him, but yknow what I’m thinking of) - INNOCENT

“I dunno... I think this guy needs treatment. I don’t know, there’s actually no causal link between having a learning disability, being neglected, and like, killing small creatures.”

“They say killing animals in your youth is a risk factor for predicting if someone’s gonna grow up to be, an actual, y’know.”

“I mean, so, forgivable? I mean, only in the sense that y’know, this may be part of him that’s sort of intrinsically broken and he really just needs treatment.”

----

Yuno (no. 02) (abortion “theory”) - INNOCENT

“Well, I mean, I don’t really have any- to me this is not an issue... I don’t think there’s any particular moral wrong here, I mean y’know, she does what she does, she was in a position that she found herself pregnant and she didn’t want to be pregnant so she had a perfectly legal and safe medical procedure to take care of it.”

I brought up the fact it might not have been legal.

“Well, I mean, either way, I don’t see that it’s an issue. I don’t have any issue with it.”

----

Fuuta (no. 03) (doxxing/cyberbullying theory) - GUILTY

“Yeah, well, I don’t really think there’s anything particularly excusable about this one.”

----

Muu (no. 04) (bully -> bullied “theory”, I brought up the lesbian theory to him and presented it as an additional option as well) - GUILTY

“I dunno. I mean, honestly, I don’t really have much sympathy in this case. If you’re gonna dish it out you better be ready to take it.”

“Look, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, alright?! Y’know, I mean, seriously!”

“This is like, at best it’s just pure hypocrisy, okay, well turnabout. You didn’t think about it until you were the object.”

My sister makes an Ace Attorney reference referring to the word ‘turnabout’. He texts her an Ace Attorney meme.

----

Shidou (no. 05) (organ harvester theory) - GUILTY

laughing

“This is not how any of this works, okay? You cannot just whip organs out of one person and bung (?) ‘em into someone else and it’s gonna be like ‘Wow, that’s awesome’!”

“Yeah, see, that to me is too far out there. I can’t even say because that’s now how it functions.”

I ask him if hypothetically you could, what the verdict would be.

“Even if you had a whole... You could some how make it work... it’s still not- no.”

“Besides, you can’t even perform surgeries at 29 unless you went through med school very quickly.”

----

Mahiru (no. 06) (toxic relationship + suicide theory) - GUILTY

“She sounds... extremely emotionally immature. I don’t think she was ready for a relationship.”

“Now, why didn’t the guy just dump her and walk away?”

I explain the ‘breakup ritual’ line, and bring up the ‘both sides toxic’ theory.

“Well, I mean, is there any evidence at all to support that sort of thing?”

I explain the vagueness of the video.

“Yeah, I dunno, I mean absent to any further data I’m not inclined to be merciful here.”

----

Kazui (no. 07) (cheating + suicide theory) - INNOCENT

“I mean, sad to say, it’s not an uncommon phenomenon. It’s a thing that happens, y’know,”

sigh

“So I don’t really, I mean, depending on how he broke it to her, I suppose, and if he actually DID have an affair or had just contemplated one.”

“Or even then, I sort of feel like jumping off a balcony over it is a little bit of an overreaction.”

“A lot depends on the specific details about how this came out, assuming that’s the correct story. I mean, the situation is sad, but at least the way it’s presented I don’t feel like I can hold him at fault for her deciding to throw herself to her death.”

“Well, I mean, and I think legally you couldn’t really say anything about it. I mean, he’s responsible in part but it’s not like he pushed her or anything like that.”

----

Amane (no. 08) (cult theory) - INNOCENT

“I mean, the thing is. This is one of those classic cases- assuming she’s been completely brainwashed by this cult, that’s one of those cases where deprogramming has to be the first step.”

“It’s related to not guilty by reason of insanity, this is someone who’s worldview has been warped to the extent that they’ve presumably sworn their unthinking allegiance to whoever their leader is.”

“Obviously she’s directly responsible, though I don’t know how a twelve year old can beat someone to death.”

“You would need therapy and deprogramming, before you try to bring it to trial.”

“It also depends on if the therapy turns out successful or not.”

I mention she’s twelve.

laughing.

“Alright, so like, automatically guilty then.”

----

Mikoto (no. 09) (DID “theory”) - INNOCENT

“I mean... really? Does this alter even have a name?”

“I mean, legally you can’t render judgement here.”

“I mean, assuming the alter was the one murdering people?”

“Yeah, I mean, I dunno, if he truly is suffering from this disorder, it’s like the other ones, we can’t hold him responsible.”

----

Kotoko (no. 10) (vigilante “theory”) - GUILTY

“So, basically... did she intend to kill him? Or did she try to beat him up and get carried away?”

I explain that she did intend to kill.

“Y’know, the fact of the matter is, as great as it sounds, I don’t really condone vigilantism. She knows exactly what she’s doing, right?”

I say yes.

“Okay, well, in that case, then I would think that she should be prepared to face the consequences.”

“Yeah, so this also sounds like someone who feels that they are above society’s rules. Not something I feel completely comfortable with, even if now they appear to be doing things on the right side.”

----

notes:

also said, at the end: “Just because someone cannot be held morally responsible for their actions also does not mean we should have them out roaming the streets.”

bold (no italics) is things that I said. Italics is things he did.

#milgram theory #milgram project #milgram #kotoko yuzuriha #mikoto kayano #amane momose #kazui mukuhara #mahiru shiina #shidou kirisaki #muu kusunoki #fuuta kajiyama #yuno kashiki #haruka sakurai #dang my dad is so not based #and yet based on parts of it too

168 notes · View notes

pocketramblr · 10 months

Note

AU where someone calls out Uwabami for illegal exploitation of minors.

This has the same vibe of that Mei ask last time... Like either I am to assume that 1- UA can make so much money on televising their students gladiator matches and illegally not paying them but that's ok because uhhhhhh, 2- that it's just legal for UA to do that and because it is legal it is also moral and totally ok, or 3- it's an au where UA is not so exploitative and everything is fixed except just Uwabami is as bad as before.... Ok we'll do something like three because it could be interesting to explore but anyway.

1) UA is very careful with their students images. As part of enrollment, UA has licencing of the students, to be surrendered back to them on graduation. Additionally, part of the money the students generate for the school is kept for the students in an account paid when they leave in order to get started on their career. This is actually part of why UA is such the coveted school for hero students. It doesn't just come with prestige and a better chance of connections, it starts you out with a nest egg of money as you begin sidekicking.

2) for this reason, there's a lot of legalities with internship agencies, worked out where the agency can get a certain amount of allowed use of the student image. The work week study of unlicenced students is not an internship covered by this agreement.

3) so when Uwabami gets some sponsorship products, she suggests Momo and Kendo practice doing ad runs and video shooting, because that's part of her hero work she figures the girls don't learn at UA, which would be focused on field practice during training. Problems and faults that follow are thus: Uwabami did not explicitly tell the team these were to be practice ads and the girls were not released to do this, which she should have. The team did not double check what the plan was for the run, which they should have considering Uwabami also did a run with just her, assuming that more hero girls were better. The legal part of the agency did not double check what they actually had permission for before approving the ad to run, since surely they wouldn't end up with anything that wasn't, and no one checked to see if the girls had been paid. The sponsor company actually also realized they probably didn't have permission and weren't paying the girls, but ran the numbers and figured it would be more profitable to not send any warning notice to replace the ad run and just let Uwabami eat the backlash if anyone noticed. The system failed the girls in many places because it was not built to protect them to begin with.

4) Someone noticed. Specifically, UA and Nedzu noticed. And Nedzu would have acted anyway, but he also does have the benefit of this making UA look a little better, very attentive to student safety and needs.

5) Uwabami has to pay out a hefty fee, pull the sponsorship run, and formally apologize for the mistreatment, with not being able to work with UA the next year for the workweek. Momo and Kendo aren't sure it makes them feel any better, though Kendo at least is happy with getting paid more.

#momo kinda doesn't notice the money but she guesses it's nice to know for sure that wasn't supposed to happen #she's still in a moment where she needs more image confidence but Kendo is good at least #and treating her friends to a nice dinner out lol #pocket talks to people #anon #ask game

21 notes · View notes

theconstitutionisgayculture · 1 year

Note

Heya!

I'm the person who said I may unfollow before, remember me? I decided to respond to a few of the points you made. >But libertarianism isn't about no rules or no government. It's about limited government.You can be libertarian and still support a moral rule of law. So, this one is my fault for not clarifying enough what libertarianism is. And I will say, it is my fault. I do agree with this statement! And I personally agree that no laws or restrictions at all is stupid, I just support minimal government interaction. >Banning abortion doesn't "oppress woman". You're not supporting freedom or women by saying "yeah I don't really like abortion and I do think it's killing a child, but it shouldn't be banned because freedom". Where do you draw the line? When is it not okay to kill a child because of "freedom"? My line is drawn usually at conception (Or a few months until birth), I personally, as said before, don't endorse abortion AT ANY TIME, but I do believe that it should be allowed at these times if it is really a problem for >As for "coat hanger abortions", there is no evidence of them ever happening. Illegal "back alley abortions" use the same methods as abortions you can get now at any Planned Parenthood in the country. They happen in clinics and are performed by the same people who would perform a legal abortion. This! Alright. Lets get into this First, yes, coat hangers aren't actually commonly used for abortions. I just use is as a umbrella term as that is what people commonly associate with it. Its not really a term I agree with, but I simply use it out of lack of a better term. Additionally. The problem isn't the CURRENT RATE OF DEATHS. Because that isn't what I'm worried about. The problem is that the POTENTIAL for these rates can rise. RIGHT NOW, the rate of illegal to legal abortion deaths are the same, but you also have to realize the ratio of legal to illegal is not EQUAL. If these rates remain consistent as illegal abortions become commonplace, we would see deaths RISE. >I would recommend actually looking into these things, as well as what actually happens during an abortion and the reasons why women get them (hint: almost all abortions are elective, not for any health related reason) I try my best to! I know most abortions are elective. I find that gross. I think they should just be for health reasons in a moral vacuum but we just don't live in a society that can accommodate for that without some people getting hurt. >but I fear you conveniently unfollowed me before I could post anything that might get you to reexamine your beliefs I may've unfollowed, but I haven't plugged my ears. I'm not the type to be afraid of healthy discussion, and I'm glad you've kept this so civil! >. You already understand that abortion is "snuffing out the light and beauty of life", but you still need that extra push to realize that banning or restricting immoral acts to protect human rights--in this case the right to life--is not contradictory to believing in and supporting freedom. It is, in fact, necessary. I just don't really like the implications of abortion. I feel, similar to gun control, it can spiral, that if we do well and truly restrict this right, not only will we be blindsided by some shit we didn't see coming, but also that it could lead to a slippery slope of justifications that can lead to more suffering. Am I wrong for thinking this way? Maybe. But I may be right too. No one's moral values are perfect, and we can't let them get in the way of rational decision making.

For better, or for worse, I don't like putting my personal beliefs and repulsions into politics, as that is how problems start. I appreciate your response and wish mine helps you think. I'm not looking to change your mind or anything. I want to learn and debate just as much as you do, even if I don't agree with you and can't actively support everything you believe. Thanks for reading if you do!

The problem is that the POTENTIAL for these rates can rise. RIGHT NOW, the rate of illegal to legal abortion deaths are the same, but you also have to realize the ratio of legal to illegal is not EQUAL. If these rates remain consistent as illegal abortions become commonplace, we would see deaths RISE.

This is from the article that I linked in response to you bringing this up the first time.

"[T]he data suggest," observes Joseph Dellapenna, author of the most definitive work of U.S. abortion history, "that there have been as many maternal deaths in the United States annually from legal abortions (estimates range from 15 to 35 per year) as there were maternal deaths from illegal abortions in the years immediately before Roe v. Wade was decided

What this means is that back before Roe, when abortions could be banned and women got illegal abortions, the death rate of women from getting an abortion was little different than it was with legal abortion in all 50 states. What happened last year is we went back to pre-Roe. All the available data shows that death rates from abortion won't rise significantly with abortion being banned. But even if it did, even if the yearly death toll doubled from 35 deaths to 70 per year, that would still pale in comparison to the around 600,000-800,000 babies murdered each year in an abortion.

That's really the only number that matters. Because if you think abortion is murder, and it seems that you do, you also think that killing at least 600,000 children a year is a valid price to pay to keep the number of women who die yearly from abortions from maybe rising above 35. Why is that? Because they're unborn? Because it's easier to sympathize with a woman you can see and talk to that it is to sympathize with an unborn child you can't interact with? If that's the case, then you're the one letting morals and emotion "get in the way of rational decision making."

I also wholeheartedly reject the idea of ignoring morality when making laws. If laws aren't moral then they aren't valid. Cold rationality has been used to justify atrocities across human history. "Rationality" is what got us "14 days to flatten the curve" and "executive order 9066". I'm not saying that pure emotion should be relied on either. That's how you get the Patriot Act and pretty much all gun control as well. But morality can't be thrown out in favor of rationality when it comes to making laws. And if we're talking pure rationality, then the number of babies killed still outweighs the number of women who die from abortion. The only moral solution is to ban abortion and then fund advances in women's healthcare, specifically pre- and post-natal care, along with education resources about pregnancy, abortion, and the risks associated with both.

14 notes · View notes

lilyoffandoms · 7 months

Note

I started writing a few months ago around May

And before revealing anything I want to say that I understand the effect of AI on the creative field.

The thing is starting out I didn't have any idea if the story I constructed was good and I would be in a desperate need of feedback so I used AI for it but I never used it to write stuff just for feedbacks and how to improve etc. As of lately I have been carrying this guilt that in a way I have wronged someone. I know my loneliness and incompetence doesn't excuse what I have done but is there any way I can redeem myself because I do feel really bad and I don't support AI generated stuff and I never used it in my work.

I just feel so guilty.

First off, congratulations on starting your writing journey! That’s an exciting and terrifying step. I’m proud of you for doing it. That’s amazing of you!! 🎉

To address the rest:

Guilt and redemption are tricky words with a ton of religious baggage behind them. I’m not one to say there is need for redemption because one is guilty of doing something. We all do stuff. As much as I despise AI, I would probably not say one should be called ‘guilty of using it.’ To be guilty, I believe, you must have committed some crime (which you haven’t) or broken some code of conduct (which is often morality based and my morals are not everyone’s morals). Plus, who am I to make that accusation?

Yes, one can use AI but it’s not a crime to use a tool that is made legally available and the usage of which is legally allowed. Do I think the AI collection of learning sources is flawed and illegal? Yes, I do. Do I think everyone that uses AI is complicit in those crimes? No, I do not. Do I believe we are morally obligated to do better by artists? Yes, I do!

I think there are laws, like the preservation of copyright and ownership laws, that should be applied to AI that are not currently applied. But laws are always slow to catch up in these cases.

I think we, as a collective, need to work harder to preserve the humanity and soul of art. And I think that starts by not using AI until there are laws in place that protect the human creatives over protecting the technology and money grabbing corporations profiting off the backs of artists.

It’s a beautiful thing to create and that’s being stolen from us by AI generated content that gets slapped with the label ‘art’. Art is losing its soul. Artists are losing their livelihoods because of this trash.

And it seems to me like you maybe share this stance. Otherwise, I don’t think you’d have written your fics entirely of your own nor do I think you’d feel the guilt you do. Please don’t feel guilt over using something.

Forgive yourself. You’ve clearly come to recognize the fault in using AI generated content as it currently stands and that’s what I think matters the most. Don’t continue to beat yourself up over something in the past you can’t change. You’ve grown, you realize the mistake you maybe made (and I don’t know if it was a mistake tbh), and you are still here standing, and hopefully, writing. That’s an incredible accomplishment!

Forgive yourself and focus on where your choices have brought you because that’s a beautiful thing.

On a personal note, the things I share here about AI generated content are mostly opinions I have formed in talking with artists and writers (and being one myself) and diving deep into this issue. However, they are mostly just my opinions. Just like, anyone else that says the opposite of me, they are mostly opinions.

Now some of it isn’t opinion. The theft of art and the outcome of that theft is very much fact. As are the lack of laws surrounding this issue. I’ve just taken those facts and formed my opinion on what we should be doing as a society to do better by artists and writers.

One final note, it’s alright to feel guilt, it’s okay. I am sorry you feel it. I know that weight but please know it’s okay. I am also sorry you are lonely. I know that emptiness but please know you can always come here when you feel that, if you’d like. I’ll try and make it feel less lonely.

I am always happy to read anything you put out into the world whether to provide feedback or just to reblog and gush. Because y’all writers are amazing creatures that deserve all the love!!

YOU deserve all the love and support!

#ask #anon ask

3 notes · View notes

semper-legens · 5 months

Text

174. The General, by Robert Muchamore

Owned: No, library Page count: 329 My summary: James Adams is in a lull. After returning from a mission to find that his girlfriend is cheating on him, he gladly accepts a lowkey mission to a training compound in America, to take part in a war game meant to test the US military in their responses to an insurgency. But the CHERUB crew has some tricks up their sleeves. in particular the actions of their anti-American commander. Will the CHERUBS beat the military at their own game? My rating: 3.5/5 My commentary:

Now, this was the CHERUB book I was least looking forward to. For some reason, I remember it quite well from when I was younger; perhaps because this was one my brother owned outright, rather than us having to borrow it from the library? Whatever the case, I remember not liking it when I was younger, but I actually found that my opinion of this one was a lot better than I remember it in retrospect, so that's something. What's less thrilling is the fact that, like with much of CHERUB, I still don't rate it all that highly. I know I keep saying this, but it feels more disappointing than anything - like I can see a potential to this concept and these characters that the books just don't really realise. They're not awful or anything, but they're still not the most compelling, and make for some shallow reading at times. It's disappointing, but I kind of understand why. Anyway. Onto this book specifically!

The main plot of this book is to do with a training exercise being held by the US military. The CHERUBs have been recruited to go undercover as civilians and work on the 'red team', the group simulating terrorist insurgents in the training. While the lack of any actual danger or threat might in theory lead to less tension, I found this side of the story pretty engaging. The main conflict is that Kazakov, the de-facto leader of the red team, doesn't want to play by the US military rulebook, largely because in a real war someone in his position would use whatever tactics necessary in order to win. Up to and including poisoning the American water supply with laxatives. The red team effectively win on day two, causing the US military to scrub the mission and start over with stricter rules. This is actually quite effective satire of the US military, particularly because this sort of thing actually happened - a red team in a 2002 exercise called the Millennium Challenge 2002 gained the upper hand quickly and the excercise was suspended and restarted in favour of the blue team, a situation criticised as rigging the game and invalidating the whole premise of the exercise in order to falsely show that the US military cannot be defeated. The Americans are portrayed as being bull-headed and stubborn to a fault, and while Kazakov isn't exactly the nicest guy, he's given a lot more sympathy and the audience is expected to agree with him, particularly as the CHERUBs all do. It's an interesting idea to explore in a genre such as this.

There's a subplot here about James learning about card counting in blackjack and learning how to do it - since the first book, James has been set up as a maths genius with a natural aptitude for numbers. This comes into play at the end when Kazakov, having been removed from the training exercise along with James, spends some time in a few casinos around Vegas and use the CHERUB equipment to enable James to watch Kazakov's blackjack games, count cards, and direct him from afar. All of which is, of course, horribly illegal. Because of the surveillance equipment, not the card counting - that's legal, but casinos obviously don't like you doing it. James has a token moral quandary about it initially, then wholeheartedly joins in, which ends up backfiring when they're almost caught. I get why this aspect of the book turned me off when I was a kid. At least when James and CHERUB do dodgy things on actual missions, they're at least somewhat justified as being for the greater good or being to take down someone actively trying to cause harm. Here, though? They're just taking large amounts of money for their own benefits. It feels selfish, and although the stakes of them being found are real this time, it's hampered by the fact that I feel entirely unsympathetic to James. Like, yeah, this is what happens when you use spy equipment in a Vegas casino, my guy. You're gonna get caught. Idiot.

And then there's the whole 'James' love life' subplot, which is just going from bad to worse. James' girlfriend Dana has been cheating on him, so he dumps her. But…James constantly cheats on his girlfriends, and that's been a running gag for the whole series. Dana cheats on him with one guy, and it's treated as morally reprehensible. There's a bit of a double-standard going on here, is what I'm saying. James constantly objectifies women, cheats on his girlfriends, leers at other girls even when his girlfriends are around, and he gets a free pass, but Dana cheats with one guy and she's the Devil. Aside from that, though, James' love life just isn't interesting. Every time it comes up, it's so jarring - like we've taken time out of our busy spy movie to check in on Hollyoaks, that kind of thing. It doesn't fit the tone of the book, and just takes up valuable page time that could have been spent on much-needed character development. Not who's shagging who.

Next up, witches and witch-hunters in rural Cornwall.

#The General #Robert Muchamore #bookblr #book blog #book blogger #3.5

2 notes · View notes

ambermaitrejean · 2 years

Text

Abortion in Christofascist USA

Trigger warning: If you are easily offended by strong language, click off now. If you choose to read on, remember this....before the right to free speech is also taken away, know that this is MY BLOG where I am FREE to post or speak whatever I choose. If you choose to comment on this, and you disagree with my statements, I WILL delete your comment. Obviously you have your own blog. Speak your mind there. And don't bother tagging me to read your rebuttal. I have zero fucks to give.

Welcome to the former USA, now openly operating as a Fascist Theocracy. Many years ago I said, "your rights are disappearing at an ALARMING rate." And here we are now, where fully HALF of the citizens in this country, have literally NO SAY in their own medical care, NO legal autonomy over their own bodies, simply because they were born of the female gender. I invite every one of those fascist MFers to go straight to HELL.

If you support gun rights, but claim to be pro-life, fuck off now. You don't get to tell me how you believe every life is precious while our children are gunned down in their fucking classrooms, and that’s okay with you while you condemn those who seek abortions. HOW DARE YOU. Just shut the fuck up. Every single fucking day someone else is shot and killed while you turn a blind eye to MURDER, RAPE, INCEST and BABIES BIRTHING BABIES. I want to VOMIT. And you are completely fine with this. Ohhh, you delusional fucking hypocrite. Your God sees right through you. Your God KNOWS what lives in your heart. Just shut the fuck up.

The small blessing is that I am no longer of child-bearing age, but in no way does that feel like a comfort when I KN0W how this will affect ANY woman or girl in this evil country. I have been on this earth close to 60 years now. I KNOW what being born female means. I was first molested at the age of 6 years old, over the course of an entire summer. I was molested again by a family member at age 14. I was spied on when taking a shower. I was raped at age 21 by a neighbor, that did not result in pregnancy because I was on birth control pills. But you better damn well believe, that should I have become pregnant I would have sought an abortion. Do you think my experiences make me unique? Do you think I’m safe now because I’m older? HELL NO. THIS is what it means to be born female for a vast number of women. At some point in our lives we are faced with some form of sexual abuse: molestation, rape, incest, date rape, sexual harassment, spiked drinks solely for the intent to RAPE, even receiving unsolicited dick pics is a form of sexual abuse. This is OUR reality. Every single fucking moment of every single fucking day. If you think that none of this will ever happen to your very own daughter, your sister, your mother, your aunt, your grandmother, your female friends and co-workers, then you are living under a fucking rock. And now the ultimate punishment of all: being FORCED to carry a baby. It is DISGUSTING and EVIL. NO VICTIM DESERVES SUCH A VILE PUNISHMENT.

And it doesn't even have to be about rape or incest. EVERY SINGLE GIRL AND WOMAN HAS A RIGHT TO HER OWN BODY. THE END. And frankly, it is NONE of your fucking business. NONE AT ALL. And if you do not have a vagina, just seriously SHUT THE FUCK UP. Just fuck off and tend to your own fucking life.

And don't you dare come at me with your fake fucking morality. Just shut the fuck up. Don't shove your false Christianity on me. YOU, who have NO FAITH in your own God. For God said, "vengeance is mine." So if you truly believe in God, if you truly believe God's word- that punishment is God's, then where is your faith? If you truly believe that abortion is murder, WHERE IS YOUR FAITH THAT GOD WILL PUNISH THE SINNERS? Do you feel that way about the men who molest the little children? The men who rape? The men who sexually harass women from every corner of their fucking lives? Or is it ALWAYS a women's fault? Mind your own fucking business. You don't get to claim moral superiority while you keep a fucking gun in your house. You don't get to claim moral superiority while supporting war and capital punishment. You don't get to claim moral superiority while railing against healthcare for ALL, school lunches for children, support for families in poverty. Just shut the fuck up you EVIL hypocrite. Do you think ending legal abortions will stop abortions? How utterly fucking naive. All this will do is force women to seek abortions in shady motels, facing serious consequences to their reproductive health, even DEATH, and the mental mind fuckery this will have on them.

I have been saying it for over 15 years now: this truly is the 21st Century Dark Ages in the USA. And if you think this country sliding into fascist insanity will not effect you because your fucking skin is the "right color", or your fucking religion is the "right one" or that you descended from the "right people" I have news for you: in one way or another, eventually it WILL. Fascism doesn't give a fuck about you. So be careful what you cheer as a "right punishment" for "the others." It's coming for you too. Count on it.

#end of roe vs wade #abortion rights #women's healthcare #abortion in the usa #abortion #women's rights #fascist theocracy #disappearing rights for all #21st century dark ages #i'm livid

48 notes · View notes

masterthespianduchovny · 2 years

Text

My thoughts on the Better Call Saul series finale is complicated because my thoughts on various concepts, systems, etc are complicated.

No assessment of any show can exist in a vacuum, esp when enjoyment is subject. I forget who said it, but the quote, “all art/media is political” sticks in my mind.

Where you’re from, your station in life, your politics, etc reflects in what you create. It is a statement whether or not you know it.

It’s hard to think of Jimmy’s ending as just or happy (which is doing a lot of heavy work) due to what we know of the BCS world as well as real life.

For starters, we have Marie and others—even Jimmy—espouse about how Hank and his partner were good men who were just trying to put the bad men away. I don’t have a doubt that Hank was good at his job, however, when it comes to cops and federal agents, good can mean many things. Some of which doesn’t equate to ethical, moral, or legal.

Good at their jobs is also an implicit way of saying they were good men, which Hank wasn’t. Perhaps he was a good husband, but this dude was a condescending asshole to Walt, I believe (I’ve only seen the series once and most in real time) and casually racist.

But the larger problem is that there is a whole fucking storyline—Mike’s emotional arc—about corrupt cops. How Mike once was a corrupt cop, his son dabbled in it, and his son got killed as a result of it by other corrupt cops when he tried to walk it back.

BCS doesn’t even take a stand of their being good cops and bad cops. If the focus isn’t about Mike’s guilt as a former corrupt cop and how this isn’t some exception type thing, the show is neutral on them. Yet, because Hank and Steve tried to take Walt down and died, we’re supposed to be pro cop, sympathize, and feel sorry?

I don’t think we’re supposed to condemn Jimmy, but we’re supposed to think his initial speech to Marie was wrong and he should go to jail for the part he played.

It’s confusing and inconsistent messaging because now they treated cops on BB isn’t how they treated them in BCS, so the tone is off.

Jimmy going to prison is deserved because he helped Walt and Jesse where as Jesse is free because he’s suffered enough, despite some/most of his decisions being voluntary. And some of those decisions were fucked is, like trying to sell to addicts trying to kick their addiction right after their meeting.

It almost feels as if Jimmy is serving other peoples time since their either dead or missing.

Prison isn’t for rehabilitation. As a nation, we’re a very punitive country. Many citizens don’t want intimates to get better, they want to lock them away and punish them. How does prison help Jimmy? Are they looking to help him? Does he deserve the harshness of his sentence?

And all I could think about was the tragedy of Jimmy’s life. Him wearing his con man personality as a protective cloak until it served as an albatross. Him not wanting to be a mark, him trying to make a living, him trying to protect himself from being hurt, etc etc etc. And when this behavior was transferred into legal creativity, that was shunned and looked down upon. A part of me gets why in some cases, but this was a man who, despite everyone loving him, he wasn’t accepted. He didn’t feel like he was enough. He didn’t have help. He didn’t have resources. He wasn’t waving, he was drowning.

But he thrived as a con man.

And looking at him in that interrogation room, and then the court room, all I saw was lost potential.

This man Jimmy fucking psyched a man with a 100% win record into crafting a plea for 7.5 years in prison, to the prison of his choice, and a specific brand and flavor of ice cream every Friday! Keep in mind, his original sentence was supposed to be life + 190 years.

He could’ve gotten out in 7.5 years!

I forget what stood out to me about his court performance, but i remember thinking, it’s such a loss as to what lawyer Jimmy could’ve been with a better support system. I’m not saying Jimmy isn’t partially at fault for his situation, however, I think about the choices people make when they feel they don’t really have any choices. Or they know it’s an illusion of choice.

And remember the shit Chuck pulled? How he kept Jimmy for being hired as Jimmy worked his ass off taking care of Chuck? And Chuck was emotionally manipulative and looked down on Jimmy knowing how much his brother admired him and would do almost anything for him. And then the cruel shit he said before he died? All because he resented Jimmy.

I think about how the law supports Jimmy being there, although the law also supports legally fucking over people, which has happened to Jimmy and Kim in the show. You know, a trick up Chuck’s sleeve when he used it against Kim and there was nothing she could do about it.

How many lawyers looked down on Jimmy’s theatrics, yet will employ similar tricks for a larger payout under the guise of it being for the client. I.e Howard having the client unnecessarily use a wheelchair I believe.

So the ending doesn’t hit for me because Jimmy is both taking accountability and internalizing all the bad shit people ever thought about him and thinking he deserved this lifetime sentence. Despite the hypocrisy, corruption, legal abuse of the law, etc that others partake in. Despite the multiple systems that are failures and failed him along the way.

And, as usual, only Kim is beside him and sees this for the tragedy it is. Because, even if she believes he deserves to serve time, it sure as hell isn’t 84 years.

The tragedy is that these are two people who believe they deserve a lifetime of punishment and willingly accept it. They can’t and haven’t moved passed their traumas. It’s too deeply engrained in them. They weren’t bad for each other, they just were caught in a system that fed into their worst impulses. And, now, the question is: can they be good for each other?

I think Kim will try to get him out. Jimmy may resist, but I don’t think Kim will be okay with the sentencing and Jimmy rotting in prison. And she or they will find a way to appropriately handle the civil suit.

This time around, they’ll use their powers for good.

ETA: I forgot to mention how capitalism plays a part in this as well. I’ll probably elaborate later on how this plays a role with Saul.

#better call Saul #bcs spoilers #better call saul spoilers #jimmy mcgill #saul goodman #kim wexler #mcwexler #bcs season 6

19 notes · View notes

age-of-portal-masters · 2 years

Text

3 - The Skeleton Bowl

A week or so later, Caitlyn found herself sitting across from Caterina. Caterina was an older, tall blue skinned elf that wore a tight bun and round glasses. She was an imposing figure, and she spoke eloquently. That was her job, as a lawyer. Caterina, for a small time, was a defense attorney in a very small part of Skylands, but later found her calling working with the Skylanders as legal counsel for the Academy. Caitlyn admired her very deeply, as many cadets came from difficult, morally gray, and, most important to Caterina, legally gray backgrounds. It was her job to help cadets earn basic documents such as birth records and clear up any criminal history to live normal domestic lifes.

Today however, Caterina was assisting Caitlyn in the dreaded case room. It had already been many hours into the day of the two assembling new cabinets and filling them with files. Exhausted, they sat across each other enjoying tea in a comfortable quiet. Somehow to Caitlyn, it felt like sitting with an aunt she never had.

“So Caitlyn,” Caterina broke the silence with her sultry voice, “How have the Trap Team treated you?”

“Ah well,” Caitlyn hesitated. “It’s been pretty quiet for me since the first day.”

“I heard about the capture. The investigation is going smoothly for once, it seems.”

“I mean, yeah I guess. There was some arguing in the morning over something I didn’t get the context of. The mission itself was rather tense.”

Caterina chuckled. “That’s how it is here sometimes. The Trap Team can have some short tempers that get set off by anything. But, everyone has their own reasons, and as you get to know them better, you’ll find it easier to steer.”

“They still see me as a kid. I’m sure they’re putting on their best behavior to not upset me,” Caitlyn stirred her tea absentmindedly.

“That’s not exactly right,” Caterina said. “Sure that’s how it may look, but you’re now on the same level as Master Eon. If they argue in front of you, it’s pretty disrespectful to your position, is it not? Do you even remember a time there was an explosive argument in front of Eon? Or even snide comments? No, right? If there is a problem you can solve, they’ll bring it to you, I’m sure.”

Caitlyn smiled slightly. “That makes me feel a little better, I think.”

“Don’t overthink it, hon. If you need any help, I’m here for you.”

The Skeleton Bowl. Oh, this place stank. Knight Light and Knight Mare were the unlucky bastards stuck with information gathering in the thief capital of Skylands. They wore brown cloaks and blended into the crowd easily, scouring dive after dive for the owner of the calling card. After the fifth or so bar, they hid in an alleyway and made a record of their findings.

“I cannot believe these crazy folks built a town on a mega whale skeleton. It’s so… gross and slimy,” Knight Mare scraped goop off of her shoulder.

“Pretty sure the slime isn’t the skeleton’s fault. The poor thing can’t rest in peace with all the street life,” Knight Light sharpened his Traptanium Scimitar.

“I’ve got half a mind to blow this island out of the Sky.”

“Divine justice like that will have to wait until we get the owner of this card.”

Dear Eon, this card. Knight Mare was already done with the nasty little town, and even more annoyed at the calling card.

“This is so stupid,” she started. “Why would a random extra leave these cards? They have to just belong to Merchant’s Curse, or whatever his name is.”

“I have a theory,” Knight Light looked out toward the street. “It’s possible that the culprit had some form of enmity toward Bane, so they left a trail to follow. What eludes me is how Bane was clueless about it for so long.”

“He’s cocky. That’s why. He’s incapable of thinking outside of stupidity and intelligence, so he missed out on malice being a motive.”

“Bingo bongo babe, that’s it!” Knight Light stood up. “Let’s try this again.”

The angel and centaur walked into a bar further down the alleyway. It somehow smelled worse than outside, like several animals were rotting away in the rafters, which given the rest of the town really wasn’t a stretch. There were a couple mabu passed out on their tables, some other ruffians drinking in the corner, and a somber bartender near the back.

Knight Light, with his usual bright attitude, talked to the bartender. “A fine day we find ourselves in, huh?”

He didn’t turn around to greet him.

“Aw, a rough day for you bud? Come on, lay it on me, I’m told I’m good company,” Knight Light continued as the bartender kept ignoring him.

“Dude, this isn’t working. Let’s just go spend money somewhere else,” Knight Mare interrupted, which peaked his attention.

The bartender opened his hand. Following the motions, Knight Mare dropped a few gold coins in his hand. He pointed to the backroom and turned back around.

“What…?” Knight Light was dragged by Knight Mare to the backroom. What awaited them there was a dusty log book and boxes of raisins. The windowless room had an overwhelmingly ominous air. Trying not to choke on the dust, the two scanned the log book for familiar names, places, anything to connect the calling card to.

“Wait, wait, turn it back,” Knight Mare compared the page to a list she got from Kaboom. “Ah no, that’s Vermillion Shores, not Vixen Heights. Damn, is there really no connection?”

“Apparently not, c’mon, let’s get out of here before I develop a dust allergy,” the angel turned the door knob. Locked? No, no, no.

“What are you doing? Open the door already.”

“I can’t! It’s locked!”

“What!? Move out of my way!” But no matter how much she struggled, the door wouldn’t budge.

Caitlyn turned into the meeting room at the wrong time. It had been 2 days since Knight Mare and Knight Light were sent to the Skeleton Bowl, and Snap Shot was putting together a rescue mission anxiously. She knew the Bowl was a dangerous part of the criminal underworld, and if they moved too slowly, they’d be recovering bodies. So, she kept silent in the corner and observed.

Every member of the Trap Team was there, save Tuff Luck, Kaboom, Blastermind, and Wallop, who were on guard duty that day.

“We pinged their last location in the Skeleton Bowl 16 hours ago. It’s unlikely they are still there,” Gearshift said in a monotone fashion. “I propose we send Enigma and Head Rush out to do the rescue. Their initial capture of Bane failed to produce information sufficient for a crawl of the Bowl.”

“Gear!” Tuff Luck exclaimed. “Passing blame around won’t solve anything!”

“Blame has no bearing on this. Is it not logical to have people already familiar with the case clean up?” Gearshift tilted her head, something that irritated Tuff Luck more.

Snap Shot sighed. “Please, no more of this. It falls on me to prepare for these events, however because of my-”

“Just let us go,” Head Rush interrupted. “If we were more careful, more could have been recovered from the scene.”

“I agree with Gearshift’s logic,” Enigma said.

“I guess that’s that then, huh?” Tuff Luck said, dejected.

“Meeting adjourned then, for everyone except you two. I have something I’d like cleared up,” Snap Shot watched as the Trap Masters filed out of the room, and waited for the door to click shut.

“Alright, what happened out in the Wastes? I was under the impression that it went smoothly, but now we are down two because of what? Please make this known to me,” Snap Shot asked, mildly ticked off.

“I’ll answer that if I get to ask you a question first,” Enigma said firmly.

“What the hell are you doing?” Head Rush asked hurriedly.

“Why did you let someone sensitive to heat out to the desert? Caitlyn could have died of a stroke, almost 110 degrees, miles from any help-”

“Master Caitlyn outranks you and me. It’s not a matter of me letting her do something or not!” Snap Shot shouted.

“She is a child! Surely a leader such as yourself would see the problem here! Why would you defer judgement to someone that’s not even old enough to hold a land deed?!” Enigma shouted back, which threw Head Rush off. But Snap Shot got angrier.

“Master Eon deemed her a full fledged Portal Master! Why do you think your judgement is the correct one here?!”

“Oh? It really doesn’t strike you as improper? Maybe your morality is more twisted than I thought!”

“Morality! Morality he says! You are way out of line right now! How dare you question Eon’s decision!” In all their years working together, Snap Shot had never gotten this heated with a member, let alone the normally reclusive Enigma.

“I’m so sorry that I don’t mindlessly take everything that Eon says as law! Do you even hear yourself right now?”

Head Rush turned around and noticed Caitlyn standing in the corner, shaking. How long had she been standing there? “Caitlyn…” Head Rush reached her hand out, but the young portal master bolted out of the door with tears streaming down her face.

“See what you did?!” Snap Shot yelled.

Enigma felt an intense pang of guilt. He meant everything he said, but he would have never exploded like that in front of her. Neither would Snap Shot.

“Both of you get the hell out of here,” Snap Shot sat back down in his chair, gripping a pencil with enough force to snap it. “And don’t come back until you have something!”

Caterina noticed Caitlyn running through the halls toward her room. “Hey, hey, slow down- oh goodness, why are you crying?”

Caitlyn wiped her tears, “It’s nothing, I’m sorry.”

“Caitlyn, my dear, you can talk to me.”

“Dude, holy crap, what even happened to you in there?” Head Rush was piloting the airship to the Skeleton’s Bowl, carefully tracking the ping.

“I do not wish to talk about it,” Enigma felt the guilt even worse. He stared out of the airship, not making eye contact with Head Rush.

“I mean, you do you buddy, but that did not come from nowhere. You’ve been letting something fester, and that’s really not healthy. So, like, I don’t know, share? Please?” Head Rush trailed off. Why am I such a magnet for emotions this week?

She was right about it festering, but Enigma wasn’t able to talk about any of his reasons in a concise manner, so he kept it to himself.

It was a long airship ride. Or maybe it was quick, and the awkward silence dragged it out for what felt like centuries. The two wordlessly left the airship and walked into the skeleton town.

But there was no one on the streets. Not even the street cats or birds.

“This… doesn’t feel right,” Head Rush looked all around. It was only her and Enigma on the street.

“They were expecting us.” Enigma’s sigil shook and darted its gaze all around.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“It’s a failsafe. If Bane was captured, he’d have leverage to get himself out of prison by capturing our own. And now we’ve volunteered ourselves to his cause.”

“Ah, so they’re hiding. I can make quick work of that. Cover your ears.”

Following orders, Enigma took cover behind a pillar and covered his ears, bracing for the impact. Head Rush took a large gasp and belted a High Note. Several drow fell off of the roofs of surrounding buildings, some stumbled out of the alleys, but they all were powerless against the sound.

Head Rush went to shake Enigma out of his protected position, and the two ran toward the pinged location.

Meanwhile, Knight Mare and Knight Light woke up tied to pillars in some… basement? They weren’t really sure.

“Well, well, well, look who has woken up finally!” A voice neither recognized, spoke.

“Who are you?” Knight Light shouted at the shadow.

“Me? Ah that hardly matters does it?” The voice was a small statured boy, with tanned skin and elf-like ears. He wore a black leather jacket, ripped up jeans, and boots with way too many belts. “My friends call me Bacchus, but you won’t need to know that for much longer.”

“Where the hell are we?” Knight Mare struggled to break her binds to no avail.

“Pft, why do you care? You’ll both be dead soon.” Bacchus drew a dagger from his hip, and brandished the tip to Knight Mare’s throat. “No one comes to the Skeleton Bowl and leaves without a few scars.” He manically laughed. “By the ancients! Neither of you would have met a dead end here if you just ignored the bait. It’s really simple, you know, to convince this town to mind their business. There’s no way help can reach you now.”

“Knight Mare, hang on!” Knight Light shuffled as hard as he could, but the binds wouldn’t budge. He desperately wanted to get Knight Mare out of harm’s way, but how? “There has to be a way out!”

Bacchus switched his gaze to the bound angel. “Actually, let’s dispose of you first. Your optimism is disgusting.” The short elf sheathed his dagger and wound up his leg, impacting the angel’s head. Over and over.

Knight Mare couldn’t even speak. She just watched in horror.

His face was bleeding bright red; he spit blood on the elf’s shoe. “I’m not scared of dying. I won’t make this satisfying for you.” Knight Light mustered a sly smile, taunting the elf further. He was proud to take a beating to spare his friend.

“Why you!” Of course, Bacchus was taunted effectively. But this time, he successfully knocked the angel unconscious. “Finally. Nothing pisses me off more than some do-gooder preaching.”

Knight Mare prepared herself as Bacchus’s ire returned to her neck.

“There they are!” a familiar voice boomed through the planks. Head Rush?!

Head Rush and Enigma breached the room to find Bacchus’s dagger dangerously close to Knight Mare’s neck.

“Put that down, there’s no point in resisting,” Head Rush said aggressively, reading her fists. She and Enigma noticed the angel slumped opposite of Knight Mare, and they felt a flood of urgency.

“Or what?”

“One escape. Two against one. The odds are in our favor, not yours,” Head Rush continued. “Don’t make the wrong decision.”

“We don’t have to fight. Come with us quietly. Haven’t you already done what you wanted?” Enigma calmly said.

Bacchus pondered it for a second. “Eh, fine. Whatever.” He threw the dagger, piercing the wall parallel to him.

Head Rush quickly bound his wrists, while Enigma hurriedly unraveled Knight Mare’s binds. Once he made sure the centaur was uninjured, he checked the angel over carefully, nervous to examine his wounds. Knight Light was battered, but he was breathing fine. The magic Skylander sighed a breath of relief, thankful his friend wasn’t hurt due to his mistake. When did I get so attached to you? He shook the thought away, and carefully carried the angel to the airship, while Head Rush kept Bacchus in a tight grip.

#skylanders #oc #fanfiction

2 notes · View notes

faggotician · 4 months

Note

Reform is important and obviously necessary but some people should be in prison or under some kind of precautions for the rest of their lives (if not in prison). Two ideas that I think very much can coexist. People want to take extremes on this issue when a case by case basis is actually what i think is needed. I watch a lot of true crime, and I'm sorry, but there are some people who (yes, sometimes through abuse and faults in our own society) can't live totally free among us any longer. I dont think this has to become an issue outside of a person's desire to do harm to others and the evidence and variables we have to calculate those possibilities (not talking about thought crimes, talking about actual evidence that could be used in court and legal history/criminal history). People will try to make the discussion of rehabilitation in prison about anything other than protecting society. A man who has a rap sheet a mile long for assaulting vulnerable people shouldn't be released because that sends the message simply not to get caught so next time he kills the victim so they "can't talk" (this rarely works and the criminals usually end up with life in prison for extremely heinous sadistic crimes anyway). Or like when stalking wasn't seen as a serious crime until it came to light the number of people who actually end up being murdered by their stalkers because no one would take the actions of the stalker seriously. That's why I believe we should examine each person as an individual and also take into consideration the wishes of victims and victims families when considering how to punish people for their crimes.

In short, the topic of prisons and rehabilitation is extremely heavy and riddled with toxic beaurocratic politics and bias. This has always been the problem with the justice system, if you ask me. Morality is overall subjective and to each person it looks different. One can argue philosophically about popular meanings and majority rule, but that brings us back to your quandary of the minority that gets left out.

I appreciate your opinions about it, and I hope you will look deeper into this topic as society moves toward trying to find a balance with people who deserve rehabilitation and what precautions we can take to make rehabilitation and prison environments for all types of offenders more accessible, functional, and effective ❤️

Sorry if this was misguided or not what you were talking about :)

i kept rereading and retyping all kinds of replies 2 this before i realized that yr totally right in a lot of ways tht made me reconsider a lot of what i felt. there are many instances ive seen frm bein a TCphaser myself where there Are repeat offenders who, after being helped and rehabilit8d 2 some extent, dont change. n so the assumption is 2 incarcer8, n i was hesitant in feeling tht because of the current prison situation we r in in the US, but in a perfect ideal optimist world i like 2 daydream abt, prisons arent connected 2 any of what they are now n arent as horrible as they are now, so it wouldnt be inherently horrifying 2 put somebody into prison 2 keep the rest of community frm being at risk if they are a genuine harm. obviously theres an incomprehensible amount of easily fixed moving parts in all of this n i do hope 4 a better future 4 every person always, despite how hard it seems frm where we are rn. regardless, thank u a bunch 4 sending this ask cuz it rlly did make me understand how n why i shld feel the way i feel n theres still a lot 2 consider abt where i stand in all this i spose

thank u askeur <33

#999 #asks

1 note · View note

starsbegantofall · 1 year

Text

upon plagiarizing, piracy (of media), or bootlegs or design replicas, etcetera...

As I always preface, I am not your God, I am not even your mother, I am not who you answer to ethically or morally, so what I say means little to an internet stranger. But I like writing it down in text to organize my thoughts and sharing is caring.

Personally, I feel like if I had the means, I will always buy direct from the creator and support them as much as possible and never encourage stealing, copying, piracy, bootlegs, plagiarizing, or any devaluing of the original creation. This is obviously because I’m a creator myself who values art and originality in this world ruled by profit machines. Because even if you declare “I will only download mp3s or videos or books created by the most heinous creatures who walk in human skin, never by good human beings,” I will constantly wonder if that applies to me because I don’t know what your definition is of heinous creature who walks in human skin is because I’m not telepathic.

Even if the creator was somehow so definitively evil or corrupt to never deserve money ever again, I think it’s a very demeaning precedence to start assuming you are qualified to be the sole judge/jury/executioner regarding creators, because come on, think about it, every creator is a human being, and all humans make mistakes, that’s literally what humans are born to do, you can start a moral crusade against each of the 8 billion human beings on earth if you dig back into their childhood far enough for that time they yelled at their mom. It’s also ridiculous and egotistical to think that your personal boycotting or piracy has any effect against supposedly evil human beings who then are so evil they don’t care about what you do, while the same kind of shaming and bullying does effectively harm (relatively) innocent and already oppressed human beings.

Also... ask yourself, why do you want to pirate stuff created by evil people in the first place? Is evil stuff better to you? In that case, own up to it, you’re evil, too! You’re dancing at the devil’s sabbath too! Accept you’re going to hell with all the cool creative people and buy their stuff legally! What do you have to lose now?

On the other hand, the fact that all humans make mistakes that we apparently can’t learn from after hundreds of years is actually proof that some things do need to be copied, as a lesson to future generations in the form of archiving against eventual destruction or negligence by the powers that be, or just as a “i done fucked up and copied something I shouldn’t and now there’s a lawsuit, don’t do this kids” cautionary tale. Or, to other creators, as a way to grow and learn your own skills if you’re copying for study and practice. Or to sell impressionist oil painting forgeries to millionaires, in which case you are evil but I’d be impressed that you got away with it. In the end, copying someone else to recreate their stuff on your own still requires money and skill and time and wear and tear on the body, and that human act of creation is still meaningful compared to that which is compiled by a computer using stolen art and writing.

So in the end, you should do what your personal moral compass or religion or mother tells you to do, but in our ongoing fight to support creativity and originality of the human soul in this world that devalues them, I say you should avoid piracy if you have the means. Is this classist against the majority of the world who lives in abject poverty but deserves to watch the latest isekai anime for whatever little comfort they can obtain in this hellscape? Yes, but that’s not the fault of the creator who has to struggle in a capitalist world, that’s the fault of the people who keep the capitalism torture machine running.

0 notes

nugnthopkns · 3 years

Text

it all pours out after dark

word count: 5.8k

warnings: insinuated!fem reader, cursing, mentions of alcohol (but no consumption), expressions of self doubt

recommended listening: the knife | maggie rogers

series masterpost: here

a/n: first installment of hiiapl!! very excited about what’s to come. here is some bffs/roommates to lovers with petey :))

Elias’s friendship was a welcome surprise.

You hadn’t expected much when you met the Swede – after all, you were serving at the annual Canucks charity gala and he was the rookie poised to win the Calder trophy. There were a million other things you would have rather done than spend a Saturday evening walking around in sky high stilettos and passing out flutes of champagne, but the catering company paid generously, and you needed to come up with the funds for your next tuition installment. Vancouver may be beautiful, but it’s incredibly expensive.

So you spent the night with a kilowatt smile plastered on your face, staying silent in the background and making sure no one’s glasses were ever empty. You were barely legal to handle alcohol, freshly nineteen and waiting for an opportunity to experience the city’s nightlife for yourself. There was no way you should be regulating the alcohol consumption of adults but you were doing it anyways. The tips were very generous, more than you should have probably been receiving, but you accepted them with a smile because the athletes making millions could certainly afford it.

No one paid you any attention, but you didn’t mind. The night was beginning to wear on you and the event didn’t plan on stopping for another couple of hours. You debated on what to do with your tray while you tried to work out the knots that were forming in feet from standing for so long.

“Let me hold that for you,” a gentle voice sounded from behind you.

When you turned around you were face to face with Elias Pettersson. “That won’t be necessary,” you stated, tone kind but firm. If your supervisor caught you, you would have been fired immediately.

He didn’t take no for an answer. “Please,” he urged, thick accent ringing out in the space between you. “Your feet are going to cramp. Take your shoes off for two minutes.” The English was broken, but you appreciated the sentiment. He really wanted to help.

After a little more insisting from the blonde you agreed, and he diligently stood watch to ensure you wouldn’t get in trouble. It was a relief to be out of the torturous constraint of your shoes for a few moments, and you thanked him profusely.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, a small smile on his face. Shouting erupted from some other players then, looking for him.

“You better get back before they miss you too much.” You nodded in the direction of the voices, to which he begrudgingly agreed. Elias handed you back the tray of champagne flutes before taking one for himself.

He was about to fade into the crowd when he turned to face you again. “I never caught your name,” he stated.

“It’s Y/N.”

“Elias.”

With that he disappeared into the throng of people. You never expected to hear from him again, chalking it up to a kind interaction with a stranger, but a day later he had messaged you on Instagram after searching through the countless profiles that shared your name and were located in the general Vancouver area. Conversation flowed easily between the two of you, and you became fast friends.

☼☼☼☼

That first meeting was nearly four years ago, and countless memories had been made since then. You treasure your friendship with Elias, and truthfully it’s the one you hold closest to your heart. This could be because over the years you’ve developed a small crush on the lanky blonde, but it’s a secret you’ll take to the grave. No one knows of your true feelings for Elias, and no one ever will.

“E? I’m home,” you shout into the quiet apartment, wondering if he’s home from morning skate yet.

After you completed your undergraduate degree and your lease ended, Elias insisted you move into his spare bedroom. The offer was too tempting to resist – you got to live with your best friend and continue your education in a city you adore. Moving your stuff had been a bit of a pain, but your life fit seamlessly into Elias’s. The two of you worked well as roommates, and over the past few months the space began to reflect not just Elias, but you as well. Hair ties were randomly thrown on counters and the bookshelves began to fill.

You’re setting the few groceries you picked up from the local market on the counter when he comes down the hall.

“Hi sunshine,” Elias says softly, voice riddled with sleep. He must have returned home earlier than you thought and had a quick nap.

You smile at the nickname. Elias had gifted it to you early in your friendship when you were in a terrible mood. He had meant it sarcastically at first, but it stuck. Now he hardly calls you by your name.

“How was practice?”

“Really tough,” he admits, moving behind you to place the apples in the fridge. “Coach is being hard on us because we aren’t performing well.”

You frown but hold your tongue. Your degree in sports psychology tells you that isn’t the way to improve players’ morale, but Elias doesn’t like it when you lecture him on what the Canucks staff are doing wrong. He knows things aren’t perfect within the organization and hopes desperately the situation will improve when they start winning again.

The two of you put the rest of the food away in comfortable silence and then unwind by watching numerous episodes of House. You had recently decided to give the medical drama a rewatch, and Elias’s interest was piqued by the snarky physician who always saves the day. It’s become your favourite way to relax and it seems that both of you need it today.

“How does Wilson do it?”

You’re perplexed. “Do what?”

“Put up with House,” Elias sighs. “He’s an asshole.”

Laughter tumbles from your lips. “The same way I deal with you, grumpy.”

“No,” he scoffs, tossing a pillow in your general direction. “You’re House and I’m Wilson, sunshine. Being an asshole is how you got that nickname in the first place.”

You couldn’t argue with Elias’s point – he was right. Between the two of you, you’re the one most likely to be snarky with your anger and he’s more likely to shut himself off from the rest of the world. “Fuck off,” you giggle.

When Elias crawls on top of you and drops his weight you don’t flinch. You’ve become accustomed to his casual yet spontaneous displays of physical touch, and by now the two of you can frequently be found with your limbs tangled together.

The rest of your afternoon passes in the blink of an eye. You fall asleep a few episodes in, and you assume Elias did as well because when you wake up his body is still pressed against yours. Once your eyes adjust to being awake, you notice it’s well into the evening. Your stomach rumbles and you decide you have to get up.

“E,” you say softly, not wanting to completely disrupt his rest. The season is off to a rougher start than everyone hoped for, and he hasn’t been sleeping well.

There’s no response from the boy on top of you so you try again, voice a decibel or two louder. “Elias, please let me up. I’ve gotta start dinner.”

“Mhmm,” Elias murmurs, not opening his eyes. “Or you could just stay here. You’re so warm.”

You roll your eyes. “Dude, we’ve got to eat. Come on.”

He doesn’t move. In fact, he presses more weight on you, effectively trapping you on the couch. “We can just order food in a bit,” Elias suggests. “Please just stay and nap a bit longer.”

That’s all it takes to convince you, and you let your eyes flutter shut again. In the comfort of your best friend sleep comes easy, and neither of you move far from the couch for the rest of the night.

The next few days are incredibly busy, and you don’t see Elias much. School is heating up and you’re struggling to stay afloat. In an effort to get the team to put up a few wins, the Canucks organization is holding extra practices and development workshops in between games, so Elias is barely home. When he is he’s exhausted and spends most of his free time in his room, chatting with friends at home or playing video games.

You do your best to not let the distance bother you, but not being able to have a conversation that lasts more than fifteen minutes before one of you is running out the door is wearing you down. You miss your best friend.

Elias is set to go out with some of the younger guys on the team this evening, and though he invited you, you’re in a graduate student society meeting until well after they’re supposed to be leaving. He deserves the time to unwind, but a part of you is jealous he actually gets it. Both of you have been running around like chickens with your heads cut off and it seems like Elias can finally slow down. You on the other hand cannot.

Approximately twelve million things go wrong throughout the course of the day. First, you left your lunch and wallet at home, leaving you unable to eat. Then your advisor was late to your meeting and insisted it was your fault. To top everything off, the graduate student society dismissed your proposal for more funding into public outreach programs. You really, really wanted to be at home.

The door to the apartment is unlocked upon your arrival home, which you find strange. Elias isn’t one to forget to lock it on his way out the door. Brock was terrible about remembering that sort of thing, so you assume he was the last one out. You open it with a sigh and kick off your sneakers. It has been a long day, and you’re looking forward to opening the bottle of wine you picked up with groceries last week.

It doesn’t dawn on you that Elias’s shoes are still by the door or that the living room light is on. You’re so preoccupied with getting comfortable you don’t realize you aren’t alone until you hear a voice from down the hall.

“Rough day sunshine?”

Elias is standing at the end of the hallway, staring at you intently. It’s as if he can sense the tension rolling off your shoulders.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “I thought you were going out with the guys?”

He just shrugs. “Didn’t really feel like it. Besides, I knew you were having an off day because you didn’t text me on your lunch break so I wanted to be here for you.”

You nearly tear up from his words. Elias is a lot of things, and kindhearted is certainly one of them. “Go have a shower,” he insists, “And I’ll start dinner.”

“Thanks E.”

A hand comes up to ruffle your hair on his way by. “Don’t mention it.”

The two of you spend the night tucked against each other, eating pasta and telling stories. You never make it to the fridge to get that bottle of wine, but you don’t mind because during your shower Elias made hot chocolate for you both. Conversation flows into the early morning, and by the time you head to bed you can’t remember why you were upset in the first place.

☼☼☼☼

The season drags on. The Canucks still aren’t playing well, and it’s beginning to wear on Elias. He’s spending more time in his room, reviewing tape and tweaking his workout regime to achieve maximum results. You worry he’s beginning to isolate himself and that it won’t be good for his mental health.

“Do you want to go hiking tomorrow?” you ask him at dinner. The team has a rare day off, and the coaching staff want them to decompress before leaving on a long road trip.

Elias shrugs, not looking up at you as he continues to cut his vegetables. “Not really sunshine. I have some clips I need to watch.”

You sigh loud enough to make him feel bad, and his eyes meet yours. “E, you need a break. Let’s go to that trail you like and just relax for a while. I’ll pack a lunch and we can just go slow.”

Whether or not he’s just appeasing you or genuinely wants to go you aren’t sure, but Elias agrees. He places a hand on your shoulder in silent thanks before loading his plate into the dishwasher and retreating to his bedroom. You take it as a victory, however small, and are glad he didn’t completely shut down the idea. The rest of the night is quiet, with you finishing a book and falling asleep on the couch.

Neither of you are quick to rise in the morning but it doesn’t matter. There’s no timeline for your upcoming adventure so long as you’re back before dark. You make it to the kitchen before Elias and take it upon yourself to make breakfast for the two of you. It’s nothing fancy, just oatmeal, but your best friend appreciates it when he finally makes an appearance. Elias looks like he slept for a maximum of three hours, and you have half a mind to tell him you’ll take a rain cheque, but you know he needs a change of pace.

The two of you chat idly throughout the meal but it isn’t tense or awkward. Neither of you are completely awake, and both like time to reflect in the morning. It’s nearly an hour later when you meet Elias at the door. You grab your keys, much to his surprise.

“What?” you shrug.

Elias cocks a brow in your direction. “You hate driving on the highway.”

He’s right – you have no issues navigating the traffic riddled streets of Vancouver, but as soon as you get out of the city and onto the freeway you freeze up.

“Gotta get over my fear at some point. Come on superstar.”

There’s no complaint from Elias, and you suspect he’s secretly relieved. Driving isn’t his strong suit either but you know he does it so you don’t have to. The ride is quiet, and once you hit the city limits the car feels lighter, as though Elias left all his stress behind. Some lo-fi playlist trickles through the speakers as you get closer to your destination. It isn’t your kind of music, or Elias’s for that matter, and you’re pretty sure Brock gave him the link. The parking lot is empty when you arrive, and you back into a spot with ease.

Usually Elias would comment on your driving quirk, teasing you because ‘no one under the age of sixty-five backs into a parking space’, but he’s quiet. You wonder if he even noticed. Nerves about the possibility of a far-away look in Elias’s eyes subside when he scrambles to get out of the car.

“First one to the top wins,” he shouts, metres ahead of you as you double check to make sure the car is locked. You let out a full laugh but don’t try to catch up – he’s going to win anyway so you might as well enjoy yourself.

The hike does wonder for Elias. Just being outside, in the fresh air that doesn’t hold any expectation of who he should be, is enough to lighten his mood considerably. You trail behind him the entire time, allowing yourself to marvel at his beauty from afar. The longer you live with Elias, the harder it’s becoming to mask your feelings. A couple of times he pauses to wait for you to catch up, and once at the top of the small summit he lifts you into the air in triumph.

“Alright E, put me down,” you giggle, squirming out of his grip. He obliges and places you back onto the rocky surface as though his previous act was the easiest thing in the world.

The two of you marvel at the view from the top of the mountain for a bit longer before making the trek back down to the car. Halfway down the trail you fall behind significantly, exhausted from not only hiking up a mountain, but worrying about Elias and stressing over some school deadlines that are rapidly approaching. Elias slows his steps so you can catch up, and insists you jump up to piggy-back the rest of the way. You try to protest but he isn’t having it. Eventually you give in and doze off with your face tucked into the crook of his neck.

You let Elias drive home, too worn out to think about the traffic you’ll inevitably hit. When you get home you allow him to tuck you into bed, and don’t tease him when presses a kiss to the crown of your head.

The road trip both flies by and drags on. At home, you're busy with school, work, and taking care of Brock’s dogs. Coolie and Milo have become a welcome responsibility, and truthfully you love having them around. They make the absence of Elias less apparent. Each night you curl up on the couch, a dog on either side, and watch the game intently. The Canucks seem to be on the up, winning the first three games with ease. It’s like something has clicked between them and on-ice communication is no longer a problem. However, that changes quickly, and they lose the entire back half of the trip.

You do your best to comfort Elias from afar – sending him periodic text messages of encouragement, random memes you find on instagram, and calling after every game. The streak of misfortune is getting to him, and it’s beginning to affect his play. He adds only one point the entire trip, an assist that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things since they were blown out of the water. When you talk to him it’s easy to hear how upset he is, and you imagine he’s hearing a lot worse than what you’re telling him from the coaching staff. It makes your blood boil – how they’re treating him – but you’re helpless. Nothing you can say will undo the potential damage.

The Canucks get back late, and you’re tucked into bed with the dogs, nearly asleep. You’ll return Brock’ pets in the morning. If you hadn’t had a disastrous meeting with your advisor you would’ve met them at the airport, seeing as it’s Friday and you often don’t go to bed until well into the morning, but your body is thoroughly exhausted.

You don’t hear the door open and are only alerted to a new presence because the dogs perk their ears. Footsteps echo through the silent apartment, and you think you can hear Elias grumbling in Swedish. He makes no attempt to find you so you assume he thinks you’re sleeping. You should be. Up until three minutes ago you were on the verge of sleep, but now you wait with baited breath to see if you can hear any indicators to Elias’s mood.

A door closes and seconds later the shower turns on, so you assume he’s feeling alright. Most certainly not great, but well enough to maintain his normal routine. You don’t try to move, knowing you’ll talk to him in the morning, and finally allow yourself to commit to sleep. There’s a few minutes of bliss where you’re almost unconscious, but your slumber is disrupted by a quiet knock at your door.

“Sunshine?”

Elias’s voice sounds like a different type of exhaustion that you’ve never heard, and you know right then that you won’t deny him entry to your room.

“I’m awake E,” you mumble, praying he can hear you because you spoke so softly. The door creaks open and you can just make out his facial features in the dark.

Standing tentatively in the doorway, Elias looks at you with tear-rimmed eyes. “Y/N, I think I’m going to get benched.”

☼☼☼☼

His suspicions were, unfortunately, right. The decision to bench Elias had apparently been made on the plane ride home, but he wasn’t informed until the team meeting after practice the next morning. You knew something bad had happened because when he came home there was no conversation. He slipped through the door like a ghost and disappeared into his room. You knew better than to go after him right away – Elias is the type of person who needs to process his emotions alone before sharing them with others.

You busy yourself with editing the chunk of your thesis proposal that has occupied your brain for the past few weeks. It’s getting closer to the end of your first year of graduate school, and you need to get approval for your topic soon. You hope to research the effects of locker room speech on athletes’ mental health. The focus group will be the Vancouver Whitecaps, and you’re excited to work with them. Your advisor has some personal connections and pulled a few strings to get you the gig and you’re extremely thankful.

An hour or two passes before Elias pads his way into the main living area. Wordlessly he flops onto the couch and holds his arms up in the air. You can read Elias like a book – you know he wants you to stop working and lie on top of him. The action brings him comfort, which he desperately needs in this moment, so you don’t have an issue with it. On your way over you grab a banana from the fruit bowl and offer it to him. He takes it, but sets it gently on the coffee table.

Once you’re settled, Elias wraps his arms around your body, holding you to him like he’s scared you’ll slip through his fingers otherwise. You absentmindedly trace patterns on his forearms for a while, letting the silence soothe him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

It’s a shot in the dark, you know, but you try anyway. Elias doesn’t answer, instead asking you what you did while he was gone. You indulge him, knowing it’s the only way to take his mind off the heartache, and narrate the menial chores you did in painstaking detail. It seems to help, and eventually Elias brings his own anecdotes into the conversation, telling you something dumb Brock had whispered in his ear at practice.

Eventually Elias has to get ready to go to the rink. Though he isn’t playing he’s expected to be there, dressed sharply and watching from the press box. You help him as best you can – ironing his favourite tie and filling his lucky mug with just the right amount of coffee.

He gives you a short hug in thanks before bending down to tie his dress shoes.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” you ask. “I can easily get a press pass and we could sit together.”

Elias shakes his head. “You have work to get done. I’ll be fine sunshine,” he says, doing his best to convince himself along with you that everything will be alright.

You watch him open the door and gingerly blow him a kiss as he turns to wave goodbye. It’s a silly ritual the two of you started a few years ago, before you’d moved in with Elias. He insisted you spend time with him before each home game, which meant you wound up cooking dinner and making sure he drank enough water. To annoy him you started blowing him kisses as he left, and the tradition continued once his place became yours. Elias catches it with his left hand and blows one back.

Not much work gets done while Elias is gone. You’re too worried about him to focus on your proposal and end up with your eyes glued to the television as you watch the game. The Canucks desperately need a win, something you hope they can get so your best friend can be put back into the lineup. Your eyes zero on Elias every time the camera pans to him sitting in the rafters, and your heart breaks each time you see the defeated look in his eyes. It seems to have worsened since he left home.

The game does not go well for the Canucks. It’s as if the team isn’t communicating with one another on the ice, and a lot of passes don’t connect. Shots aren’t on goal either – you know Elias is fuming from within the press box. He feels responsible for the team’s deterioration even though he isn’t playing. You watch the rest of the game with furrowed brows and think of ways you could support Elias.

After sharing a space with him for almost an entire trip around the sun, you know Elias doesn’t like ‘grand’ gestures. He’ll hate if you draw him a bath, and besides, that’s not something roommates or best friends do for each other. That’s strictly reserved for romantic partners – something you’re sure you will never be to Elias. Ordering food is out of the question because he refuses to eat after nine-thirty, and sure it’ll be past ten before he walks through the door. You settle on warming up his favourite blanket in the dryer and making the both of you a cup of tea. If he wants to take them into his room to spend time alone and decompress that will be okay with you.

Your phone chimes from its resting place on the kitchen counter. Wondering if it’s a friend wanting an explanation to Elias’s absence from the game, you grumble on your way to the device. The notification is from Elias himself, and you open it with baited breath. You know he’s devastated and pray he’s only letting you know he’s on his way home, not sharing bad news.

Heading out now. Probably going to get stuck in traffic, got any sad song recommendations?

The message makes your heart break, but you respond with a playlist link that features your favourite songs to cry to. A short message is tacked on to the end to let him know you’re always ready to support him.

Hopefully this fits the mood. I’m here for you.

Elias’s response fills you with a small bit of hope.

I know.

You set your plan into motion, and finish pouring the boiling tea into your favourite mugs as the door opens.

“Hey,” you say tentatively, not sure what Elias’s mood will be like now that he doesn’t have to have his guard up. “I made you a cup of tea and there’s a blanket in the dryer that should still be pretty warm.”

“Thank you,” he mumbles, but it doesn’t make his words any less sincere. You can tell Elias is drained in every sense of the word by looking at him, and you decide you aren’t going to push him to talk tonight. The communication can come a bit later.

The blonde trudges down the hallway to the small room where you keep the laundry and reappears moments later wrapped in the plush navy blanket you had prepared for him. Elias doesn’t even bother to change, too exhausted to get out of his suit. You blow some of the steam away from his mug before picking it up and padding over to where he’s sitting on the couch. Elias takes the mug gratefully, and tries to smile at you in thanks. It comes out more like a grimace.

It’s silent as the two of you sit side by side, staring out the large window at Vancouver’s skyline. The absence of noise isn’t as unsettling as you feared but it still puts you on edge. You can tell Elias’s emotions are beginning to boil over, and you aren’t sure what to do about it.

“It’s my fault,” he says, voice small and fragile.

When you turn your head to see him, you’re met with two ice blue eyes brimming with tears. Your heart breaks for what feels like the hundredth time that night. “Elias, listen to me,” you urge, grasping his hands in yours. “The game wasn’t your fault. You not being on the ice did not cause the team to lose.”

Elias scoffs and rolls his eyes. For a split-second, hurt seeps into your bones, but you dispel it because you know he’s upset and didn’t mean to be so abrasive.

“Not the game!” he shouts, anger clearly winning the mental battle of what emotion to present. “The entire fucking season. We’ve played like shit all year and it’s my fucking fault.”

“Elias,” you say as calmly as possible, knowing it’s important for one of you to be rational. “You’ve consistently put up points all season, and you’re only going through a short dry spell. You pick up the slack where needed and try your hardest to succeed. You’re a damn good teammate and the best hockey player I know. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.”

It’s then he breaks, collapsing into your wide open arms and sobbing. You hold him close to your chest, afraid that if you let him go he’ll disappear in front of your eyes. The sounds of his ragged breathing and your gentle encouragement bounce off the walls until all you can focus on is his heart rate returning to something in the ballpark of normal. Elias cries for an unknown amount of time and you don’t even bother to calculate it. He needed to let everything go – hopefully he can now turn the page on the past couple of months.

When he seems like he’ll respond again, you speak. “I know they put a lot of pressure on you, and I know that you’re a professional athlete, but what they’re doing to you isn’t right. E, you don’t deserve to feel like this, regardless of how you’re playing or where the team is in the standings.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” Elias hiccups. “Everything has become a lot lately, and it keeps piling up. It’s affecting my play, and I just want the team to be successful. I want to be successful.”

You wrap your arms around him tighter and card your hands through his hair. “You are successful, and don’t you dare let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m always available to talk, but if you’d like I can book you an appointment at the clinic and you can talk to someone who’s actually qualified.”

“You’re so close to being fully qualified,” he encourages, always wanting to make sure you matter too. “But that would be really nice. Thank you.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

That phrase had first confused Elias when you first directed it towards him, but he now understands it’s your way of saying ‘Of course. I’d do anything for you’. You rarely use the phrase with anyone else, and it makes him feel special inside.

Eventually you untangle your limbs from Elias’s, getting up to refill your mugs and insisting he change into clothing that’s more comfortable. He’s gone a lot longer from the couch than you are, and you begin to worry he won’t be reappearing. The creaking of a hinge wrangles you free from your thoughts. Elias pads back into the living room, dressed in a pair of ridiculously patterned pyjamas you had bought him two Christmases ago.

“Hey,” he practically whispers. “Can I tell you something?”

You do your best to keep the alarm you feel from appearing on your face. After the conversation you just had, his mind could be going in a million different directions. “Always,” you reply, volume matching his.

“If it weren’t for you, I don’t know if I’d still be playing hockey.” You make a sound of protest, but Elias doesn’t let you form it into a thought. “I’m dead serious. The night we met? I was a wreck. Sure, I was in the middle of a rookie season most players dream of, but I was so miserable. I cried every night on the way home from the rink and felt completely alone. You were the first person in Vancouver that didn’t expect anything of me, that still doesn’t. I’m so fucking thankful for you. I love you.”

Tears flow freely from your eyes and you raise the sleeve of your sweater to wipe them away. Elias isn’t one for heartfelt confessions – that’s much more your style. He shows his appreciation through random acts of kindness, so you deeply treasure his words.

“I love you too E.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand,” he insists. “I really love you. I don’t mean it platonically, and I never have.”

You’re sufficiently shocked. “Don’t say something you don’t mean,” you mumble, pushing off the couch to go hide in your room.

It’s Elias’s turn to grab your hand. His grip is gentle but still firm enough to let you know he isn’t going to drop the conversation.

“Why wouldn’t I mean it?”

“Because,” you sigh, “You’re Elias fucking Pettersson. You’re the star centre of an NHL team and there’s a million other people better suited for you than me! Sure, I might be head over heels for you but we aren’t on the same level. I’m your best friend E, and that’s okay. I can live with that. What I can’t live with is you letting emotion get the better of you and confessing something that isn’t true. You’re grateful for my support, and I think we should just leave it at that.”

He shakes his head fervently. “This isn’t a spur of the moment decision Y/N,” Elias says. “I’ve been debating telling you for months, but the season kind of derailed my plans and got in the way. I love you.”

Before you can process the gravity of his words, Elias is pressing his lips to yours in an effort to show just how sincere he is. You falter for a split-second, shocked that this isn’t a dream – your best friend, who you’ve had a crush on for years, is in love with you and you’re in the process of kissing him – but you recover quickly. Kissing Elias feels like a long awaited homecoming. It’s as though you’ve found true peace, and nothing will ever be as good as your lips connecting. You lose yourself in him quite easily, and only focus to your surroundings when he pulls away to look in your eyes.

“So,” Elias sheepishly tucks a misplaced strand of hair behind your ear. “Think I could take you out, like on an actual date?”

You beam at him, leaning forward to place a chaste kiss to his lips. “That can most certainly be arranged.”

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @jamiedrysdales @kiedhara @tortito @boqvistsbabe @iwantahockeyhimbo if you want to be added just shoot me an ask :)

#god i want to be petey's roommate turned lover so bad #elias pettersson imagine #elias pettersson x reader #elias pettersson fic #vancouver canucks imagine #hockey imagine #hockey fic #nhl imagine #nhl fic #cwrites #hiiapl

228 notes · View notes

lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks · 3 years

Text

I actually used my own experiences with grief and loss in this one, I could channel it better writing from Jazz's perspective

so yeah if you thought the last two were sad-

Part 3

Jazz had never gone ghost hunting with her mother before, at least never with just the two of them. It was uncomfortable, unfamiliar, like when her only friend at a party left her alone with someone she barely knew.

Her relationship with her mother had always been intellectual in nature, they would engage in philosophical debates over the ethics and morality of the ghost hunting profession while eating dinner, the discussions became far more intense after Jazz discovered Danny's secret. She was no longer debating simply for the sake of an interesting discussion, she was trying to introduce concepts that would smooth the way for when her brother was ready to reveal his other self to them.

It was a tactic she had used successfully many years before, albeit for a far more mundane reason.

Going ghost hunting with Maddie wasn't just uncomfortable because it was unfamiliar, it wasn't even because of her ethical disagreement with her mother's tactics.

It was because her father was supposed to be here.

Maddie rarely went hunting without Jack, not if she could help it, they had always been a team, they worked perfectly in synch with one another, but Jack wasn't here. Jazz was, and his shoes just didn't fit.

Jazz didn't have to go, technically, she wasn't even trying to help with the ghost hunting part, but... she couldn't let Maddie go alone.

Maddie was coping with Jack's death far worse than anyone.

From the moment they'd returned home from the hospital, after Jack had been declared dead, Maddie had been out every day and night hunting for the Wisconsin Ghost. It didn't matter to her that he hadn't been seen since that night, it didn't matter that he had always been too powerful for anyone to take on alone.

Maddie would drive around for hours, chasing any blip on her radar and ferociously ripping into any unfortunate ghost to cross her path.

Danny had been running damage control, warning the more agreeable ghosts to stay out of Amity, capturing the rest as covertly as possible, doing everything he could to stay away from Maddie while in his ghost form.

Jazz had been the only one left to do everything else. She had turned 18 just a few months before, so thankfully she had been legally able to sign all the documentation, to plan the funeral arrangements, the cremation, the obituary. All of it, by herself.

She was grateful, in a way. It gave her something to do, something to focus on that wasn't grief, that wasn't the cold empty hole in her life. Jack's presence had always been hard to ignore, his absence even more so.

Danny had tried to help with the preparations, when he wasn't in the ghost zone or cleaning up ghosts around town. He appeared to be holding himself together okay, but Jazz knew better, she knew that the guilt was eating him up from the inside. It didn't matter how many times she reassured him that he wasn't responsible for this, that he wasn't to blame, it made no difference.

It was only when Jazz had run out of tasks to do that she let herself cry.

She knew that sitting around was only going to make her feel worse, she couldn't let herself stew in her grief, she needed a purpose to pull her through. So she joined her mother on her feverish hours long hunts.

It was escapism, she knew that, for both of them. To Maddie, the hunting was something else to focus on so she could ignore her grief, it gave her a sense of control and purpose. Jazz was using looking out for her mother as her own distraction, her own grasp for purpose and control.

She knew these things, and she knew they were not entirely healthy, but she didn't know what else to do.

If this were anyone else she would have told them to seek out professional therapy, go to grief counselling, practice radical acceptance, to use visualisation exercises and grounding techniques to manage intrusive thoughts. Vengeance and fury weren't a healthy release, they would only build, they would only lead to more pain.

But her books hadn't prepared her for something like this, how could she seek help from someone she can't tell the whole truth? How could she grieve in peace when the justice system couldn't touch her father's murderer? He was still out there, he was still a threat. It was only a matter of time before he started working his way into Maddie's good graces, shamelessly emboldened by his successful assassination.

Jazz was furious when Danny insisted they keep Vlad's identity a secret. She understood where he was coming from. Her mother was struggling enough as it was, Jazz couldn't imagine what it would do to her to find out that it had been her husband's best friend all this time. That he had murdered Jack because he wanted her, the guilt alone would be soul crushing, and then there was the certainty that Vlad would reveal Danny's identity in return.

She couldn't even imagine...

Jazz was still angry, angry that Danny had to be the one to say it, angry that he was right, angry that he could be so rational while inside she was falling to pieces. She knew better, she knew how much he was hurting on the inside too, she knew that he was just good at hiding it, much better than she was.

She was still angry, but they both knew she wasn't angry at him.

When she got up that morning, her mother had been in the lab, her weaponry was getting more dangerous, less capture oriented and more destructive. Jazz wasn't sure if working down there was better than the hunting or worse, but at least no unsuspecting ghosts were getting torn to pieces.

Jazz had witnessed a few first-hand, it was bad enough seeing it happen to the formless, barely sentient poltergeists, she didn't want to know what a true spirit would look like, being eviscerated with such malice. She imagined a ghost like Johnny, laying on the ground with chunks ripped from his-

No, no that wasn't helpful, that was an intrusive thought, she needed to acknowledge its presence and move on, it didn't help her, let it go, like leaves on a string, let it go...

It would be back later, she knew.

Her breakfast was suddenly incredibly unappealing, not that that was anything new. She wouldn't be surprised if she'd lost weight over the last week, her clothes already felt just a little too loose.

A sudden and intense pang of longing hit her fast and hard, she missed him. It had only been a week and she already missed him so much. She just wanted him to wrap his big arms around her and hold her close and dig his chin into her hair in that way that annoyed her and tell her everything was okay Jazzypants and... and he was the only one who ever called her that. She hated it. She'd never hear it again...

She pushed her bowl of cereal away and stood, her eyes burning. She had to find something else to do, to keep her mind busy.

She went around the living room, clearing the coffee table and fluffing the pillows, there was a stain on the lounge, probably from a bit of fudge-

The curtains were looking dusty, they could probably use a clean, would they fit in the washing machine or would they need to be hand washed?

She'd started trying to unhook them from the curtain rod when the lab door banged open loudly, Jazz jumped, startled. She ran to the kitchen to find her mother in tears, hand over her mouth like she was trying to hold it all back. Jazz wrapped her arms around her and Maddie grasped onto her tight, like she was afraid she would be snatched away at a moment's notice.

Jazz rocked slightly and ran a hand up and down her mother's back comfortingly as they each cried into the other's shoulder. Maddie hadn't cried like this since the first night, Jazz recognised it as a good sign, she was letting herself feel again.

"Where is he?" Maddie stammered, "W-where'd he go, where'd he go?"

Jazz just squeezed tighter, it was a difficult question for someone who studied the dead for a living, to wonder what happened after. They were never a religious family, being raised by scientists there was never talk of a heaven or hell, just the ghost zone, what lay beyond that was a mystery to them all, even the ghosts.

She sniffed, she could feel tears clinging to her eyelashes, and an odd itch to her scalp.

"Jazz?" Danny's voice echoed down the stairs.

She heard Danny come into the room behind her, he made an odd sound, a quick and quiet intake of breath. Was he trying not to cry? Jazz hadn't seen him cry once, not since he was dragged off of Vlad that night, bruised knuckles dripping red. They were tears of fury then, she would never forget the sound of Danny's ragged screams as he pummelled Vlad into the ground, despite all the hands trying to pull him off the man.

Vlad had simply taken the beating, he'd use it later, she knew. He would forgive Danny, say it that he deserved it for failing to fight off that terrible awful Wisconsin Ghost when it overshadowed him. He would say it was all his fault, that he deserved all that pain and more, he was oh so sorry.

And Maddie would forgive him, because it wasn't his fault, it was that awful awful ghost. Vlad could never do something so terrible to his best friend. Vlad would always be welcome in their home, and welcome he would make himself. Jazz could see it all, and she could do nothing about it.

Danny placed a hand on his mother's shoulder. "Maybe you should do another lap around town, you might find something today." he pressed his head close to hers and spoke softly into her frazzled hair.

Jazz glanced at Danny with narrow eyes, annoyed and confused, their mother was finally making progress, and Danny was going to send her right back to her fruitless obsessive search for vengeance? He had to know it wasn't helpful, he had to.

He looked at her, wide eyed and thin lipped as he gave a quick jerk of the head and flick of the eyes to the front door. He wanted Maddie out of the house, for what reason Jazz didn't know and obviously couldn't ask, but she trusted her brother and did as she was told. Something was going on, but she would have to ask Danny about it later.

The day was warm and only a little humid, they drove with the windows down. Jazz enjoyed the wind on her face, she did not enjoy the silence.

It stretched on, unbroken by the radar as Danny's patrol earlier in the dawn had swept the town clean of ghost activity. It looked like Jazz wouldn't be watching another massacre today, she couldn't be more relieved.

"It's been quiet." Maddie said, out of the blue.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Guess it has," Jazz paused, "maybe you scared them all off?"

"They should be scared." Maddie's tone was low, threatening. If Jazz were a ghost she would be terrified.

There was more quiet, they passed the local park, the sound of kids playing and birds singing were loud for a few moments, until the trees disappeared into the distance behind them and the quiet returned.

"Haven't seen much of Phantom either." Maddie spat. "I'm surprised he hasn't shown up to gloat."

Pain shot through Jazz like an arrow, she would have to warn Danny to make extra sure to stay out of their mother's way, she was very clearly ready to shift a whole lot of misplaced aggression directly onto him.

She considered challenging her mother's assumption, but thought it best not to provoke her right now. Instead she merely hummed an acknowledgment.

They drove past the school, empty for the summer. Jazz's final exams had only just ended before her father's birthday, but she had missed graduation. She didn't want to go without him there, she was supposed to give a speech, she was too busy writing a eulogy.

They passed a group of people she knew from school, they gave her a little wave. Despite Jack's notoriety, everyone had been sad to hear the news, they'd sent a giant card around the school and everyone she knew had signed it, including the teachers, and everyone in Danny's year too. Mr Lancer brought it to the house with an enormous bouquet, he couldn't convince the school to pay for one so he bought it out of his own pocket.

Jazz had gotten texts and private messages, all saying they were here for her if she ever needed to talk. She responded to most of them, but sometimes she just sent a heart emoji. It was easier than writing the same thank you message over and over. She didn't take any of them up on the offer.

The drive wasn't too bad honestly, without any ghosts showing up it was almost relaxing. Maddie hadn't said much else other than a few observations about the traffic or the weather. When Jazz suggested getting some lunch Maddie had opted to use the Nasty Burger drive through so they could eat in the van. Jazz was grateful, she didn't want to run into anyone else from school.

Her phone buzzed, it was Danny sending her a thumbs up, they were safe to go home.

"We should probably head home." Jazz suggested, slurping the last of her drink. "We've been all over town, there's nothing here."

Maddie grit her teeth but revved up the van and turned toward FentonWorks.

As soon as they were through the door Maddie headed to the lab, presumably to drown herself in more work. Jazz headed up the stairs where Danny waited for her.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Danny shushed her looking over her shoulder down the stairs.

"It's fine she's in the lab," Jazz reassured him, "what's going on?"

He didn't answer, just grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward his room, closing the door behind them and locking it.

"I'm going to try something," he said, crossing the room to stand before her, "But I think you should sit down first."

Jazz frowned but she sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Is this about Vlad? Did he come here?" A rush of heat spilled over her face, "If that son of a bitch tried anything I'll-"

"Jazz it's fine, it's not Vlad, it's fine." Danny breathed, running a hand through his hair nervously. "It's just, I'm trying something but I need you here to tell me if it works, okay?"

He nibbled his lip anxiously but he also seemed... almost excited about something. Had he developed a new power?

Jazz nodded and paid close attention as Danny took a few steps back and put a hand up, palm facing to the side and away from himself, his fingers curled slightly as if grabbing for something.

He took a deep breath and the heat of the summer air chilled, a trail of green mist flowed over his hand and began to form a shape in the air beside him.

Almost immediately as it began to form Jazz knew.

She leapt to her feet to stand before the large figure revealing itself gradually before her, when the mist crept over a square jaw and close cropped haircut she threw her hands over her mouth to stifle her gasping breaths.

"Dad." she breathed, she reached for him but didn't dare touch, afraid that she would ruin the illusion. Was he here? Was he real? She looked to Danny but his eyes were closed, face scrunched in concentration. He peeked at her for a moment, his grimace lifting into a strained smile.

"It's him." said Danny, through gritted teeth, "Say hi."

Jazz cried as Jack lifted a hand toward her face, he was still a translucent shimmering green, but she was certain she could see tears on his face. He mouthed words that she couldn't hear, but she knew them all the same.

Hey Jazzypants.

She was sobbing hard as she grasped the hand cupping her face, her fingers went right through it, but she could feel it, like she could feel his palm against her cheek. It was cold, and so light it almost tickled, but she could feel it.

She tried again, very gently feeling for that slight resistance to the air and holding her hand against it, she couldn't touch him for real, she couldn't hold him, but she could feel him. That was enough.

"I missed you dad." She smiled through her tears, "I missed you so much."

His features were still hard to make out, but it was clear he was smiling, he mouthed more words.

"Sorry, I can't hear you." said Jazz, sadly.

"He says he liked the obituary." Danny grunted, eyes still squeezed shut. "He knew you wrote it, he could tell."

Jazz laughed, it was only a little hysterical. Danny's hand trembled against Jack's arm. Jazz wanted to tell him he could stop now, but she didn't want her dad to go, not yet.

She raised her hands to cup his face, only just feeling the whisper of a few bristles on his chin. She didn't know what to say, what could she say?

"I'm so glad you're here," she said quietly with as much feeling as she could, "but, why are you here? You said you'd never... you'd never..."

Jack said nothing, but glanced over to Danny, whose hair had started streaking with white and glinting with crystalline shards of ice.

"Don't get to choose." He growled, his voice sounded distorted, his jaw clenched so hard Jazz could hear his teeth grinding, "Happens or it doesn't."

Danny's lips were pulled back in a pained snarl and were turning blue, his canines were sharpening as blinding flashes of green slipped from beneath his eyelids. A large puff of opaque mist rolled from his mouth upon each laboured exhale.

Jazz gave her father a careful hug, trying to lean into him without falling through.

"We're gonna figure this out dad I promise we're gonna figure it out."

She could feel his arms around her, the slight pressure reminding her of being buffeted by a strong gust of wind.

Danny took that as his cue, he pulled his hand back with a ragged cry and Jack's misty green form dissipated like smoke in a breeze.

Jazz stared into the empty space her dad's face had only just filled moments ago.

"Is he still here?" She asked, voice trembling.

"Yuh- yeah," Danny huffed, he was bent over, catching his breath. "I can suh- still see him, and hear him."

He stood straight as he pulled in a deep lungful of air. Then he laughed, a rough, exhausted laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

"I'm so glad that worked, oh Ancients. I'm gonna need a minute." he crashed onto the bed face down.

"What exactly did you do?" Jazz asked, eyes still locked on the space where Jack had been, and presumably was still, standing.

"Dad only just formed a consciousness this morning," Danny grumbled into his bedding. "He's still warm, hasn't manifested a core yet. I just loaned him some energy."

"Still warm?" Jazz turned her nose up at the phrase.

"Yeah, it's uh, ghost slang. Means freshly dead, y'know like the body's still-"

"Yeah yeah I get it," Jazz waved a hand dismissively. "Gross."

"That's what dad said."

"Yeah! Because it's gross!"

Danny laughed, but it was barely more than a breathy huff. Jazz eyed him carefully, he was a little more pale than usual, there were bags beneath his eyes, his cheeks were a little hollow and his lips were still tinged with blue. All his usual signs of overexertion, but other than that he looked relatively okay.

"Why was it so exhausting?" Jazz asked. "I would've thought you'd have more than enough energy to share, especially for something as simple as visibility."

"Amount isn't the issue." Danny raised a finger pointedly, "Simple is the issue, imagine trying to fill a water balloon with a fire hose."

Jazz balked.

"Wait, that sounds unbelievably dangerous!" Jazz glared at Danny and then back at the empty room, "What happens to dad if you lose control?"

Danny groaned and flipped himself over onto his back, an arm flung over his eyes.

"Don't get mad at me it was his idea." Danny glared at the empty space for a beat before barking, "Was too!"

Jazz rolled her eyes, "Oh my god you are both children." She turned to Danny and pointed a thumb over her shoulder, "I can't hear him so you're going to have to tell me, what would happen to him if you lost control?"

Danny pressed his lips together and muttered guiltily, "He... could'a destabilised."

"He WHAT?!"

"I told you it was his idea!"

"I don't care whose idea it was!" Jazz alternated between glaring at Danny and at the space behind her. "You're both idiots for trying something so risky! There wasn't some way to practice?!"

"What do think we were doing while you were gone!" Danny exclaimed, "Also he's standing over there now, he moved so he wouldn't feel like you were yelling at him."

Jazz planted a hand over her face, and shook her head in disbelief, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, her dad had been back for not even ten minutes and she was already yelling at him.

She spluttered a choked up giggle, wiping her eyes and sniffling.

"God I missed you dad." Jazz said, before she started bawling.

#lula's fanfics #danny phantom #tw death #tw loss #tw grief #yeah I really feel like I need these tags this time #danny phantom fanfiction #Bitter

71 notes · View notes

captaincoffeegirl515 · 3 years

Text

What the hell was that last act???

So first of all I want to say that I did enjoy most of the movie. It was okay. The sex scenes didn’t do anything for me though since I’m just not interested in sex at all. But while I more-or-less liked the movie, I felt that the big plot twists in the last act and the ending were badly done because… how the fuck did ANY of them manage to get away with ANY OF THAT??? Like from a legal standpoint it’s just ???

This got so much longer than I anticipated, so the rest is under the read more. And yes, there are so many spoilers. So if you haven't seen The Voyeurs yet and don't want spoilers, please avoid this.

Seb and Julia literally confess to selling their old apartment in order to spy on the people who live there and use them for their art show. Like, yes, they put that clause in the Terms of Agreement for the apartment (which literally no one ever reads) but there is still the matter of Informed Consent. Informed Consent is usually in the form of a contract Pippa and Thomas both need to read and sign, or via verbal questions and answers which is filmed so Seb and Julia would have physical proof of an agreement. This is basically telling them what footage was taken, how it will be used, and if Seb and Julia have permission to share the footage publicly. In Thomas’ case, since he’s dead, his next-of-kin will be asked. Only then are Seb and Julia legally allowed to publicly share and showcase the Pippa and Thomas’ pictures. And Seb is a professional photographer! He should know that!

Have you ever seen prank shows? Like even the ones on YouTube. Have you noticed at the end of some videos, there would be a part where the filmers would approach the person who was pranked and ask if they could use their footage in the video. That’s Informed Consent. They need to ask permission to use a person’s footage in a video or if they need to blur out the person’s face for privacy. Seb and Julia even showed a picture of a dead man for chrissakes! Remember the outcry when that YouTuber posted a video of a suicide victim in Japan???

The Japanese interviewer was right to disapprove of their methods because even though there was a clause in the Terms of Agreement, the prank (because isn’t that what that whole show they did was?) or experiment still resulted with someone killing themself (yes I know it was murder, but the world doesn't know it). They can possibly still be held liable for causing Thomas to kill himself the same way a prankster can be held liable if their victim dies from a prank because of this thing in Law called the Eggshell Rule or Eggshell Plaintiff.

What this means is that a defendant is liable for any injuries caused by the defendant’s actions, regardless of how unforeseeable or uncommon the plaintiff’s reactions to the defendant’s actions are. So for example, there is a scary prank where the prankster jumps out of the bushes and terrifies people. One of them turns out to have a heart condition, suffers a heart attack, and dies. Regardless of the victim’s frailty, the prankster can be held liable for exacerbating the condition and causing the victim’s death. Likewise in the movie, they can say that Seb and Julia, by orchestrating the whole thing and making Thomas see his girlfriend cheating on him, could have caused him to become broken-hearted and kill himself. Therefore, Seb and Julia can be liable for Thomas’ death.

And then here’s the kicker! The famous photographer and his wife, a famous model, both suddenly end up blind AFTER their big art show where they displayed Pippa’s scandal. And not by accident. No. This was obviously surgically done. And NOBODY suspected foul play?? Nobody thought about revenge?? Nobody thought it strange how their blindness was clearly done with a surgical/medical precision nor suspected the couple’s subject, Pippa, who they thoroughly humiliated, who also worked as an optometrist technician at a lab that has the machines that could cause that kind of blindness??? And they're both still alive! They can easily tell the police who did it!

It should have been way too easy for the police to know that it was foul play. Blood tests can tell that Seb and Julia had been drugged. How they were blinded can be traced to the optometry lab. Pippa would be the easiest main suspect due to her connection to them with revenge as the main motivation after they humiliated her in that art show.

And yes, I agree that what Seb and Julia did was wrong. They used Pippa and Thomas, and then murdered Thomas so they can have some juicy story to tell!

Even so, what happened to Ethical Codes in the medical field? What happened to the Hippocratic Oath? Non-maleficience rule? “Do No Harm”? Pippa should have been slammed with, idk, medical malpractice or something, after using her knowledge of the LASIK machine and using it to permanently blind people (which is an actual fear real people have about LASIK surgery), have her license revoked, be fired from her job, and possibly serve jail time. Why is she walking free all willy-nilly and still being allowed to continue stalking Seb and Julia?

I’ll admit though that maybe I’m being more harsh towards Pippa because I myself used to be a Board Certified medical professional (my license expired last year because I hadn't been working in that field for a while) and because of that, her actions angered and horrified me more.

Normally, we as an audience are made to root for the main character or hero, but I found it difficult to do so because Pippa herself is a terrible person. She's a pervert and a creep. She was obsessed with the lives of other people, stalked them, and even went as far as committing crimes in order to fuel her obsession - trespassing, breaking and entering, destruction of private property.

And my goodness this actually makes me think of a few Ben Hardy stans who are like this. Well, idk if going to Ben's school so that she can get a copy of a school film he was in can be considered a crime, but it's still fucking creepy.

Pippa’s got that Savior Complex where she tries to rescue this poor neglected wife from her horrible cheating husband (the same one she herself wants to fuck because she’s obsessed with him). And then when it all goes south, she immediately turns around and blames THOMAS of all people because “he started it”. Like, so what if he did?? He still had enough maturity to realize when they were taking it too far, and decided to stop with the stalking. He told her to stop multiple times but she was too blinded by her obsession and lust for a man that she doesn’t even know.

AND THEN!! She stalked a grieving husband (I know we know that was a lie but Pippa didn't know that) and proceeded to cheat on her boyfriend with said grieving husband. And frankly, I don’t understand why she’s so vengeful about Thomas’ death considering how easily she forgot him so that she could cheat on him. Like. Who knows, maybe he still would’ve killed himself regardless of the poisoned drink because the last thing he saw was his girlfriend cheating on him with the man she’d been obsessed with for the past idk how long. Even in the scene after Thomas died, there was a momentary grief where Pippa was all “it’s my fault Thomas died” but it was all too brief and immediately after she went back to obsessing and asking about Seb. And they want me to believe that she’d want to avenge Thomas’ death? No. I think she blinded Seb and Julia because she was angry at being called out for her obsession. For being told that she was wrong to go that far. It wasn’t about her “love” for Thomas. It was about how humiliated she was about being wrong.

Can you believe that Pippa gave this whole speech with the fable about being content with what you have and not to try to be greedy by wanting more and then she just immediately DOES THE OPPOSITE OF THE MORAL by cheating on her boyfriend because she wanted more aka Seb???

The more that I think about it, I feel like the true villain of the movie is Pippa herself. Her obsession with Seb is what started the whole thing. If she had been able to keep a healthy distance, none of that would’ve happened to begin with. There would be no fights over how far things were going. Seb would have no scandal to tell. She worsened Thomas’ insecurities of not being enough for her, making him go to great lengths just to try to please her. Poor Thomas. He truly deserved better.

Pippa also has awful friends. Instead of stamping down the creepy behavior, they’re giving tips on how to listen in on other people’s private conversations! And then later try to excuse her cheating on Thomas. And then help with her obsession AGAIN.

Acting-wise, I felt that Natasha, Ben, and Justice were incredible and I loved them. I love how conflicted Ben played Seb and how you can see it in his eyes. My favorite scene was the one where Seb and Julia had that confrontation over the wine where Seb asks if she ever felt guilty and Julia just stares right back and stares him down. Natasha was brilliant as Julie pretending to be all friendly and vulnerable with Pippa. Justice was very emotional and I love the scenes where he was horrified at how far Pippa was taking everything. For me, Sydney was the weakest one at acting. While there were some okay parts, her face can be really stiff at some points, like during the sex scenes.

Overall, I thought the movie to be quite thought-provoking especially in this day and age where people can find the most intimate details of another person’s life so easily, be that through Carrd, Instagram stories, Facebook feeds, and other social media sites. It makes you think about parasocial relationships, how people can be so obsessed about people that they’ve never even met, and how that obsession can easily grow into something dangerous that can ruin lives. Good movie, terrible last act. Too much sex for my taste, but then it wouldn’t be called an erotic movie.

Outside of the movie, I really love the chemistry between the four of them. I love watching their interviews and seeing how they interact with each other.

Last but not the least, I know this may be random but my brain likes to zoom in on the weirdest things. How on earth did Pippa manage to get Seb on top of that operating table?? No offense but Pippa is fucking tiny. Seb’s like twice her size and mostly muscle AND unconscious. Like ??? Sorry but that threw me off so much it’s ridiculous.

#ben hardy #natasha liu bordizzo #justice smith #sydney sweeney

21 notes · View notes