#otherwise we are worse than the brand accounts and I mean that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nickgerlich · 2 years

Text

Doing More With Less

The American mindset has long been one of manifest destiny. Whether pillaging and plundering the land and people as we expanded westward, or with firms today in the corporate capitalist era, it is a “take no prisoners” philosophy. Bigger is better, and More is always better than Less.

And for better or worse, it has helped propel us into wealthiest nation status. Investors dig it.

But not all companies buy into it, and oddly enough, have even prospered by going against the flow. Call it salmoning or whatever, these companies—albeit few—are swimming upstream when everyone else is heading to the ocean.

There is probably no better example of this than Trader Joe’s, the cult-popular grocery chain headquartered in Monrovia California that has 569 stores in the US. Its smallish stores—by today’s standards—stock only about 4000 SKUs, a far cry from the 45,000 available at larger modern supermarkets.

Trader Joe’s, which is owned by Germany’s Aldi Nord, bullishly proclaims its “Less Is More” tag line whenever it can. It’s also a take-it-or-leave-it statement as well, but thus far, it has paid off handsomely, with sales of US$16.5 billion. With about 50,000 employees, each worker generates US$330,000 in sales.

It was during COVID that TJ’s operating mantra was put to the test. Most of its competitors, including first-cousin Aldi (owned by Germany’s Aldi Sud), boosted their online presence, with many also offering curbside pickup and/or delivery. Trader Joe’s wanted nothing of that.

And that is because the company firmly believes its brand is the experience, and you cannot replicate that experience anywhere outside of its stores. You either shop there, or forget it. Given that its stores are small by design and often in or near shopping centers, the addition of order pickers and delivery vehicles would unnecessarily clutter the whole space. That, of course, would help ruin the experience on which TJ’s hangs its hat.

Their product assortment is also ever-shifting, reflecting a heavy emphasis on seasonal products (pumpkin is king right now, but you better hurry, because once those products are gone, you’re out of luck until next year). The company is also dedicated to innovation, something that keeps people coming back (side note: their plant-based spinach ravioli is to die for). Other items rotate through availability, meaning that every time you go to TJ’s, its equal parts shopping and discovery.

You never know what you’ll find, again, because it is part of the experience.

With 80% of their products being private label—meaning TJ’s contracts with companies to manufacture them and put a TJ’s marque on them—it leads to higher profit margins. Typical nationally-branded grocery items often have a 20-22% margin, which, after overhead is deducted, leaves a slim 1-2% profit margin for most other grocers.

Their laid-back nautical-themed atmospherics, complete with friendly employees who are paid to answer customer questions, give advice, and walk them to the right product, reinforce the experience. And employees will even open an item to let you try before you buy, whenever that is possible.

Their “less is more” strategy also applies to its marketing, which is centered primarily on a podcast, Instagram, and a monthly in-store newsletter called the Fearless Flyer. The store has such loyal customers that fan-based Instagram accounts have popped up that showcase products and recipes. Otherwise, their marketing efforts focus on reinforcing the message, which is to come to the store.

Making matters somewhat complicated is TJ’s resistance to reckless expansion. It routinely receives hundreds of requests each year from people imploring them to build a store near them, but it is just not going to happen. They would rather people like me travel prepared with an ice chest and freezer bag so that when we are near a TJ’s store (which for me would be OKC, Dallas, Albuquerque, or Santa Fe, all four or more hours away), we load up. And I do. Heck, three weeks ago I spent $200 at one of the Dallas stores.

Adding glitter to the scene, TJ’s devotees even collect their city and state reusable shopping bags that are sold in-store for $1. Look on eBay and you’ll see what I mean. Once we figured this out, we started selling off our collection. My wife sold two Oklahoma bags for a total of $98. Not a bad ROI. As a result, we routinely buy several in each TJ’s state we visit. Even if they don’t sell, we use them for shopping, or as gift bags.

All of which illustrates that, for every glowing generalization I or anyone else makes, there are exceptions, and Trader Joe’s has hit pay dirt by doing less. There is always the possibility of finding a pot of gold far out on the tails of the customer distribution.

And that is a destiny that Trader Joe’s has made manifest.

Dr “More Or Less“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #groceries #supermarkets #Trader Joe's #retail

8 notes · View notes

the-lone-witch-and-secret-room · 3 years

Text

Camila Noceda and Flawed Parenting

A perspective by a flawed person with loving but extremely flawed parents

I’m genuinely baffled at some people’s hostile reaction towards Camila. Like… do any of you have flawless parents that always know the best solution instantly, make no mistakes and never get emotional?

My parents are great. They’re super supportive and I love them very, very much. Overall I think I got very lucky in the parents department.

But god, they are far from flawless. I still live at home, and despite all the good, there’s moments when I can’t take my dad anymore. He’s the kind of dad that stayed up until two am to help me with homework when I was in school, and he does so, so many things to make sure I’m happy. I know that. But despite all of this, I have told my mom in emotional moments before that I’m not sure if I can keep living with him, because for all his good sides, he has a couple of fatal flaws that sometimes make him unbearable.

My mom listens to me and is very open to being educated on certain topics, but she has her flaws, too. She hates when I fight with my dad, and gets so torn up about it that I’ve once apologized to my dad out of fear of her getting into a car crash otherwise. She’s very vocal about certain flaws of mine, and sometimes uses the things she does for me as leverage against me when she gets very emotional.

And both of my parents pay a lot more attention to my brother because he needs it more, because he’s more of a “problem child” while I “seem so capable” even when I’m not.

And guess what? I’m not a perfect child. I make mistakes sometimes, some of them pretty severe. Just like Luz, I’m the kind of person that struggles to communicate certain issues of mine to her parents. I’m stubborn, and when I get emotional, I say very hurtful things sometimes. So do they.

And this has nothing to do with my parents being horrible or abusive. They’re neither of those things.

The takeaway from this should not be that my entire family is made up of terrible people, but that we’re all flawed in our own ways, despite loving each other and trying our best. There’s things about my parents I wish I could change, and there are things about me that my parents wish they could change. And to an extent, that’s perfectly normal.

In our strengths and flaws and frustration with each other, we’re all human.

Specific, spoiler-y Camila and Luz things under the cut since this got very long.

We have no indication that Camila has a pattern of emotionally manipulating Luz. Her “emotional manipulation” as I’ve seen some people put it, is people for some reason thinking that the second you become an adult, you’re suddenly perfect and can no longer make mistakes, lest you’ll be dubbed horrible and abusive.

The whole concept is absurd to me. There is no perfect way to parent. There simply isn’t. Of course, there’s some genuinely abusive patterns that are horrible and inexcusable. But out of the parenting styles that aren’t, which one works depends on a number of factors, one of which absolutely includes that every child is different and has different needs. Camila is an amazing parent for Vee, giving the kid everything she’s ever longed for. She’s not an ideal parent for Luz. And that’s because Luz and Vee have fundamentally different needs.

Likewise, Luz is a pretty great child for Eda, but not a perfect fit for Camila. Luz relates to Eda a lot more than she relates to her mom, and that’s why the two of them have an easier time understanding each other. Both of these mother-child relationships exist, and one is not more doomed to fail than the other, but I think you’ll agree that the better you understand someone and where they’re coming from, the easier it is to communicate, pick up on certain signs, etc.

As mom and daughter, Camila and Luz are both flawed and have issues seeing the other’s perspective because of how different they are. And we should simultaneously acknowledge both of their roles in the issue and give both of them the space to learn and grow past those issues.

Luz struggles to communicate her problems. She doesn’t want to burden people in the demon realm, and it’s a given that this started out as not wanting to burden her mom. So she keeps quiet about her issues. Camila tries hard but can’t read her daughter’s mind, so there’s only so much she can do to understand and help the way Luz needs her to. Hell, Eda, who Luz is a lot more open with than her mom, struggles to help her, because Luz doesn’t tell her what’s wrong. I don’t see anyone calling Eda a terrible mom for that.

Camila tries her best, but she struggles to understand her daughter because of this, and because of how fundamentally different they are. She loves Luz’s creativity, we actively see her supporting it in the new episode—she keeps the weird stuff Luz made because she thinks Luz will regret throwing it away, and even plays along in what she assumes to be some elaborate role play because “she’s glad Luz kept her creativity even though it’s not made things easy for her at school”. But at the beginning of the show, said creativity got out of hand and people got hurt. Luz could’ve gotten hurt. So of course Camila had to interfere. I love Luz dearly, but she thought it was okay to bring snakes to school and set off fireworks inside a school building. Creativity is great. Doing reckless stuff that causes people to get hurt is not.

In sending Luz to camp, Camila tried to have someone else fix her issue because she didn’t know how to help Luz. That was a mistake, and a bad one at that, but she’s realizing that. She looks disheartened when Vee tries to throw out Luz’s stuff, because she never meant to change her daughter or take that part of her away. She just thought Luz needed a reality check—which, for the record, is something the narrative actually agrees with.

Luz spends her time in the demon realm getting reality check after reality check, realizing that even her ideal fantasy world where she has everything she always wanted doesn’t mean she’s free of consequences. She goes overboard constantly, causing:

-Eda to be forced to fly into a trap because Luz is chasing a fantasy (Witches before Wizards)

-Eda to almost be branded by her sister because Luz doesn’t think through why Eda doesn’t use magic to publicly announce her presence constantly (Once Upon a Swap)

-Eda and the twins to get kidnapped by a Slitherbeast because Luz stole Amity’s wand (Adventures in the Elements)

-Her friends to get hurt when she goes overboard trying to help Willow (Wing it like Witches)

-Eda to be captured and almost petrified because Luz thought she could just steal from the Emperor with no consequences in an attempt to help (Agony of a Witch)

I’m like 90% sure these aren’t even all. None of those make her a terrible person, for the record, but as all humans are, she is flawed and makes bad choices. She learns from these experiences and matures, just like her mom had hoped she would at camp. She’s also made friends there, which was another thing Camila wanted for her daughter.

You’ll probably realize that a lot of Luz’s behaviors I mentioned follow one of two patterns: 1. Luz’s idealized fantasy world causing problems, when she walks around with rose tinted glasses and gets people in trouble in the process because she hasn’t thought about the consequences, and 2. Luz trying to help someone she loves, but instead making things worse in the progress. The issue with this one is often that she doesn’t communicate her ideas/listen to the people she’s trying to help—like when Willow and Gus said they’ve had enough of Grudgby, or how she never actually talks to Eda about the healing hat idea before doing something reckless.

…does the latter one sound familiar to you at all? No? Because it’s the exact same thing that Camila did.

Some of the things Luz does are reckless and actively endanger others and herself, and that’s something that I think we need to acknowledge before judging Camila. As Luz’s mom, it’s Camila’s job to interfere in those situations. That she made a mistake while trying to protect Luz doesn’t make her a terrible person, especially as, again, the narrative proves her right to an extent.

I’m not saying her making Luz promise to come back and stay isn’t something that hurt Luz—it absolutely is. But it was born out of desperation. She’s emotional and in shock. She’s so full of pain and regret. She just wants her fourteen year old daughter home safe, and there’s nothing abusive or even morally ambiguous about that.

From Luz’s perspective, what she says is absolutely heartbreaking, but from Camila’s, it’s perfectly reasonable. I doubt Camila has the full picture, but even if she does, she’s had a full fifteen seconds to process that her daughter has not only been lying to her for months, but chose to leave her, and is in the demon realm of all places. Of course she’d be emotional and upset about that! Who wouldn’t? Camila isn’t a robot. If she’d been calm about this I’d be way more concerned, honestly.

My parents don’t get mad that easily, but if I would lie to them for weeks on end, they’d be pissed off too, not even taking the running away from home part into account. That’s a normal thing. People don’t like being lied to. Camila is absolutely devastated in that moment because she’s scared that Luz left because she hates her, when Luz actively states that her leaving wasn’t about her mom—which is another thing we should really be acknowledging.

Abusive parents suck and abuse should obviously never be apologized or trivialized, but saying something hurtful in the heat of the moment isn’t the same thing as being an abusive parent. My parents have done this. I’ve done this. And yes, those things can be emotionally manipulative, but there’s a huge difference in whether that’s a habit or a person speaking out of hurt and desperation in a very specific context. I doubt there’s anyone on the entire planet that hasn’t had a bad moment where they’ve said something like this because they were hurting. People lash out when they hurt, and they beg for reassurance when they’re scared. That’s something we all do.

The whole mindset of “all parents have to be perfect and can never get upset or make any mistakes” is harmful as hell, and honestly also very unrealistic. No parent is perfect, and especially people like me who have a relationship with their parents that’s very good overall should know that.

Once you have a child, parenting is a non-stop learning process, every day for the rest of your life. Taking away that room to grow and expecting perfection isn’t helping anyone, especially not struggling single parents.

And I see Camila as someone who is very willing to learn, because at the end of the day, all she wants is for Luz to be happy. Let’s give her some time to wrap her head around this whole situation. Let’s see what she says once she sees for herself how happy Luz is in that world, may it be via the videos eventually coming through or Camila visiting and meeting Luz’s found family, her friends and her girlfriend.

Ultimately, I don’t think Camila will force Luz to stay at home, but we have to give her some time. She wants what’s best for Luz, and she’s gonna need some convincing that a dangerous magical world is what’s best. I feel like that’s very normal considering the circumstances.

Her and Luz need to work on their communication on both ends, they both have things to learn, but I’m certain they’ll manage to fix their relationship in the long run.

If the bunk bed is any indication, I think Vee is gonna stay in the human realm permanently while Luz sleeps at home but keeps attending Hexside in the daytime. That feels like a solution that keeps everyone happy, and allows Luz to spend time with all the people she loves. I can’t see her being forced to choose at the end.

As a closing statement: Eda isn’t an ideal mom, Amity isn’t an ideal friend or girlfriend and neither is Luz, Lilith isn’t an ideal sister… but that’s because no one is ever an ideal anything. Being flawed is a big part of being human. Everyone has different facets to their personality. Their flaws are what makes them such great, relatable, believable characters.

And I feel the same way about Camila. She’s an extremely believable character that reminds me of my own parents, flawed but very loving nonetheless.

(Also honestly, I think it’s pretty telling that some of you guys immediately bash the black single mom that’s obviously trying her hardest while giving the benefit of the doubt to Alador, who has been portrayed as neglecting and threatened his six year old daughter on screen. This was already a thing before we knew much about either of them, and I’m disappointed but unfortunately not very surprised that it still is.)

968 notes · View notes

makeste · 3 years

Text

save no matter what.

so this is going to ultimately be a post about Deku. however, if you’ll be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to start things off by making a point about Bakugou. specifically, I’d like to point out that back in the day before this kid got Character Development no Jutsu’d, people weren’t always so inclined to view his attitude towards winning in the best light. which is a nice way of saying that he came off as unhealthily obsessed, not to mention more than a little unhinged.

sorry for the image spam btw, I just think they’re funny. he’s so demented lmao. KILL DIE CRUSH.

anyway so we’re gonna do the rest of this below a cut before it gets long. but I promise it really is a Deku post lol. don’t let the pre-readmore stuff fool you. I PROMISE THERE IS A POINT, AND WE WILL GET TO IT.

anyway! so yeah, we really didn’t have the best impression of Bakugou’s whole winning fixation at the beginning there. and I mean, it’s not like we had the best impression of Bakugou himself at the start of things either. we were already primed from the very first chapter to see this kid as an adversary to Izuku. the story goes out of its way to paint him in pretty much the worst light possible. which is why what happens next is so interesting.

because one might see all this and think, “holy heck, this kid is off the shits, somebody needs to set him straight pronto and get it into his head that winning isn’t everything.” because that’s almost the natural conclusion to draw. “look at this kid, he doesn’t care about helping other people at all, all he cares about is winning, someone needs to come along and show him that he’s got it backwards.”

except that’s not what happens, is it? because this is where, much to my delight, Horikoshi came along and started subverting expectations. because not only is Katsuki not rebuked for being so obsessed with winning -- it’s pretty much the exact opposite.

the one and only time Deku ever straight up hands Katsuki’s ass to him is when he says he doesn’t want to win. Deku is IMMEDIATELY all, “THE FUCK KIND OF BULLSHIT DID I JUST HEAR OUT OF YOUR TRASH MOUTH,” and that’s when he sets him straight.

the important people in Katsuki’s life never tell him, “hey you need to cool it with the whole winning thing.” All Might and Aizawa never scold him for it, or tell him that he shouldn’t try with everything he has to win, or that wanting to win is a bad thing. on the contrary, they both commend him for it. and ultimately, he’s told by All Might that this desire is actually one of the two fundamental qualities that every great hero needs.

he completely turns the whole thing on its head. not only is it not a bad thing, it’s actually crucial. essential. because what the desire to win really is, at its core, is tenacity. it’s the fiercest kind of determination. it’s not something he should be ashamed of; it’s something that sets him apart, something that makes him worthy. he is someone who refuses to back down no matter what. refuses to give up, no matter what. and this quality, which is initially misunderstood by some to the point where even the villains mistakenly take him for one of their own in the making, is eventually validated to the fullest degree by the person that Katsuki looks up to the most. his desire to win goes from being this awkward “son wtf are you doing” thing to being one of the core philosophies of the series. and ever since then, we pretty much don’t question it.

so why do I bring this up now? well, the answer to that can basically be summed up in one word.

“parallels.”

so here’s the thing. there’s been a lot of talk lately about Deku’s ridiculous, reckless, and absurdly self-destructive desire to save others while having little to no regard for himself. currently he’s lying in a hospital bed, having broken approximately 218 out of the 206 bones in his little hero body (yes, somewhere along the way he found an additional dozen bones to break). it is worrying. it is Concerning. and it’s raised a lot of questions, such as “???” and “wtf is this idiot doing.”

and a lot of people have been pretty critical of him! this is, of course, an ongoing thing with this child, and people have been giving him grief over it going as far back as chapter 6.

while others have been bothered by it going even further back than that.

and I’ve seen these sentiments being echoed pretty frequently in the fandom as well. and there are basically two talking points that I want to address here. the first is the idea that Deku’s aggressive brand of selflessness stems from an inherent lack of self-worth. in other words, because he prioritizes other people’s safety and well-being above his own, and is willing to go to such drastic lengths to save them, there’s this feeling that he doesn’t value himself enough, that he must not care about himself.

but I don’t think that’s quite it. let’s go back to those parallels first, though. let’s take another look at Kacchan.

what I mainly want to call attention to is the intensity here. again, it’s something that at first strikes most readers as being absurdly over the top. the truth is, I think a lot of people simply can’t relate to it. Katsuki cares about winning with a ferocity and a fervor that most people, for better or worse, simply don’t have. I certainly don’t, lol.

but he does. to him it’s not a shallow, superficial thing at all. it’s important to him, perhaps the most important thing. I think we often talk about it in terms of it being a desire, but imo a more accurate way to define it is not as a want, but as a need. in other words, it’s the opposite of the question “what is it this character wants” (i.e. “what is it they can’t live without”)? instead, it’s a question of “what is it they don’t want” (i.e. “what is it they can’t live with”)?

and in Katsuki’s case, the thing he can’t live with is feeling like he hasn’t tried his absolute best. he needs to give his all in everything he does. he wants to win, but winning just on its own is not enough.

it has to be earned. he has to prove to himself and to everyone else that he deserves it. anything less than that is unacceptable. anything less than that, and he can’t be at ease. he can’t be settled. he can’t rest. and so he puts everything he has into winning, even if it means going to extremes. because it’s that important to him.

it’s something that’s at times alarming and even disturbing for others to witness. but nonetheless, it’s a part of who he is, and at the end of the day his teachers accept that, and the story acknowledges that it’s his greatest strength.

so now, to finally bring this back around to Deku, this is what I keep seeing in his character as well. only in his case, the thing he can’t live with is knowing that he didn’t do everything he possibly could to save someone. or to put it another way, Deku, at his core, is someone who cannot rest until he knows that everyone is safe. simple as that. it’s not just a desire to protect people; it’s a need. he needs to know that everyone is safe and protected. otherwise he can’t be at ease. it’s no different from how normal, everyday people aren’t able to feel at ease unless they know that they are safe and that their loved ones are safe. it’s just that in Deku’s case, this same fundamental need extends to everyone, not just himself and his friends and family. everyone. he can’t live with himself knowing that someone was in trouble, and he had the ability to do something to help, but didn’t. and so, if you literally can’t live with not doing something, you basically have no choice but to do it.

and this is what in my opinion defines Deku’s character. Kacchan, in trying to understand it, noted that Deku doesn’t seem to take himself into account. but I think OFA Prime summed it up a little more accurately. “he rages for the sake of others. for them, he does his best until he can do no more. this young man is possessed by a drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding.”

so yeah. it’s not that he doesn’t care about himself at all, it’s that he cares about others even more. he has that same intensity and ferocity towards saving people that Katsuki has towards winning. and just as it was difficult at first for fans to understand Katsuki’s feelings, it’s hard to fathom the sheer depth of that “save everyone” feeling that compels Deku to break his own body in that pursuit. it’s scary, not to mention extremely destructive and dangerous. and so really, it was almost inevitable that there would be some backlash.

but just like Katsuki’s desire to win was ultimately validated in the end, I think Deku’s desire to save others will be as well. in fact it already is being validated, for starters by the other denizens of OFA, led by Lil Bro as mentioned above. let’s go back for a moment to that same scene.

here we get a huge hint that “Deku gets taken down a notch and chewed out and scolded for his recklessness” is not, in fact, the direction that the story is going in. because in general, when the main villain starts mocking the hero and saying that they’ve done something wrong, that’s a very good sign that said hero is actually on the exact right track. like, no offense, but as far as character critiques go, AFO is probably the least qualified person in the entire manga to start offering those up lol. so yeah. if AFO is denouncing Deku for something, and OFA Prime is praising him for that exact same thing, I think it’s safe to say that means he is in fact doing something very, very right.

“okay but makeste, he nearly got himself killed and broke all of his arms AND legs and is now lying in a fucking coma,” you say, gesturing emphatically to the last page of chapter 298. “so I mean, that’s all well and good that Wonder Boy has the best of intentions and all that, but at the end of the day he’s only one kid. he literally can’t save everyone, and if he pulls one or two more stunts like this, he’s going to get himself killed.”

and okay, but this here is the other talking point that I wanted to address. because it’s true, Deku does need to learn a specific lesson here. but that lesson is NOT that he can’t save everyone. this is a superhero story, guys -- “you can’t save everyone” is never going to be the underlying message, ever. it’s the OPPOSITE of the message. Deku is the hero because he tries to save everyone. because he doesn’t give up on saving people no matter what. that is literally the core of the story. it has been since the very first chapter.

so then what is it that Deku actually needs to learn here? well, once again, it all comes back to those parallels.

btw, I really just love how he’s carrying Katsuki there lol. he’s just so done with him.

but anyway. so, the final exam arc. Katsuki initially wants to win at all costs -- but there’s a hitch. because even though he wants to win, he refuses to do so while working with Deku. enter Deku’s left hook, and one impromptu Rival Encouragement Speech later, our boy has thankfully come to his senses.

but here’s the point -- the lesson here wasn’t “you can’t always win.” rather, the lesson that Katsuki needed to learn was that you can’t always win alone.

yeah. so now you can see what I’m getting at here.

“...on your own.”

that’s the key. this is the one and only thing that Deku actually needs to get into his head. wanting to save everyone is fine! his will to save others has never been a weakness -- it’s been the most admirable thing about him from day one. it’s what makes him strong. it’s why All Might chose him. it’s why OFA has chosen him. it’s what sets him apart, and I firmly believe it’s what will ultimately help him save the day and defeat AFO as well. because what other character would look at Shigaraki Tomura, the person who just impaled his friend and destroyed an entire city, and instinctively reach out a hand to try and save him? and if you don’t think that’s going to wind up being key to the final battle, you and I have very different ideas about this series’ endgame.

Deku’s determination to save everyone isn’t arrogance or futility. it is and always has been his greatest strength. but what he’s missing now, what he needs to learn, is simply to trust. y’all might have seen that theory about the Fourth’s quirk, and why All Might was so hesitant to tell Deku about it. basically, the theory (which is based on an attempted translation of the crossed-out parts of All Might’s OFA notebook) goes that the Spidey Sense was so overwhelming that the Fourth -- whose cause of death was one of the things crossed out -- eventually couldn’t bear it, and went to live alone in the middle of the woods somewhere. and possibly wound up killing himself?? all of which is just speculation right now of course. but it makes sense. and it would certainly explain why All Might, being all too aware of Deku’s self-destructive tendencies, would keep that from him.

but if this is the case, that means it’s clear that the Fourth’s solution didn’t work. “give up and accept that you can’t save everyone” clearly is NOT the answer to be had here.

the answer is trust. trust that his fellow heroes have his back. trust that they’ll be able to help him reach the people he’s not able to reach on his own. trust that they can work together to save everyone. that he doesn’t have to rest the entire world on his shoulders alone.

it’s the one lesson that All Might, his predecessor and his teacher, never learned himself until it was too late. but of course, All Might never had a prickly and determined rival who was ready to step in and deal out some tough love if need be. a rival who, perhaps, just might soon get a chance to repay an old favor.

“I don’t wanna hear you say you can’t save someone.”

I’m just saying. just as Deku has been watching Katsuki all this time, and admiring his determination to win, and emulating it himself, so has Katsuki recently begun to emulate Deku’s determination to save others. we’ve seen it not just in his recent act of self-sacrifice, but even in little things like his habits and tricks of speech. just like Katsuki is Deku’s image of victory, Deku is becoming Katsuki’s image of saving others.

and so I’ll bet you anything that if Deku ever starts to doubt himself, or starts feeling like his dream and desires are futile, Kacchan will be there to set him straight with a good old fashioned Rival Encouragement Speech of his own. possibly with his own left hook to match, though his left shoulder is currently out of sorts atm so he might need to modify that approach a little bit. but the point is, he’ll be there. and he will not allow Deku to give up on himself. he will be there to remind him that he doesn’t have to face this alone.

so yeah! finally managed to wrap up my giant Deku meta which I’ve been working on for ages and rewritten like fifteen times lmao. just in time for this to be relevant for all of a day, probably, depending on what happens once chapter 279 drops lol. but yeah. tl;dr, local boy tries to do too much, but his heart is in the right place, and hopefully all he really needs is a good pep talk from his tsundere bff to set him to rights again. r.i.p. to the Fourth, but he’s different.

#bnha 298 #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #bakudeku #bnha meta #deku meta #bakugou meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha

483 notes · View notes

sigmaleph · 3 years

Text

@serinemolecule asked me for hot takes on this 2006 article on Argentinian food, which I am now reorganising into a proper post for y'all's consumption. you're welcome.

First of all: the titular thesis that you should eat two steaks a day. I am forced to clarify that as 'should's go you should eat zero steaks a day, but this is ethical rather dietary advice and I don't follow it as well as I should, so, y'know. I would engage with this on the level it was stated, but I actually have no opinion on it. Moving on...

Argentine beef really is extraordinary. Almost all of this has to do with how the cows are raised. There are no factory feedlots in Argentina; the animals still eat pampas grass their whole lives, in open pasture, and not the chicken droppings and feathers mixed with corn that pass for animal feed in the United States.

This is, as it happens, completely false. There absolutely is plenty of feedlot beef being eaten in Argentina, and this was also the case back when this article was written. There's grass-fed beef too, and maybe the writer structured their life around only eating those, but the claim that there are no feedlots is just not true.

if you let them make the call, you get a two-inch thick of meat[...]The Argentine steak stands alone, towering three inches over the plate,[...]This gorgeous specimen is called a lomito; it's a standard lunchtime steak, clearly so thin that the Argentines are embarrassed to send it out into the world without a protective wrapping of ham and cheese

I have no idea what their obsession with steak thickness is; meat exists at various levels of thick and thin to suit various tastes. If you like yours thick that's fine but quit the projecting, y'know.

As you might expect, vegetarians will have a somewhat rough time here. For most people in Argentina, a vegetarian is something you eat. One's diet will accordingly lean heavily on pastas, gnocchi, salads, and (for the less squeamish ) fish. Vegans will not survive in Argentina.

This is, unfortunately, true (well, hyperbole, but). Rinna had a rather bad time trying to find vegan food when fae came over for visits. The situation is improving slowly, at least.

The homemade cookies bought in the minimarket downstairs taste of steak. [picture of alfajores de maicena[

Jesus. Find somewhere better to buy your snacks.

It should be no surprise that the land of beef also has excellent milk and butter. The milk comes in plastic bags that would give any American marketing department a heart attack. They proudly advertise "GUARANTEED 100% BRUCELLOSIS AND HOOF-AND-MOUTH FREE". One brand even brags that its bacteria count never exceeds 100,000 per mL, and prints daily statistics to prove it (only 82,000 bacteria/mL on Monday! mmm!).

Are you under the impression American milk doesn't contain bacteria and that when it spoils it's because of the molecules' sheer willpower? Or do you just object to the reminder that they exist?

This menu is delicious, but with rare exceptions it is all you are going to get. People coming for more than a few weeks are advised to bring a discreet bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Eat at better restaurants.

With any order from the master menu comes the Bread Basket, which should be treated as you would treat a basket of wax fruit, that is, as a purely decorative ornament. It is considered bad form to actually eat anything from Bread Basket

What are you talking about. Do all your dining companions just suck, eat some bread.

Dulce de leche is a culinary cry for help. It says "save us, we are baffled and alone in the kitchen, we don't know what to do for dessert and we're going to boil condensed milk and sugar together until help arrives". This cloying dessert tar is so impossibly sweet that you wish you were ten years old again, just so you could actually enjoy it. It is everywhere. There is a special dulce de leche shelf in the supermarket dairy case, and the containers go up to a liter in size. Even the churros are stuffed with it - the churros, Montresor!

It is rare that I feel insulted for the sake of my country, but this? How dare you.

Yes, of course we fill churros with dulce de leche; the real question is why anyone doesn't, short of dietary restrictions. Finding out that people do otherwise was like learning that in other countries, "sandwich" just means two slices of bread. Live a little. Eat a real godsdamned churro.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how meals work in Argentina, and they remain a mystery to me. Dinner is clear enough: people tend to go to restaurants beginning at ten o'clock (for those with small children), with the main rush around eleven, and dinner is pretty much over at one or so in the morning. And breakfast - or rather, its absence - follows as a logical consequence of eating a steak the size of a beagle at midnight. But I have yet to figure out whether people eat some kind of meal in the afternoon, and if so, when.

At... noon? Like. We eat lunch. Usually somewhere around 12:00. I am eating lunch right now, and I have done so essentially every day of my life. This is just baffling.

I've come to think the culprit in the missing Argentine lunch scene is yerba mate.

how.

Where the ignorant foreigner may see just another kind of herbal tea (yerba mate is a very unassuming shrub that grows in the northern parts of the country) the Argentine sees a taste treat of unimaginable subtlety, and a tonic for all his problems. The Wikipedia article on proper mate preparation should give you a warning of the level of obsessiveness attainable here (the Urugayans are even worse). To the virgin palate, mate tastes like green tea mixed with grass clippings. The beverage is traditionally drunk out of a little gourd, through a metal straw called a bombilla, with hot (but not boiling!!) water poured into it (without wetting the surface!! clockwise!!) from a thermos.

Yeah, this is accurate. Well, not the clockwise part, never heard anyone complain about that and I can't imagine it mattering.

What distinguishes mate from coffee and tea is the social context - two or more people share a gourd, with a designated pourer in charge of refilling it with hot water after each turn. The ritual is low-fuss but indispensible. You can buy mate gourds and thermoses in any grocery store, and get your thermos filled with hot water at any convenience store or gas station, but you will never see mate served in restaurants or sold in little disposable paper gourds, to go. it's not that people refuse to drink mate alone - anyone working a solitary shift will have a gourd in hand - but that the concept of being served mate by someone who does not share it with you seems impossible.

This is also true. Attempts have been made to sell to-go mate but it's never very popular, the social ritual is important. Also unfortunately a disease vector, I haven't had any mate in a year and a half.

Mate aficionados will tell you that mate contains a special compound, mateine, that serves as a tonic and mild stimulant, promoting alertness without making it hard to sleep, reducing fatigue and appetite, helping the digestion and serving as a mild diuretic. Scientists will tell you that mateine bears a suspicious resemblance to a chemical called caffeine. Mate aficionados will then grow indignant, explaining that mateine is really a stereoisomer (mirror image) of caffeine, with different effects, which will in turn irritate the scientists, who will snap that caffeine doesn't have a chiral center, so it can't have a distinguishable mirror image, and why don't the mate aficionados just put a sock in it.

The first part of this is true; some people definitely think "mateine" is different from caffeine and it absolutely isn't. Never heard the stereoisomer claim before but googling it does confirm some people say so.

still have no idea what any of this has to do with lunch, though. I promise you nobody skips lunch because mate is just too filling.

The wine here is very good (something has to stand up to that steak), but Argentina has no liquor to call its own, relying on whiskies like Old Smuggler and the low-maintenance Don Juan cognac to carry the flag.

There's a fundamental omission from this list and it's called fernet.

Beer is ubiquitous and comes in a bewildering variety of sizes, although there is a skittishness about the full-on liter. Things level off at 970 mL. In my case, it means I end up drinking 1940 mL of beer as a kind of personal protest, and all is well with the world. To make up for the abundance of sizes, beer comes in only one variety, Quilmes, which inevitably comes served with a tripartite platter of snacks - nuts, salty cylinders, and aged potato chips.

I never had trouble buying beer by the litre, but I confess I never tried to do so in 2006 on account of being under 18 at the time.

Anyway, beer comes in a lot more varieties today, thankfully, because Quilmes sucks. I'll never be a beer person, but at least these days there's options I tolerate.

[original post]

#dreamwidth crosspost

55 notes · View notes

grailfinders · 3 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms #126: Bedivere

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're making the one delivery service with worse return timelines than Amazon, Bedivere!

Bedi's got a bit of extra witchcraft that certainly would have gotten you in trouble if you weren't rolling with the king of England, but he's also a knight who's accomplished in the art of warfare. Surprisingly, that combination means your build is actually more complicated than the immortal pseudogod you face off against.

There's really no telling what gets accounted for in D&D classes.

Check out Bedi's build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: What a twist!

Race and Background

I mean, you were human at some point. Ol' Bedi's much, much older than he looks, thanks to time traveling the long way around to me your king again. So far, in fact, that you now count as a Reborn from that fancy new UA. Using the new lineage traits, you get +2 Charisma and +1 Constitution. You also count as an Undead and a Humanoid, meaning you're affected by both Turn Undead and Cure Wounds. Real fun for a paladin! You've got a Medium size, with 30' of movement speed. You get 60' of Darkvision, and your Deathless Nature nets you a gaggle of benefits. You have advantage against disease and poison, and resist poison damage. You also get advantage on death saves, and don't require most things needed for life. You no long require eating, drinking, or breathing, and instead of sleeping you just sit tight for four hours. This also means magic can't put you to sleep. Finally, a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus you can recall Knowledge from a Past Life, adding 1d6 to a skill check.

That almost makes up for... actually it doesn't make up for anything. Still, it's better than nothing.

Oh yeah, background. You're a Knight of the Order, like your coworkers before you. This gives you proficiency with Religion and Persuasion.

Ability Scores

Make your Charisma as high as possible. You look me in the eyes and tell me that isn't a charming young man, I dare you. After that is Wisdom, because you can't fight a war if you can't see what the enemy is doing. After that is Constitution-you survived an inordinate amount of time to get to this point, and even with a magic artifact that's still one hell of a save DC. Strength is next, you're as good with a sword in one hand as most knights are with two, but we'll get our swordfighting skills from somewhere else in just a bit. Your Dexterity is a bit low, but you wear heavy armor, so it's not that much of a problem. Finally, dump Intelligence. Like a lot of builds, Bedivere isn't dumb- we just needed other abilities more, and intelligence affects very little besides skill checks, and that's what KfaPL is for.

Class Levels

1. Paladin 1: Once again, no surprise here. As a paladin, you get a Divine Sense to locate extraplanar beasties nearby, and you can also Lay on Hand to heal a creature from a pool of hp equal to five times your paladin level, which refills on long rests.

You also get proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as two paladin skills. I've said this already, but you can do one-handed what most people need two for, so you're pretty good at Athletics. You're also able to read the battlefield well, and that most closely translates to Insight.

2. Paladin 2: Second level paladins get a fighting style, and since all your weapons are one handed, the Dueling style is perfect for you, adding 2 to all your one-handed weapon attacks when you aren't also wielding a shield or a second weapon. You can also cast and prepare spells using your Charisma. You can also burn those spell slots to activate your Divine Smite, adding some extra radiant damage to your weapon attacks.

Bedivere is known for his knowledge in witchcraft, so he gets a bit more leeway in what spells he can get. That being said, Heroism is always a good pick to calm yourself before a battle, and Bless will use your Charisma skill to improve your allies' attack rolls and saves, giving them an extra d4 for the duration.

3. Warlock 1: I know you're more of a paladin than this, but you don't have one of your arms yet, and to be honest it's cramping our style. Technically you got your arm from Merlin, but we've done more than enough crown paladin/archfey warlock combos now thanks to the Pendragon family to last a lifetime. Your powers more directly come from your arm, which is a transformed magical sword, so that makes you a Hexblade warlock.

At first level, you can place a Hexblade's Curse on someone once per short rest. This means you deal extra damage to them based on your proficiency bonus, you crit on 19s when you attack, and you gain hp when the target dies. The curse only lasts for 1 minute, but so do most D&D fights, so you're probably fine.

You also become a Hex Warrior, allowing you to use Charisma instead of Strength when attacking with a specific weapon you choose after a long rest. Once you get your pact boon, this will apply to any weapon you make with that boon (though you probably want to make your hand).

You also get Pact Magic, which is kinda like normal magic, but it doesn't mix with your other spell slots, and recharges on short rests. This also uses your Charisma to cast.

You can cast True Strike to strike true, Prestidigitation to make up for all the little magic effects we can't get you, Wrathful Smite to smite while you smite, and Comprehend Languages, because most people aren't going to know what you're talking about if you're speaking Middle English.

4. Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, ways to customize the selling your soul experience. Save one for next level, but grab Beast Speech so you can cast Speak with Animals for free. There's a lot of talking creatures in medieval mythology, and we spend most of our spell slots smiting. You can also cast Unseen Servant to make things a bit witchier, and also for help carrying cumbersome stuff.

5. Warlock 3: Third level warlocks get their pact boon, and Pact of the Blade will allow you to summon your arm as an action. You can also make other weapons, but regardless, whatever you make counts as a magical weapon for resistances, and can be used as a casting focus for your spells. You also get the invocation Improved Pact Weapon for a +1 to damage and attack rolls.

Finally, you learn how to cast Hold Person, locking a humanoid who fails a wisdom save (DC 8 + proficiency + charisma mod) in place and making all attacks against them critical hits. This usually ends poorly for them, especially when smites get added to the mix.

6. Paladin 3: Oh that's right you're a paladin too. You might be sick of this by now, but Crown paladins; let's talk about them. You get two Channel Divinity options, which you can use once per short rest. Both use your bonus action, but Champion Challenge forces enemies within 30' of you who fail their wisdom save to stay within 30' of you. This lasts until you're incapacitated, you die, or the creature ends up further away from you unwillingly. Turn the Tide heals bloodied allies around you a touch, to keep them in the fight a bit longer.

Alternatively, you can Harness Divine Power, turning that channel divinity use into a refilled spell slot.

You also get Divine Health, making you immune to disease.

Finally, you get oath spells, which you always have prepared. You already could've cast Command and Compelled Duel anyway, but now they're not taking up prep space.

7. Paladin 4: Just because we're taking a different patron doesn't mean we can't rep Merlin a bit, so use this Ability Score Improvement to become a bit Fey Touched. This rounds up your Charisma, and also allows you to cast Misty Step or Gift of Alacrity once per long rest for free. Alternatively, you can use your spell slots, but I'd save those for smites, personally. The former lets you teleport, the latter adds a bit to one character's initiative for a couple hours. Basically you're just telling someone to keep their eyes peeled, but magically.

8. Fighter 1: Depending on how your DM wants to rule it, Argetlam might be a regular weapon, or it might be an actual hand. Grab the Unarmed Fighting fighting style if it's the latter, or just grab Defense otherwise.

You also get a Second Wind, allowing you to heal yourself as a bonus action. You've been around for a while, you know when you're reaching your limits.

9. Paladin 5: Fifth level paladins get an Extra Attack each attack action. They also get second level spells, including your oath spells Warding Bond and Zone of Truth. Literally making it impossible for yourself to lie can be a great show of trust when meeting new people. Or new gods. Either or.

I'd recommend grabbing Protection from Poison since you'll be travelling with Serenity for a while, or Branding Smite for the inevitable fight against Sir Tristan. I hear he's kind of hard to hit.

10. Warlock 4: Use this ASI to max out your Charisma for the best attacks and spells possible. You also fill out your defensive repertoire with the cantrip Blade Ward to make yourself more durable and Blur to make yourself harder to hit. Nobody said living this long would be easy.

11. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get third level spells and slots. I'd consider a lot of what the Lion King did to the round table to count as a curse, so grab Remove Curse to fight back. You also get the invocation Eldritch Smite this level, allowing you to burn a spell slot for some extra force damage. This is on top of your Divine Smite dealing radiant damage, and possibly on top of your Wrathful Smite dealing psychic damage, by the way. Argetlam's got a lot of power behind it.

12. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, giving you an extra action to slap on your turn once per short rest. You've been pushing yourself for hundreds of years, six seconds is nothing.

13. Fighter 3: As a Battle Master, you really come into your own in terms of warfare. You become a Student of War, giving you calligraphy proficiency, the most powerful of abilities. On a lesser note, you also get Combat Superiority, meaning you can use three maneuvers, powered by four superiority dice. These are d8s that recharge every short rest.

Commander's Strike uses one of your attacks to allow another creature to attack instead, using their reaction. If they do so, you add the superiority die to their damage. Tactical Assessment improves your battlefield knowledge without having to invest in intelligence as an ability, allowing you to add the superiority die to one Investigation, History, or Insight check. You can also Rally a companion as a bonus action, giving them some temporary HP.

14. Paladin 6: Oh that's right you're also a paladin. Now you've got an Aura of Protection, meaning every save made within 10' of you gets your charisma modifier added to it, if you so choose.

15. Paladin 7: Your Divine Allegiance allows you to use a reaction to take another creature's damage for it. Mash is lovely, but occasionally she needs some time off tanking.

16. Paladin 8: You get another ASI this level, and your charisma's all good now... grab some Constitution I guess? More health is nice.

17. Paladin 9: Ninth level paladins get third level spells, like your oath spells Aura of Vitality and Spirit Guardians. You could also use something like Crusader's Mantle or Spirit Shroud to pile even more radiant damage onto your attacks.

18. Paladin 10: Your Aura of Courage calms allies around you, preventing them from being frightened.

19. Paladin 11: Hey, did you want even more radiant damage on your attacks? Here, have an Improved Divine Smite. Same smite taste, no spell slots!

20. Paladin 12: Your capstone level is another ASI! Bump up your strength. This doesn't give you many benefits, but you're a knight, you should be pretty strong.

Pros:

You've got a divine smite, improved divine smite, eldritch smite, and even one of the spell smites if you're feeling spicy. Four smites at once means your critical hits hurt. Especially since you can fish for them with a hexblade's curse.

Despite your damage dealing, you've also got plenty of tools in your support kit. Tank for allies, heal them, help them attack more, improve their initiative... You can do a lot.

You've got almost 200 hp and ways to heal yourself, so your survivability's pretty on point as well. Stay in the fight, and make sure everyone else does too.

Cons:

Thanks to being a reborn, you count as an undead for spells and effects. That'll seriously hinder your social standing in places that can check for that sort of thing, and it'll also make working with clerics in general troublesome.

Hexblade makes picking ASIs a lot easier, but it also means your strength and dexterity scores aren't as high. Because of that your AC isn't going to be that great. It's a good thing you can survive hits, because you'll definitely be taking them.

Despite your array of smites, you have limited spell slots to use them with. Your highest level spells are only level 3, and you don't get that many slots to work with, so you'll have to be careful of when you go all out.

#Fate and Phantasms #FGO #Fate Grand Order #Bedivere #D&D 5e

32 notes · View notes

woozapooza · 3 years

Text

Hey wait a minute! I just realized something!

Ishmael in chapter 1, “Loomings”: “I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage [...] cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.”

Ahab in chapter 132, “The Symphony”: “By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.”

I’ve thought a ton about fate in Moby Dick, and it’s something I reaaaally want to say more about in the future, but for now I just have to draw attention to this little parallel that just occurred to me. Both of our two main guys proclaim that their lives are not their own, that their actions were engineered by Fate(s). Oddly, I think that for both of them, this rejection of their own agency is actually a way of taking back a smidgen of control, or rather of the illusion of control. For Ishmael, it’s preferable to believe that he was destined, for some unknown but undoubtedly important purpose, to experience the most traumatic thing he’s presumably ever experienced than to believe that both his involvement with the Pequod and his survival came down to simple, meaningless luck. For Ahab, it’s preferable to believe that "the path to [his] fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon [his] soul is grooved to run” (as he says—or as Ishmael imagines he says, if you prefer to think about it that way—in chapter 37, “Sunset”) than to acknowledge that his reckless, pointless quest for vengeance is a choice. And in fact, that choice is, in turn, a way of regaining a sense of control in the aftermath of his experience of awful vulnerability in the face of the whale. Both of these guys come face to face with the "vague, nameless horror” (chapter 42, “The Whiteness of the Whale”) the whale seems to them to represent and seek refuge in the idea that their actions in this horrifying, chaotic world aren’t their own. In reality, this is nonsense. They, like everyone, choose their own actions. And the whale doesn’t really symbolize anything, but that’s a story for another post.

The major difference between the two quotes above is that Ishmael is looking back and imposing coherence on events that didn’t really mean anything—he’s narrativizing, to use a handy literary word I learned in the class I had to take my junior year of college as a requirement for majoring in English, in which I had to read some literature I really did not enjoy such as Ulysses and some theory/criticism that went totally over my head but “narrativity” is one of the few concepts we discussed that made sense to me. Ahab, on the other hand, is looking ahead, justifying the path he’s currently on—a path from which Starbuck, catching him at an opportune moment, very nearly swayed him. Honestly, I think the very fact that a combination of his own regrets and Starbuck’s influence came so close to getting Ahab to see sense is what accounts for Ahab’s sudden, dramatic reversion to his “iron rails” philosophy. At that point, there’s a huge element of sunk cost fallacy going on. It’s not just the three or so years he’s spent obsessing over Mr. Dick weighing on him, it’s the forty years he’s spent in the whaling industry. Forty miserable years, and he’s worse off now than when he started. Ahab feels powerless—I mean, he’s a captain, but that’s power over other people, not power over his own life—and chasing the whale allows him to fight that feeling. But if he were to acknowledge that he chooses to chase the whale, then he’d have to acknowledge that it’s just a mechanism for coping with his lack of power. So in order not to feel powerless, he has to pretend that he is powerless. Wow, this guy is messed up. AU where Ahab has a support system and maybe a therapist. Anyway, Ishmael’s case is different because he really did not have as much control over what happened to him and his crewmates as Ahab did. He was just a random guy on the crew. So Ahab invokes Fate to dodge accountability for the few things in his life he can control, whereas Ishmael invokes the Fates to convince himself that there was some reason underlying a series of events that would otherwise be both tragic and meaningless. But it is, fundamentally, the same strategy for coping with existence.

Oh hey, there’s another interesting thing: Ishmael conceives of himself as a minor but ultimately essential player in a cohesive story, whereas Ahab doesn’t suggest that there’s any grand purpose to the path he’s on (at least not as far as I remember, but I could be forgetting something). That’s sort of counterintuitive, because Ishmael is so content to fade into the background, whereas Ahab is generally—there’s really no nice way of saying this, but I promise I’m saying it with a heavy dose of empathy—obsessed with his own issues. But then, I guess Ishmael perceives the Fates acting on him from the outside, moving him around like a chess piece by presenting “springs and motives” to him, whereas Ahab sees his own soul as having been shaped by fate. The latter is definitely more self-centered than the former. Again, that sounds harsh, but I swear I’m not saying Ahab thinks too highly of himself or whatever. On the contrary, I think Ishmael seems to have a much healthier sense of self-esteem than Ahab does. Sad face.

Ishmael and Ahab are so very different, which is what makes it so interesting to note the things they have in common. But then, once you’ve noted a commonality, the really interesting part is looking a little deeper and noticing where the commonality breaks down...and then the really REALLY interesting part is noticing where it doesn’t break down even upon close inspection.

Side note, I think it’s very on-brand that Ishmael uses a theatrical metaphor for Fate and Ahab uses a nautical one.

#now...how does this fit with Ishmael's 'joint stock world"?#Moby Dick #literature #Ahab #Ishmael 'Merman Hellville' Fakename #x #Anna reads books #Anna reads Moby Dick #I have many thoughts #analysis

16 notes · View notes

pantstomatch · 3 years

Note

I love your writing, and (the cliche, it burns) one day I'd like to publish too. But a lot of things have changed since the last time I was confident in trying to do this, and I wondered if you would talk about the process (getting an agent, that sort of thing) if you're comfortable and have the time. It's also cool if you privately respond, if you'd prefer, I'm just trying to figure out how to get started again? And so many tips are "publish on Amazon!"

Thank you!!!! Okay, so here’s the thing. I’m probably not the best person to ask about this, because I’m actually really bad at being published, but I can tell you some stuff that I’ve learned? That might be helpful? I ended up being long-winded, so (if tumblr works right here) everything is under the cut...

1. Querying!

So in general, querying sucks balls. Like… it’s probably the worst thing you’ll ever have to do. You’re gonna want to research what agents are looking for the kind of stuff you want to write or have written. Some are looking for certain genres or what they think is marketable, and you want to send your query to someone who’s open to what you have, or it’s a waste. Most likely the agency website or the agents “I’m looking for…” page or whatever will give you specific instructions on what to include in your query email - how the subject should be written, what they’re looking for, how many pages of your manuscript they want to see, how to attach it to the email and in what form, and if they want a synopsis of your novel. Some agents use Query Manager, which is basically a form you fill out and attach all the things they want, and you can go back in and edit it and it’s a nice way to keep track of your query. Next, they’re gonna (hopefully; some just never respond) either say no thank you very politely, or ask you for the full manuscript. Most of these agents will also give you a general timeline for a response, and if they’re open to a nudge from you or not. After that, they’ll either say no to the full manuscript, or welcome you aboard!

Most places allow you to send multiple queries out for the same work, meaning they’re not “exclusive,” except within their own agency. If they ask for a full manuscript, but before they get back to you, another agent has snapped you up, they’ll want you to let them know so they don’t waste their time on it. Occasionally, if they want to see your full manuscript, they’ll ask for you to not send the full manuscript to someone else until they’re done, or for you to tell them if someone else is looking at the full manuscript. You can also change your mind! You can email them and let them know you’ve decided to pull the novel out of consideration, maybe if you think it needs more editing.

I have never successfully queried. I found the whole thing demoralizing, and I did my first contract on my own, without an agent. This is something I don’t recommend because I had to figure out a lot of confusing shit on my own that I still don’t fully understand. And it also made me doubt my writing after the fact, because agents don’t give a shit if you’re already published, they’re focused solely on whatever you’re presenting them with. And then after that, I figured if I got another book out of my current editor, would I want to present that to the people who already didn’t like my writing? I have an agent for another project I’m working on, and the only reason I have her is because someone introduced us and told her I desperately needed help.

1a. So you found the agent(s) you think you like!

Other than the instructions/guidelines written out by the agency/agents that you’re interested in, you’re gonna need the most complete and fully edited version of your novel in hand. If they ask for your full manuscript, you absolutely should not say it’s not done. Make sure it’s finished, and preferably edited, before you send your query in. If they ask for a synopsis, hard pass. Ha ha ha, just kidding. No, really, arguably, this is going to be the hardest thing to write. A synopsis will suck your soul out of your body and make you weep blood. The only thing worse than querying is writing a synopsis for that query. I have never written a synopsis that I didn’t think was utter shit. I hate them.

Querytracker is a cool place to look up agents that you want to query and see how responsive (and nice) they are. It took me a little bit to figure out the abbreviations, though.

2. Pick your genre carefully

Unless you are a best selling author, they are never ever ever going to let you change genres. I mean, maybe if you wrote under a different name. Maybe. But they’ve bought your book based on how they think it will sell, and they’re going to want to sell you, too, and genre jumping is usually a no-go. This is, basically, one of the biggest things I hate, and one of the greatest things I love about fanfiction, that I can write whatever the fuck I feel like writing. So, you know, make sure you really really really want to write about what your first book is going to be about, because you’re going to be writing about that forever. And I don’t mean just YA vs New Adult vs Adult, although you need to take that into account too. I mean if you’re writing about high school regular kids, you probably can’t write about supernatural high school kids. You can’t write about high school kids in space. You can only write about regular high school kids. So.. think sci -fi vs fantasy vs historical vs contemporary, etc.

3. I hope you don’t hate people!

Do you want to go to a bookstore and talk in front of a crowd? Do you want to go to cons and network with other authors? Do you want to call up publications and volunteer for interviews? Do you want to talk about your books with strangers? Because I sure don’t. Publishing houses do the bare minimum of publicity for you for your book. First book, they’ll probably help set up some store signings. Going forward, if you weren’t proactive the first time around, they’re probably not going to do anything. If you’ve got some really good advance reviews, they’ll do ads. They’ll probably do the rote social media posts. But basically, you’re going to have to advocate for your book. You’re going to have to create your own brand. You’re going to have to make swag and send it out, call up bookstores, post constantly about it on twitter, buddy up to other authors, go places where you can network. And I will tell you that all of that is my nightmare. I don’t want to do any of that. I don’t like meeting new people. I had several panic attacks leading up my book signing, and the book signing itself was pretty bad. I’m just… not good with people. And, honestly, at my age, I don’t want to be any better. All it does is give me stress and hives, and to get over that I’d really really have to want to do it.

4. Personal perks?

Editors! I’ve worked with two awesome editors, and it’s amazing having someone to tell you how to fix things in a way that makes sense. By far, one of the only perks of being published for me. I absolutely don’t know for sure, but I always got the feeling that they expected more push back from me with their suggestions, but nope. I was open to everything, and that’s probably why the books worked so well, because editors absolutely know what they’re doing and only want what’s best for the book.

Holding a solid book of my work! Always awesome to hold that first book in your hands, with the beautiful cover work and everything. The fact that other people can read it and know it was me who wrote those words only counters that by about a half.

Money! Advances vary drastically, but, listen, the money kind of made the panic attacks worth it. A little.

5. Advances and royalties

The things I’ve read about advances is that too little, and you might think they have less confidence in you, and too much and you’re panicking about selling, because if you don’t earn out your advance, there’s a chance they won’t want to invest in you in the future. Generally, the way they work is they offer you a contract with the amount they are willing to “advance” you. This is basically saying, we think this book will give us this amount of money, and this is your share of that amount of money. You earn this out with royalties. When you sign the contract, you will get a certain amount of money, usually half of your offered advance. When you deliver the finished manuscript, after your editor and you have gone over it and it’s been approved, you’ll get the other half. A two book deal would be split into 4 parts, and you’d get the first 2 parts for signing the contract (1/4th for each book), the next part for the first finished manuscript, and then the last part for the second finished manuscript, generally after the first book is already published. After that, you won’t see any money until your royalties reach the amount they already paid you in advance. Unless otherwise negotiated, you’d get a royalty check twice a year. Your earnings from January to July would be sent to you in October, and your earnings for July to December would be sent to you in April. Since any books sold to bookstores and online stores can be returned to the publisher if unsold, they will usually “hold back” a certain amount at first, to make sure you’re really earning that royalty. Royalty statements themselves are a hot mess and I’ve never been able to read them, which is also a good reason to have an agent. An agent will get your money sent to them, make sure it’s the correct amount, take their cut, and then send you a check from them.

6. Self publishing

Okay, I know nothing about self publishing, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it if you have the right support system (ie editors). If you’re going to have to do a lot of the marketing yourself anyway, I don’t see how this is much different. Biggest thing would be the upfront cost, and making sure you make that cost worth it. Independent author S Usher Evans has some good advice for self publishing - Sush’s worked very hard at it, and started her own publishing company. Also, @qwanderer might be a good resource, I think they use Lulu, which is a really cool self publishing site.

Uhhhh, so that’s a lot of info and also not a lot of info, so please feel free to ask me anything else, and I really hope I haven’t made this harder for you to get started ha ha ha. I think the best thing to do is to figure out what you want to write and write it and just… go from there. If you really love what you have, someone else is going to love it, too.

And if anyone’s had a different experience or thinks I got something wrong or has more/better advice for @heyninja, let me know!

#heyninja #replies #publishing advice #my two cents #writing

18 notes · View notes

aspenflower17 · 3 years

Text

Finding You (Part 16 of ??)

Hello metal husband and readers! Welcome to another update to Finding You! What’s on tap today you ask? Well, just keep reading and find out! New here and don’t want to spoil the story? Just hop on over to Part One through this link, and you can read through!

Word Count: 3,558

Tags for the Tagged: @simpingforsatan @naimena @hachimochi @wrathandgreed @magi-minminxiii @rensphilia @a-dream-at-night @chloelikesobeyme @getbehindme-satan @theuglypugling @oofthelazyweeb @solomonismyman (If you want to be added to my tags list, just say the word down below in a comment or a message, and I will get you added to the list :D)

Trigger warnings: One character’s a total douche, talk of war and death

Mc twirled the pencil she had been sketching with debating if she should ask the question she had been thinking about. Her and Michael were the only ones in the room and no one would be coming in for quite awhile. This was probably the best time she’d get to ask, "Hey, Michael. Can I ask you a question?"

He looked up from his book, "Yes? What is it?"

"Well, I was reading a book the other day, and I came across something odd. It… it was about the Avatar's Fall," Mc couldn't look at Michael, so she just continued, "Eyewitness accounts say there were eight angels that fell that day. So, I was wondering: Was there an eighth angel who fell that day?"

The silence was heavy, threatening to crush Mc. After a long moment, Michael's voice sounded lowly, "And just why were you reading about something like that?"

"Meeting them in person got me curious."

"And you would believe an eyewitness account over the teachings of the Celestial Realm?"

"Well, not necessarily. I just was curious since I'd never heard of there being another angel who Fell."

There was silence, and Mc still couldn't make herself look over, "I suppose just because some of them have paid attention to you makes you think you know all about demons.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it then? If you haven’t forgotten, demons will lie about anything. Sinning comes naturally to them. In fact, the seven you keep coming into contact with are the embodiment of some of the most damaging sins. The lower demons are even worse.”

“I just want the most information possible. If there was another angel who fell that day, shouldn’t we tell everyone?”

“You forget your place, Mc. You may have luxuries other angels do not possess, but that does not raise your station. Questioning Father’s teachings. To believe something a demon wrote about another demon-"

"I'm not really questioning. I was just confused because-"

"And now you interrupt me? Just who do you think you are? I am an archangel, and the only reason you've been allowed down here. You are a simple angel that we have allowed to express her talents throughout the three realms. Do not make me wonder if it was the right decision."

Mc flinched at the door closing. Though he hadn't slammed it, nor had he raised his voice, she had felt the waves of displeasure rolling off of him. The threat about sending her back to the Celestial Realm had her really nervous. Before she was aware of what she was doing, the message had been sent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I could’ve come to the castle.”

“Hmmm… I don’t think that would be for the best right now.”

Satan cocked his head, “Did something happen?”

“Kind of. Anyway, thanks for meeting me here.”

“Of course. Is there anything in particular you’d like to do?”

“Well, I kinda thought, since I have an invitation and all, that you could show me around the House of Lamentation.”

“I… I mean, if you want to. I’m warning you now, it’s almost never calm there. My brothers are… a handful.”

“Sounds great!”

Satan looked over in shock, “Seriously?”

Mc nodded her head, “I grew up with calm. I want some excitement.”

“Well, be careful what you wish for.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

“GIVE ME BACK MY LIMITED DIAMOND EDITION SUCREY FRENZY SIGNED POSTER MAMMON! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S WORTH!”

“Course I know what it’s worth! Why’d ya think I took it in the firs’ place?”

“SO YOU DID TAKE IT!!!”

“Oh. Whoops! Forget I said anythin’.”

“MAMMON!”

A blur of demon shot past Mc and Satan. All Mc could make out was white and brown, before Leviathan went past, considerably slower than Mammon, but still fast for a demon. At least, Mc thought it might be Leviathan. The shy purple haired demon was now in all black, with black horns and a snake-like tail. He also looked like he was going to rip apart his brother.

Satan sighed, continuing forward, hands in his pockets, “Welcome to the House of Lamentation.”

“Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Hmm? Oh, about them? I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Ah. I see…”

“We should probably get you out of the immediate vicinity though. There’s no telling what those two idiots might do.”

“Where should we go then?”

“Hmmm… Well, since we’re close, I guess we could start with the kitchen.”

“Sounds good to me!”

As they walked, Mc looked around her. Though the decorations were both a tad macabre and extremely grand, she found herself… comfortable. The candle light cast everything in an almost cheery glow, and the atmosphere, while a little daunting, made her feel like she was…

“... Home.”

Satan stopped dead in his tracks, and turned slowly towards her, “W-wait… Hwat did you say?”

“Oh, did I say that outloud? Sorry. That probably sounded really weird,” when Satan didn’t answer, Mc continued a bit awkwardly, “It’s just… This is the most comfortable I’ve been in a brand new place in a long time. I thought maybe my attraction to the Devildom was just because of how novel it all is to an angel. But… Being in this house, it just makes everything feel more like… Home,” Mc looked up to see Satan looking at her with a very tender but sad look, “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Let’s keep going.”

When they got to the kitchen, Belphegor and Beelzebub were there, former hiding his head in his arms and the latter consuming a concerning amount of food in a very short time. He stopped when Satan and Mc entered the room.

“Burfy! Wrok hus herr!”

“Hmmm? What? Who is it?”

“Ots Emm Fee!”

Belphegor lifted his head tiredly, but smiled when he saw Satan and Mc, “So, you took us up on the invitation?”

“Yup. Satan’s showing me around.”

“Do you guys want some food?” Beelzebub asked, mouth cleared for a second.

“Well, I-"

"Here. You can have this," Beel said, grabbing her hand and dropping what looked to be a kind of sweet bun in it. He gazed at it for a second then looked at her and grinned before walking back to his food pile.

"You should eat it," Satan said quietly, " He doesn't share his food with just anybody."

"Oh. Okay," Mc said, looking at the sweet. She took a small bite and then her eyes grew wide before eating the whole thing.

"Thought you'd like it," the Avatar of Gluttony smiled.

"It was absolutely delicious! What was it?"

"An orange roll. It's a human word treat."

"I'm going to have to have Luke make it later."

"Did he come with you?" Beel's eyes were shining.

"Ummm… Not this time."

"Oh."

"I'll make sure to let him know next time I'm coming."

"Please do," Beel said, smiling again.

"Well, I'm going to continue our tour if that's alright."

"Yes, please do," Mc smiled, turning back to him.

"Have fun you two," Belphie said, dropping his head back onto his arm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mc and Satan progressed through the house. The feeling of familiarity just kept growing as they went. There was a room off the kitchen that Mc felt very drawn to. Satan said it was just an unused bedroom, nothing of note, but it did nothing to curb her interest. In fact, it made her want to see what was inside even more.

When they got to the library, they had to stop because Mc was so excited. No matter how many library’s she saw, personal or otherwise, they never failed to excite her. The fact it was the personal library of the Fallen was not lost on her.

“Do you want to stop here for a bit?” Satan chuckled.

Mc turned to him with wide eyes, “Can we?”

“Of course. Spending time with books is always time well spent. Anything in particular you’d like to look for?”

“Ummm… Do you just want to give me a tour?”

“Of the library?... Hmm… I suppose I could do that. Lucifer does like it organized a certain way. And, of course, if there’s a book that catches your eye, all you have to do is say the word and we can stop to read.”

“Oh, that’s what you’re really after,” Mc teased.

“Well, can you blame me? Reading with someone in companionable silence is one of life’s greatest joys.”

“Well, I suppose it is nice to just sit and read with Sim, though he’s probably the only one I’ve read with.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Most other angels don’t just sit and read very often. Unless it’s scripture.”

“Sounds about right,” Satan said, rolling his eyes and starting to climb the stairs that lead to the second story of the library.

The “certain way” Lucifer liked the books to be organized was by genre, then alphabetically by author.If an author had multiple books, they were to be then sorted alphabetically by title, any series sorted by the first book’s title then in order. Many of the books were old though in impeccable condition. Mc was impressed by the breadth of selection available, and she could sense some spacial magic at work which housed more books than what was visible to the naked eye. While browsing, Mc found a book that looked interesting, and carried it until the tour was over. Satan happened to have a book in a hidden pocket in his jacket so they decided to sit and read awhile. Instead of the ground floor, Satan knew of a little nook on the second story which had a cushioned window seat and two plush reading chairs, so they went and sat there.

Though the story was interesting, she just couldn’t get into the book she’d grabbed. Her mind kept wandering back to her earlier conversation with Michael. She didn’t know how she could have brought up the subject in a way where he wouldn’t have gotten so upset with her. He’d reprimanded her before, but never had he been so dismissive and final about it.

“Are you alright?” Satan’s voice cut through her thoughts. She looked over to see him watching her.

She suddenly felt embarrassed, and averted her eyes, “It’s… Well, I got reprimanded by Michael.”

“Why?”

So Mc told him about her search for information, how Barbatos had told her to ask Michael and his rebuke. When she finished, Satan’s face was impossible to read. He was silent for long enough, she was concerned she had offended him somehow. Finally he spoke, “Lilith. Her name was Lilith. If you want some answers about what happened, I think Lucifer would be the best person to give them to you. I would suggest Beel, but he has enough trauma about what happened as it is. I don’t even know if he remembers, or if he’s blocked it…”

“Blocked what?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Satan knocked on a bookshelf on the ground floor. A deep voice sounded from behind it, “Enter.” At the word, the bookshelf sung open to reveal a secret room. Despite wondering what was going on, Mc was both delighted and intrigued.

“You guys actually have a secret room behind a bookcase?!”

Satan shrugged, “Yeah. The house has a lot more secrets too. It would’ve been my room had I not lost a bet with Lucifer. Now it’s his office,” and with that, he walked in.

The whole room was a lot cozier than Mc would’ve expected. Austere and imposing yes, but there was a level of warmth and comfort to the room Mc would never have expected.

“Satan, what is it?” Lucifer sat at his desk, quill scratching across some paperwork. He hadn’t looked up.

“Mc has a question for you.”

This got him to look up, “Ah Mc. How can I help you?”

“Oh, if I’m interrupting something I can come back later.”

“I could use a break anyway. Please continue,” Lucifer sat there expectantly.

“Okay. Umm…” the memory of Michael flashed through Mc’s mind, and she winced a bit, but continued on with her story. Lucifer’s eyes darkened the further into the story she got. When she got to Michael’s chastisement, Lucifer got up from his chair abruptly, and went over to his window, back to Satan and Mc. Mc faltered in her story, watching as his clothes changed, horns pushing up and out from his head.

“I told her you’d be the one to ask,” Satan intervened, coming to stand behind Mc.

“Why? You know everything. You were there,” Lucifer asked, back still turned.

“You know the whole story,” Satan shrugged, eyes on the black clad figure.

Lucifer was silent and unmoving for quite awhile. Mc’s tension was on high alert for quite awhile, not seeing the horns retreating, until he finally spoke, “Before I begin, I feel I must warn you. You are going to hear things you probably won’t like or agree with. You are not to interrupt me. There will be a chance for me to answer your questions at the end, but only at the end. I will not explain my actions. The only person I answer to is Lord Diavolo. Whether you believe them correct or not, I am not embellishing the truth nor am I trying to hide from it. Knowing all of that, do you want me to continue?”

“... Yes. I would like to know the truth,” Mc answered confidently, though the fact he was still angry put her on edge. She knew he wasn’t angry at her at least.

The eldest, having calmed down enough to revert out of his demon form, came over and sat behind his desk. Satan came and sat next to her, earning a look from Lucifer, “You’re going to stay?”

“She is my guest.”

Lucifer raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, turning his attention back to Mc, “Have you heard about the Great Celestial War?” Mc nodded, and he continued, “No doubt you’ve heard their version of what happened. Probably talks about me and my brothers rampaging around the Celestial Realm until they finally cast us out?” Lucifer looked to her for confirmation.

“More or less,” Mc conceded.

“I am sure they make me out to be a villain in every way?”

“They say before you became angry, you were the model angel.”

“That is… interesting to know. Thank you for that. Now, where to begin?... Do you know anything about our sister?” Mc shook her head no, and Lucifer sighed angrily, “To think they just… Lilith came into my little makeshift family with Beel and Belphie. They were almost triplets in a sense of the word. Beel was the sun, Belphie the moon and Lilith the stars, though I would argue she shined the most brightly out of them. She was... angelic. They should really point to her as the model angel. She was everything an angel should and could be. Though they were all very close, once Beel made himself my bodyguard, Belphie and Lilith spent a lot of time together. Belphie had a habit of going off the the human realm whenever he could, which was not seen as a good thing, though he knew how to keep himself unattached to the humans he happened to meet, so no one could really do much more than grumble. That is, until Lilith started going down him.

Her heart was so pure and full of love, she ended up falling in love with one of the humans she met. Belphie tried to talk her out of it, but it was no use. When the rumors started, I asked both of them what was going on. From what they both said, it was love at first sight. Though I was furious, I went down myself to meet the man in question, and found myself unable to criticize her. He was everything I could have wanted for my sister.

Unfortunately, he was mortal and he came down with a serious illness. Lilith was devastated. We all tried to tell her this was a good thing. He was a good enough person he would probably join us in the Celestial Realm. I even spoke with my father and got permission for her to lead him to the Celestial Realm when he passed. She wouldn’t listen however. He had told her all about his dreams for the future and she couldn’t let his life end. SO she concocted a plan. I wish she would’ve told me about it earlier, but I only found out about it after the deed had been done. She took a Tarel fruit and fed it to him,” Mc gasped despite herself. That fruit was precious. Michael himself wasn’t allowed any unless Father approved of it. Lucifer didn’t even acknowledge the outburst, “He recovered, obviously, but the damage was irreversible. As punishment for her sins, my father decided she would be put on trial, though we all knew the outcome, “ as did Mc. Either death or complete exile. They were essentially one-and-the-same.

“I had… many issues with the Celestial Realm and how it was run. How it probably still is. I was able to put those all aside however for the sake of my family and my position. This however,” and Mc could see the rage that still filled his eyes, “I could never forgive. Not if it meant the death of our dear baby sister. All my brothers felt the same way, especially Beel and Belphie. We all decided we were going to do something about it. Despite what anyone might say, I did try to go the “correct way” in the beginning. Supplications to my father. Speaking to others that might listen. I think we even tried a petition at one point. Very few would listen. I think there was a level of envy from most of the other angels. They saw in Lilith all their shortcomings, and so they had latched onto the one “bad” thing anyone could ever remember her doing.

“Tensions came to a head one day when I told my father and Michael I would do everything in my power to keep Lilith safe. Michael then looked me dead in the eyes and told me my sister was going to be punished, even if he had to do it himself. I left that meeting trembling with rage, and that’s when I knew I would wage war against anyone who tried to hurt my family, even if that meant fighting my father myself. I flew into the sky that day and sent my declaration of war over the entire Celestial Realm.

“Some came to our aid, but most sat on the opposing side. The war was long and bloody. Many that had flocked to our aid perished, low ranked angels who didn’t stand a chance against the likes of Michael and his bow. On what would come to be known as the last day of the war, we had so few left, my precious family had to be put near the front of the battle. Everything was going fine, and we were actually winning when I saw Michael emerge from the enemy forces. He had spotted Lilith, standing with Beel and Belphie, and I could see his intentions before anyone else. I tried my hardest to reach the three youngest, but a large crowd of angels came to attack me. Whether it was his plan all along to keep me tied up with so many, I don’t know. All I do know is that by the time I had fought off all my attackers it was too late. He had strung three arrows pointing them at my family. They all knew it was coming too, and I watched the panic set in to all three of them, with Beel in the middle. He chose to save Belphie. Lilith went down with an arrow to the wing, which was then followed by three more arrows shot by others, one to her other wing, one to the stomach, and then one to the chest. She looked over to me as she started falling and I…” Lucifer’s voice broke and he had to take a second to compose himself, “Well, let’s just say I will never forget it. After the shock had worn off, I flew after her as she fell. I tried to shoot down as fast as I could hoping to grab her, but it was no use. She crashed into the Devildom, wings singed body broken.

“I didn’t tell anyone about that day for a long time. Eventually I did tell Barbatos and Lord Diavolo who Lilith’s murderer was, which is why Barbatos knew who to send you to for answers. The fact Michael wouldn’t come clean about the whole thing, and that they’ve essentially erased her from history… It makes my blood boil. To see Diavolo acting so chummy with my sister’s murderer…” Mc could see, through the film of tears blocking her vision, Lucifer’s horns starting to emerge again.

Without thinking, she crossed over to him and hugged him, openly weeping. The thought was appalling. Whenever people spoke about the Great Celestial War, they always spoke of Michael’s brilliant tactical genius. They spoke of how he’d helped crush the rebellion, though they had never gone into detail. She now knew why. Lucifer was taken aback for a second by the behavior, but eventually hugged her back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, yeah. That happened.

Likes, shares and comments all vm appreciated.

If y’all got the reference in the beginning, I applaud you and offer the chance to quote her magnificence in the comments or you could send me asks and I will reply with another quote (please take me up on this!)

Part Seventeen

#obm #obey me!#obey me #obey me satan #obey me swd #obey me satan/mc #obey me lucifer #obey me michael #obey me lilith #obey me angst #obey me celestial war #obey me hol #obey me beel

36 notes · View notes

padfootagain · 4 years

Text

Girl Crush (XXIV)

Chapter 24: Thanking You With Bellflowers

Here we go again for a brand new chapter!! I hope you like it! It's very cute, nothing to worry about in this one.

The next chapter is already written, so next update on Sunday!

Tell me what you think!

Word Count: 3519

"Y/N! SHUT DOWN THE WATER!"

"SHUT IT DOWN!"

You heard a squeal coming from Harry, and hurried to close the tap. You peered inside the backroom again, where Jasmine and Harry were struggling to repair the leaking sink. For now, they had only made the leak worse.

They were both drenched, and both getting grumpier by the minute, but they were also both too stubborn to admit their defeat.

So, they just got more irritated and wet instead of putting down their tools and calling for the help of a professional.

"This is getting ridiculous, guys," you attempted to put some sense into their thick skulls. "I am extremely grateful for the two of you helping me out with the renovation for my shop, but none of you seem to be able to repair that particular issue. We should just call a plumber."

Both your friends turned to you and shot you a glare.

"We are not calling anyone!" Jasmine protested. "We can do this."

"You're both drenched, you're gonna catch a cold."

"Shut up and hand me that wrench," Harry replied, ignoring your protests and making you roll your eyes.

"Do you even know what you're doing?"

Both of your friends looked up at you again from their spot on the wet ground, this time with an offended look on their faces.

"We can do this! Right, Jas?" Harry replied.

"Damn right, we can!"

It took them over an hour more to manage to repair the leak. You didn't tell them that a plumber would have probably been done in 20 minutes where they had spent almost three hours. You were too grateful for their help for that, and you were also struggling to avert your eyes elsewhere while Harry was walking into your garden and taking off his wet white T-shirt to get rid of some of the water impregnated in the cotton.

Indeed, you were too busy trying to look away from the butterfly tattooed on his abdomen…

"I'm starving, let's go find something to eat. I think we deserve it," Jasmine decided. "I'm gonna change into some dry clothes, and we can go."

"Harry, when is your appointment with Gucci?"

Your friend checked the time.

"In a little less than two hours, I can stay for lunch."

"What are you preparing for with Gucci?"

He shrugged, grabbing one of the towels you had fetched for your two friends.

"We'll start working on the style for the new album soon, but it's a bit early for that for now. I just want to buy some new stuff."

Jasmine heaved a loud sigh from the corner of the room she was hiding into while she changed.

"Ha… being rich and buying Gucci…"

"Do you want to come? I… could use some advices, actually."

"Really?" you asked, surprised.

"I reckon you know more about fashion than her, she won't be very useful," Jasmine teased you.

"Well, I won't deny it," you replied, crossing your arms before your chest. "Still, it could be fun."

"Nice! We'll all go together then. But first, lunch. I'm famished."

That was how, after eating some Indian food in the tiny restaurant up the street, you and Jasmine found yourself staring at Gucci suits and shirts and trousers. Silk and cotton and glitter, and a lot of expensive pieces of clothing…

Some clothes had been prepared for him in advance, and he went through them, picking up a few of them. He examined a green jacket, that he seemed to like.

"I like this one," he nodded.

"It's nice," you agreed.

"Too bold?"

You raised an eyebrow, shaking your head.

"You? Too bold?"

He shrugged, looking a little shy all of sudden, blushing.

"I mean… too much is… too much…"

You laughed at him, picking up the jacket and placing it before him to judge what he would look like wearing it.

"It looks great on you," you agreed.

"You sure?"

"I'm absolutely certain."

He considered the piece of clothing again, putting it on and checking his reflection in a mirror, but nodded with a content smile on his lips.

"It looks great, indeed!"

Most of the afternoon was spent staring at pretty clothes and helping Harry choose some new outfits. You and Jasmine had some fun trying some clothes too, until your friend spotted a dress that took her breath away.

A dark, silky dress that fitted her so well, she felt like she had never in her life tried any clothes that fitted her before. It felt like a second skin, and both you and Harry were left speechless.

"Wow," he let out, his eyes growing round. "Jas, you look breathtaking!"

"You do," you nodded in agreement, the same astonished look on your face. "Like… you're always pretty but this is… wow…"

"Wow." Both you and Harry repeated in unison from your seats before the fitting room.

She had a huge grin on her face, and she seemed to be seeing stars all around the room.

"It's so pretty," she breathed, tracing the outlines of the fabric with her fingertips.

"You should take it," Harry nodded. "You should definitely take it."

Her smile faltered, and she let out a small laugh, clearly saddened although she tried to brush it off.

"There's no tag with the prize for a reason, Harry," she replied, taking one last look at herself in the mirror.

"I meant to…"

"I know what you meant, that's alright, though," she gave him a half-smile, before disappearing behind the curtain of the fitting room again.

Harry heaved a sigh next to you, but you nudged him to brush his disappointment away.

"It's alright Harry. It's still fun to try on some nice clothes."

"You still haven't tried on this suit you've been eyeing for half-an-hour, though," he replied, nodding towards the burgundy clothes that you had been admiring for a while.

You grew a little shy, shrugging.

"I won't be able to pay for it, anyway."

"I can."

"Harry…"

"Why are you always so uptight about that. I have a lot of money, I can buy you a nice suit. My bank account will not even notice."

You shifted in your seat, quite torn apart by your want for the nice clothes, and the fact that you couldn't possibly accept something that expensive without feeling guilty.

"Can you please do something for me?" he asked with pleading eyes. "Just for once, forget the price, and try this suit on. Don't buy it. But just for a moment, do something nice for yourself, and wear something you've always wanted to wear. Can you do this for me?"

You heaved a sigh, but nodded, giving up while Jasmine was reappearing with her casual clothes on.

You asked to try this burgundy suit, already adoring the clothes as your fingers ran across the soft fabric.

As you disappeared in the fitting room and out of earshot, Harry asked the saleswoman a little favour.

"Can you make sure to take her measurements and make the suit fit perfectly, please?" he asked in a secretive whisper.

The employee merely nodded in response, and went off to get all she would need to make the suit perfect for you. If you asked questions, he would say that he had asked just to make you feel even better about yourself. The truth wasn't that innocent though.

After a few minutes, you finally walked before your friends again.

Jasmine let out a gasp, pressing her palm against her mouth to refrain the shout that was sure to come out otherwise.

"Oh my God, you're so beautiful, Y/N!" she squealed excitedly, getting up to her feet to take a closer look at your outfit.

You shied away, nervously playing with your fingers in response.

"It is very pretty."

"The suit is just perfect for you! You're so gorgeous!"

"Thanks, Jas," you mumbled under your breath.

You looked at Harry, who had remained quiet and still sat motionless on his chair.

And if you had been able to read his thoughts, his reaction wouldn't have taken you aback then. Because he had none. His brain seemed to have been frozen, and all he could do was stare at you and memorize the sight before his eyes. There was not even a beginning of a thought crossing his mind, it was all just a blank canvas before which your image stood, unforgettable and almost ethereal.

He seemed to have forgotten how to breathe, but he didn't even notice. He reckoned that he had never felt this smitten by anyone before.

And now, he had always found you astonishingly beautiful, but he couldn't deny the fact that your outfit just enhanced how gorgeous you were to him.

You looked like a goddess he wished he could spend his life worshipping…

"Harry? What do you think? Do you like it?"

His name spoken in your voice seemed to shake him out of his torpor, at least enough so for him to clear his throat and clumsily stand up to join Jasmine by your side. He was still staring at you with his mouth agape and his eyes a bit too wide.

You frowned a little, but found no other explanation for his dazzled expression.

Was he… gawking at you…?

He blushed fiercely as his eyes met yours again.

"You…" he let out in a shaky breath, his mouth dry and struggling to summon his voice again. "You look…"

His eyes travelled across your frame one more time, drinking you in, before finally letting out in a breath the only word he judged worthy to describe you as your gazes met for good.

"… Perfect."

He gave you a shy smile.

"You look… perfect," he repeated, his voice a little more confident.

"Thanks," you grinned.

Meanwhile, Jasmine was pretending she didn't exist and was wondering if Harry would do what was obvious that he longed for, which was crossing the distance between the two of you and snog you senseless in the middle of the Gucci shop.

But he didn't. Instead, he let you turn to the mirror again, taking the chance as you turned around to study the way your vest hugged your back perfectly.

"Well, even I have to admit that it looks good on me," you half-joked. "You were right, Harry. It was a nice dream to have."

You walked away to change back into your own clothes while Harry went off to pay for the clothes he had selected for himself.

"Will you also take the suit for your girlfriend, sir?"

And Harry almost corrected the saleswoman.

No, we're not together. Just friends.

But what was the point? The truth, he guessed. But then again, it would hurt so much to correct her. He reckoned that it was a rather innocent lie he would be telling himself for just a few seconds if he didn't say anything.

So, he let it slide, and for a moment, he bathed in the illusion that you were recognised as his girlfriend, instead of his friend.

"I will," he nodded, taking out his credit card and exchanging a knowing smile with the Gucci employee before him.

You would be mad at him for that, but he also knew that you would get over it. If he didn't spoil the woman he loved, even if you weren't his, then who could he spend his money for at all?

You were packing, putting your books in cardboard boxes. You were due to move to your new flat with Gareth the next week. He was helping you pack, and you were having quite a laugh, your boyfriend being silly next to you to make sure that you would keep on smiling.

It was a rather nice evening, actually. Warm like California was used to, and the sunset bathing the sky with pink and gold.

You were interrupted by your phone ringing, and picked up to hear Jasmine's voice.

"Y/N!" she shouted in the phone, and you had to bring the device a little further away from your ear. "I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT HARRY DID!"

"Well, hello to you too, Jas," you chuckled. "What did Harry do?"

"I'VE JUST RECEIVED THE DRESS!"

You frowned, putting down a book in the box before you, while Gareth threw you a questioning look.

"What dress? What are you talking about?"

"THE DRESS! The Gucci dress! The one from last week! You remember? The one that was so pretty! It's just been delivered to my flat! He also bought me a new drill! I was complaining about mine being old and not working properly when we tried to pierce your wall to add the shelves for your plants, but I didn't think that he would buy me one!"

"Harry… did that?"

"YES! He left a cute card with them too! I mean… a part of me doesn't want to accept cause the dress must have cost… way too much to even think about it, but… I've just put it on again and… IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!"

You laughed, shaking your head. Now, actually, it was pure Harry to do something like this.

"Anyway, sorry… I'm so EXCITED!" Jasmine went on, and you could imagine her jumping up and down in her new dress, with the largest grin on her face. "I called you to warn you because… if he bought the dress for me, then I'm pretty sure that he has probably bought your suits too."

You froze, a book almost set in the box, but held by just your fingertips instead.

"What… do you… do you think so?"

"I mean, mine was delivered just a bit ago, yours will probably soon arrive as well."

"But I… I told him not to…"

"Well, I didn't ask for it either, and yet he did it!"

"I mean… he loves doing this kind of things."

Just as you were listening to your friend's answer, someone knocked on your front door.

Gareth moved towards the door, but you stopped him and went to open the door instead.

And sure enough, Jasmine was right. There was a delivery for you.

You got the package, tipped the delivery guy, and hurried back to the living room to open the box. Your heart was pounding in your chest, although you knew already what was enclosed in the large white box.

You put down your phone, placing your friend on speaker.

"So? Is it the suit?" she eagerly asked.

You lifted the lid, revealing the beautiful burgundy fabric you expected. Still, you couldn't refrain a gasp.

"Yeah… yeah, it's the suit…"

"What suit? Who sent you that? Did you buy it?" Gareth asked, walking across the room to stand beside you to take a better look at the inside of the package.

"Harry bought it for me."

At your words, Gareth froze, turning fully to you, his eyes travelling back and forth between you and your gift.

You let out a breathy chuckle, your nerves getting the best of you while you struggled not to cry.

"I can't believe he did this…"

You reached for the note he had left, placed neatly on top of the clothes.

Don't even start telling me I shouldn't have, because I'm right about this.

All my love, always,

H xx

You laughed at his note, before pressing it to your heart.

"Girl, this man is something else…" Jasmine said, and you could hear that she was shaking her head, before she gasped. "MY DRILL IS CHARGED I HAVE TO TRY IT! SEE YOU TOMORROW AT THE SHOP, BYE!"

And before you could reply, she had hung up, making you laugh.

"So… he buys you nice clothes now?" Gareth asked, struggling to hide the jealousy that oozed from his tone.

"I mean… he always buys nice things to everyone," you countered, a tender smile on your lips that Gareth didn't like at all. "He also bought me many scarves, and this," you added, your fingers coming up to brush against your necklace.

This necklace… how could Gareth forget about it? He had bought you one as well, but you never wore it. It was always Harry's peony that shone softly around your neck with the sun.

"I'll call him and thank him."

Gareth cleared his throat, summoning his most innocent tone.

"Isn't it a bit weird that he buys you clothes like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… I don't buy Gucci suits to my friends…"

"Well, maybe you should start to," you joked. "It's not weird. He just loves making gifts. He also bought Jasmine the dress she loved."

"I see. That's nice of him."

"Yeah… I'll call him now."

Before he could say anything else, you were pressing your phone against your ear, your fingers still tracing the edges of the folded vest.

"Hello, Y/N! How are you?" Harry's voice formed through the phone, warm and merry, and making you smile so easily.

"Hey, Harry! I'm… speechless… I've just received your package. I… I don't know what to say."

"Well, don't tell me that it was madness or anything of the kind, that's all I'm asking for."

"This is… so beautiful, Harry. Thank you."

"You deserve it. You only deserve the best. Besides, it suited you too well, I couldn't let you walk away from it. Would have been too much of a shame. Are you wearing it now?"

"No," you laughed. "I'm making my boxes for next week. Besides, I reckon that I should keep it for a special occasion. Like… when my shop opens."

"That would be amazing. Everyone will come to your shop, just to see you in that suit, not even any need for flowers then."

"Oh, shut up!" you chuckled, shaking your head, but Gareth didn't miss how your lips turned into a grin.

"I'm serious!"

"Anyways… thank you, Harry. For everything."

"You know… you've always made me feel like I could be myself. Like I… could wear whatever I wanted, and be whoever I wanted… You've made me feel better in my own skin. I thought… it was just a small thing compared to what you've done for me, but… I thought maybe it would help you feel a little bit more like your best self too, the same way you make me feel."

You weren't sure what to answer, and Harry was suddenly worried that he might have gotten too far with his confession.

But he was soon reassured.

"You make me feel like that too. I know I'm accepted when I'm with you."

A proud smile settled across his lips.

"That's all that matters to me."

"Are you in the studio still?"

"Yeah, we're finishing up a song."

"What's it called?"

"I won't tell you."

"Please!"

"Nope! That would be cheating!"

"Tell me something at least!"

He heaved a sigh, running his hand through his messy hair. He really never could resist you, could he?

"I wrote it a while back, when I was on the road. I'm finishing up with the instrumentation."

"What is it about?"

You.

It should have been his answer, but he couldn't admit that out loud. Especially when he knew that Gareth was probably in your apartment too, helping you pack up your things.

It's about you. I wrote it that night after our dinner in L.A, when you talked about Gareth and how you weren't sure about him. It's about how I wish you'd given me a chance. It's all I wish I had told you that evening, instead of waiting for your couple to become stronger. It's me begging you to let me adore you the way you deserve. Do you remember that walk we took under the stars that night? I put my coat over your shoulders because you were cold. Do you remember that?

"It's about… asking someone to let you love them. It's about… the beginning of being in love."

"What's it called?"

"So far, the title's Adore You."

"Awww! I love it already!"

"It's the cheesiness in you."

"You're even more of a romantic than I am!"

"Maybe so."

"Well, you should go back to writing your next hit, then! I'll leave you to it. I'll see you tomorrow at the shop?"

"Sure. Good night, Y/N."

"Good night, Harry. Oh, and by the way… Jasmine loved her gifts too."

He chuckled, and you could imagine him blushing and balancing his weight from one foot to the other.

"I'm glad she did."

"Good luck with your song."

"Sleep tight."

He hung up before he could let out the words that he almost let slip more and more often these days. It was worrying, really, the way the words seemed to get closer to the tip of his tongue and to his treacherous lips every day. With every call, actually, it would seem. What if he let them slip out? Would you hate him then?

Love you…

"Harry! You're done, yet? Bring your arse back here!" Mitch's voice rang through the studio.

"I'm coming! Jesus! You're impatient today!" Harry laughed, walking down the corridor to record his song again.

Yet another song about you…

*******************

Taglist : @ponycake27 @horsesreign @xinyourdreamsx @jbluevelvet@notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss @stuckupstucky@snek-shit @suchatinyinfinity@i-padfootblack-things @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi@jigsawlover10 @emyyjemyy @addictedtofictionalcharacters @staringmoony@madamrogers @cronias13 @stylesfics-xx @mellamolayla @mariaenchanted

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #harry styles series #series #fanfic #fanfiction #imagine #writing

42 notes · View notes

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

Link

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 9, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Today began the second impeachment trial for former president Donald J. Trump, this time for incitement of insurrection against the American government.

Still, the people who are really on trial are the 50 Republican senators judging Trump’s guilt.

The impeachment trial today covered whether it is constitutional to try a former official. This angle was designed to get Republican senators off the hook: if not, they could avoid voting on the article of impeachment.

The proceedings went badly for the defense. Lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-MD) began the session by pointing out that Trump’s lawyers were arguing for a brand new “January exception to the Constitution of the United States of America.” Constitutional lawyers from across the political spectrum, he pointed out, agree that former officials must be held accountable for their actions after they leave office. Otherwise, officeholders could commit high crimes and misdemeanors and then promptly resign, putting themselves beyond reach of impeachment.

“It’s an invitation to the president to take his best shot at anything he may want to do on his way out the door, including using violent means to lock that door to hang on the Oval Office at all costs and to block the peaceful transfer of power,” Raskin said. “In other words, the January exception is an invitation to our Founders’ worst nightmare. And if we buy this radical argument… we risk allowing January 6 to become our future.”

What would that look like? Raskin answered his own question with a thirteen-minute video that revisited exactly what happened on January 6. Using footage and tweets from the attack on the Capitol, the video laid out the direct relationship between Trump’s speech at his rally that day and his supporters’ attack on Congress. It was devastating. Seeing the events of the day laid out in chronological order, with Trump’s words echoing from the mouths of furious insurrectionists attacking the Capitol, was even worse than seeing it happen in real time on January 6.

After the video, Raskin and the impeachment manager who followed him, Representative Joseph Neguse (D-CO) laid out, in historical detail, that the Framers certainly intended for impeachment to include officials who had already left office. They pointed both to a case that was underway in Britain when the Framers were including impeachment in the Constitution and to the case of Secretary of War William Belknap, who was impeached in 1876 after he resigned from office in the midst of a scandal.

The goal behind impeachment, Neguse said, is to guarantee accountability and stop corruption. There is, he said, no merit to Trump’s claim that he can incite an insurrection and then insist weeks later that the Senate lacks power to hold a trial.

Like Raskin and Neguse, Representative David Cicilline (D-RI) emphasized that there is no “January exception” to the Constitution. He pointed out that Trump committed a terrible constitutional offense when he incited an armed angry mob to riot in the Capitol.

Cicilline also pointed out that Trump did not back down. At the end of that fateful day, he tweeted: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” It is no wonder Trump’s lawyers want to talk about jurisdiction rather than facts, he said.

After their presentations, Raskin gave an emotional plea to senators to defend American democracy.

After a recess, it was Trump’s lawyers’ turn. It didn’t go well.

The two men, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, only joined the defense team a little over a week ago, after Trump’s original team leaders all quit, and so have had little time to prepare. They were also apparently surprised by the quality of the prosecution’s presentation today, and so tried to change their own presentations on the fly.

Castor spoke first, coming across as condescending and meandering—Schoen later defended him by saying Castor had not known he would be speaking today. Even Trump supporter Alan Dershowitz, who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial, seemed put off. “I have no idea what he’s doing,” Dershowitz told Newsmax.

Next up was Schoen, who insisted that the Trump voters whose candidate lost the election must be heard. He appeared to threaten the senators with civil war. “This trial will tear the country apart, perhaps like we’ve only ever seen once in history.”

The two men seemed badly outmatched, rambling and unprepared. While the Democrats’ presentations were clear, organized, and illustrated with slick videos and graphics, the defense had none of that. Watching from Florida, the former president was allegedly irate. The goal for the defense today was simply to give cover to Republicans who wanted to avoid voting on the merits of the case by giving them room to dismiss the case on the grounds it was unconstitutional. Castor and Schoen did not give them that cover.

At the end of the presentations, the Senate voted that it was constitutional to proceed with the trial by a vote of 56 to 44. Six Republicans, one more than had voted yes on a similar vote in Congress, joined the Democratic majority. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said the defense lawyers had not provided a convincing argument that such a trial was unconstitutional. When pressed by reporters about why he thought the defense was poor, he said: “Did you listen to it? It was disorganized, random—they talked about many things, but they didn’t talk about the issue at hand.”

The defense lawyers’ problem, of course, is that they are being asked to defend the indefensible. They know it; we know it; Republican senators who have been defended Trump know it. During the video of the insurrection, Trump supporters Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) looked at papers on their desks, Rick Scott (R-FL) looked at papers on his lap, and Rand Paul (R-KY) doodled.

Republican Senators willing to excuse Trump for his incitement of an insurrection that attacked our peaceful transfer of power are tying the Republican party to the former president and to an ideology that would end our democracy.

What led the rioters on January 6, 2021, to try to hurt our elected officials and overturn the legal results of the 2020 election was Trump’s long-time assertion that he won in a landslide and the presidency had been stolen from him. This big lie, as observers are calling it, is not one of Trump’s many and random lies, it is the rallying cry for a movement to destroy American democracy. He is building a movement based on the idea that his supporters are the only ones truly defending the nation, because they—not the people who certified the 2020 election—are the ones who know the true outcome of the election. He is creating a narrative in which he is the only legitimate leader of the nation and anyone who disagrees is a traitor to the Constitution.

As Cicilline noted, even after the riot Trump refused to repudiate that big lie. And now, even in the face of impeachment he has not repudiated it. Indeed, he has doubled down on it, refusing to admit he is a “former” president. His supporters haven’t admitted it, either, including his supporters who sit in Congress. None of those who challenged the counting of the electoral votes on January 6 and 7 has admitted it was a political stunt. Now, they are arguing that impeachment is a partisan attack on the part of Democrats.

If Republican senators permit Trump to get away with the big lie, it must, logically, take over the Republican Party. It’s no wonder that he lost his first defense team because he insisted they use their media time to argue that he had won the election in a landslide. Trump is not trying to win just this trial: he is trying to win control of the Republican Party and, through it, the country.

Tomorrow, the Senate impeachment managers will begin to argue their case.

——

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #impeachment #Capitol Insurrection #January 6 2021 #sedition #political

7 notes · View notes

icasttourniquet · 3 years

Text

Brand Treatment and Surving a Beatdown with Spine Intact

Question: I have a character who gets beat up by a group of people and branded on her cheek. I'd like there to be very little risk of spine injury and for another character to be able to treat her semi-effectively. There is healing magic in the world and it is entirely stat based, not experience based. Thoughts?

We'll focus on the two parts of this questions separately. First, how can you beat someone without risking spine injury? And second, how should you DIY a brand treatment? (Also, and hopefully this goes without saying, but you should not DIY a brand treatment IRL).

Spine Safe Beatdown

It is impossible to guarantee 100% that your injured character (IC) has no spine injury. That said, it's possible to reduce the risk.

Why do spines break?

Like any bone, spines can break. Unlike any random bone, vertebrae have a spinal cord inside them, and the shards of a broken spinal bone can sever the spinal cord, causing numbness, tingling, and paralysis. Spinal column injuries refer to broken bones only. Spinal cord injuries refer to a damaged cord, which almost always comes with at least one broken vertebra too (sort of a two for one injury deal).

Spines are finicky beasts, but they especially dislike the following types of force:

Compression up and down the spine (think like an accordion)

Twisty motions (like cracking your back, but worse)

Bending side to side (t-posing and then swaying from side to side)

Rough head jostling

Assymetric force from the front or back, which could cause the spine to twist

(For more fun breaking bones, see: Can Your Character Survive... Broken Bones?).

Protecting the Spine

So... basically any impact on the head or torso has the possibility to make the spine unhappy. Mod N suggests two equally strong goons punch both shoulders simultaneously and with the same amount of force. Since it's unlikely any goons are feeling that considerate, you can reduce the likelihood of a spine injury if you:

Have your character sitting on a chair with a back or lying down as opposed to standing during their beating. This gives the spine less room to get up to any funny business

Avoid too many blows to the head and neck. In movies, beatings seem to always involve grabbing the poor victim by the hair and then laying them out with a punch. This seems like a great way to get permanent spine and/or brain damage (Hey, Can Your Character Surive... Altered Mental Status, anyone?)

Avoid grabbing and pulling on the body by the head (I haven't been in too many beatdowns myself so I'm not sure if this is a frequent occurance)

Avoid any direct blows to the spine, avoid compression down the spine, avoid too much twisty spine motions

Ruling out Spinal Injuries

While it's best practice to assume spine injury in any trauma case until definitively proven otherwise, there are ways to semi-rule out any serious spine injury before you move someone, including:

Clearing the spine (the caretaking character doesn't appear to have medical experience, so this seems unlikely, but perhaps they could cast Heal Spine before further treatment)

Check if IC reports any unusual numbness or tingling

Check the spine itself for any obvious bruising, bleeding, tenderness, etc.

Ask IC if their spine feels okay (spinal cord injured patients often report that they know something is very wrong even if they don't know what)

If the caretaker has no way to care for a spine injury, it might be enough for them to simply think about the possibility. Or, if they don't have any medical experience at all, they might just jump to treating the more obvious injuries, in this case, the brand.

DIY Brand Treatment

My first thought when I hear about a cheek brand is, yikes and my second is, why doesn't that brand go through the cheek? That said, it appears cheek brands actually did happen historically (drawn images but no pictures of branding in the link).

Appearance

Brands are a type of third degree burn, which means the third layer of skin is affected, as well as the first two (no pictures in the link). The tool used to make the brand will affect the appearance.

Here's a video of someone getting a brand with a precision implement. (This is a dead dove, don't eat situation. Apparently, human branding is a squick of mine. I'm learning so much writing up this response!). In this video, because the hot tool is so tiny, the wound itself mostly looks red and swollen, with a few black lines where the actual brand occured.

I'm assuming when you say brand, you mean something like this:

Brand, from here,

Here's a healing progression—one week, one month, and three months—of a more applicable brand (pictures right at the top of the page after following the link). And here's what NOLS has to say about it: "The skin appears leathery, charred, pearl gray, and dry, or possibly white and firm. The area is sunken and has a burned odor." (I mostly just like "pearl gray" as a color name).

In that case, I think a blackened and charred shape of the brand, surrounded by perhaps a thin layer of white but mostly red and swollen skin is your best bet.

Reaction

Counterintuitively, the branded skin itself might not hurt because the brand has burned away all the nerve endings. I think it's safe to say the area around the brand probably hurts like hell (on account of this area is probably second- and first-degree burns).

There's also the added psychological complication of this brand being on the face, where humans are more psychologically vulnerable to injury. IC is probably not too happy right now, and it will likely be obvious her whole life that someone branded her there, though the shape itself may become obscured by scar tissue.

Here's the summary of a meta-analysis that looked at rates of anxiety and depression in people with visible differences (including facial scarring). It might be a worthwhile read, as might the study itself. Changing Faces is a charity dedicated to helping people with facial injuries.

Brand Concerns

What are we worried about when it comes to branding?

Airway: this is a face brand. Traumatic injuries on the face and neck could potentially interfere with IC's ability to breathe. Needless to say, that would be bad

Infection: skin is in charge of keeping foreign contaminants out of the body. If the skin is burned through, bacteria and viruses have a much easier time getting to the blood

Volume shock: a big enough brand can kill someone outright, though perhaps then it's less accurate to describe it as a brand and more accurate to say someone was burnt to death

Hypothermia: skin also keeps the cold out. In non-balmy environments, even small burns can put you at a high risk for hypothermia

Psychological trauma: for what I hope are obvious reasons

Cheeks aren't big enough for me to be too worried about volume shock or hypothermia, though your caretaker should monitor IC for signs of shock or uncontrollable shivering.

Brand Treatment

The first step with any burn is putting the fire out. Mod N likes to remind me that EMT training says you need to wash out any burn with cold water for 5 to 10 minutes, just in case it is still smoldering. Ideally, this is done with clean water, not ice cold. Do not put ice on the brand!

Next, to prevent infection, clean the wound of any outside debris (dirt, clothes, etc.) and apply some sort of antibacterial salve. If no salve is available, hopefully your caretaker has a Spell of No Bacteria up their sleeves.

Now to dress the wound. If it's relatively small (less than 3 palms of surface area), use a wet to dry dressing. That is, put wet gauze directly on the surface of the wound. Then dry gauze or a dry bandage as the next layer up. Change it once a day for cleaning. If your world has showers, don't put the wound directly under a shower head for at least a week.

Cleaning in this case means both washing the wound and cutting away dead skin. This is usually a dreadful experience for all involved. I have only treated moulaged wounds with a fake victim who screamed far too convincingly and it was miserable.

Inhalation Burns

Observative readers will note I mentioned airway concerns but didn't addressed them. Gold star for that reader. The caretaker should monitor IC's airway as standard practice but they also need to think about inhalation burns, which are burns to the inside of the mouth, throat, and lungs. These are always considered life threatening.

Inhalation burns are caused by breathing in hot materials, such as smoke. In the cosemetic branding video I recommended above, the brander himself wore a gas mask, presumably at least in part to keep from breathing in hot air. With the brand so close to IC's mouth and nose, inhalation burns are a distinct possibility.

Inhalation burns are treated in the wilderness with a swift evacuation. Your caretaker's best bet is going to be to either rule out inhalation burns or treat them magically. Depending on technology levels, a hospital or doctor may be able to help IC too.

Conclusion

IC is going through a bit of a rough patch, between the beatdown and the brand, but it's completely possible for them not to have any life-threatening injuries, especially if the goons avoid their spine during the assault and their brand is small and doesn't involve inhalation burns.

#question #ict #branding #spine injury #wilderness medicine #writing advice #writing tips

4 notes · View notes

eno-shima-jot · 4 years

Text

flos || haruto asuka

a/n: so.... basically i love haruto dearly as a fellow vindictive twink, and have projected onto him hard. anyways, the song this comes from is flos by R Sound Design !! i thought that it fit with a3's general theme of "blooming". if you squint really hard, you may find some mentions of transphobia, but it’s very vague !!

Greetings,

To my wishes, my future, and my incessant regrets

The dream with a fever of 38.5 ℃ eventually faded away

It was winter again. Genta was used to winters at his own home, but somehow it felt colder in Veludo Way. Things were different. Wind was guided along by the concrete buildings, gaining momentum against the hard rebound of an alleyway corner and shooting out with a low huff. At least in the countryside, the wind was more gentle. It crept up on you like a sheet of ice forming on your knuckles. The cold of Veludo Way bit at him like a territorial beast shooting out to confront an unwelcome traveller.

Well, maybe he was just that. It was stupid of him to run away and try to start over. He really did think, in the heat of the moment, that throwing himself into a world of actors in order to erase and recreate his own character was a cute and witty idea.

It just went to show how much his desire for a fairy tale adventure got in the way of his basic logic.

Greetings again,

Your thoughts, your sorrows, and your erratic emotional way of thinking

Remain trapped in the world of a 85 cm. radius

Tears of frustration welled up in his eyes at the cafe. The heat of the coffee cup thawed out his rigid fingers, and in spite of him having entered the establishment only a few minutes ago, his face already felt too warm. He ended up being one-hundred yen short when trying to get himself lunch, and even though he gracefully left the situation, embarrassment gnawed at him. His stomach bubbled with hunger. He wondered if drinking the coffee would help that, or make things worse.

He concluded bitterly that he probably should have gone with tea.

While drumming his fingers against the warmth of the paper cup, he contemplated what he was going to do. He wasn't physically strong enough to get a lucrative job carrying or making props, and he despised the thought of ever having to pick up a needle and thread again. Anything that gave him memories of the pricked fingers and the torn cloth that was in better shape than his pride repulsed him. He just didn't have the skill set. In spite of being kicked out before adulthood and having to learn to fend for himself with scarce resources, he failed to do much with the arts. Things that didn't serve him in monetary gain were discarded at that time.

His fingers twitched to a stop when a man sat across from him at the table. Everything about the man screamed sophistication and success and control. It was the kind of man that Genta wanted to gain connections to for the sake of balancing out his financial situation, but the kind of man that Genta knew to fear as well. He hadn't met much of those types in his hometown, but the few that came always seemed to leave someone in a bad predicament.

"Eating a good meal before going into the cold will help to fight it." the man said, setting a tray full of food down. Genta's eyes widened and his mouth opened to say something, but the appraising gaze that was focused onto him made him clam up again. He couldn't make a fool of himself in front of someone so important, so he set his lips into a straight line and met with the man's indigo gaze resolutely.

"Is that an offer?" Genta asked steadily. He prayed that he was able to mask the hope in his expression just as well as he could mask the hope in his voice. The suited man in front of him answered with a humourless laugh.

"Two fourty-five would be an unusual time frame for a lunch break," he said. Genta wasn't sure if he was mocking him. After a few seconds of silence, the man spoke again, "It's for you. While you eat, I would like to ask some questions."

It was suspicious, but Genta couldn't think of any better alternatives. He stiffly started to eat, first taking the warm sandwich that was cut into two triangles. The bread wasn't as dry as he would have expected for something left in a cold display case. Well, maybe he was lucky to have it freshly made.

"My name is Kamikizaka, Reni. I'm the director for GOD-za. I've seen you walking around for a few weeks now. No one who has a steady job wanders around the streets of Veludo Way so much, but wander no more. We've been looking for some new recruits." the man explained. Genta knew of this kind of thing. There were only two types of businessmen with equally shady practises. The first type ran you blindly along with enticing details and hypotheticals before moving your hand to seal the deal, and the second type hit you with the punchline right off the bat. He always preferred the latter. They were less tiring to deal with and seemed to speak the same language as him.

"I'm not really an actor," Genta said after swallowing the large bite he had taken. He wanted to savour its taste, afraid that he wouldn't get the chance to enjoy something so good again for a long time. Begrudgingly, he set his food back on the tray, knowing it would be bad to not reply in good time. It was better to tell the truth, so he said, "I came here to start over."

Reni laughed that humourless laugh again. It wasn't even mocking. It was intimidating, like the rattling warning of a rattle snake. Genta feared that he may have offended or otherwise lost favour with the man.

"A lot of people do," Reni mused, his lips pulling into a cryptic smile. "But this place isn't the gateway to your dreams... Nonetheless, I can see a future where your face becomes popular on billboards. Your inexperience means nothing, so long as you're willing to devote yourself to the job you've been given."

Of course Genta could do that. He devoted himself to learning so many things. Finances, cooking, learning his rights, familiarising himself with exploitation, setting boundaries, breaking past all limiting factors that tried to hold him back from his truth... He knew what Reni was saying, but it didn't seem like snake oil. Somehow, Genta suddenly felt passionate and determined, almost excited.

"My name is Asuka, Haruto." Genta lied. The name he had frantically made up for himself when redoing his ID was ill fitting and embarrassingly passe. It screamed of the countryside, of stagnation. A man of Reni's breeding surely would have laughed at it. Reni's smile widened and he slid Genta- no, Haruto- his business card.

"I hope to hear from you again soon then, Asuka." he said. When he left, Haruto finally felt safe to eat his food again. His chest felt tight and he wasn't sure whether it was from anxiety or anticipation.

Everything that overflowed from today, where we fractured our true feelings

Will be lit with firewood, carried by the wind and colour of the rusty sky

It would have been stupid for Haruto to assume he'd immediately get some breakout role. Reni knew that he wasn't an experienced actor. He still had his embarrassing country accent too. It was hard to mask, which made it hard for him to be on stage.

His first performances were as extras in the background with hardly any lines. It hurt his pride more than it should have because he knew he was being looked down upon again. Everyone, even the newbies of GOD-za, were all so well put together. They were like carefully crafted puppets, all on-brand shirts and trim button ups with pristine shoes. It was an unsurprising epiphany to Haruto when he realised he had to recreate himself. When he said he came to Veludo Way to start over- when Reni said that he had to be willing to devote himself to the task at hand- it all meant that he had to throw away himself and start from scratch.

The flower I carefully

Decorated for the dulled days withered in the blink of an eye

Foolish me woke up from the dream

There was no point in clinging to it

It wasn't the first time Haruto reinvented himself. He had tried so many times in the past for the sake of recognition. Even though the recognition he sought was different back then, his current struggle was similar.

Adapt to your surroundings, adopt the mannerisms of the people that are respectable, and then be recognised as respectable yourself.

Even if he fell short the first few times, getting strange looks when he introduced himself or showed people his ID, he knew he could do it again. For real, this time. He had to succeed because GOD-za was the only line he could cling to to avoid falling into poverty and more irreversible failures.

The previous version of him, Genta, always issued the first attack, always puffed himself up to look bigger than he was. People outside of the countryside waited slyly to size up their enemies first. They were coy before they were aggressive. Haruto took that into account and changed his approach. He observed and adopted the things that would help him in the social environment he found himself in, and he changed.

Genta Yamada became an obsolete cluster of characters on a plastic card.

The voice, the colour, the unwavering love you've given me

And the stars that shined in the sky when we were alone have all faded away long ago

Since the awkward years of his realisations of himself, Haruto always admired the idealistic man. The strong and responsible head of the house, the stern man with a sturdy and protective frame. He who made a promising husband and cut a respectably daunting figure. That was the kind of man Haruto figured he wanted to be, even before he realised that his body would never grow the same way as them.

Maybe he never managed to grow out of that. That tendency to admire something that wasn't realistically attainable and then chase after it anyways. Even as time proved him wrong, he wanted to be as close to the security of that image as possible.

He begrudgingly accepted that he couldn't be just that, but he also supplicated that no one could. That's why, when Tasuku joined GOD-za, Haruto was thrown for a loop. Tasuku infuriated him while also captivating him. Tasuku was effortless in his presentation, hitting a perfect balance between cool calmness and crackling retorts.

Under the monochromatic exhaustion after hardship, the seasons lost their colour

Took on the head, festered dully, and spilled down into the worn-out town

Haruto cultivated his talent efficiently. He was a hard worker after all. Nothing could stop him from getting to his end goal. Failure was never an option because it would mean admitting that everyone who rejected him was right. Failure invalidate everything that he knew he was, so he climbed any mountain that laid before him even after his fingers bled and his bones cracked and his body became like lead.

No amount of sacrifice was too much if it meant self-realisation. So what if he had to lose his history over and over again? So what if he had to bend himself into a different form? Who was he without the scars of his ordeals? The scars on his chest?

Yes, Haruto Asuka could sacrifice the immediate in order to secure his future. He even sacrificed his pride and relegated himself to the position as Tasuku's primary partner within the GOD-za community. Tasuku's career only ever seemed to pick up speed, and Haruto knew that he could get a lot from his tailwinds. He was small and insignificant in the streets of Veludo Way no matter what he did on his own. He could hardly contain his smile when someone acknowledged him by name during a street act. Slowly, he was advancing. He was making progress, even if its means were petty. Things worked differently in the city, and earnestness was not able to pave the way alone. Not even if he were born with the tools and privileges of normal men.

The flower should

Blossom before we've carefully followed the degenerate days.

You, clever as always, are still dreaming

And you watered the flowers as if you just realised

Yes, things worked differently in the city. Success was earned through sly means and technicalities rather than the pureness of one's effort. Acting was a means to an end for Haruto. It was just like everything else he went through, another task that kept him alive. It didn't take him long to see that he and Tasuku, despite working closely with each other, couldn't be more different.

He almost felt bad for not having the same passion for acting as his friend. It almost felt wrong to stand near someone who loved acting, to domineer over the pure hearted for daring to be naive. The MANKAI Company was all but dead, just like a fly that had been caught in a venus flytrap hours ago. Haruto had no need to take note of the shabby theater near the end of Veludo Way. Not until Reni became agitated.

Haruto was so used to skating by without many troubles or doubts. He had carved himself spacious room in the community to navigate any inconveniences. Most inconveniences were slight, like a broken doorknob that got stuck midtwist, or clothes that didn't fit right and made him look like his body was melting. When Reni became more demanding and threatening, Haruto truly forgot how wary he should be around him. Reni was a man with immeasurable power, no matter how high Haruto climbed. Reni was above him in every circumstance. The sudden feeling of being crushed under someone else's control put Haruto on the defensive again. He developed an impassive tone and left no more openings for conversation beyond normal pleasantries.

It didn't feel like an honour when Reni told him about his plans to destroy the MANKAI Company. For once, Haruto nearly tasted the sourness of underhandedness. He had no part to play in it. That softened the impact, at least. Once all the dirty business was done, Haruto could just return to the normal routine. He didn't need to have strong feelings on the whole affair.

Under the gentle sunlight that beams through the leaves, the flower that blossomed delicately

Sways above the clouds, on a different planet, beyond dreams

"Haruto. Now that Tasuku is gone, you are our next top actor." Reni declared firmly, leaving no route for escape that didn't lead to detrimental consequences. Was this what Haruto wanted? Did he really want to be at the top? To succeed just like that? Maybe it was just the country boy in him, but it felt wrong. Still, he put on his impassively respectful front and nodded along.

"It's an honour." he replied graciously. There was no satisfaction burning his stomach like money burning holes into teenagers' pockets. He found himself a bit disgruntled at the development. Tasuku left so abruptly, so gracelessly for a princely figure, and Haruto was alone again with the man who wielded absolute power over him since the day they met. He was at Reni's mercy, and he knew that, but being the one at the center of GOD-za made him resent it. Tasuku really was a perfect head of the house, buffering the struggles that tried to unsettle it with his broad form. Now, Haruto, with a body too small and sharp, was to take the brunt of the force.

It was right there that he came to know the feeling of hesitation. He nearly forgot it after years of taking any chances he could get.

The flower I carefully

Decorated for the dulled days withered in the blink of an eye

Foolish me woke up from the dream

There was no point in clinging onto it

MANKAI Company won the act off, and Haruto couldn't say he didn't see it coming. He was so conditioned to GOD-za getting its way that his knee-jerk reaction was denial, but after a moment's consideration, looking at the Winter Troupe's tearful celebration, he understood it. When it came down to it, they were on a different caliber than him. Numbers were strength. Find the people you could rely on most, and take them with you to clear through the trials and tribulations of your life. He knew of things like that.

He felt cold, empty dread voiding out his insides and covering his body in ice. He was freezing down to the core even in the theater that was just crowded enough to become humid and almost uncomfortably warm. Maybe his soul projected back into the chill outside to flee from the harsh guillotine of failure. Reni was displeased.

It just so worked out that he wasn't punted out onto the streets. Not quite. His demotion was a kick to his pride, a rollback of his years of work, but it wasn't an execution. It wasn't banishment. He was still trapped, chained to GOD-za, and that certain future was as reassuring as it was mind-numbing.

I carefully drew flowers

On a patched up paper on a fruitless day.

Our unfortunate selves are defeated by the dreams

In the end, we even let go of our promises

No, not mind-numbing. The monotony of the truth was only a guise to make it feel acceptable. Haruto, who made his decisions in black and white, caught a glimpse of the warmth and vibrancy of life around him. He was in shock from its beauty, from the grief of knowing he couldn't reach out to it. He forgot it and threw it away the first time he reformed himself because the colours were scary, an overwhelming crimson red of his bleeding heart and the burning daggers of scorn that his peers stabbed it with. If warmth came at the cost of searing pain, he couldn't take it. He would rather suffocate in a glass case than be incinerated again.

If Haruto could throw himself away and rebuild himself from the things around him, the cost was that he couldn't recover the old scraps that he left to compost and disappear.

#a3!#act! addict! actors!#haruto asuka #a3! writing #lord help me bc my brain really went BRRRRRR

11 notes · View notes

ghost-town-story · 3 years

Text

chazzawrites challenge 26

Day 26. Self promo time! Share a snippet from another project that you’re proud of.

(From Nova, the last chapter of the “intro”. This is so fucking long lol. Like, 4 pages of wall-of-text writing. But I like it so here ya go. Also warning for briefly mentioned/mostly glossed over past torture of a character, if that’s something you’d like to avoid)

Myles Kerrick Lunacen scowled up at the front door of the house. Up until the triplets were five, Myles had been a regular visitor to his childhood home. Of course, that was before the night that changed his life, the night he lost all faith in his parents’ promises to protect him, the night where what had once been a safe place turned into yet another cage.

One minute he had been stumbling home drunk after a night out, the next he was collapsed in an alleyway, a storm swirling around him and what looked like silver blood dripping from his mouth. He had blacked out, and next thing he knew he was strapped down to a chair as people in masks pressed a branding iron to his forearm. The next time he woke was to his father bandaging his arm as his mother prattled on about some exception being made for him. Myles rubbed his left arm as it ached, the pain of that night never really going away just like the brand they had left on his arm.

But despite everything, he could never truly stay away. He loved his little siblings too much, and he felt he had to protect them when their parents would inevitably fail. Especially James. Naïve, unsuspecting James.

Myles assumed his overwhelming urge to be home for breakfast was related to the eldest of his younger siblings, and so as he always did, he sucked up his dislike of his childhood home and let himself in.

He was immediately greeted with the sight of James sliding down the tail end of the banister, only to trip upon landing and crash into Myles.

“Oh f—I’m sorry,” James apologized as he got his feet back under him, only to start as he realized who it was. “Myles!”

“Hey little brother.” Myles ruffled his hair. No wonder this kid had been in so many accidents by the time he was fifteen. Whatever would happen with him, it was bound to be memorable.

“What are you doing here?”

“I can’t visit my little siblings?”

James put his hands on his hips. “Whenever you do, you usually go out of your way to avoid being seen by anybody but us. And if Mom does see you, you two always fight.” His voice was a tad accusatory.

Myles winced. “Take it at face value Jamie, I wanted to be here for breakfast today.”

James scowled. “Oh, I see what’s happening. You’re in the mood for a fight and decided to pick two. The inevitable with Mom and one with me.” A voice called from the kitchen, and James turned on his heel.

“Oh, is that what you think Jay Jay?” Myles really didn’t tease James as much as his other siblings. In part, it was because Myles pitied him for what was to come, but today he decided there would be time enough for seriousness later and that James deserved a little bit of teasing.

James visibly flinched. “Don’t call me that.” All the fight had suddenly left him, and his voice was uncharacteristically quiet.

“What? Why?” Myles was confused by this sudden change in his brother.

James hesitated for a moment, then turned back to Myles, his signature grin on his face. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” But Myles could see the smile was fake. James was hiding something.

Before Myles could press him further though, James pushed his way through the door into the kitchen. Myles reluctantly followed, making a note to get James alone later to talk.

“James!” When their mother noticed him, she left the stove to fuss over him. “You should be in bed!”

“Mom, I’m fine.” James pushed her away with a grimace.

“Fever and nausea over the whole weekend is not fine.”

“No fever, no nausea, I’m fine Mom. Do you think I’d even try if I wasn’t 100% better? I know you and Dad well enough by now I’d say.”

Myles muffled a snort as James ducked under their mother’s outstretched arm, making a beeline for the fridge. James didn’t even realize how much he didn’t know.

“I’m worried about you James.”

Myles raised an eyebrow. Surely, she couldn’t be thinking he was going to activate soon? Even with the current trend, there was still a few more years until they had to worry. The youngest so far had been twenty, and James was only fifteen.

“Yes, but I’m not a child Mom.” James turned from the fridge with his prize of orange juice. “Plus, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll bring my tech goggles so I have a way to leave if I start to feel worse again. And Will and Bella will be along to watch me too.”

“Fuck that, I’m not watching James,” Bella snapped as she entered.

“Language, Belladonna,” their mother scolded

Myles couldn’t help but wish that James’s fate had landed on Bella instead. She had the name for it at least.

“Fine then.” James was getting irritated. “Will, then.”

“What am I doing?” Will asked.

Myles was amazed he had remained unnoticed thus far, with more people entering the kitchen as James and their mother argued.

“Watching me today since apparently feeling better doesn’t actually mean shit,” James said.

“Well there’s one good solution,” Will said, snagging the orange juice from James. “Stay home.”

“Fuck all y’all,” James snapped, turning on his heel and storming out.

Myles slipped out after him, ignoring the startled gasp of his name. “What’s got you so peeved off little brother?”

“Don’t you start.”

“I’m just asking.”

There was a pause.

“I’m tired of being treated like I’m delicate.”

“If you were you probably wouldn’t be here.”

James shot him a sidelong glare, and Myles shut his smart mouth.

“Do I get into a lotta dumb situations? Yes. Am I a lot better prepared to deal with dumb situations? Also yes. Am I gonna fall off the roof of a building again? Probably not, but if I do I can fucking teleport away before I actually hit the ground again. Am I gonna get hit by a car? No because I’m not fucking four and don’t know what the fuck is going on and get caught in a vision in the middle of the fucking road. I’m tired of being treated like a fucking child!”

“James, you are only fifteen.”

“I know but I’m smarter than that,” James seethed. “I’m smarter than they fucking think but all they see is the scars left by me learning.”

Something clicked in Myles’s head. “You had a vision.”

James jumped as if burned.

“And that’s why you’re so insistent on going to school today.”

James shook his head. “No. I mean yes—No, my vision had nothing to do with school today, but I have this feeling I need to go. You get what I’m trying to say?”

“Your destiny is coming for you.”

James narrowed his eyes at Myles. “What do you mean by that?”

But before Myles could say anything, they were interrupted by Alexis flying down the stairs and crying out Myles’s name as she jumped into his arms.

“Go grab your stuff little brother,” Myles said as he swung her around. “I’ll walk you to school today.”

James recognized his thinly veiled We’ll talk later, and nodded, disappearing around them back upstairs.

“You didn’t tell us you were coming to visit,” Alexis complained as Myles set her back down.

“It was a last-minute decision,” Myles told her.

“Why did you come home?” It was their mother.

“Felt like it.” And that was, surprisingly, the truth. “I’m going to walk James to school once he gets back down here.”

“James—”

“Is going to go whether you allow him or not, so get over it,” Myles cut her off. Secretly, he was proud that James had almost as much of a rebellious streak as he did.

“There’s no need for him to put himself at risk.”

Myles shooed his little sister off to the kitchen. She didn’t need to, couldn’t hear what they were talking about. “You and I both know he’ll be a risk one day,” he said lowly. “Nothing you do to protect him will stop it. One day, something’s gonna set him off and he’s gonna activate. You want it to be here?”

“There’s less to set it off here,” was his mother’s murmured reply. “And you think I’m not monitoring him whenever he’s home?”

“But why are you protecting him now?” Myles retorted. “He’s only fifteen, he still has a couple more years before we need to worry.”

His mother shook her head.

“No,” Myles said quietly. “No, he’s only fifteen. The youngest so far—”

“Seventeen or eighteen. A rebel.”

“But he’s still too young.”

“Then explain his magic fluctuating more than his visions account for,” his mother hissed.

“I don’t know, why don’t you try asking him?” Myles spat. “Tell him everything, then maybe he’ll be more honest with you and you can get answers. Stop lying to him Allison.”

Myles was pleased at his mother’s wince, but he continued. “James will figure out something’s up soon enough if you keep trying to coddle him more than Will or Donna.”

“You know I can’t Myles.”

“You’re not chipped. They don’t control you. Not like the others.”

“They don’t control you either.”

Myles laughed humorlessly. “I may not have a chip Allison but you still control me. Ever since you fucking tied me down and branded me you’ve controlled me. Don’t fucking try to say otherwise.”

His mother winced again. “Myles, I’m sorry—”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Myles snarled. “Sorry doesn’t excuse the fact you and your people made the decision to brand me, without making sure I’d stay knocked out the whole time, without numbing me up, without anything. Sorry doesn’t excuse the fact that you didn’t give a shit then.”

Any further conversation was cut off as Myles registered something flying towards him and spun aside. He realized it was a messenger bag as it twirled through the space he had just occupied, and he snagged it out of the air.

James came sliding down after it. At the bottom he jumped from the railing, tucking into a roll as he landed. He popped up, a wide grin on his face. “That went better than expected,” he chirped before realizing his mother stood there.

His face fell, but Myles just tossed his bag back at him. “Warn a guy next time you’re about to throw shit at him,” he teased.

“Gotta test them reflexes,” James retorted. He glanced nervously at their mother, who just sighed.

“Have fun dear,” she said. “And be careful.”

“I always try,” James replied, nettled.

“And Myles.”

Myles bristled, baring his teeth in the beginnings of a snarl.

“You know what you’re supposed to do.”

Myles snarled softly, but to his surprise James tugged him away and out the door. Probably didn’t want to lose his tenuously won freedom.

“Easy tiger,” James said as they descended the front steps and made their way to the sidewalk.

Myles meowed, half-heartedly swiping at James, who danced aside.

“Hey Myles?”

“Yeah?”

“I might have overheard a little bit of that conversation.”

Myles stiffened. “How much?”

“Not a lot,” James admitted. “Honestly, just your last bit.” He paused. “What did Mom do to you that she’s trying to apologize for now?”

Myles tugged his brother to a stop and leaned down to look him in the eye. “James, look,” he sighed. “The important thing is to remember that in some ways, you are so much luckier than others.”

“I know that,” James muttered, trying to tug his arm out of Myles’s grip. “That’s not an answer Myles.”

“And in others,” Myles continued, not letting go but letting his grip slip so he was holding James’s left forearm, where his brother already bore the same brand, “your fate is worse.”

James pulled again, and this time Myles let him go. “You’re always so cryptic Myles,” James mumbled, cradling his left arm close.

“I know,” Myles replied, standing straight again. But as he started to walk off again, James didn’t move.

Myles slowed and turned around. “Coming little brother?”

“Myles, can you cut the cryptic bullshit for a minute?” James asked. His voice was quiet, compared to his usual over-the-top antics.

Myles sighed. “I can’t promise anything James.”

James sighed. “What did Mom do?” he asked again. “And what do you guys know?”

Myles decided to avoid that first question. “What do you mean what do we know?”

“You and Mom know something,” James said. “About me. I want to know what.”

Myles knew the kid was more perceptive than their mother wanted to believe. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” James bristled.

“James, look.” Myles stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I’m being watched. Don’t ask,” he headed off the questions he was sure his little brother had. “But, when the time is right, I’ll be able to tell you more. Ask me then. I promise I’m not keeping secrets just to spite you little brother.”

James sighed. “You promise you’ll tell me everything?”

“Promise.”

James nodded. “Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s get going. Before Will and Bella catch up and wonder what we were doing.”

“Wise plan,” Myles chuckled as they continued on their way.

Silence fell for a moment, until James broke it. “I understand if you can’t answer this,” he started.

“More questions,” Myles sighed with a grin, but as James hissed and turned away, he tugged James back to face him. “I’m only teasing little brother. Go ahead.”

James turned away sulkily. “I was going to ask,” he said icily, “if you could explain your destiny comment from earlier.”

“That one I can answer,” Myles said, but as James turned to him hopefully, he scowled. “Don’t get your hopes up kiddo. I was making a guess, that’s all. You’re the one with cryptic prophetic visions and all.”

“But you know, don’t you. What’s going to happen?”

“I have an idea,” Myles said carefully. “But after all, the future’s not set in stone little brother. At least from my perspective.”

“Yeah,” James muttered, his expression subdued as he stared down at his feet.

After a moment, he spoke again. “Myles, can you keep a secret?”

“Of course little brother.”

James kept his eyes down as he spoke. “I don’t think I’m coming home again.”

Myles felt a sharp stab of panic that he tamped down. “Vision?”

“Not really.” James absently kicked at a pebble and watched as it rattled down the street. “But Myles, I’ve never seen any of you in my visions.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re not there James.”

James just hummed.

“But that’s not all, is it,” Myles prompted him.

“I have this… feeling I’m never going to see Mom or Dad or Lexi again.”

“Something’s going to happen at school today.”

“I think so.”

“So why not stay home?”

“I’m not one to run when I’m scared Myles.” James shot his brother a weak grin. “Like you said, my destiny is coming for me, right? I won’t run from it.”

They were outside James’s school now, and the brothers paused. “Besides,” James said, facing Myles, “I have the feeling I’ll get answers sooner if I don’t run.”

Myles caught James’s arm as he started to turn. “Tomorrow. Wherever you end up. Come find me. I’ll be able to explain things more then.” If their mother was right, if James’s visions meant he was going to activate today, then Myles would be free to tell his brother everything after today.

“I’ll try.” James’s smile was sad.

Myles hesitated, but as James was not more forthcoming with words, he reluctantly nodded and let go of his little brother.

James took a few hesitant steps towards the school gate. “Myles?” His voice was quiet and small, so unlike him normally.

“Yes?”

“I lied. Earlier.”

“About?”

“I will see all of you again. But I won’t be the same.”

“Of course you won’t be.”

James’s smile was still sad as he looked at his older brother. “Of course you’d think that.” The scars on his face were thrown in stark relief by the early morning sun, a gruesome reminder of the toll James’s visions had already taken on him.

“James—”

“Goodbye Myles.”

And before Myles could say another word, James turned and dashed into the school.

#writing #in which i write #writersociety #snippets #nova #chazzawrites challenge #writeblr things

2 notes · View notes

fire-emblem-heroes-supports · 4 years

Text

Micaiah/Edelgard C-A Support

Written by @sharyrazade

C SUPPORT

[Edelgard pushes chess pieces across a map in the library.]

Edelgard: If they could have held this bank of the river here…

[Micaiah emerges from behind one of the shelves.]

Micaiah: Excuse me. So sorry to trouble you, but I was searching for someone.

Edelgard: Pay it no mind, it’s no trouble. I don’t believe we’ve met before. I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, imperial princess and heir apparent to the Ardrestian Empire.

Micaiah: My name is Micaiah.

Edelgard: Micaiah…that’s an interesting name.

Micaiah: And this is Yune.

[Micaiah extends her finger on which Yune, seeming agitated, is perched.]

Edelgard: Um, hello, Yune.

Yune: [Tweets irritably, pecks Edelgard on the forehead a couple of times, and flies away.]

Edelgard: [massages her forehead] Ow! What was that for?

Micaiah: I am so sorry. She’s never like this. She usually likes everyone.

Edelgard: Well, she’s just a bird. It’s not as though she knows any better.

Micaiah: Again, I’m so sorry- er- What are you doing with that map? This game looks rather complex.

[Edelgard’s expression lights up with understanding.]

Edelgard: Oh, this? I was just wargaming a conflict from our world’s history. A very pivotal one, at that.

Micaiah: Oh? To what end?

Edelgard: The commanders of the vanquished side made many critical errors that lead to our- the empire being dismembered- reduced considerably. I believe that I could have avoided said errors had I been in command.

[Micaiah nods as she follows along.]

Micaiah: It must have been a dreadful time. But your world’s history- and your country’s- sounds absolutely fascinating. If it’s not to much trouble…would you mind telling me more about it?

[Edelgard smiles]

Edelgard: Only if you agree to tell me more about yours.

[Micaiah and Edelgard have reached support rank C.]

B SUPPORT

[Micaiah and Edelgard are conversing in the library.]

Micaiah: …and you must understand that the “plague” had decimated the population of Daein, and the previous king and his family were powerless to stop it. In fact, it took almost all of their lives.

Edelgard: I see…so that’s was part of the motive for the integration of the sub-humans-

[Micaiah uncharacteristically shoots her a dirty look.]

Micaiah: Laguz. The laguz.

Edelgard: Of course. Of the laguz into the king’s worldview.

Micaiah: Yes, but there was another part to it, as well. I’ve already mentioned the…fraught history between the peoples of Tellius. And why Daein first seceded from Bengion. Ashnard…disapproved of such rigid distinctions, in one sense.

Edelgard: This king, Ashnard. He sounds like a very interesting figure. It is not difficult to see how he gained so many devoted followers.

Micaiah: [slightly exasperated] Yes, but you have to understand that-

[Sothe emerges from behind a shelf.]

Sothe: There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you! Hm? Who’s this? I don’t think we’ve met before.

Micaiah: Sothe, this is my new friend-

Edelgard: Edelgard von Hresvelg, imperial princess and heir apparent to the Ardrestian Empire. I have heard much about you, Sothe. This one speaks quite highly of you. You are…lovers, if I’m not mistaken?

[Sothe stays quiet, giving Edelgard a steely, defensive look.]

Edelgard: Hm. It seems I’ve overstepped my bounds. So Sothe, is it true you are from Daein as well?

Sothe: [still warily] Yes…Daein is my country… But what’s it to you?

Edelgard: I’ve just been interested in hearing accounts from other citizens of Daein.

Sothe: Why is that?

Micaiah: [knowing what a disaster this is going to be] Oh, dear.

Edelgard: A cultured visionary of unparalleled military prowess, your King Ashnard was. He was a strong, determined ruler surrounded by decadent weaklings and fanatics. So why is Micaiah so hesitant to speak about these virtues? If we had an emperor like him-

Sothe: [visibly angry] No, no, no, no, NO! Lady, I don’t care who you are. I wouldn’t care if you were the Goddess herself, if you start wishing your country had a ruler like him, you must be just as twisted as he was. They call him the “Mad King” for several VERY good reasons.

Micaiah: Sothe, please!

Edelgard: He saw a wicked, stagnant system that was holding back everyone- his own people included- and took steps to correct it. From what I’m told, he was ready to either succeed in his aim or die for it. That’s more than I can say for most nobles I’ve known.

Sothe: [hurls Peshkatz into the floor paneling to avoid doing so at Edelgard.] At what cost, you crazy witch?! Taking a course of action he knew damned well would destroy most of our continent- if not the world?! Sending a generation of men to die or be maimed for it?! Performing sick experiments to turn laguz into living weapons?! Tell me, what’s your limit?!

Edelgard: [puts chin in her hand.]: You two have my condolences. To be from a world in such an appalling state that such measures seem worthwhile to enact meaningful change. It must have been agony to even rise from bed every morning.

Sothe: [turns around, picks his knife out of the floor panel and sheaths it.] I’m through with this conversation. I can’t tell you what to do Micaiah, but I’m through with this maniac. Before I do something I’ll regret.

Micaiah: Sothe…

Sothe: And by the way, lady. I’d REALLY love to see you talk this insanity in front of Queen Elincia. Or even better, Commander Ike, King Tibarn, or any of the laguz here. It’d probably be your last mistake.

[Sothe storms from the library.]

Edelgard: I fail to understand exactly what it is you see in him. He’s not unpleasant to look at, but what a rude little urchin.

Micaiah: [sighs]

[Micaiah and Edelgard have reached support rank B.]

A SUPPORT

[Micaiah, reading a book at the bottom of a stairwell, ignoring the commotion in the dining hall where the both Summoner and Anna can be made out to be yelling at several irate, ornery heroes.]

Edelgard: Good evening, Micaiah.

Micaiah: [Looks up, horrified at the scratches and bruises Edelgard has.] My goodness! What happened?! Are you alright?!

Edelgard: Really, they look worse than they actually are.

[Light pools in Micaiah’s fingertips before she touches Edelgard’s face, healing the scrapes and bruises.]

Micaiah: I can’t do anything about your clothing for now, but your wounds are gone.

Edelgard: You have my thanks.

Micaiah: What on earth happened to you?! Did it have something to do with that commotion in the dining hall?

Edelgard: [consciously avoiding making eye contact]: It might.

Micaiah: Oh, dear.

Edelgard: The history of Tellius is just so fascinating to me. I couldn’t NOT take the opportunity to discuss it with the heroes from there, you understand.

Micaiah: What happened exactly?

Edelgard: Well, I sought out this Queen Elincia your friend Sothe spoke so highly of. I thought she would have some interesting thoughts on what makes an effective ruler.

[Micaiah stares blankly at Edelgard, wondering briefly what she could have said to make probably the gentlest hero from Tellius tackle her to the floor and try to claw her eyes out.]

Edelgard: Well, I may have unfavorably compared her father, Ramon, to King Ashnard. The phrase “doddering, impotent old weakling” might have left my lips at some point.

Micaiah: [sighs in exasperation]

Edelgard: But I was truly trying to compare their effectiveness as kings- once I got to that part, she gave me some…less-than-queenly language before jumping on me like a madwoman. This odd, cat-eared woman got involved shortly afterward, and things just degenerated from there.

Micaiah: [wearing an “are-you-completely-daft” look] Perhaps you would do well to keep those opinions to yourself while you’re here. It’s something of a sensitive issue still.

Edelgard: [huffs] If these Tellians are completely incapable of discussing these matters without it devolving into a melee, that is on them, not me. But honestly, King Ashnard is not the most fascinating individual I’ve read about from your world.

Micaiah: [genuinely surprised] Really? Would it be anyone here?

Edelgard: Actually, it is you, the Silver-Haired Maiden, that fascinated me most.

Micaiah: Wait, what? Why?

Edelgard: Because we have many, if not all of the same motives, but when reading about your actions in the order’s library, I was mystified by most of them.

Micaiah: Such as?

Edelgard: Well, first of all, the behavior of those they call Branded, yourself included. Despised and shunned by both of your parent races, yet almost all found themselves in possession of some extraordinary ability or another. So why was there never a mass movement of these Branded to rise up and destroy these oppressors? Or at least take the respect you’re due by virtue of your power?

Micaiah: Hmm…I dealt with a lot of people, “like me,” as it were and even still, I cannot speak for them all. But I always received the impression that they almost always thought such thinking was wrong. At the very least, not constructive to creating a better world for everyone. Stefan, Sir Knight…even Soren…no matter how badly they had been treated, all of them could see how dangerous using that power to take revenge against them would be. I only know of one Branded who even came close to thinking like that and she was mur- fell in battle against the Crimeans.

Edelgard: I cannot say that I am satisfied by that answer, but I respect you enough to cease in second-guessing your decisions. Will you allow me another question, Micaiah?

Micaiah: Perhaps.

Edelgard: Knowing what you know about your country, Daein, and its mother country, Bengion, and being a Branded, why on earth would you continue to be so patient with these people? Were I in your position, I would have likely burned them both to ash and slept like a babe for so doing.

Micaiah: [winces in discomfort at the implications] I can definitely understand why our neighbors- especially the Crimeans- would say otherwise, but Daein is just like Bengion and everywhere else in one sense; you have good, well-meaning people and very bad people. All of us who fought to liberate Daein knew that there were plenty of good, honorable people there- The Apostle, Commander Sigrun, Duke Persis- among them. We would have never succeeded had there not been.

Edelgard: [scoffs] Hmph, her prime minister? He struck me as a weak-willed coward who would rather throw everything into the hands of his goddess and let his world be destroyed. Where’s the honor in that?

Micaiah: [slightly sadly] Not weak by any means, nor a coward. Just very weary and very, very sad.

Edelgard: I thank you for being most accommodating to me. But would you allow me one final question about your history? Especially concerning those “very bad people.”

Micaiah: Yes, I suppose.

Edelgard: So you say that there are good, honorable people everywhere, and that may be true. However, what of when one of those “very bad” people embodying everything wrong with that system comes to power? I am of course, speaking of your Duke Gaddos- Lekain. At what point, do you just decide that your world would be better off burning him- and everything related to him- to the ground? Even with all the trouble he caused, it makes no sense to simply leave the institutions that empowered him standing. They must be obliterated root and branch if true change is to come. And those who stand against these changes should know they do so at their own peril.

Micaiah: I will grant you that every now and again, there are individuals so vile and dangerous that they can no longer be allowed to draw breath. Lekain was one of those men. But to destroy the empire completely? With all of its institutions? I cannot abide that. Not for a single moment. If for no other reason than vast amount of death and suffering that would be the result.

Edelgard: Has there ever been a birth without labor pains? I think not. Nations- and worlds- are no different in that sense. Those who lose their lives in the process of this creation should take solace in the fact that their deaths contributed to something far greater than they could have ever ever been alone.

Micaiah: I’m sorry, but you’re wrong, my friend. My aim is now and has always been the preservation and improvement of the lives of my people. And of all people. It is for that same reason I cannot share in your positive appraisal of Ashnard’s rule.

Edelgard: [crocks her head sideways, cups chin with her thumb and index finger] You truly are the most fascinating woman in Tellius, Silver-Haired Maiden.

[Edelgard proceeds up the stairwell, out of sight. As soon as she is gone, Yune swoops back down to perch on Micaiah’s finger.]

Yune: [tweets happily]

Micaiah: Oh, Yune! Where have you been all this time?

[Micaiah and Edelgard have reached support rank A.]

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem radiant dawn #female heroes #micaiah #edelgard #edelgard x micaiah #micaiah x edelgard #submission #thank you dear writer i had nothing to edit TwTb

79 notes · View notes

blazehedgehog · 4 years

Note

re: Tristan's current state of mind ... my best guess is that he has badly misjudged the cause of the ongoing backlash. He doesn't seem to understand why he offended people who share his political views—his original explanation of his position was handled in the most juvenile, ham-handed way possible, and THAT was the main issue for many people who would otherwise be on his side. He keeps harping on this idea that people are offended by the idea that Sonic and politics don’t mix, though! (cont.)

When his friends urge him to chill out and rethink the way he’s posting, I wonder if he’s misinterpreted that as “Tristan, your politics are too controversial and you’re alienating people, you shouldn’t be so passionate about BLM.” Obviously that’s not what you’re trying to tell him. I’m sure you agree that his heart is in the right place and you support his strong stance on such an important issue, but I get the feeling he doesn’t understand that, and I think that’s why he’s become so hostile.

I do believe his heart is in the right place, yeah. He may have originally expressed it in a way that seemed a little heavy-handed, but that’s kind of what blindsided me about closing TSSZ down. Cringy or not, he wasn’t necessarily wrong about what he said, it was more just the way he said it, you know?

And despite the rush to close the site before any of the staff could have any input on the matter, the way he’s acting makes it seem like he’s super salty about the whole thing. That’s why I said this feels so weirdly selfish -- he shut down the site out of his own self-preservation, but he pops up every now and then just to wag a finger at the last few people still following the account, and only to say “SEE? I WASN’T WRONG! YOU IDIOTS!!”

And it’s like, dude, that’s totally not the point, and you’re just making this worse for yourself, and by extension, you’re making it worse for all of your former staff members. This is the least graceful way to put the TSSZ News brand to rest. The only point he’s making is showing us he won’t let go.

And, you know, I get it. TSSZ celebrated a 20 year anniversary not that long ago. Some amount of his brain was dedicated to thinking about this website for more than half of his life on this earth. It won’t be easy to let go of something that defined who you are so completely. It isn’t easy for me to let go, and I only came on board in the second half of the site’s lifespan. It must be agony for him to just go cold turkey like this.

But what he’s doing is worse than ignoble, and it has less to do with his clumsy “Sonic would stand with the rioters and fight the cops!” tweets. Let’s not mince words here, it has more to do with the same old trouble he always finds himself in. The same old trouble I tried to rescue him from more than once over my tenure at TSSZ. For being a news guy, Tristan can be really clumsy with his words and communicating his intentions.

But like you said, and like I’ve always said, always always always in my entire twelve year run at TSSZ, his heart is in the right place. He may get heated easily sometimes, he may fumble his words, but man, when the smoke clears and he’s firing on all cylinders, he’s practically a titan.

I talk about how I tried to rescue him? He rescued me more than a few times, too. TSSZ sometimes found itself in questionable circumstances due to some of the “sensitive information” we published, and Tristan was always the rock that protected me from that stuff. “The Blog Sega Doesn’t Want You To Read”? Tristan protected me from people who were trying to get that taken down. When I datamined Sega All-Stars Racing info that was sitting in plain sight? Tristan bent over backwards to make sure the site wasn’t negatively impacted by Sega’s legal threats.

I learned something valuable, and that’s the fact that the news isn’t supposed to be your friend. It’s the news. It’s there to convey information, to convey the truth, even if the truth hurts. People might shake their heads and be like, “If Sega is threatening you with legal action, maybe you're doing something wrong” -- but when it comes to reporting on the news, honestly, that means we were doing something extremely right. (Okay, sure, maybe in retrospect, messing up somebody’s marketing plan is borderline uncool, but there were other examples that my notoriously poor memory is blanking on).

What I’m saying is that when Tristan was in his wheel house, it showed, and there is no one else in the Sonic community like him. He may have stepped on some toes, but it was kind of our job to do that, sometimes.

The problem is when it comes to moments like this. He’s coming off as weird, and aggressive, and he’s missing the point of what people are trying to say. He’s still stepping on toes, but for the wrong reasons. But he used to be, and he should be, better than this. I know he can be.

I hope he still remembers that.

#questions #tssz #tristan #history #dramaaaaaaa #Anonymous

4 notes · View notes