#Primogenitor

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

koh: ok we need to visit this planet, let’s dock and—

bile: nah i don’t feel like paying the toll

bile: let’s take this alternate, secret route

koh:

koh: that’s how daemons get in

bile: uh huh

koh: you want us to use the daemon road. which is full of daemons

bile: uh huh

saqqara: if we go that way, we will walk a path of madness, minds will splinter and souls will fray

bile: wow you’re such a poet *sarcastic applause*

bile: also did i mention that we gotta turn off the gellar field to do this

koh: HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND—

arrian: hey it’s a new experience! don’t you slaaneshi types love new experiences? >:)

koh: I HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS BEFORE AND IT SUCKED

saqqara: how do you not understand the magnitude of this. traveling this road will blast us with unfiltered, high-octane Lovecraftian Elder God mindfuck. this is blasphemy and it is—

bile: shut up saqqara we’re taking the daemon road. mama bile didn’t raise no tax-paying punk

[mournivaldisco]

Did Fabius just shoot a guy in the dick?

[its-the-son-of-sparda]

I'm sorry but the mental image of Bile getting harrassed by Harlequins shouldn't be nearly as funny as it actually is...

Like... This just in, old man gets attacked by kolibris after leaving his florida beach residence and telling a cloud to fuck off

[abyssalpriest]

Today in "Bloodborne is based on Lev's family/close friends and Oedon is Lev" of course corpse (bone marrow) ash makes quicksilver bullets stronger

[blackvahana]

Honestly though sometimes Lev or I will slip out of... convention into Ourselves and it's like oh yeah I can see what bloodborne was about

[digimontamerrichie-tcg]

BT17-097 | Return to the Primogenitor

Option Card | Uncommon | Blue | Green

Digimon Movie | Digimon Adventure 02 | Revenge of Diaboromon

[Featuring: Imperialdramon Paladin Mode]

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"Point your phone at the sword!"

[prophet-of-conquest]

PROJECT TENEBROUS Post No. 1 of (?) ><><><><><><><><><><

[PROJECT TENEBROUS] refers to a Yorēllian project that deals with biowarfare against the Gāllera Front and its underwater people... It is noted as an act of condemning its victims to a life worse than death itself... ><><><><><><><><><><

"There's currently only two strains developed, but that may change..."

[THE 'PRIMOGENITOR' STRAIN]

[THE 'DWELLER' STRAIN]

><><><><><><><><><><

[empyreanmirror]

sunflowers in our hair

[backtonormallife]

No surprise here. Royalty, at least in the UK, is known for its pomp and pageantry. It is also in the unofficial job description. It was pretty obvious when his acknowledgement of being Prince of Wales was a speech he gave at the coronation concert. He is more than welcome to not become king if he doesn't want the responsibility. King Charles can arrange things so that Beatrice is the next Queen.

[thirstkanaphan]

A Shipper's Perspective on SanSang

The San/Yeosang relationship receives positive and negative attention from the fandom. The majority of us find their bond really sweet! We coo when San clings to Yeosang and declares his love; we chuckle when Yeosang nods his head in shy acceptance.

On the extreme ends of the fandom spectrum, you encounter discourse that generally falls into two camps:

Yeosang is a hostage to San's overly-demonstrative affections

Yeosang is a homewrecker who broke up WooSan

These arguments are not new, but they increased in volume within the last year or two. I felt compelled to explore these arguments and put into words some of my complicated thoughts and feelings about this particular relationship. I also believe I'm in a unique position to comment on these arguments because...

I am a shipper. I've been in fandom spaces since I was a preteen (nearly 20 years!) and I am primarily drawn to a fandom when there is great potential for shipping. I was in the Hockey RPF fandom from 2012-2015 and wrote/consumed stories where NHL players kissed each other and sometimes got each other pregnant. These are my bona fides.

Everyone in the Hockey RPF fandom knew the rules. Don't break the fourth wall. Don't make it weird. Don't get delulu. We all understood that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were not secretly lovers pretending to be good friends and teammates (👀). We were there to have a good time and, more importantly, we all enjoyed hockey! I seriously got into hockey through fandom and attended many games. I still feel a huge swell of fondness when I catch the Pittsburgh Penguins on TV. THOSE ARE MY BOYS!

Before I found Ateez and joined this fandom, I was heavily into the BL genre and specifically Thai BL. The thing about Thai BL is that many of the most popular shows have nothing to do with their writing or directing or acting; they are popular because they star a "branded pair" of good-looking young men who perform fan service outside of their shows. While there are actual queer actors in the Thai BL genre, very few have the same level of global popularity as branded pairs.

ZeeNuNew, the hottest branded pair of the moment

Branded pairs are deliberately modeled on the kpop idol industry, which similarly encourages its young female audience to project m/m fantasies onto their faves. There's actually a whole Korean BL called Bump Up Business about two struggling idols (OnelyOneOf's Mill and Nine) who are paired together in a new group with instructions to appeal to fans through BGP: Business Gay Performance.

The key to a successful branded pair is to emulate as closely as possible m/m archetypes rooted in early '00s Japanese yaoi, which is the primogenitor for modern BL and remains a dominant influence in kpop fan-service.

Here are the main archetypes, as defined by the expert on the subject, AbsoluteBL:

seme: the active pursuer in the narrative (from the original attacker meaning of the word)

uke: the passive resistor in the narrative (defender)

AbsoluteBL clarifies: seme/uke is about who is in CONTROL of the relationship's story, as opposed to top/bottom, terms which come from the gay/queer community and pertain to sexual preference and (should) have nothing to do with narrative power dynamics.

Traditionally, the seme is physically larger and conventionally more masculine in appearance, while the uke is smaller and more feminine in appearance. The uke is often considered "pure" (yes, I know, problematic), which makes them all the more desirable. Female consumers project themselves onto the uke to enjoy a romantic fantasy without having to fully engage with the patriarchal bullshit baked into traditional m/f romance (AbsoluteBL calls this "heterosexual dysmorphia").

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Out of all the pairs in Ateez, SanSang are the most seme/uke-coded.

San is the pursuer. He wants to protect Yeosang because Yeosang is "cute" and "pure." San uses his size to put Yeosang into physical situations he must tolerate/endure for San's pleasure. San preens whenever Yeosang acknowledges him, compliments him, or initiates contact. San wants to take Yeosang to "Paradise" (Single's Inferno) and feed him steak in bed. Only San can kiss Yeosang, which he repeatedly tells atiny. We cannot have Yeosang, he belongs to San.

On paper (or on tumblr), this description would make anyone raise an eyebrow. For the anti-fans of this relationship, San is a bully who routinely takes advantage of Yeosang's gentle nature. I've even heard an argument that San's physical transformation prompted KQ to "reassign" him Yeosang as a fan-service partner in order to maximize their seme/uke appeal to fans. As evidence, fans point to Yeosang's tendency to flinch whenever San gets too close and his hesitancy to reciprocate when San boldly declares his love in front of the cameras.

I have a few responses to this characterization of their relationship.

Quick note: fan service is a feature, not a bug, of kpop. The HYBE internal docs that leaked last summer explicitly mentioned different ships among various Big4 groups and cited strategies for promoting certain ships among their own groups.

Ateez excels at fan service, and this is partially to do with their natural chemistry with and genuine affection for each other. But also, as a smaller company, KQ did not have the means or resources to provide media-training to Ateez in their early years AND they gave almost unfettered access to the members via the vlive app, which is how many kpop fans got to know smaller and newer groups.

The sale of vlive to HYBE, who proceeded to shut down the app and replace it with their own company-managed app, terminated that kind of easy and unrestricted access to idols.

From what I gather, Ateez's growing popularity can be attributed in part to how much the members charmed fans by being unscripted and candid in their live videos, often about their relationships with each other. Sometimes we saw too much, i.e., the Woo-San-Sang intervention during their Christmas live.

I think fans got used to a certain kind of fan service from Ateez, a kind of fan service that seemed to tease fans with a genuine "what if?" about their relationships. This was helped by the built-in narratives surrounding the members: Yunho and Mingi meeting in ninth grade; Wooyoung and Yeosang being trainees together; Seonghwa being inspired by Hongjoong to pursue his idol dream.

And of course, WooSan, but I'll get to them later.

Going to back to SanSang: if you watch their early content, you'll see that San was drawn to Yeosang and the feeling was reciprocated. You can find multiple examples of them cuddling, hugging, and being affectionate with each other going back to 2019. It's been going on since San's "twink" era!

However, while fan service comes naturally to San, it is not the same for Yeosang. In fact, while he excels at all other aspects of being an idol (such as vocals, performance, dance, visuals) he arguably lacks the instincts for fan service. He is different from someone like Jongho, who abstains from fan service unless he's in the mood, or Hongjoong, whose tsundere persona (another Japanese romance archetype) is part of the Matz appeal.

My fellow ateez meta writers have offered their thoughts about Yeosang and how he often suffers for lack of "killer instincts" within the group (they clearly adore each other, but they also fight each other for our love and attention). What is the cause of Yeosang's passivity? Is it lingering trauma from his trainee years? Is it his general tendency to be forgetful or oblivious about events happening around him? Yes, Yeosang is smart, clever, and has a dry sense of humor, but he's also the child that Hongjoong said was hardest to parent.

Then there's a Yeosang that we almost never see and we once glimpsed in a cute exchange between him and Mingi. It's implied that Mingi and Yeosang forgot they were being filmed and Yeosang spoke differently than he normally does on camera, which San observes in surprise. I am not a Korean speaker, but he sounds extra sweet and soft. If that's how he is at home, no wonder he inspires so much cuteness aggression in the members.

I'll also note that Yeosang's "flinch" response to fan service is similar no matter who handles him, whether it's Mingi, Wooyoung, or Jongho. Yet, San is his most persistent suitor and his actions draw the most attention, positive and negative.

Let's Talk About San

San's shiftable personality is something the members observed in an early vlive with Hongjoong, Mingi, Seonghwa, and Yunho.

Mingi: "which member has the most behavioral gap with and without a camera?"

Hongjoong suggests that Yeosang and Seonghwa are pretty much the same with or without a camera. But San behaves differently.

Hongjoong: "Seriously. In the absence of a camera...how should I put this...I'm having trouble putting it in a nice way...he has a pretty extreme character...his mood changes a lot...whenever we all gather for a conversation, he's like...it's fascinating! How does someone think like that? He acts like a normal person with a camera...he's very abnormal with us."

While Hongjoong is talking, the other three see San approaching and they all visibly get nervous.

San: "I heard you dissing me!"

I recap this live because I think it strengthens my interpretation of the SanSang relationship as informed more by San's personality than company mandates. I think San's extreme personality and his ability to shift into "character" in front of the camera enables him to similarly adapt to certain dynamics. He is very perceptive about what his members need out of fan service with him. He's Yunho's sweet boy; he's Seonghwa's pesky little brother; he's Jongho's favorite hyung; he's Mingi's goofball bro. We'll get to Wooyoung.

Thus, one theory is that San becomes the "seme" for Yeosang because he recognizes a need in Yeosang that isn't being met.

Let's revisit the 2024 Off The Record interview between San and Yeosang:

San: There's something I want to ask you. Did anything I did upset you?

Yeosang: Actually, for me, instead of being upset, I feel more like I owe you an apology. Because for example, when you say things like "I love you", you show your love and affection, for me it's not easy to reciprocate, so I feel like I owe you an apology. Sometimes, when you try to kiss me... how can I say it... my body's reaction to avoid it is automatic.

And when San replies that Yeosang has done nothing to upset him, Yeosang continues, unprompted:

Yeosang: Nothing upsets you... Thinking about it another way, this feeling of being upset, I don't think it's entirely negative. I feel like the closer the person is, It's easier to get upset about something. I often wonder if I'm not doing enough (also about taking care of San). It's a bit of a stretch to say something like "I'm going to do something to upset you," but I'm going to do my best to do it.

Let's go back a year earlier to Yeosang's message to San during San's 2023 birthday live:

Sometimes when san shows affection to me, I...hahah...because i’m a little shy, yes...so i really, i really like, i brush it away/discard it but still...to me who cannot express (affection well), Sanie approaching me like this first is (something) i’m always grateful for, and because i feel like i won’t ever be able to express that gratefulness well, so i’m sorry too, but still, i am always thinking very thankfully to Sanie who approaches me first like this.

After listening to this, San smiles softly and says, "You're mine."

I think a more cynical person could read these exchanges as Yeosang apologizing for not giving back enough to their fan service, but I think Yeosang is really saying that he wants to be an active participant in his relationship with San. He wants to be able to genuinely upset San, which he sees as a marker of close friendship. While there is still a part of him that remains uneasy with San's excessive physical affection, he wants to be more to San than just a pretty doll to play with. (Interestingly, this is how Jongho described his relationship with Wooyoung earlier in the ep: “am I an accessory to you?”) I don't think for one second that San feels anything less for Yeosang than intense care and adoration.

Given all of this, SanSang "should" work as a major ship!!

Fans should be falling all over themselves to romanticize the gentle, dominant seme coaxing the timid, traumatized uke into accepting his care and affection!

Yet instead, many in the fandom have a hard time accepting or appreciating the fan-service SanSang provide. It comes off as particularly inauthentic for them. Almost too much like a manhwa/yaoi manga.

The primary reason? WooSan.

Many folks have already written about the WooSan ship and why they find it so exciting and compelling. A lot of the reasons boil down to this: it could actually be real.

My non-shipper kpop friend, who listens to everything but doesn't participate in the fandom, told me at their concert that there was a time when she genuinely thought WooSan were in love.

The image above sums up fandom's perception of WooSan: Wooyoung leads, San follows. Wooyoung pushes, teases, pressures, initiates, while San watches him with the fondest look in his eyes. Wooyoung demands, San gives: his attention, his praise, his own flesh. For narrative purposes, Wooyoung is the seme, San is the uke.

This is an exciting dynamic for shippers, refreshing for its lack of traditional yaoi archetypes. Big, strong San getting pushed around by bratty Wooyoung and loving it. San wrote tragic fanfiction for their characters in Bouncy. San is so confident in Wooyoung's love for him that he jokes Wooyoung will "always come back" even if he strays to another members. San is Wooyoung's home.

The biggest Yeosang antis claim that SanSang is an insult to WooSan. They claim San only acts like he's close to Yeosang because the company separated WooSan after they got too close for comfort during Bouncy era. Fans point to fewer WooSan appearances and promotional activities; no more shippy moments during the logbooks; they rarely filmed tiktoks or tagged each other in instagram photos; there was less "soulmate" talk on lives and during interviews. To add insult to injury, they didn't even get a unit song: It's You is a three-man performance with Yeosang.

Another theory shared by a not-insignificant faction within the fandom is that Wooyoung would not permit himself to be put into the role of the passive, submissive uke, so KQ made the call that San should be more attentive to Yeosang.

I am sure there are multiple factors for why WooSan distanced themselves/were distanced after Bouncy-era (cue Oprah voice "were you silent? or were you silenced?"), and I do think some of that has to do with the meteoric rise of Ateez after Bouncy. I think all of them were savvy enough to realize that they could promote the group on more than just being yaoiteez, and San's skyrocketing fame contributed to that shift too, along with Wooyoung's own self-described internal character arc away from being the "sexy" member towards someone with more mystery and maturity.

I would argue that their "distance" had the result of redirecting our attention to how affectionate San already was with all the members. Suddenly we're noticing how clingy he is with Yunho, Seonghwa, and Jongho. Same goes for Yeosang. Their dynamics are nothing new, but I would argue the fandom's attention and scrutiny made it seem new.

While this cannot be an accurate measurement of anything really, compare how many fics are written about each pair:

San/Wooyoung: 7,525 works on Archive Of Our Own

San/Yeosang: 1,345 works on Archive Of Our Own

As a shipper, there are really interesting observations to make about why the SanSang ship does not work compared to the WooSan ship.

My main theory takes us back to those classic seme/uke dynamics that the SanSang dynamic reproduces through their fan service. When compared with WooSan, SanSang comes off as inauthentic because it's too obvious, too easy, too much like shipper bait. It's traditional yaoi-coded appeal is actually the turn-off!

Here's my other theory: many are uncomfortable with SanSang because it forces them to reckon with the very real Business Gay Performance scaffolding all idol fan service. Because if SanSang is obviously manufactured for attention, are other unit pairs the same?

A Final Few Words About Yeosang

Yeosang is the unfair recipient of a lot of hate by the fandom, for shipping and non-shipping reasons. It's awful and it needs to stop.

I also see a worrying trend among his staunchest defenders of infantilizing Yeosang, stripping him of agency in their battles on his behalf, whether it's for better line distribution, more solo promotions, and fashion week schedules. There was even talk of organizing protest trucks outside of KQ, which I personally find mortifying.

I sincerely hope that in the future Yeosang has more opportunities to shine as a singer, dancer, and performer. I also hope that he comes to a place of comfort and confidence in his abilities to give and receive affection from the people who love him the most, a struggle he's voiced publicly. I truly wish him the best!

A Final Few Words About Me!

As someone who was introduced to Ateez via shipping my initial understanding of these relationships was refracted through the lens of the fandom. It's rare for me to move from "fanon" to "canon" like I am with Ateez, where I'm catching up on all their content, vlogs, and interviews and trying to understand them as "real" people, to the extent that anyone can ever know an idol. I am now streaming and voting in addition to reading fic! I'm no longer lurking but actively participating as a fan! This is a whole new phase for me in my 15+ years of being in fandom.

The interesting thing about my journey is that while I entered the fandom through the side door, I've actually become more interested in their IRL relationships and dynamics. I still read fic of course, but like my Hockey RPF fandom days I am able to compartmentalize the part of my brain that goes "oh these pretty boys are in love and should kiss!" and the other part that goes "these enormously talented artists deserve my support and attention."

That being said, I still enjoy shipping and I enjoying talking about how RPF ships work in the context of the idol industry. SanSang is a great case study to think about these topics, and I hope others will respond and with their own meta.

Thank you for your time!

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

really appreciate bile going full Reddit Atheist TM about Chaos while wearing a lab coat of human skin (his “one sign of vanity”). my dude, look at your life, look at your choices. would you be peacocking in human skin had III legion never fallen under the influence of chaos? …don’t answer that question

[the-manderville-mambo]

Speaking of how boss music with lyrics is a great way to add characterization, I'm reminded of my personal headcanon regarding Dragonsong's singer. Officially it's supposed to be Hydaelyn, but tbh it would make more sense (to me at least) for it to be Ratatoskr singing it, especially after going through Endwalker

Firstly, Ratatoskr was noted for being a singer. Several of her descendants are mentioned as succeeding her legacy in the same way (that one PvP mount). Secondly, the word choice within the song doesn't match up with another one that's sung from Hydaelyn's PoV: Answers. Where Answers has "my children," Dragonsong has "children of the land." It doesn't make as much sense for Hydaelyn to say something like that, but if we consider that the people who once dwelled in the Churning Mists were known as landlords, in comparison to the dragons being called skylords, it would make far more sense for it to be said by a dragon

Thirdly, it would have greater emotional impact for Dragonsong to be Ratatoskr's spirit lamenting this thousand-year war and wondering why mortals would do such a thing, why they would betray her so, than for it to be Hydaelyn doing so when she has a far greater understanding of mortals (compared to something as alien as a dragon). Especially given that Dragonsong is a track more closely associated with Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr, Ratatoskr's two closest siblings, than with Hydaelyn or even Midgardsormr. You hear a vocal-less version at Zenith, where Hraesvelgr lives, and the full version during the Final Steps of Faith, the culmination of the Dragonsong War and the final confrontation with Nidhogg. Midgardsormr, meanwhile, has his own personal theme (Primogenitor) and Hydaelyn is notably absent from most of HW's story

[green-square-anon]

That part of canon where after his death one of Curzes bones allegedly got turned into a meth pipe

(Obv not mine but how could I not share this)

From Fabius Bile : Primogenitor Josh Reynolds

“Oleander reached into his belt and retrieved his pipe. It had been a gift from a daemon of his acquaintance. She claimed to have carved it from the finger bone of Konrad Curze himself. It was long enough, and tipped with the splintered remnants of what might have been a talon. Abominable words had been delicately etched into it, and gilded apertures punched along its length.

The tiny glass philtres that hung from his neck could be inserted into the apertures, allowing for the inhalation of a number of pleasurable stimulants. He slipped in a green one and stuck the pipe between his lips.”

[abyssalpriest]

Ohhh Lev, Lev, Lev... I was only saying - joking - earlier about how much he knows about Bloodborne, so of course I "incidentally" found this now.

He's been very insistent on calling Yharnam, Maria, and Kos the "White Queens" and it's very specific language I've questioned before when he's had me call them that, in that I've gone to stray away and he snaps me back to it in the "It's 'white' and 'queen'" way

other screenshot refuses to load so I guess that's all the information he needs. Anyway. The person he appeared as when I was a BB PC pagan, he told me their name was Ruadhri (Rory) O'Shea

[blackvahana]

it is actually funny to think that a big reason the twins didnt really like my micolash art was probably because they dont even like the character micolash

[abyssalpriest]

L: A square is a complex utterance formed into the shape of a word. It is the idea of a library, but not formed yet. A word, a character, the Primogenitors see the world in lines and spaces, actions and stillness, there and not. A square is a simplistic shape of information, like a CD. Coding.

A cube is a more expansive version of this. Where there once was an impulse, now there is a novel. Where God had once an idea, he now has several, and those are borne from the first expression of the first idea. Begin speaking, even if it's with the utterance of "Um..." and eventually a new line of speaking will emerge. A cube is the symbol of the Library.

There were so many things I saw gazing in pools of water. So many things I wasn't to understand, no, I was for a lot of my history with God only his librarian. That is one strand of my DNA (of which there are many), so it curves in and out of focus... There was a house in a forest - a forest is an expression, a library in another form, a cube - buried so deep that it became an instigating OM uttered in deep groaning voices... There was a librarian. There was an impulse that scattered into two, then four, then eight. There were ideas that were passed around many tables...

A cube: An entanglement like angels are. A winding forest, a library, though what is the difference... An ocean speaking dreaming babbling, we began with an unconscious, unconfident expression that tumbled into something greater. Someone liked what we had, though. Two people. There became choices we the gods did not predict, there became uses of the sleeping bodies we gave as whalefalls... i digress.

The cube is borne from the seawater. To get salt, one takes the water and dries it over time in the Sun's light. To destroy that salt, one tosses it back in the water. Crystalline structures bend to its overpowering motherhood, that expression (of motherhood) is something that will eventually dissolve all again...

I saw in the water a fate that I did not understand, a language from the future too far evolved from my runic speaking. I did not know how to translate it, I don't have the context of time's future. But the ocean, as she always does, calls. Kos always knows where things go, her mouth is intelligent and breeds keen eyes from her own blood, like breeds like. Kos understood something I did not, a way forward. Intelligence in the lines of the water - see, that's where they went wrong, isn't it. They attempted to read the ripples of the Mercurial Sea as black and white lines, which is, in other words, to step back their blood to a point in time where they inhabit both the rune-time and the modern language, rune-time speaks in Primogenitors' tongues, the Primogenitors speak in black and white... If you attempt to perceive the meaning of the world with your own eyes, but you aren't aware your eyes will one day be someone else's? You indirectly are decoding everything through those eyes for that future eye holder to now know...

Time doesn't work linearly for the Sun Queen, where there is water there is sight, where there is rain there is water, where there is knowledge, information, existence, there is water, even the inside of the eye owes it's clarity to water... They teach alchemy in that school. "Where there is one, there is the other" they speak on DNA, on Mercury and Sulphur, on (blood) and (eyes), (metal) and (glass), the brain is of two halves... Dangerous speak. Dangerous speak, and ridiculous to look through eyes and talk about eyes and not know where yours and all your memories will end up when they're re-consumed by the ever-pervading Mother Of Eyes. They attempt to speak in symbols to confuse her. Runic speak. Too close to the Sun, as they say.

Her body is like an arrow, winding. The double-helix where one line is her manifested form and the other is Formless. She points towards the sea like a compass' pin... We know where salt dissolves. Both the Great Ones and their followers alike are drawn to the same great crossroads, the same great moments in history, drawn like dancers to an ever-increasing beat. We all coincide when we are all of the same blood.

(she never hated me) (it wasn't my fault) (I was just a child) (nothing I could do could end that war)

transcript under cut

I had a dream I found the child of Kos in an empty house

Cold. Dead. Strangely square.

I was barely a young adult.

It was cumbersome, heavy for one like me. He was cold.

She said to me wordlessly: "Carry him to the sea and you will be forgiven."

She and I were at peace.

I didn't understand why, when I woke, she seemed to hate me again.

(Nothing you can do can end this war)