#also zero idea what to put in the speech bubble so... i put nothing

[b0nkedmehead]

Main 3 👻👻👻

Details below :]

[trickstarbrave]

fr w/ Emil but also he really is just copying Avellone and Kirkbride's homework (including their racist edgelord writing styles) but also simultaneously has *zero* idea what he's even doing for nearly everything which, combined with his utter dedication to having extreme binaries be the status quo, is why he keeps digging himself into so many holes (i.e: the whole "Nate was an active war criminal" thing, etc).

I don’t think Emil is trying to copy kirkbride’s work. It’s quite challenging to do so and there would be cracks in Emil’s writing to show it. The other person I’m not sure bc idk them

But I think Emil’s writing is in a way his own. It’s just very… Well. Emil falls into the trap of “write what you know” but doesn’t rly have a lot of understanding of the world and complex subjects, or he totally lacks an ability to communicate it. He has a surface level understanding of basically anything and everything it seems (at least based on his writing idk him personally).

Writing what you know isn’t terrible advice. He’s trying to use it the way it’s intended, which is that most of us haven’t gone on fantasy adventures or been assassins and thieves. But we look at our lives and find something we do understand intimately and adapt thar experience for the subject. Emil grew up Catholic and draws a lot from those experiences clearly… He just does nothing interesting with it because he can only communicate a surface level understanding of Catholicism. How Catholicism works as a tool of oppression, the complex power systems of it, it’s history, the complex symbolism, he doesn’t use any of it or really adapt it in a satisfying way. Either he doesn’t understand or again, can’t fucking write it.

The bigotry in his work is the same as Kirkbride’s but that is because they’re both middle class east coast cis white guys who haven’t rly unpacked the bigotry they grew up w and it shows. Kirkbride’s is honestly worse ngl if only bc he goes SO deep into racist, sexist, transphobic, and intersexist tropes. Emil just skirts along the top, invoking the tropes sometimes but again doing nothing with them.

Again I don’t know Emil personally. Perhaps he’s just a shit writer and actually has more depth and an ability to understand nuance in his personal life. But based on his public attitude, speeches, tweets, etc, I doubt it. As you said he comes across as someone who never knows what he’s doing and continues to reinforce the status quo. The fucking bland, boring religious story in starfield apparently made him have a crisis of faith and hearing that made me put my head in my hands bc howwwwww could such a dull and frankly nothingburger of a video game quest make you have a crisis of faith. How is this what does it for you. How has nothing else in the world shaken your belief?

Kirkbride is very bigoted but he has a lot of complex knowledge he draws on. He’s a religious studies major. He reads occult texts. He has knowledge of subjects and researches things. Emil feels like he’s lived in a bubble and has done absolutely nothing to understand experiences outside his own. Coupled with his inability to understand or internalize criticism we just get slop writing.

But I’ve said before and I feel the need to repeat: Emil is not the worst thing at Bethesda who is personally dragging it down. Other creative directors and higher ups have promoted him and let him continue to work there for a reason. He was just super loud and revealed and lot of this flawed logic and shit via interviews and presentations. Others at the company have actively throttled the writing and world building (one creative director wanted the companions in Skyrim to not even have a storyline and be all radiant quests. Yes for real. And also Skyrim worshipping the imperial pantheon was bc a higher up decided ���actually the imperial pantheon is the objectively correct religion and all others on Tamriel are just flawed imitations of it”) so I think Emil is more a symptom of the problem

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

[sepublic]

So there’s an Owl House game on DisneyNOW

Spoiler alert, it... kinda sucks. Which, is to be expected of an obscure mobile game that’s only exclusive to a very particular app. Still, It’s Owl House content, so I’ll take what I can get.

The game is a VERY simple 2-D platformer. You play as Luz (yes!) and you start off in a ‘hub’ that is the Owl House itself.

The upper floor is where you catalogue previously-done missions so you can do them again. In a treasure chest there are really short side-quests that are updated every week. Each week, a new quest is presented with an item to get at the end that appears in the respective episode. A new episode, new quest, new item. It was actually the tenth quest for the Playground Armor that made me wonder if Episode 10 was available on DisneyNOW, and lo and behold, it was! So that’s neat. Each item has a little description added to it, and I played the game so nobody else has to. For example;

Obviously the canonicity of this game and its descriptions should be taken with a grain of salt, but if it IS true, then I find it cute how Amity is so obsessed with that star when nobody else cares. To her, that’s literal physical validation from a teacher she looks up to! Obviously there’s something concerning about putting THAT much stock into what grown-ups have to say, but still. Also it just occurred to me that since Willow left the Abomination Track, that means that Amity is now the best student in that class once more, meaning she eventually got back her badge. So, good for her.

Believe it or not, the app itself has ACTUAL voice acting from the official VAs and everything! And I’m fairly certain the lines are unique, they’re too smooth to have been put together from various words plucked out of context from the show itself. So far we’ve only got Luz, King, Eda, and a generic Emperor’s guard as characters.

Initially, you start off controlling Luz, who can only move around, jump, duck, etc. You go through a level and hop over enemies (which look like this in Bonesborough, or like this in the forest);

There’s also an arm that swipes at you from a barrel and a fanged treasure chest, but they’re super-easy to avoid. Spoiler alert; These levels are EXTREMELY easy. Also, all of the levels are just the same exact rooms and layouts, but slightly remixed so that if you go to the end of one room, you’ll go to a different room after it than last time, or start off in a different room than in the previous level... You get the idea. It’s the exact same level layout, down to the placement of enemies and smaller items you have to collect multiple of in order to advance. Because every level is the same, it definitely gets a bit tedious.

Also, the music- There’s only ONE song, and it’s a tiny snippet cut out from the show’s OST and put on loop indefinitely. Within the context of the original song it was taken from, this piece is fine. But when it’s been completely cut off from the original song and looped on repeat it quickly becomes maddening and you only realize how much it bothers you until AFTER it bothers you.

Like I said, the quests are simple. You start off going through a couple of rooms before you grab Eda’s arm... Then her leg in the next level... And then her entire body, humorously enough. For the body segment it’s a flying level where you avoid slow, flying enemies as you ride on Owlbert and tap the screen to go up a little, otherwise you’re just slowly sinking into oblivion. It’s a welcome change of pace with different music for once, but then it ends all too quickly.

Other levels involve you collecting 8 key items scattered throughout the level to accomplish a goal (getting Eda’s merch to sell it, collecting stuff for a guard, etc.) The way the level is structured, the rooms just keep going on until you collect 8 items, so... You can’t really ‘miss’ an item and there’s no correct way or order to do it. Again, it’s really mundane. Also, you can only get hurt by running into enemies (jumping on them to stun them is fine) or by falling into pits, the latter of which puts you at the beginning of the room. You lose one of four light-ball lives, but said lives are scattered all over the game for you to replenish so no-biggie. In the forest there are spotted mushrooms you can bounce off of, and early into the game you can grow a rising platform-plant in select spots. Likewise you get a pair of shoes with tiny bat-wings (but not in the actual gameplay itself, only on the picture when you receive them) that lets you double-jump;

(These are a reference to the winged-shoes that Boscha and her group wear in Episode 8, although Luz’s shoes never get these bat-wing additions in the episode itself. I doubt they will in the show since this is pretty much a gameplay mechanic, but you never know!)

You also get a snaggleback shell to deal with enemies, but you never get the chance to use it? More on that later.

After completing the fetch-8 quests twice in a row, you then get a brief mini-game where you have to drag and toss human merch from your table to a wave of customers who have the corresponding speech bubble asking for it. You satisfy one customer, they go away and more appear. This goes for a bit until the mini-game ends, and then you go home.

But! You left King behind and when you go back to Bonesborough, an Emperor’s guard has taken King hostage! King is dozing off the entire time, I should mention. You do a fetch-8 ingredients quest twice for the guard, and then grab a pot he needs to cook his soup... And after THAT, he reveals that he’s planning to cook King!

And then... nothing.

At this point, you have two options; Go to the left and hit the edge of the screen, OR go right, initiating the guard’s line about cooking King... And then the conversation ends and you turn away to indicate this. That’s it. You don’t get one of the dialogue options from Luz. This doesn’t kickstart a level. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t go back to the hub? You’re just trapped in this brief between-levels moment. You can’t use the snaggleback shell, in part because the game never tells you how to use it... You’re just stuck there for all eternity as the guard gloats about cooking King but then never does that while you stand there.

Is the game glitched? Is it just... NOT finished? I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s not exactly very compelling. The main thing that keeps it from being a legitimate slog is the fact that it’s A) Owl House content and B) Each Level is so small, quick, and an easy breeze that you can clear it pretty quickly. Unfortunately for me, playing the game causes my phone to heat up REALLY quickly, so I have to take breaks so my device doesn’t overheat and damage itself. Maybe if I play on a non-mobile device I’ll be able to actually continue.

There’s not really much else to say about it. The game is the most bare-bones 2-D platformer with the bare-minimum of repeating level design and pretty mind-numbing, generic quests. You earn EXP or whatever for your witch rank at the end of each quest, but you don’t really level up? Honestly I’m only here for the surprisingly-smooth animations of Luz running and jumping around, the voice-acting, and getting to see backgrounds from the show. Also the relic side-quests are neat too, I guess, and those are even shorter than the ‘main quest’ levels. 

Honestly I’d give the game a 1/10. It’s only a 1 and not a zero because it’s still Owl House content and not TOO much of a chore because thankfully you get through it quickly. 

[inkribbon796]

The Lost Ones Ch. 1

Chapter 1: Illegal Clones and Legal Crimes

Summary:  Anti liked joking around, he likes pulling pranks and bothering Dark now that he’s permanently moved into Egoton. But one day he decides to take the joke too far, and it gets about five times more unfunny. But when it’s all said and done, Dark had to admit . . . he is charming.

A/N: someone requested this little joke about Dark being short and so I threw it in here.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

~::~ Twenty Years Ago ~::~

It began as things tended to begin with Anti: jokes.

“Hey, Dark,” Anti had burst into Dark’s main office to bother him, again.

“Leave,” Dark told him, not looking up.

“What’dya get when yah combine you an’ Wilford?” Anti sounded like he was trying to keep himself from cackling madly.

“I don’t care,” Dark told him.

“A hot mess,” Anti joked. Usually when Dark didn’t respond he used about anything to try and get his attention.

“If you need a body disposed of, I’m not helping,” Dark warned.

“Yer just no fun,” Anti sulked.

“I’m busy,” Dark reminded. “It’s bad enough I have to put up with Wilford’s antics, I refuse to humor you as well.”

Anti then attempted to stab Dark and the ensuing fight got rid of some of Anti’s pent up energy. It also got the glitch thinking: what would Dark or Wil’s kid be like?

He imagined Dark’s kid would probably be a lot like Dark was, about ZERO fun, and in about six years when he saw Kay and Illinois for the first time he would learn he was right.

But Wil’s kid: that had to be an interesting kid. Wil was mad fun, a complete and utter lunatic, there was no way he couldn’t pass that down to a kid. And fortunately for Anti, Wil was a prolific nymphomaniac. He had to have some kid, somewhere. There was no way the Wilford that Anti knew hadn’t had sloshed, unprotected sex at least once in his life. Everyone in the crime world knew that while Dark and Wil were Ego’s big couple, Wil slept around.

After a month, Anti gave up looking for the brat, either Dark had tried to clean up Wil’s extra-relationship affairs before they could bear fruit, or the kid had been hidden from Dark.

Another couple of weeks passed and his brain came up with a stupid idea: why not clone the assholes? Cut out the middleman. It was probably their only way someone was even going to get an ankle biter out of Dark in the first place.

But, as it turned out, cloning someone was way harder than Anti thought it would be. He needed people to do the cloning, a safe place for them to work. And after Google joined Dark, Anti had to avoid his prying eye because that walking laptop told Dark everything.

The eggheads he’d threatened found had been excited about the process, but hesitantly optimistic about their chances. But either way they’d need a test and Anti shrugged his shoulders and knew he couldn’t get any of the conventional ways to make a kid from Dark at least without getting his head blown off for even suggesting it.

They needed a test and Wil was the easy option.

“So wait?” Wil was already wasted, the slur in his speech even more pronounced after enough margaritas and martinis to kill a normal man, the two were sitting in a private room at some bar, Anti figured the mad man probably wouldn’t remember this come morning. “You need m’ what?”

“Yer aura,” Anti was admittedly a bit buzzed himself, electricity literally arching off of him in some spots. “I mean the docs will prolly use whate’er but I just wanna see what yer aura does if we pick it apart.”

Will just shrugged, and either he didn’t care or was too drunk to care, but he set his arm on the table and whipped out the stiletto knife he usually hid in the garter on his right thigh and ran it down his arm until he randomly stopped. Wil picked something up and a whirling mass of pink and yellow came off.

The mad man held it out. “Here yah go.”

Anti hesitantly grabbed it, it felt like the consistency of cotton candy, but had almost a soapy, saccharine, bubble gum. And to Anti something about it felt twisted and fake.

But by this point Anti knew Wilford was incapable of keeping secrets when he was this sloshed. Wil had already slipped some pretty spicy secrets about what he and Dark did in the bedroom that had Anti demanding that he wanted literal brain bleach to get out of his mind.

So Anti took it and let Wil try his hand at drunken flirting, leaving to go back to his lab coats to see what they could do with it.

And to everyone’s surprise, the aura was reacting to stuff, almost like it was a living organism or a parasite that lived within Wil’s soul and it was very choosy about what it let them stick onto it. Despite the fact that it just sat there and did nothing.

It looked a bit like a slug after it had stopped moving, a pink and yellow swirling slug.

At this point Anti had honestly forgotten about cloning Dark, the glitch demon wanted to see their auras fighting. He wanted to watch Wil and Dark’s auras tear each other apart.

So it was time to get Dark’s aura, but Anti couldn’t just ask the Entity for it, no! He knew that there was no force on earth or Hell that would get Dark to willingly give Anti his aura for his death matches. So he’d have to take a chunk off by force.

It took a week of stalking Dark before he finally got his chance, and Anti was just about ready to fight Dark himself but as luck and fate would have it, Dark decided to got out hunting.

The Entity was stalking a couple gangsters when Anti decided to make his move. They were a local group Anti liked to pick on from time to time, so they were a tiny bit smarter than some of the other groups that had tried and died taking Dark on as if he was Deceit.

When Dark folded himself out of one of the alley shadows, one of the gangsters froze, watching Dark snap his own neck like the drama queen he was.

“Huh,” the braver of the three gangsters realized. “Yer shorter than me.”

Anti almost blew his cover trying to stifle his own laughter. Dark looked insulted and infuriated. “Excuse you‽”

“Sorry,” the guy was over six feet tall, but not more than half a foot taller than Dark or Anti. “I just figured “the Demon of Egoton” would be more demon-like, an’ bigger.”

Dark seemed to get angrier, and Anti was trying to stop himself from laughing so much that he almost missed his chance.

The Entity’s aura shot out and grabbed onto the gangster, one of his friends tried to shoot Dark but it was stopped by another part of Dark’s aura. It began to ruthlessly tear into the gangster and his friends. “I’m not too short to kill you!”

Anti lunged for Dark, managing to get his claws into Dark’s aura. The demon screamed out, in screeching pain. “I’ll be takin’ some ‘a that.”

“ANTI! I will tear you apart so thoroughly that no force in Hell can piece you back together again!” Dark was furious, the gangster that were lucky enough not to get struck by Dark’s rampaging aura were forgotten.

Anti raced off, running into the Void and trying to keep the writhing mass that was Dark’s aura away from the other demon. It was consciously trying to get back to Dark, or to kill Anti, the glitch demon wasn’t sure which and he didn’t particularly care at the moment. He was just trying to get away from Dark to keep him from taking his aura back.

Eventually Anti did get away, it was more luck that anything else. But when the coast was clear Anti returned to the scientists, covered in his own blackish, glitching, ichor blood and holding out the angry, hissing fragment of Dark’s aura.

“Is that thing hissing?” The lead scientist asked, her curly light brown hair barely tied out of the way. Anti had completely forgotten all their names at this point. He was pretty sure it was Beautiful or Bunny or some weird French name he couldn’t pronounce.

“Yeah,” Anti smiled, “let’s throw this bastard in with Wil’s and see if they kill each other.”

“Is that still alive after you disconnected that from him?” She was staring at it like it was a scientific marvel.

“Well yeah,” Anti gestured as he spoke, “Wilf’s just got a weird aura. Most ‘a our auras are like this caustic fooker’s.”

Quickly the scientist grabbed a container, the same type they put Wil’s in and Anti poked at Dark’s aura with his own, trying to get it especially angry.

“Okay, Bunny let’s get this show on the road,” Anti dusted off his hands.

“It’s Beauregard,” she corrected sharply, fixing her glasses as she held onto the container with one hand.

“Ahh, whatever,” Anti dismissed, smiling. “I wanna see that prick’s aura get shredded.”

Beauregard stopped as they entered another room, Anti moving through the wall. “Hold up, if we put them together are they going to just rip each other apart?”

Anti shrugged, “I mean, Dark’s an angry fooker an’ Wil’s aura is infectious, they gotta do somethin’ cool to each other.”

Beauregard and Anti’s conversation came to a halt when they heard some yelling in the next room. She ran ahead, yelling, “What is going on in here?”

“I don’t know,” one of the technicians looked panicked. He and another technician were trying to keep Wil’s aura in the container it was in, the aura was bubbling and foaming, making a weird noise, Dark���s one aura was letting out that high pitched echo that Dark was infamous for. It cause more than one person to look around wildly for the demon to suddenly appear. It almost seemed like the fragment of Dark’s aura was shaking. The entire container Dark’s aura was in almost fell out of Beauregard’s arms. The result was the two auras seeming to square up against each other as if they were going to fight.

Anti was almost cackling, rubbing his hands together, “Come on Bubbles, fook ‘im up. I got a fiver on yeh.”

Wilford’s aura lunged again and suddenly it was inside the same container as Dark’s. The ringing became more intense.

Beauregard jumped, letting out this surprised scream. Then the ringing stopped  when Wilford’s aura just parked itself next to Dark’s and they both calmed down. No one in the room moved, not wanting to set off either of their test subjects. Beauregard watched in awe as Dark’s aura changed from an inky grey to a mix of blue and red, the colors changing between the two but never mixing. It was more blue than red at the moment.

“Oh yeh sappy bastards,” Anti cursed, stomping over. “Come on, I wanted a cage match!”

“I thought we were cloning demons?” Beauregard asked him, most of her attention was on the little aura samples.

“Ehh, I’m already bored, tell me when they actually start doin’ somethin’ interesti’,” Anti dismissed, and then he left.

But when he was fully gone he stuck his head back in, “An’ by that I mean they set themselves on fire or start shootin’ acid.”

“Right, right, of course,” Beauregard agreed, holding up the container and smiling. Even if they failed, she was going to learn some amazing things about auras.

While Beauregard was planning, Anti had already gone back to Brighton to start terrorizing people again.

He was almost immediately found by Dark who demanded the shredded off piece of his aura back, he could grow it back on his own, of course, but didn’t like the idea of Anti having it.

So when Anti couldn’t produce the missing piece of Dark’s aura, the fight resulted in Anti being turned into pixels and Dark walking off with a broken arm and five broken ribs — not that Dark told anyone about the broken bones.

It took him a week to reform. By then he’d actually forgotten he’d gotten a team to do the actual cloning.

After months and months and months, they called him to say they’d “finally gotten a live one” and Anti couldn’t pass up the opportunity to watch Egoton burn.

After all, what could be more destructive than Wilford’s madness with Dark’s power?

[fincherly]

🍄🌻 seanum, 🌿🍁 Blank, 🌳💦 Kesa

goghohh

🍄 What are your OCs favourite snacks? Their favourite comfort food which always cheers them up when they’re down? Favourite meal to make? Do they enjoy baking and cooking and are they any good in the kitchen?

-seanum fuckin adores scones tbh. doesnt matter what kind he’ll eat em

- pancakes actually!

- he doesnt usually cook actually so he has no idea lmao

🌻 What little things do they notice about people or the world around them that make them happy? What tiny little treasures do they find in the normal every day that makes the world seem a little brighter for them?

not much actually -- seanum usually notices people’s height but in a Man I Wish I Wasn’t 5′2″ kinda way -- he likes bright colors! and tends to pick up cool rocks

🌿 What way does your OC show that they care without using words? What way do others show your OC that they’re cared about without using speech?

it takes a while to figure it out but if blank sits or stands next to you without straightening up at all he’s comfortable with you -- he puts a hand on seanum’s shoulder or head often, and has literally zero reservations about scooping him up like a cat if the urge arises, so there’s that (blank’s not usually physically affectionate, so if he touches you voluntarily you Got it)

seanum’s not only horrible with not talking 24/7 but he is also already bad at comforting people -- the way he shows blank he cares is actually by shutting up for a while and giving him space, which is not something he does naturally lmao

🍁 Where does your OC go when they need to have some time to themself? Would they ever have their own “comfort corner” filled with all the things they like? Do they have a favourite spot outside that feels like its theirs and theirs alone?

he LOVES climbing trees and being high up tbh and he’s got long ass limbs so he can climb fast and well

yes he would, but he doesnt really own that many things bc he’s gotta be on the move a lot rip

he did :)

🌳 What is your OC’s favourite way to relax after a stressful day? Do they have a favourite book to curl up with? A hobby? Or do they have a nice bubble bath and have an early night to bed?

fiddling w his tools tbh -- also kesa is insanely dyslexic so reading hard so no, he likes sparring w fives! and also yes except the early night to bed bc he’s never slept well in his life and he’s not about to start now

💦 If you as the writer could erase one traumatic event from this OC’s life what would it be and why?

i mean i did 100% retcon eirua’s death lmao so thats the thing, nothing else

[botslayer]

The questions raised in MK11′s story mode:

So here's everything as it came up in order, in my mind just as I was thinking of things, SUPER heavy spoilers ahead, I just want the fan consensus, please help a confused fan get his bearings, why does everyone praise this story mode when I'm just seeing more holes than a cheese grater? 1. If Gods are immune to Kronika's time tampering, How does she stop Shinnok's blood, which was still pouring from his neck, from flowing on that table? I know this one may be a bit nitpicky but that's just a little one that sticks out and is very visually present. 2. Where do the Kollector's people come from? Probably Outworld but pulling yet another species from thin air for that realm is kinda cheap, okay? 3. Why does everyone from the past look so different from how they did in MK9? It's like jarringly different, especially when Kung Lao JUST supposedly beat down the deadly alliance, something that is only established to happen in the reboot timeline. So what happened there? (Other cosmetic changes would take too long to point out individually, so I won't.) 4. Follow up, there must be a pretty big time gap for Johnny, Sonya, and Jax, because Jax has his mech arms but in the MK2 ark of MK9, he had to be rushed out of Outworld because Ermac blew his real arms off. 5. Follow up 2, why does Jax seem to have deaged? In MK9 he looked to be about thirty+ Whereas here he looks like a really big Twenty-something, his arms are even different. So what happened there? 6. Why does Dark Raiden vanish? The game throws out the explanation that "Immortals" operate on a different timescale, more or less, but if he's unaffected by other time distortions, how was he pulled forward in the first place? 7. Why aren't more people from either side, including Smoke, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, Reptile, Ermac, Goro, Mileena, and Kintaro, ALL OF WHOM (Save for Smoke) are Loyal to Shao Kahn, not also summoned into the arena? And "She can only summon people who are still alive" isn't a workable answer because of Baraka, Skarlet and Shao Kahn himself. She later says that she's finding people not happy with the course of history, but I doubt two of the most ambitious characters in the series (The Deadly alliance) would be all that happy about being dead. Nor, I'd wager, would Kintaro or Goro, form the prideful warrior race of dragon people? 8. Why is future Erron Black completely mute? Yeah. In every scene he's in (a few different ones in the coliseum) he never says anything but past Erron has loads of dialogue. 9. How does Raiden know about there being other Temporal nonsense going on elsewhere in not just the realm he's in, but Earthrealm? I know he's Earthrealm's protector but how in the high heaven does he know? 10.As a Little one: How is it that past Johnny is sitting on the other side of the room looking at his nails and then is immediately walking by Sonya and Jax with future Johnny? She was looking in kind of the same direction but how quickly did this guy get up to pull that off? 11.Raiden says he's been getting the premonitions for "MONTHS" But MK9 established pretty roundly that he only got them night one of the 10th tournament. Now, by the time of the MK2 ark in MK9, no more than a week or two could have passed, at least as presented, so how does that make any sense? (I will elaborate if asked but this is already long enough) 12. Why does past Jade have an English accent and why does Revenant Jade not? (Other voice inconsistencies from within this trilogy would take to long to point out, so again, this is just persistent for all of them.) 13. The Cyber Lin Kuei (Who I will call "Tekunin" from here on out because I just like that better) are still a thing, Kronika pulled Sektor into the present too, I can buy that. But why not also try and recruit another realm like Seido? Imagine having Hotaru and the help of his forces. It'd make for some cool scenes, especially at the end when all the Oni are fighting Raiden's army, it'd make things a lot more chaotic, which would look cooler. Why not Chaos realmers? Zaterrans? Vampires? Centaurs? Kytinn? She brought the Tarkatans back completely so how hard would any of these other virtually extinct armies be harder to bring back and sway to her side in comparison? What about the Red Dragon? 14. Raiden apparently knows some of the history of this altered timeline which just makes me wonder how much he could realistically be briefed on, especially when he reacts with shock when he finds out that Sub-zero is friends with Hanzo Hasashi. And yes, the Cyber Initiative was a thing in MK9 but Sektor wasn't the grandmaster when that was going on or when Raiden and co were pulled from time. So what does he know and not know? And why did no one think "That crazy fire ninja is on our side" Was worthwhile info? 15. Why isn't Noob just the past one? He straight up says that he survived the soulnado, not that he's a different version. He never showed up live in the comics so it makes zero sense for him to have full stop survived. 16. How does ripping out two bundles of wire "Reformat" anything? 17. Future Kano references the idea of the Black Dragon being on top of "Not just the black market, Every market." What does that even mean? Is there gonna be a black dragon funded super corporation? That'd be cool, TBH. Shame that's never elaborated on. 18. When Kronika freezes time, is it only local? Or does it hit an entire Realm? Because in the scene where she's talking with Future Jax, and come to think of it, the one with Shinnok's head, What the hell is her bubble of influence? 19. Jade mentions Sheeva "Respecting Kitana's opinion more than anyone else's." Where, At all, in either timeline was that ever represented? Because up to now, if memory serves, their only real interactions were Sheeva telling Kitana to suck it up and die with honor in MK9. 20. What up with Jade's Retcon into being Kotal's girl? It's just kinda weird. 21. When and how did Revenant jade learn to control giant bugs? 22. What is Cetrion even the god of? Raiden, and later Kitana, mention she's a god of Virtue but why then is she able to control the Earth? "Elder god" Maybe but Raiden in the OG timeline got that title at the end of MK 4, then stepped down and he was no more powerful for it but that seems to be what happened with Cetrion, IDK. 23. How far back did Kronika have to pull Past Kano and Kabal from? Because Kabal is still apparently working for the black dragon, whatever age she got him from, but he still has his post-burn super speed. 24. What was the point of blowing Sektor up other than to just lose a major power player for your own side? 25. (Ultimate nitpick on this one) Why is Skarlet and one line from Baraka speaking Tarkatan the only ones that get subtitles? Why not just either A. Say it in English, which they seem to understand enough of, or B. Just not add these translations if they aren't translating the rest of the Tarkatan speech we see? What is the point? "So we understand it." I think you're underestimating people's ability to get the concept of "They said a thing, they did a thing, that must be what was said." 26. In the fight with the Tarkatans, How did Liu Kang and Kung Lao have the time to change back into monk clothes? Where was Kung Lao keeping his hat? 27. What the hell was Shao's last name? at a time "Kahn" was probably just the answer until it became retconned to mean "Emperor of Outworld." But what was his full name? I'm honestly curious, less of a nitpick, more of a "Hm." 28. Why does Future Kano feel a hit to the gut? I understand Johnny's Scar in one way or another, but a hit to the gut, painful as it is, especially when he's showing no sign of feeling any of Past Kano's minor injuries, shouldn't feel like anything after 25ish years. 29. Why does Future Kano have a delayed reaction to "Death by Missing hunk of brain?" The wound instantly manifests but he stands and seems to try to talk for a few seconds before collapsing into sand. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to rot into nothing really fast? Then again, Time travel is always a nightmare in any media that attempts to talk about it. 30. How does Revenant Kabal mistake Past Jax for Future Jax? 31. When Scorpion saves Hanzo, why didn't he just split D'vorah's skull with one strike? Two in a pinch? If he's putting enough force behind it to cut her stabby limbs off, or just generally be a useful assassin, why not just go for the neck even? (This one was answered on a reddit post I made, so whatever) 32. Why doesn't Scorpion just surrender when he goes to the Fire Gardens? Wouldn't it be best to just sit down inoffensively and wait for people to show up? Even if Sub-Zero wants to fight, he could just put his hands up and start disarming himself, Not beat the Holy Snot out of Sub-Zero. 33. If Kronika can just appear out of thin air, freeze all the humans in a given location, and pluck one from the ground, why not just use one of her minions like Geras or Cetrion to help kill them all while they're frozen? 34. Kronika mentions "Playing out all possible Scenarios." How many resets have you done, lady? Millions, I'd wager. How has your utter defeat not come up at least one other time? 35. Where are revenant Nightwolf, Sindel, Smoke, and Stryker during all of this? I find it deathly strange that Kronika couldn't find a use for FOUR undead super warriors. At least three and a bloke with military and police backgrounds that make things like strategy a bit easier, probably. 36.Kronika just MAKES a massive battleship or two, so what was the point of Cetrion building the bridge or asking Kharon to help in the first place? Just make a boat. Barring that, D'vorah mentioned that all she had to do was render Kharon unable to help Raiden's forces during Kharon's introduction. Why not just kidnap him, load him onto a boat, tie him to an anchor, and then just drop him in the blood sea? Rather than this "Slowly torture" BS. 37. How does Future Jax yeet himself onto the upper deck of one of the ferries? 38. Frost says that Raiden "Ignored her, her entire life." Since when is she the Tsundere of the MK universe? Or more seriously: Is this a line that only makes sense when you read the comics? 39. Why would the Tekunin be rigged to Frost's brainwaves? One good conk upside the noggin, or stab, shot, what have you, and what? Do they all drop dead? 40. Why does Past Kang live through having his own soul stolen, something that is always instantly fatal throughout the series? 41. How does Revenant Liu Kang yeet himself off a small boat and onto one of the ferries full stop?

And that's everything, any answers are appreciated. Am I being nitpicky with a few of these? Probably, Do I care? Not so much. I’m just getting sick of people praising this story when THIS MANY holes are present. 

[natsubeatsrock]

My Ten Favorite Chapters of Fairy Tail

I've been going back through the old chapters recently and remembering how much fun I've had reading Fairy Tail. It's easy to forget that there have been chapters that I genuinely enjoyed throughout the series. You’d think, for a guy planning to remake the series in his own image, I wouldn’t like many chapters of Fairy Tail. However, this list has been something I’ve wanted to do for years.

So, to celebrate almost 5 years of blogging and 10,000 posts here, here's my list of favorite chapters throughout the series. Emphasis on my list. A few of my rankings have changed over the years and I acknowledge that a few times in this post.

Number 10: Chapter 417 - Lone Journey II

The month before I started posting on this blog, I did the Fairy Tail 30 Day Challenge. Thinking back, there are plenty of things different from me then and me now. For example, I actually liked Gruvia back then. Of the many things that have changed, it's funny to think that this was, at one point and time my favorite chapter. For a long time, I've considered it to be the best chapter in the series.

What I love about it is that it's a chapter where Mashima shuts his characters up and literally lets their actions speak for themselves. This isn't a particularly unique thing to happen. Obha and Obata did the same thing for most of a chapter of Death Note. However, I love the content of the chapter. I love the connection between Natsu and Gildarts. I love how it calls back to their fight during the Grand Magic Games. I love how we see that Gildarts does care for Cana. 

The reason I've grown to love it a bit less is the difference between my first reading it as I was getting into the series and me reading it in the context of the complete series. I can't ignore how annoying it is that this is the only chapter that exists in between the second time skip. And speech bubbles would have been appreciated during the waterfall scene. Still, it's one of my favorite chapters.

Number 9: Chapter 430 - Operation Purify

Closer to the end of the series, there was a panel of all the dragon slayers that was hailed as one of the best pages in the series. Ehh? It's not bad, but calling it the best in the series is a stretch. I already have my pick for best page locked in.

If I'm perfectly honest, I would have put chapters 430-435 if not for any reason but the sheer hype going through them the first time through. However, aside from only honoring single chapters, this was the only chapter with no flaw big enough for me not to like it, looking back. I mean, Erza single-handedly mowing down forces is bad, but this was after the Kyouka fight.

However, the moment of note is at about the middle of the chapter. Because after a year of separation, going their separate ways, Team Natsu is finally back in action. And they all share the same cry on a single page: “We're all fired up! I'm not even looking at the page and I'm getting chills thinking about it as I write down my thoughts on this chapter.

Number 8: Chapter 418 - Challenger

Natsubeatsrock is a hilariously ambiguous name to have. Since I've started this blog, I've realized just how loaded my URL actually is. It's been assumed to have ties to my series Opinions I'll Probably get Stoned For, either because of the title or because what I'm saying is blasphemy. Funny thing, it could also have been tied to the fact that Natsu is my favorite character and my middle name means stone. Not sure beats would have been the right word to have in the middle, though.

However, my name comes from one of my favorite chapters. After the time skip, we're briefly introduced to Lucy's work during as a journalist. If I were a bigger fan of Lucy, this would be a great chapter for me to have gushed over her growth as a wizard. I especially like that she was keeping track of the members of the guild.

However, if you can't tell, the most important thing in this chapter is Natsu’s return. Unlike a lot of people, I'm impartial to his post-time skip looks. But the idea that Natsu has flames strong enough to destroy the arena and melt clothes is simultaneously hilariously nonsensical, disgustingly overpowered and one of the coolest things that Natsu has done in the series. Period.

Number 7: Natsu and Asuka

Guys. I said that this was my favorite special chapter in the series. Did you really think I wouldn't have it here? I know that I made a chapter review for this a few years back, but I don't mind talking about it again. While I don’t think that this is my favorite omake anymore, it’s still a very solid chapter. 

I still believe it's a great display of how resourceful Natsu can be. I love the extra insight we get into Alzack and Bisca’s relationship. It's the best chapter in the FT Matsuri. And this chapter may have convinced me that Asuka deserves nothing but love and protection. I'm scared about what a potential time skip involving the hypothetical NYCC children would do to her. 

Maybe the worst thing about it is that it only ever gets mentioned because Natsu and Lucy didn't kiss like Asuka wanted them to. However, that's obviously not about the chapter itself and, as I demonstrated when I talked about it, you don't need to mention it to talk about the chapter and the good things about it.

Number 6: Chapter 205 - To Continue Down This Path

Even though I did make fun of my old choices during my go-through of the FT Challenge, there are some choices I'm glad I made even now. Up to this chapter, we don't have a good idea of how strong Gildarts is. Especially if you watched the anime where he has only introduced the arc prior. We know S Class mages are powerful, but Erza seems to think Natsu could beat her and we saw Laxus get defeated, albeit only barely by getting double-teamed. So we’re aware that even S-Class isn't akin to invincibility.

In addition to that, Natsu has been known to edge out victories that make no sense for him to have. Natsu’s next win after this battle holds that to be true. So, even against incredibly high odds, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Natsu would find a way to win.

Which is what makes Gildarts unleashing his power all the more insane. Natsu, a character who has, up to that point, always strived to beat whatever opponent he's faced, realizes that he can't just power through. This chapter forces Natsu to realize how weak he is and is a challenge for him to get stronger in his weakness. Does the series do anything with this? Not nearly as much as it should have. But this is still one of the favorite moments for Natsu.

Number 5: Chapter 507 - Voice

The fact that this is one of my favorite chapters shouldn't come as that much of a shock to people that have followed me for long enough. What might be shocking is that it's one of my top ten favorite chapters, even in my top 5. The fact that Natsu and Gray were fighting for about three chapters before this was stupid to a lot of people who were paying attention. There was no need for them not to be in their right minds and little need for them to take out their frustration on each other. 

One of the big fears I had over this fight was that it would end because their supposed love interests whom they thought were dead would stop them. It would have been hilariously cliche for them to come and immediately stop them from fighting. While I can understand wanting a ship to happen, this isn’t the way I’d want to see my ship happen. I’m even annoyed that their arrival is what gets attention from fans when this is brought up.

Thankfully, Mashima decided to pick Ezra for this role. Feelings over ships aside, Ezra was the person best qualified to stop Natsu and Gray fighting over nonsense, considering that's something she was doing from even before the events of the series started. That Natsu and Gray (and the audience by extension) are reminded of their own reasons for not wanting Erza to cry when they see her tearfully breaking their fight up was an amazing twist on what I expected. To be blunt, Juvia and Lucy could have not shown up and this would be just as impactful, if not more.

This chapter would be much higher up on my favorites if it zeroed in on this aspect. However, the rest of the chapter isn't very important or impressive. It sets up the fight against August by showing the members of Crime Sorciere failing to beat him. It’s not particularly bad, but it’s not better than what was before it.

Number 4: Chapter 415 - That Is The Power of Life

One of the weird trends that all of my favorite anime shares is that they make other people cry for one reason or another. I find that to be a weird trend for me specifically. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that there are people who enjoy crying. However, I'm not a huge crying person. I can count the anime that have actually caused me to get close to crying on my hands and only one of them actually is one of my favorites. However, I can think of three Fairy Tail chapters that definitely pushed me to tears and two are on my list.

The Igneel and Natsu storyline was, like so many things, handled badly. I think that it could and should have been a more relevant subplot/character aspect throughout the series. At the very least, the fact that Natsu seems to have stopped actively looking for Igneel since chapter 1 should have been more directly addressed. That being said, the impact of Natsu seeing Igneel dying is not lost on me. Igneel would have had to go anyway. We learned this chapter that the dragons only had a limited amount of time outside the dragon slayers. So seeing Igneel disappear would have been sad for Natsu anyways.

But having to watch Igneel lose half of his body and get blasted by Acnologia makes the situation feel even worse. It's like someone shooting the family pet after breaking its neck. There was no need for that to happen. Watching as Happy watches Natsu watches Igneel die is sad enough on its own for me. Watching your fave cry over losing his dad after looking for him for so long. 

This chapter marks an important shift in Natsu’s motivation. Whereas before the goal to defeat Acnologia was somewhat unnecessary and unconnected to the main cast, now Acnologia has a target painted on his back. Would the takedown be handled well? Depends on who you ask. This chapter is on this list and that one isn’t.

Number 3: Chapter 9 - Dear Kaby

I'm supposing that the vast majority of people reading that care about me are Fairy Tail fans. At one point or another, we fell in love with this series. There was a specific moment that we decided that this series was worth reading and/or watching days worth of material that varies in quality as the series goes on. This definitely happens for every series, to some extent, but it feels more significant for long-running series. 

This chapter was that moment for me. At the time I first saw the episode this chapter was based on, I knew a fair amount of anime. I had grown up with DBZ, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, and Naruto, among other anime that I don't remember much of. I wasn't aware of what I was getting myself into when I decided to watch this series my younger cousins and siblings were so interested in. However, I figured that, even as I enjoyed the beginning of the series, there was no real reason to think this would be different.

But when I got to this episode, I realized this series was special. This was something I was in for the long haul. Even reading this as a chapter, I still think of how different the end of this arc is, even to other arcs in the series. On the one hand, it deals with the issue of Kaby and his father in an amazingly emotional way. On the other hand, it gets undercut by Natsu’s unwillingness to take the reward for a job they didn’t actually do. Mashima made both work in one chapter and that is amazing.

Of course, there’s a little more at play in this chapter. Natsu gets mad at Kaby’s disdain for his dad’s work, which works amazingly well with his character and search for Igneel. Lucy is revealed to be a writer in her own right. There’s something special about a series called Fairy Tail being told mostly through the lens of an aspiring writer. It's stuff like this that makes this chapter a delight to come back to very early on in revisiting the series.

Number 2: Special Mission: Beware of the Guys Who Show a Keen Interest!

One of the weird trends that occurs in fandoms is shipping the main characters together, regardless of any chemistry they may have with others. However, if writers plan not to put characters that the fandom would otherwise assume will end up together, there are many different ways to handle the way that will play out. In a lot of television I've seen, the two will actually get together, they’ll date for a little and break up for one reason or another. I’m not really a big fan of that.

Things have happened differently in the manga I’ve read with this. In Bleach, the question of liking Ichigo was brought up to Rukia very early on and never addressed. I liked that way, even though plenty of fans were shocked to find out the implications of that statement. But Mashima couldn’t possibly do a better job. Right? Wrong!

I think that tackling the issue of whether or not Lucy likes Natsu in an omake was an interesting decision. It doesn't take away from the main story but it's out there for fans to experience if they really want to. The main takeaway of this chapter was that the idea of Lucy and Natsu getting together is awkward for Lucy and nowhere on Natsu’s radar. Of course, they could those feelings, but not overnight.

Too bad so many people thought this was a sign Mashima would develop a romantic relationship between them. I'm not sure if I could have blamed that one on him. Though, considering his Twitter art antics, he’s not doing much to help keep that break mentality up within fans. Then again, I’m not sure there’s anything Mashima can do on that front.

Number 1: Chapter 100 - To Tomorrow!

If you can't tell a big reason why certain chapters are in my favorites, it's because of how they represent in what the series could have been. I do believe that Hiro Mashima is capable of great writing, even and especially within Fairy Tail. It's just that he does something to mess up what good there is. But that doesn't mean that I can't like something I know is badly written. 

Erza not dying, at least to me, represents a sign that characters important to the narrative were in no real danger of dying. Looking back, it's hard for me not to think about how the explanation for Erza and Jellal surviving is stupid. And Natsu very likely should have lost his fight to Jellal. I could easily see someone saying these are issues with this chapter.

However, for me, this chapter stands out as the single best chapter of the Tower of Heaven arc, arguably the best arc in the entire series. I love how this chapter signifies a shift in Erza’s thinking about her friends. I love how the beginning and end of this chapter deal with Erza’s ability to cry, which was already mentioned in this arc at least twice.

I love how this chapter all but confirms Natsu’s terrible ways of handling death. This matters especially in light of the other people he has lost in his life. Think about how Erza has been portrayed up to this point in the series and you’d find her death to be unbelievable. This was the moment that brought me the closest to crying upon my first reading of the series. I’m proud to call this my favorite chapter in the series.

That’s my list! See you!

[ad360com]

Wyatt answers a question (Part1)

Telling me not to so something makes me want to do it even more, DJ. Why Israel? Because when I joined this movement, I notice everyone talks about every other country but no serious discussion on Israel. No one is safe from criticism imo. So how about we do that, DJ? Shall we? Let's have honest discussion, DJ. Because truth is coming. It is obvious that elite 1% hide behind good jewish people to commit atrocities and profit on top of them. Much like America. I have no problem admitting that. We are great, but we are also monsters to much of the world. The elite 1% have created the jewish vehicle and manipulate good Americans and good Israelis, they do not care about the Jews. At. All. They hide behind them. In fact, Honest Jews should be most vocal. This common knowledge outside the schizophrenic propaganda bubble in America. Oh trust me, DJ, they don't care if you Jewish or Moslem or Christian. They have plans for each of you. They will use you. Tarnish your name. They will ride you like vehicle, & when you crash, they will use other vehicle. HRC=vehicle. Jews=vehicle. Christian's are vehicles. It's all pretty simple if you put emotions aside and think from perspective of psychotic king. Tbh, all of this new to me, I've only started looking into this topic since 2018. How the good jewish people aren't outraged is beyond me. I really don't get it. It'll be hard, ofc. It's funny. Some Q people follow like no one's biz and have malfunction when Israel brought up even tho Q says "saving Israel last." People afraid to RT etc but my views way up, so obv ppl curious & reading. Massive redpills incoming. Bend over and say ah. One side note. I like Gorka, but he gets foolish and smeared low follower acct I follow not long ago because he asked legitimate Q about Holocaust. Q everything? Gorka called him "denier." That is what I mean. No hate ever, we want honest discussion & curious why the deflections Also I dont always have opinion on the stuff I write about, just sayin. So if you say anything to me like dumb cuck, I'll laugh. I'm just typing what I see. Even from multiple perspectives sometimes But the Q was about the Holocaust numbers. Fair question. So I looked into it. The outright denial is chidish imo and not serious person. People definitely died, and there were labor camps, but numbers get questionable. Yes, yes they do. You can find examples everywhere. There was a single witness who supposedly was in two concentration camps and is the primary source for about 1/3 of Holocaust deaths. It's a nasty rabbit hole, but you figure out that a lot is stack of exaggerations. One of the most obvious is the fact that the Nazi's crematoriums would have had to burn a body about 10x faster than a modern one and be running 24/7 for years with literal zero downtime. There's a reason why they specifically say "Historians agree that 6 million died" because it's just an agreement, not an actual number based on facts. Have you ever seen the Treblinka Holocaust Memorial? It looks pretty strange for a "memorial". Looks like they just     Holocaust historians claim that during WW2 almost 900,000 people were killed and buried at Treblinka. And they claim that later the Germans dug up and burned the bodies in order to destroy the evidence. In 1999 a team of experts used an $80,000 Ground Penetration Radar (GPR) device to check for evidence that the soil had ever been disturbed as . They found no evidence of any soil disturbance. They covered the field with 17,000 boulders/stones and called it a memorial.Now you can't run any more Ground Penetration Radar tests - not without moving 17,000 boulders (which are set into concrete).  Of course, doing this would be disturbing a sacred Holocaust "memorial" - which would land you in jail.  Mission Accomplished. The whole Holocaust thing and the way the elite 1% use as a vehicle is very strange and fascinating at same time. Are you not at all curious as to why this is the only genocide event that needs legal protection by throwing "deniers" into jail? Or do you just happily overdose on the forced narratives? Surely the elite would never lie to you. They aren't psychopaths or anything. Trust us. Genuine Question. Why do we hear about the Holocaust over and over in movies, TV shows, documentaries, newspapers, books, etc. but almost never hear about the HUNDREDS of other historical genocides? It seems very weird until you figure out the real purpose of all this. Ask yourself one simple question, How in the world does Israel get away with their mass murder, ethnic cleansing and brutal oppression - if we're going to be honest. I have criticism for both sides of that conflict, don't get me wrong. I'm staying on outside looking in though. Why are we very allowed to discuss the idea of white privilege, but forbidden from discussion of the hypothesis of Jewish privilege? Foolish if you don't think it applies the other way too. In three words... Guilt/elites/vehicles. Guilt over Holocaust. Sick, but brilliant, no? The ultimate Guilt trip enables the ultimate in psychological manipulation. You see, Holocaust means that they entitled to special rights - the right to forbid people from discussing their disproportionate wealth & political influence. THE PERFECT VEHICLE. How do you not see? A found that the number one reason Jewish Americans give as the source of their identity as Jews is not race or religion.  Instead when asked "What does it mean to be Jewish?", the number one reason given (73%) was "Remembering the Holocaust". Hm. Some people think of it as a secular pseudo-religion called Holocaust-ianity or some shit (combining the words "holocaust" and "Christianity").  Laws in many U.S. states, known as , mandate teaching to all school children. Vedddy weird folks, no? This indoctrinates kids with the belief that the Jewish people are "unique" in their historical victim-hood.  This puts Jews at the very top of the victim hierarchy. This was the goal from beginning, since widely believed victim narrative gives you political power, being top of victim hierarchy give you the most political power.  That's why holocaust-ianity causes people to believe that Jews deserve special rights that no one else has. They mean well, but man are they slow. For example, holocaust-ianity means wealthy inbred morons can manipulate Israel and somehow hold ethical exemption to create type of racist country, whether citizens realize or not. Laughable. Israel is diverse. I know 4 that live in Haifa and they travel all over. Lefties, righties, buncha groups. If Mr.Trump just stomped out the major criminal networks we wouldn't even be dealing with any of this bullschiff. Regular citizens always the ones who suffer. It's pathetic. Normal chill citizens there can easily do what we are doing. What I'm saying is I condemn both sides of region but also support both sides for defending themselves. Innocent people always caught up in the middle. What I'm really saying is that Israel needs to flush their toilet. Not hard to separate elite agenda from normal people on planet. Some idiots will follow like lefties here. Man made systems. Can be infiltrated and can be used as vehicles to manipulate the masses of genuine good people out there. Also dont forget the horrific stuff Japanese did. And then you have them working with China and selling sensitive information and testing out traitorous surveillance tech. Like Hillary. Who is Rothschild pet. God forbid we should ever cut off their billions and cut aid entirely for now - they might really stab us in the back. Holocaust-ianity gives right to violate principle free speech, so people can be censored etc. Use Dan Cringeshaw, but never trust Dan Cringeshaw. He said it best. Said you're allowed to question everything and criticize every govt except for one lucky winner.  Hint: not USA Currently no other vehicle at time has this special political right to protect the victim-hood narrative against people who might use their free speech rights to question the narrative. Also why Obama talked schmack but still agreed to send billions. Elites are manipulating you. The political power engendered by Holocaust-ianity is so powerful that it must be protected at all costs from the blasphemers, otherwise known as holocaust "deniers." Pathetic boring game by 1%. Make no mistake. Creating J victimhood and using as vehicle is nothing new at all. If you start seriously questioning the narratives, some will malfunction and start melting and end up blocking you or telling me "why they are going to block me now" lolol. It's so childish and weird. All we're doing is talking, asking questions, normal stuff. So scary ... ffs.  Literally only thing I remember learning in Highschool was Holocaust and Rwandan genocide only because chill mf teacher put on movie Hotel Rwanda (really really good btw) about Rwandan genocide. We were taught as if Holocaust was the only genocide. Others not brought up. Why? I got indoctrinated by bs and became bored and 100% distanced from all this. When I saw a lot of the truth and became fascinated and interested in our history and cemented love of country and realized there are shit load of atrocities - feels clown like to treat anyone special. I wish more would sit down and look at things more honestly. Even if you dont know answer. I openly talk about all these topics with whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, my best friend Filipino (Dodi), or other best friend Sikh (Deepak), 99% understand none of this is our fault. That's why the state of Israel denies the Armenian Holocaust.  That's also why the state of Israel denies the Polish Holocaust.  And that's why the state of Israel agrees Ukrainian Holocaust must be downplayed.  Even ADL on video bullied Ukraine into There can be only one **top** victim narrative. We can't even trade positions for like a day. Boring!  And that position must belong to the "most oppressed people in history" - the "chosen people". *barf* The clip showing ADL's triggered bullying is from a documentary called "Defamation". Created by an Israeli Jew. Jews aren't a race, they are a religion Jewish supremacists in some top universities teach that Judaism is only a religion and that Jews are really just white people.  Of course, it's not true and they know it. America's Most Famous Rabbi (as well as Israeli scientists) admitted that Jews are a Race, not a Religion. So why do they teach the "Judaism is only a religion" fallacy? They do this so that they can promote the idea of "White Supremacy" imo. If Judaism is nothing but a religion, that means the concept of ["White Supremacy" can be used as camouflage to cover up the fact that we actually live in a System of Jewish Supremacy. Also you do NOT have to be "Jewish." It's a game. Many people like myself are very new to breaking out of the mind control propaganda.  They've had an almost total lock on the information for many decades.  The internet is allowing a break out of the 'forbidden' information. The Jewish Supremacists are clearly freaking out and trying their best to bring censorship to the internet under the cover of "hate speech" laws. Hopefully enough people can be de-programmed in time to prevent the censoring of more internet. The axis of power in the world is doing tilts and Israel has to start wiggling itself into good position with China. As for the US, state of Israel doesn't give two schiffs about US or its people, you are tax farm and buncha fools who will jump to defense when they tell you to. It's going to be interesting to see how they will attempt to wiggle w Chinese, they are less easily manipulated than the Americans. If you step on toes once they will not forget. Not like US which has gaping whole for ass of the huge arse f'ng it has been getting for years now. You should really talk to some Israelis or read what they write online. A few good websites out there. Israel is more critical of Israel than the US is of Israel. It is hysterical to me. Some Americans think Israel is some hivemind and each person is connected with a string. US "ally" Israel routinely caught sending American troops in to do the fighting they should be doing themselves. Israel is not the home of the chosen people. There are no chosen people. What a strange ridiculous idea. Some conservatives get creepy about it. I see in my replies.  Israelis have own interest in mind, always have. We may think they are our allies, but if somebody else gives them a better deal, they will sell us. That's just a fact. We have no real allies. Doesn't mean we end trade or anything. But we should know where everyone's coming from. It's just weird how the influence is all up in media. Hollywood. Basically 40% of all billionaires. Supreme court. Hell, 2% of population, but 80% of peach mints. Those witnesses were.... you'll never guess. Why would people not question this or at least have honest discussion. This was a brief duckduckgo search that took no more than 7 mins. I was reading article on how Tyler perry owns the movie studio in Atlanta, and how it’s bigger than paramount and dream works and other studios combined. So I started thinking about other influences in Hollyweird. Hollywood, I didn’t know this, made up of more than one movie studio. I’m ignoramus to this stuff. So I duckduck the owners of all the major studios in Hollywood. Boy oh boy, they’re all yeah you guessed it. To me, it's more interesting than anything. I'm just naturally curious. And it wasn’t till 2018 that I was exposed to this how Jewish Supremacists manipulate normal Israelis and normal Americans, and that would explain why America is Israel’s ho. Even that tho, the America is Israel’s biatch thing, I still don’t fully understand the foreign policy we have with them but I hear that phrase thrown out a lot by people who are known as "no bs" people. The inconsistency in the Jewish proportion of heavy hitter business people is fascinating. It really is. I’m still a shit and still learning when it comes to this and our ties with Israel. Over last few weeks I’ve been thinking about religions and how there’s really only three major ones, all with some things in common in their stories but with one major commonality, the holy land: I don’t think any of the religions got it right, something could have happened x amount of years ago in my opinion and the religions are essentially people’s versions of the story, most inconsistencies with a few similarities. How would we know. We wouldn't. Could very well be like a game of telephone. I could be wrong though, it could be something else but as I get older my belief in God grows, and idek how to pray to it or what to read about because I don’t think anyone’s got it right. And I'm a Catholic and believe in God. When your team runs the award-giving committee, you tend to win a lot of awards. That said, I have a lot of respect and admiration for the Jewish team. They've got an 'us-against'-the-world' thing going that encourages them work together and achieve some pretty cool things. Unfortunately, 'Us-against-the-world' also implies you can treat everyone who isn't on your team as an enemy combatant. It's this embattled attitude that generates a kind of ruthless, unsympathetic attitude toward players on the other team. And they are FIRST to call out any other group that adopts same strategy. It blows my mind how many people fail to understand this is a MACRO evolutionary strategy for them and they wish to slowly breed out and exile out races they don't like etc. Using Jewish label as a front. Yep, they even gave the White Helmets a Nobel Peace Prize. That shows the level of propaganda they are able to perpetuate against the American people through their mass media apparatus. Tons of Overwhelming Evidence That Israel Supports !slamic Terrorist Groups in Syria. You never hear about the regular, everyday Jews and it's shameful. I obviously know and talk to poor Jewish peeps, but it’s a thing, it’s such a thing to the point that it’s a stereotype. While stereotypes can be offensive or seem irrational because they cast a wide generalization on a large group of people, they exist for a reason and stick around for the same, so they must be true on some level. Not all catholic priests diddle. I went to 2 years of communion classes as boy at a catholic church with other kids and the priests were awesome. That doesn’t take away from the fact that a shitload of kids did get touched and molested by priests on such a large scale that the Vatican was aware. And I have no problem admitting Catholic Church one of most corrupt organizations in world and is used to manipulate masses. Not all Jews are bad or are out to take out America or care to gain influence through high ranking positions. It's all just a game. But we're the ones that suffer and get manipulated. Literally every Jewish person I've befriended, are normal, ethical people who care about living life through what their religion seems just. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Jewish people, both male and female hold lots of highly influential and esteem positions in America, a country mostly made up of Christians when it comes to religious demographic, and these positions are dominated by Jewish people at an alarming inconsistent rate. Try reversing role and doing that shite in Israel. They'll kick you out so fast your head will be spinning. I watched interview one time with David Ben Gurion and the interviewer asked the former prime minister about Israel's nuclear program. (Israel has never admitted to having nukes, though there's lot of anecdotal evidence saying they do have nukes...but no country has inspected Israel's program since JFK. JFK was very suspect of state of Israel. So interviewer asks DBG if Israel has nukes and he replies, "We have enemies". So that's the situation. If you see the rest of the world as an enemy, you can do anything, because, it's for your survival. The truth is simply pointing out facts made from observations in data causes lots of childish triggering and weird deflection on this subject because of the deep history. Pointing out the inconsistency in that blacks make up 13-15% of the US population but over 70% of the prison population shouldn’t cause uproar or anger but rather curiosity and request of answers. Most videos of police officers will have you believe most cops use excessive force and that there is war going on between inner city black people and white pool ice officers. Total nonsense. Obviously not all blacks are criminals, but something’s fishy there. For a fact a lot of black people in prison did something wrong that led directly to their incarceration but the numbers simply hint at some sort of fuckery afoot, that leads to people asking questions. Doesn’t take a five minute duckduckgo search to realize how many blacks are doing hard time for ridiculous non violent drug offenses. Same thing goes for the cops. One of most stressful jobs ever, all day people are lying to you, when you show up to a situation it typically doesn’t mean something great is happening, pulling people over to give them tickets must feel like a shitty thing to do when a quota is set by dept. most are good at their job. It’s the few who we see in videos that show a lack of training and or skill under stressful situations. And same goes for this except when these observations are made immediate malfunction cognitive dissonance ensues. The difference with the outrage is they have a decent influence on so many sectors of this country, you can literally be black balled for life from anything. The collective identity makes sure that you think in terms of Group first and prior to anything else. On top of this, Judaism actively teaches infiltration of positions of power, politics, msm, and so on simply in order to better their chances at survival by group based nepotism. Imo the narratives have been twisted by the winners. This where the whole “history is written by the winners” phrase comes in. You have a full understanding of just how powerful the influence is when it comes to people just simply speaking about, or asking genuine questions etc.  

Wyatt @SayWhenLA    

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[buckygirl-fanfiction]

Sparks Chapter 6

Pairing: Bucky(POV) X Reader(POV)

Word Count: 2.2K

Summary: After Bucky’s night terror episode he is ashamed and avoids y/n. y/n, not liking to be ignored, makes Bucky talk things out with her. Bucky and y/n go for a walk through the park and get bubble tea and climb a tree in the middle of the night and have deep convos. They get closer as friends.

A/N: This is a story about two people building a great friendship and then slowly falling in love. y/n is a strong, independent, and smart scientist. She meets Bucky when she wakes him up from cryo sleep and they become friends. This is going to have all the angst / best friends falling in love / fluff / drama / & eventual smut ;) that I can possibly fit in it. This fic is going to be looong! So far my document is like 66 pages. So editing is hard If you catch any grammatical or formatting errors let me know.

September 18, 2015

y/n’s POV

“Well i’m taking a stand. It’s been three weeks with no sign of Maddox and you’re monitoring both our places. He’s not going to show,” I say to the group sitting around the table.

“Yeah as much as I love Wanda for letting us stay in her apartment. I didn’t sign up for this job to be locked in a tower. Literally.” Cho says next to me.

“That’s not a good Idea. We don’t know whether he will show up again or what Hydra’s plan is,” Steve says but before he continues I cut him off as politely as I can.

“We can’t just stop living our entire lives because of a security threat,” I say. I’ve been stuck in this tower for 3 whole weeks with Cho living out of Wanda’s apartment and as much as I love Wanda and work and everyone here I need my own space.

“You’re more than just a high risk target facing a security threat. You are the security threat,” Tony says.

“What?” Cho says narrowing her eyes at him from across the table.

“We can’t let Hydra get their hands on an individual as high level as the two of you. Because…. For lack of a better metaphor that would be like handing a folder of classified information right to the enemy.”

“We are not folders of classified information that you can keep locked up in your file cabinet,” I say to Tony wide eyed. Is he serious! What does he think is going to happen? That we are going to get taken hostage and spill our guts to hydra? Because clearly he thinks we can’t handle ourselves. Before I really go off on him Nat interrupts me.

“Alright,” Nat says, “they are employees not investments. You’re already monitoring their apartments with live security. We probably spooked him. They don’t need to stay locked up in here.” Finally someone who is sane I think looking at Nat.

“On your head be it,” Tony says, “any updates he asks looking at one of the chief security officers also joining us around the table.” There are never any updates just information we already guessed be confirmed. Nothing new. And I do have to admit that scares me a little. But, I can’t spend my entire life scared so I just push back the fear and decide to walk on.

…

Bucky’s POV

It’s friday night and just as i’m about to call it a day and retire back to my apartment, my phone dings. I pull it out of my back pocket and the screen lights up to a text from y/n. It reads: ‘wanna get some boba?’ I swipe her message to reply and text back: ‘what?’ And she texts back at lightening speed: ‘bubble tea.’ I reply: ‘now?’ To which she answers: ‘Yeah I’m just leaving the lab right now. Meet me downstairs?’ I text back: ‘okay’ and grab my leather jacket making my way down to the elevator. Ever since our sleeping incident 3 weeks ago, i’m ashamed to say, i’ve been avoiding her. She has been living out of Wanda’s apartment and i’ve seen her around plenty of times and she hasn’t been treating me any differently. If anyones has changed here it’s me. Some part of me is ashamed, I guess. Maybe some part of me is scared to confront certain new feelings that have been brewing deep, deep down.

I step out of the elevator to the main floor and walk towards the lobby. I see y/n waiting for me outside the main glass doors and walk towards her. It’s nice out but the evening has a nice chill. It’s 9pm and the sun has set and the city’s nightlife is in full swing, especially considering it’s a friday night. She hears the door open and turns towards me and smiles.

“Hey,” she says. “Can’t believe you’ve lived here for over 3 months and never tried bubble tea.”

“I don’t really go out much,” I say back. I usually stick to work or hang out with Steve.

“The place is like a couple blocks up,” she says starting to walk down the street and I follow.

“So you’re moving back home?” I ask her.

“Yeah, well moved already. I brought my stuff back during my lunch break.” She turns to me, “any objections? Lately everyone seems to be objecting.”

“No, I think you're smart enough to watch out for yourself,” I say and to this she responds with a huge smile.

“Thank you, now if you could convince the testosterone squad of that fact.” She says. We get to the bubble tea place and get our drinks. “Wanna walk through the park?” she asks.

“Yeah, sure” I reply following her outside the store.

y/n’s POV

We walk through the park with our bubble teas in hand. It’s a dark night but the city lights illuminate the streets. We follow the first path we see into the park and walk amongst the twisted trees and down the winding path. The cool breeze chill against my face. It’s still warm for mid September but there’s a slight chill. The trees are still green but soon the leaves will be brown and it’s going to be cold and miserable again. “I like the fall,” I say. “It’s not too cold yet and it’s not blistering hot and the trees turn red.”

“I like the summer,” he replies. “Its freeing.”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say. Hey this is a good time as any to bring it up. He’s been avoiding me for the entire three weeks I was at Wanda’s. Every time i’d see him around the tower and strike up a conversation, his replies would be short and dry and he’d make some excuse up to leave. Usually he’d text me and ask me if i’d wanted to go running like we usually do. But he hasn’t done that either. So clearly he’s avoiding me and I wanted to know why. I’m guessing it’s because of our awkward bed situation that happened. But come on I thought he was a mature adult. We shared a bed and slept on completely opposite sides for god sakes. He had a nightmare, obviously he has PTSD, it’s understandable. Does he think I don’t understand? There is completely zero reason for him to be acting childish like this. Of the 3 or so months i’ve known him I had not once gotten the vibe that he was childish. He was quiet yes, but childish enough to ignore me for three whole weeks no. I didn’t think he was the type. But then again men are men, I thought to myself. So i’ve decided to talk to him. We are pretty close friends. We spend a decent amount of time together and go on runs almost every day. So, I have the right to know if I should keep investing time in our friendship; or if i’m just wasting time.

“I’m not avoiding you,” he says, “I’ve just been busy.”

“No Bucky, you’ve been ignoring me. I know the difference. We are all busy you don’t think I understand that. We are both adults with whole lives and full time jobs. So, I get when my friends are just going through a busy spell at work. But, you’ve been blatantly going out of your way to avoid me for three whole weeks. So whats up? I think I deserve to know.” I blurt out at him. “Or I don’t. Fair enough you’re entitled to your personal stuff and if you need space just let me know and i’ll give you your space. I’d understand. Just don’t cut people out of your life because you’re too childish or afraid to confront issues.” I say. I think I got everything out. Said everything I needed to say. I hope I didn’t come off as a crazy person. But I care about my friends, sue me. Also I think I have a right to know why someone is ignoring me. That’s what friends do they address the issue, confront the problem, and then move the fuck on.

Bucky’s POV

“You’re right,” I say taken a little aback by her directness. She called me childish. I can’t help but smile and she raises an eyebrow at me.

“What?” she says looking at the grin on my face.

“You just called me childish,” I say trying to hold back my laughter. I don’t know why that amuses me so much but it does. It’s been a long time since someone has called me childish.

“That’s the only thing you got out of my entire speech.” She rolls her eyes and says, “There’s clearly something bothering you. Do you plan on letting me know what it is? Or do you want space?”

“I don’t know, i’m just not a open person, and when you saw me like that in a very vulnerable and open situation,” I say referring to the nightmare episode i’d had “it made me feel weird.”

“Weird?” she questions.

“You’re right I can’t just go on avoiding you forever. I miss our morning runs. So yeah I have been a little embarrassed to confront the situation.” I reply.

y/n’s POV

“Is that all?” I say looking at him. He was embarrassed so he decided to ignore me for three weeks. Typical men. I think to myself.

“Yes that’s all,” he says still suppressing the urge to laugh.

“Well you have nothing to be embarrassed about. If you want to talk about it i’m here,” I say looking at him with an earnest expression. “So, we’re cool now?” I ask.

“We’re cool,” he replies.

I raise my free hand make a fist, raising it towards him. He looks down at my fist and raises an eyebrow. “Bump the fist Barnes,” I say. He raises his fist to mines and we fist bump and I laugh. I take another sip of my tea through the straw and spot a huge oak tree. “Come on,” I say stepping off the paved path onto the soft grass and running towards the tree.

“Where are you going?” he says slowly following behind me. “Let’s climb it,” I say pointing at the tree. “I’ve never actually climbed a tree. Always wanted to though.”

“You’ve never climbed a tree?” he says to me surprised. I put my bag and tea down by the base of the trunk and with my hands on my hips I look up at the huge tree. It’s got a lot of thick branches perfect for hanging off of. I mentally plot my best climbing strategy. Meanwhile Bucky, the show off that he is, just jumps up and hooks his hands on a branch and pulls himself up and sits his with his legs hanging down.

“Show off,” I say to him and begin to carefully position my leg on the trunk. I pull myself up to the trunk he is sitting on and carefully sit down with my legs on either side. “Tadah!” I say. He stands up carefully balancing himself up on the thick branch and pulling himself up to the next highest branch. “Hey,” I say. My competitiveness kicks in. I try to the do same but I don’t have as much upper body strength as him and fail miserably. But hell if i’m going to ask for help. I can do this myself so I look around the branches and make a game plan. He watches me intently as I slowly try to use the smaller branches to aid me in my climb. Before I can do it myself Bucky’s metal arm reaches down and grabs my forearm. Pulling me up like I weighed nothing. “I could have done that myself you know,” I say looking at him.

“I know,” he says. We can’t be no more than 20 feet off the ground and we are surrounded by green leaves and thick brown branches and bright emerald moss. He is sitting on the branch next to me swinging his legs. My legs are on either side of the thick branch and I look down at the grass below us. “What if we fall he says,” when the branch gently shakes because of our combined weight.

“Then we break a bone,” I say looking through the leaves at the city lights beyond. “I’ve never broken a bone either.”

“Trust me you don’t want to,” he says.

“Huh, the idea of everyone signing my cast always sounded fun.”

Bucky’s POV

We are sitting on a tree talking about the most mundane and innocent things. Like breaking a bone and how far planets are how big stars are. That’s why I like spending time with her so much she always does the ordinarily unordinary. The small things that everyone wants to do but never thinks to actually do. She makes me feel ordinary and that’s important for someone like me. It keeps me grounded. It’s 10 o’clock at night and i’m up a tree with a weirdest person i’ve met since i’d woken up. “You’re so weird,” I say.

“Weird is great,” she replies.

“Weird is great,” I repeat.

[i-globalone]

This is part of a series of op-eds previewing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. CoinDesk will be on the ground in Davos from Jan. 20–24 chronicling all things crypto at the annual gathering of the world’s economic and political elite. Follow along by subscribing to our pop-up newsletter, CoinDesk Confidential: Davos.Michael J. Casey is the chief content officer of CoinDesk. The opinions here are his own.As the world’s most influential and self-entitled gather in Davos, Switzerland, for next week’s World Economic Forum, a predictable set of problems are on their minds: climate change, political polarization, trade tensions and cyber-attacks top their list of worries, according to the WEF’s just-released Global Risks Survey.Those are weighty issues. But if we look at them through the decentralization mindset encouraged by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, it’s hard not to conclude that elephants in rooms are being overlooked. It’s with those issues, the ones not being talked about, where the real important stuff lies.The disintermediating, fragmenting and decentralizing impact of the internet has made the 21st century’s political and economic structure profoundly different from the previous one. But the Baby Boomers who run our governments and companies still tend to apply 20th century assumptions about centralized money and power. They fail to see how our outdated political and economic institutions are out of touch with this new reality, and how that explains society’s ever-waning trust in them. It’s a myopia that also means they often fail to recognize, much less understand, the alternative decentralized models quietly emerging from the developers building cryptocurrency, blockchain and digital identity technologies.So, as I head to Davos with my CoinDesk colleagues for a week of reporting and speaking engagements, I want to contemplate some of the issues “Davos Man” might be missing.It’s worth remembering the people for whom these issues most matter are not those cocktail-sipping elites but regular Joes and Joans. This year may well mark the most divisive U.S. election in decades. If our bickering leaders aren’t focused on these big themes, where does that leave us in four years’ time? We need these issues on the ballot. China’s digital yuanChina is expected to launch a digital currency sometime this year. The question not being asked enough is: As this project grows – and likely many others from other countries and companies – what will it mean for the dollar-centric global economy and its multitudinous stakeholders?How will digital fiat currencies impact global trade and capital flows? Do they pose a competitive threat to the dollar and, by extension, to U.S. economic power? What would such a transformation mean for how the international community tackles the big-ticket issues Davos elites worry about: petrodollar investments in carbon-rich assets, for example, or global trade tensions?The digital yuan might seem like a superficial change, akin to a more advanced banknote or a state-run version of a mobile banking or payments app. But while China’s centrally managed approach to digital-currency technology is in some respects the antithesis of the decentralized model behind bitcoin, it is nonetheless a radical change.Two things matter: One, a digital fiat currency will circulate without banks managing the flow and, two, it is programmable, which makes it much more powerful than analog currency. Marc Andreessen says “software is eating the world.” Money-as-software might just devour it.A digital currency will enable the Chinese government to directly manage and monitor its users’ spending patterns. Putting aside the terrifying surveillance prospects behind this “panopticon” vision, this information-gathering power will greatly aid China in its international aspirations. Its economic response machine will be run by a far superior data-analytics system than anything employed by any other country.A “programmable” yuan will provide the missing payment component that hundreds of Chinese blockchain and smart-contract projects need. It will enable autonomous machines, micropayment infrastructure management systems, smart cities and other ideas the West will struggle to keep up with.As I’ve argued elsewhere, currency programmability, when interoperable with other countries’ fiat digital currencies, could also enable Chinese companies and their foreign partners to do a direct runaround of the dollar-based trade system.Currently, the yuan occupies an immaterial amount of cross-border trade and reserve asset holdings. But as this technology poses alternatives to the dollar and if China aggressively inserts its version into investment projects in Africa, for example, or into its 65-country Belt and Road Initiative, its international usage could grow rapidly.Recently, a Harvard-MIT simulation game found that digital fiat currencies could quash America’s capacity to impose sanctions on rogue states.  But the issue goes wider: If non-dollar digital fiat lets anyone bypass the intermediating U.S. banks that U.S. regulators lean on to catch international criminals, why will anyone use banks for cross-border money movements at all? Where does that leave Wall Street, that engine of American economic power?Some people, including former U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Chris Giancarlo, have recognized this threat to U.S. economic leadership. But Chinese digital currency dominance does not appear to be on many leaders’ radars – it’s certainly not featuring in the Democratic primary presidential debates.So, come on, Davos, let’s talk about it. Digital privacyTo be fair, privacy in the internet age, defined as the threat to our online personal data, will probably get a decent examination at Davos 2020. The Cambridge Analytica story, Edward Snowden’s unveiling of the NSA’s citizen-snooping system and the growing awareness that Silicon Valley behemoths such as Google are managing our lives, has put this issue front and center. It deserves to be.The problem is the structural factors behind this dangerous surveillance capitalism system are poorly understood.Most political reactions to the drumbeat of stories about data abuse by Facebook and Google amount to leaders tut-tutting at these companies, occasionally fining them and demanding they just stop being bad. Few realize that, essentially, they can’t stop being bad. These centralized entities, with their closed, non-interoperable “walled gardens” of data, have built their entire business models – and therefore their shareholders’ profit expectations – on surreptitiously and systematically extracting information about human lives.The other problem is the ad-hoc efforts to change these businesses’ behavior clashes with other demands placed upon them.Witness the contradiction in lawmakers’ critiques of the Facebook-founded Libra digital currency project. On the one hand, they demanded it protect users’ privacy but on the other they demanded it maintain all the monitoring necessary to prevent money laundering. Or look at how Facebook’s critics simultaneously demand its social media platform remove disturbing hate-speech content and that it also cease arbitrarily censoring and “de-platforming” users.  Without understanding the problem, people can’t see how holding both of these positions is untenable. There are two approaches to this issue: a political one, such as an antitrust order to constrain the internet giants, or a technological one, in which social media platforms move to a decentralized structure of user control (one potentially where zero-knowledge proofs or other advanced forms of encryption enable verification without revealing identities).Let’s discuss these options, Davos. DisinformationYou thought fake news was a problem. You ain’t seen nothing yet.As Arif Khan writes in this pre-Davos opener for CoinDesk, fake news is going on steroids.With people such as Jordan Peele using clever stunts to highlight the problem, “deepfakes” – in which image manipulation technology is making it increasingly difficult for people to detect reality-altering changes to a digital video or image – are starting to get people’s attention.Yet, the full extent of how much society depends on the glue of trustworthy information is greatly underappreciated. The foundation of our democracy, of our legal system, of our business relationships and of everything else in between is at stake when the truth cannot be verified.How do we get ahead of this when artificial intelligence is progressing so rapidly and when information is no longer delivered to us through central filters?A solution will require a combination of tools like AI detection software, watermarking and blockchain-based tracking of digital media provenance.It also requires stakeholders at technology companies, media organizations and government bodies to jointly establish standards for those technologies so we can all agree on how we’ll re-establish the integrity of the information we rely on.This is an urgent problem, one tailor-made for a mountain-town gathering of money and power.Let’s look outside the bubble. Let’s become inquisitive. Let’s abandon rigid, outdated ways of thinking. Let’s say goodbye to know-it-all Davos Man, because clearly he doesn’t.Click the image to subscribe to our pop-up newsletter, CoinDesk Confidential: Davos.Disclosure Read More The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

http://m.globalone.com.np/2020/01/davos-needs-to-wake-up-to-ills-of.html

[aion-rsa]

INTERVIEW: Spurrier Talks Legion TV Debut and His New Series Godshaper

Simon Spurrier plans on mixing equal parts deity-altering abilities, epic-level worldbuilding and social commentary in his new four-issue series “Godshaper,” illustrated by Jonas Goonface. The April-launching book published by BOOM! Studios takes place in a world where everyone has their own personal deity, except for Ennay and his fellow Shapers. That leaves them at a distinct disadvantage, but doesn’t stop Ennay from hanging out with equally partnerless god Bud and playing mind-bending music.

In addition to the new series, the writer’s also looking forward to tonight’s premiere of Fox and Marvel Television’s Legion” on FX. Spurrier saw just how interesting of a character that David Haller is, and showcased him in a starring role in the pages of “X-Men: Legacy” from 2012 to 2014. Having written Legion’s most recent adventures, and some of the only other story’s with David Haller as a lead character, he’s excited to see the new direction taken with him on the small screen.

RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Supernatural Symbiotic Spiders Run The World in Spurrier’s “Weavers”

CBR News talked with Spurrier about what makes Legion an “instantly relatable” character, constructing the world of “Godshaper,” integrating music into comics and what exactly a “Godshaper” is.

“Godshaper” #1 main cover by Jonas Goonface.

CBR News: I like a title that immediately raises a question or gets me thinking. With that in mind, what is a Godshaper?

Simon Spurrier: Haha, glad you like it. As titles go it’s definitely an eye-catcher, and — if nothing else -– hints that you’re about to enter a world unlike our own. Which, OMG, you so are.

Worldbuilding’s definitely one of the things I’ve accidentally ended up being known for — see “The Spire” or “Six-Gun Gorilla” — but the big thing I want to say up front is that this is a story about two broken vagrant outcasts who, by traveling together, complete each other. A character-led rascally buddy-comedy roadtrip, in other words. Which just happens to be set in an amazing alternate-universe.

In what ways does the universe of “Godshaper” differ than our own?

It’s a universe where every human being has a private, personal god of their very own. Like, literally present and visible, constantly in attendance. These gods serve all sorts of practical functions. Part bodyguard, part super-powered servant, part bank account, part status-symbol. They’re literally the most important parts of this society. The bigger and more powerful your god, the more important a person you are. It follows that people are really vain about what their gods look like, and what super-skills they have.

So far so odd, right? Well, it turns out that there are in fact some people — like, one in a thousand — who don’t have gods. And they lead pretty sucky lives. They’re literally incapable of participating in wealth, they have zero social status, and no super powers. These guys are at the bottom of the heap.

The one thing they can do – and nobody really understands why or how this works – is that they can reshape and reconfigure other people’s gods, like molding wet clay. A new look, a new color, a new powerset. They can barter these skills for food and shelter. The upshot is that “Shapers”, as they’re known, are constantly hated but always in demand. A true servant underclass.

“Godshaper” #1 incentive cover by Sonny Liew.



What is the human-god relationship like for most people in this story?

Gods have two major roles, and a whole bunch of minor ones. First and foremost, your god is a sort of bank account. The bigger your god is, the richer you are. When you want to buy something you simply pray to the seller’s god: it expands, yours shrinks. So this is a very visual version of our own capitalist culture, where wealth is constantly on show and people literally worship money. Secondly, your god fills the niche that modern technology occupies in our world. Combustion, transport, lighting: anything that makes human life a little bit easier. These things simply don’t work in the Godshaper universe. The laws of physics are kaput. They broke sometime in 1958, and nobody knows why.

Luckily, the gods showed up to fill the gap. The richer you are, the bigger your god and the more super powers it has. Maybe it can starts fires, freeze things, send messages hundreds of miles, turn into a vehicle, whatever. So, again, this is capitalism writ large: wealth equals the means to get shit done. Hence, power. Naturally enough those two principles have bred a whole host of secondary cultural nuances. If the gods have replaced technology then you start to wonder what war looks like in this world. Or crime. Or sport. Or justice. Or music. Aaaand, same token, since gods have replaced wealth they quickly come to be stand-ins for showy ostentation, y’know? They’re status-symbols and fashion-accessories.

The big trick here is that if you want to change your god’s look, to keep up with the trends, or more importantly if you want to switch-out one of your god’s super powers for something more useful, then you’re gonna have to call a Shaper. So Ennay and his fellow Shapers are really just a new take on something which has been present in pretty much every human society ever: a disenfranchised and reviled but overworked underclass. They’re vital to the smooth running of the world, and without them the whole house of cards comes crumbling down. But, in order for capitalism to work successfully, these penniless pariah-slaves have to remain loathed and disempowered. Basically, the world in “Godshaper” tells us a lot about our own.


The story follows the exploits of Godshaper Ennay and the human-less god Bud. What kind of trouble do they find themselves getting into as the series kicks off?

Ennay’s attitude towards the rest of the world is, unsurprisingly, a pretty big part of his character arc. As I mentioned, Shapers are incapable of owning money but are in constant demand for their skills. I like to think of Victorian servants, y’know? Vital to the upper-classes, but regarded as dirty and shameful and forced to use the back door. Needless to say, Shapers get a lot of shit in the normal course of their lives.

But the nature of Ennay’s skills means that he’s frequently in a position to either save or sabotage the lives of the people around him. So you can imagine the kind of scrapes he’ll get sucked into. Petty villainy versus acts of altruism. Bitterness or heroism. Criminal or crime-fighter. And bubbling-up into the foreground is a whole bunch of madness to do with organized crime, organized religion, and all-out holy war.

As for Bud — he’s a mystery. Gods literally can’t exist without worshipers. Bud should’ve faded away long ago. But the little guy seems happy enough, and isn’t in any hurry to discover how or why he’s so different. Sadly for him, the world is about to focus on that mystery very closely indeed. One of the reasons Bud and Ennay have become such close friends is that when they’re together they can just about pass for ordinary. One human, one god. The moment they’re apart, things can — and frequently do — fall apart.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

Music seems to be important to the characters in this story. What are the challenges of integrating an aural artform into a visual medium like comics?

Without getting too formalist and wanky about this, I’d argue comics are the perfect medium to present speculative takes on otherworldly sound. One simply switches the ear for the eye, and lets the reader’s imagination take over. Comics, remember, are already hardwired for this sort of sophisticated synesthesia; swapping time for space and sound for text with every panel transition, speech balloon and onomatopoeic sound effect. Better yet, the music featuring in this comic comes complete with a whole underground cultural scene to go with it. Hence: glorious visuals.

Super-quick history lesson, brace yourself. One of the unexpected upshots of the arrival of the gods in the late 1950s was that popular culture totally stagnated. (Yes, before you ask, literally everything in this story is commentary of one sort or another.) The world’s stuck in this endless vanilla version of a 50s aesthetic, with limp-wristed rockabilly trends and squeaky-clean stars using their gods to produce safe, middle-of-the-road, synth-muzak pop.

Luckily there’s a vibrant underground scene. It’s a counter cultural movement called “cantik.” It’s raw, chaotic, hypersexual and very angry, where performers rely on their voices and their bodies to make music — rather than their gods. As its detractors put it: “an unholy racket.” Part punk, part poetry, part jazz, part something totally new. Gatherings occur in secret, on the outskirts of bumblefuck towns in the midwest.

Ennay’s a cantik performer – a damn good one. In fact the main thrust of the series is his race to get to San Francisco to play in a big cantik festival. He spends his entire life wanting to known – and respected – for his music. But all people ever see is his godlessness. Commentary, commentary, commentary…

What made you want to create this series with Jonas?

Actually — boring answer, sorry — the seed-idea arose in isolation. One of those crazy high-concept gigs: what would it be like if the world ran on metaphysics instead of physics? What would an outcast look like in that culture? I approached BOOM!, they found Jonas. And oh holy hell, thank goodness they did. He’s kind of come out of nowhere, at least as far as my radar’s concerned. Within literally moments of starting to sketch he’d single-handedly established the look and tone of the world and its godly inhabitants.

I think he’s going to be a very important talent in this industry. “Godshaper” is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

In other comics news, “Legion” debuts this week. You wrote that character extensively in X-Men Legacy. Have you seen any of it yet?

As of writing this, no. Just the trailers and teasers, like the rest of you. Got to say I’m pretty excited, though. It looks like a wonderfully creative and — I normally hate this word, but it fits here — quirky take on some of the themes we explored in the comic. The show makers seem to be treating the material (specifically: mental unwellness) with a touch that’s both light and deep, which I fully endorse. For me the biggest gauge on its success will be whether the comedy elements constitute punching upwards or downwards.

RELATED: Spurrier Explores Legion’s Familial “Legacy”

Is it surreal seeing this character you worked on so long translated to live action?

Based on what little I’ve seen…? Honestly, no, not especially surreal. I think the human brain is exceptionally good at compartmentalizing and rationalizing fictions, so it can absorb value without tripping-up on awkward details. It’s why we don’t mind that Batman appears in a dozen different books, with different costumes and continuities, in games and LEGOs and movies and ’66 flashbacks and so on and so forth, all at once. They’re all great stories in their own right, and as readers we understand on some secret level that we’d ruin the whole lot of them for ourselves if all we ever looked for is the places they don’t match up. It’s why we don’t care that the details of the movie-Avengers don’t perfectly tally with the details of the comics Avengers, or the same character seems to have slightly different motives in their solo book versus a team book, or yadda yadda yadda.

Basically as consumers we’re sophisticated enough to accept stories on their own terms. And I think, as comics fans, we’re probably a step ahead on that too, having spent our lives performing the subconscious equivalent of pretending not to notice every time a reboot or retroboot conflicts with our understanding of a character’s life.

Which is the very long-winded way of saying that my David Haller was not precisely the same as the one who’d appeared in comics beforehand anyway. They’re linked, they share ideas and histories, they’re even abstractly the same, but they exist in separate narrative mental territories. Therefore I have absolutely no problem seeing the TV version in the same light: enjoyably linked to the comic-book work, but a clearly distinct entity.

You obviously saw plenty in the character to carry a series, but how do you think that will transfer into the world of television?

I think there’s just so much you can do with a character like David. Not just in terms of the things he can do and the plots he can generate, but the sheer volume of thematic weight he can carry. He’s a youngster with almost godlike power, whose single greatest enemy is his own brain. That’s the sort of amazing conflict-setup which works as an allegory for pretty much any struggle, internal or external, any of us has ever faced. Instantly relatable. That’s character gold.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

“Godshaper” #1 descends on April 12 from Si Spurrier and Jonas Goonface.

The post INTERVIEW: Spurrier Talks Legion TV Debut and His New Series Godshaper appeared first on CBR.com.

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