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greensaplinggrace · 3 years

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honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

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princeofheartclasspects · 2 years

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This might seem a little irregular, but how would... you go about making a Prince of Space? I've read through everything, and I'm simply not getting the concept at all, I think. Might be the Time player in my brain, haha. If you've got a classpect analysis up your sleeve, or perhaps moreso, an example? Would be much appreciated! Thank you.,

Hmmm, that’s a tough question. Honestly the way I make characters is super self-indulgent and making them in a bubble with no story attached essentially, though I did have a Prince of Space fan troll many, many years ago. Space is one of the aspects I struggled a lot to understand, just never quite felt like I had a good definition of it. I feel like I know enough now to answer this kind of thing though! I’ll delve specifically into making one for this post and do an analysis as a bonus because I had a lot of fun with this. Space is cool. I’ll bring up things in the comic a fair amount as well as talk about Jade, Calliope, and Kanaya to give some examples to show what exemplifies Space.

So, let’s talk about the aspect of Space before delving into the class/aspect relationship. The Extended Zodiac tells us that Space is primarily concerned with the big picture, seeing things from an overall perspective, and focusing on the overview. They are said to be patient and said to pick their battles wisely – that makes me think that they’re disciplined and focused. They are primarily concerned with the things that they believe truly matter or at least have a better chance of going their way. They conserve that energy to build it towards something productive. ‘Taking things as they come’ paint a composed and relaxed approach to the unexpected, and an understanding that things aren’t set in stone and are liable to change.

Space correlates to creating rather than making. It’s the purpose of fulfillment, a genuine love for the thing they’re creating. Let’s say you’re painting, and accidentally spill a glob in the worst spot possible. You might feel that the whole thing is ruined and may scrap it entirely, but a Space player would likely roll with it and find a way to make it work! They enjoy the process, not particularly stressed over how it’ll turn out, just if they have fun! It specifically states that they’re innovators, and recycle the old to make new, fresh, and beautiful things.

Space gets tied to fashion a lot, which, is neat. But it’s also your straight up physical form! Calliope shows this a lot, putting extensive work into her trollsona cosplay but also inspiring Jade and Jane to have trollsonas too! Jade has her wardrobifier changing the appearance of her symbol, as well as her being a massive furry and ending up a dog-girl when she god-tiers, as well as Kanaya having a passion for rainbowdrinkers – becoming the exact thing she idealized later in the comic!

Space also has ties to isolation and loneliness, but to say it’s just that is a bit of an oversimplification (as Jade says as much to Davepetasprite.) Going through that allows the Space player to be more connected and understanding of their aspect – but it’s hard and not an easy thing to endure. Through Jade, Kanaya, and Calliope we see that it’s a recurring theme. They’re all isolated in some way, Jade having physical distance due to her being on an island, Kanaya for having numerous unusual and unique traits that set her apart from her own kind (“one of the few of your kind” is brought up FOUR TIMES in her introduction.), and of course, Calliope. Calliope’s interests and personality is an oddity amongst her kind, and she is also by far, the most distanced of the Space players. Alone on a desolate planet, with her godawful brother who she can’t directly talk to. She at least was able to talk to the alpha kids but then she was faced with extreme loneliness after her death. Forced to sit and wait for who knows how long before someone came to talk to her. Alt!Calliope takes this to another degree, having never interacted with anyone but Caliborn her whole life – that distance and loneliness makes her the most connected to her aspect.

Creation is a core theme of Space, complimenting Time’s theme of destruction. That’s shown with the assigned duties of the Space player – frog-breeding and the creation of the Genesis Frog. It is the nurturing of life itself and reproduction. That aspect of Space particularly shines through with Kanaya, with her lusii being an extraordinarily rare Virgin Mother Grub whose purpose is that when her death inevitably comes – the matriorb is to be extracted from her and kept to hatch into a Mother Grub who will birth trolls. Creation of life itself! There are also the ties of cultivating and fostering life with Jade’s gardening hobby as well as Kanaya’s landscaping hobby – Kanaya also cultivated an entire oasis for her hive in the middle of the desert.

Now that we’ve touched on aspect quite a bit, let’s move to talking about class. Princes usually do not have a great relationship with their aspect, being adversarial at worst or lukewarm at best, at least at the start of their journey. Even a true Prince likely won’t be super thrilled about their aspect but they come to accept its purposes and use and why it cannot be destroyed entirely. But why might the Prince be rejecting Space? They could still have interest in Space, and that distinctive creative drive and sharp intuition- yet they are rejecting it. They may even be misread as a Time player, but that isn’t right.

Space shapes their world view and values, even if they try to deny and push away from it. So, what might be the reasons for the rejection? Confusion? Fear? Insecurity? Societal pressure? Are they frightened by the vastness of Space and aware of the distance and loneliness that comes with coming to understand it? Or you could play it straight and have the Prince actively discourage creativity and imagination. It all depends! There just needs to be some form of conflict between the Prince and something pertaining to the core aspects of Space.

And just as a quick condense of things tied to Space: Creation, Beginnings, Destiny, the Practical, Physical Space, Physics, Parenthood, what is Tangible, Art, Physical Appearance, Isolation.

I’ve recently been going back-and-forth with ghosting and still am trying to piece together what I think about it so for now we’ll skip over ghosting. Ultimately though, the Prince needs to understand the balance of their aspect. They don’t have to love every part of Space, they can still hate those certain parts that drive them up a wall - but understand that it exists for a REASON. They need to carve away the excess, what isn’t necessary. Only then can their aspect be properly utilized, and with truly devasting effects. Prince of Space is a wild offense class, there’s some absolutely insane feats of raw destruction they are capable of.

As far as examples of a Prince of Space goes… I struggled to think of a solid one so I initially said Superintendent Evil in the episode The Inquisition from the Amazing World of Gumball. That’s an example of a Prince of Space focused on the destruction of imagination and creativity itself… But in the middle of the analysis post for Prince of Space I had a more solid one come to mind. Deidara from Naruto! He has some traits of an egotistical Prince, being arrogant and prideful. But his most distinctive trait is his love of art. He uses his art, clay sculptures, as bombs to destroy whatever or whoever is in his way. Deidara holds the belief that "art" is the moment in which something that has form is destroyed – fitting for a creatively-driven Prince of Space! Here’s examples of his powers in action!

I’ll have the analysis post up soon but I hope this helped a little!

#space #prince of space

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Vs the Universe or So Sad So Very Very Sad

Hello all you happy Scottaholics! And welcome back to Scottrospective, my 8 part look at Scott Pilgrim: all 6 volumes of the comic as well as the game and movie just in time for their respective 10th Anniversaries. If your just joining us or needa quick refresher, here are links to the other four parts, in order: Precious Little Life, Vs The World (Comic), Infinite Sadness, and last month’s look at my favorite volume Gets It Together. And if that’s not enough to fill your belly with Scotty Goodness, hop over to my patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet. There you’ll find reviews of all the content I didn’t have time for in the retrospective proper: Free Scott Pilgrim, The Wonderful World of Kim Pine, Monica Beetle, Style, and the bonus comic strips. It’s only a dollar to get access to the bonus reviews, and every bit you can give not only helps me make these reviews int he first place, but gets me closer to my stretch goals, the 25 and 30 dollar ones including looks at O’Malley’s Other Works: Lost At Sea and Seconds for the former and Snotgirl for the latter.

But more than plugging my past and paid works, there’s something else far more important I need to get to before I get into this one: Thank You. No Seriously thank all of you who have been reading these, liking them. My Precious Little Life Review is easily one of the most liked things i’ve ever had on this blog, getting more viewers every day, and last month’s look at Gets it Together is STILL racking up likes. Given most of my non-duck reviews, paid for and on my own time, tend to be ignored half the time, this just warms my heart. It shows me two great things: that even after a decade Scott Pilgrim still has a huge following and given how young this platform tends to skew that it’s gaining more fans every day, and that people care about what I have to say about htis wonderful comic. It really touches me to both know my voice matters and that something I truly loved as a teen and still do now is STILL picking up more and more fans. What i’m saying is you guys are the best and I wouldn’t be doing these reviews without your support of my very hard work. These are some of the hardest reviews i’ve done at times, but seeing you all enjoy them makes it all worth it.

As for the Volume itself there’s something I just gotta get off my chest right away: I HATED this volume when it came out. To understand why you have to consider my mental state: I was a teenager at the time, in my junior year of high school. Scott Pilgrim was my goddamn world: while I was picking up comics monthly at the time this was honestly the first north american comic I loved and obessed over and Scott and friends were like family to me. To an awkward teen who couldn’t talk to girls, struggled to keep the video game club a friend founded together in a way that in hindsight was wholly unecessary, and getting messed with due to my anger issues by friend, foe and frenemy alike, Scott was my port in the storm. A sunny version of Tornoto where I could retreat to to feel at peace.

So yeah this shattered the fuck out of that peace and was essentially one long slow motion kick to the balls to a younger me: Hollie gets derailed and horribly betrays Kim, runing my faviorite characters life and leading to her LEAVING, Scott and Ramona’s relationship crumbles, the band breaks up , and the volume ends with Gideon still gunning for our hero because life hadn’t punched him in the face enough for one month. I was livid, not stopping the series, obviously, but upset that everything i’d grown to care about was basically gone in a flash and couldn’t understand WHY O’Malley would fucking do this to me. This volume was also what kept me from re-reading the books for as long as I did as while the rest had fond memories all the ones I had of this one were pure misery.

But by the time i re-read it in december of last year I had two important things in my hands that helped me truly enjoy this one: The first was Volume 6 itself: knowing things would work out, that most of the bad stuff would be undone and in a truly awesome and satisfying way helped.

The other thing was the perspective that came with growing older: For one as an adult while I still like Scott as a character and find him intresting I no longer look up to him, nor put stock in his hapiness for his own. Sure I still care about characters and relate to some, but Bojack Horseman taught me the hard way you CAN’T put all your hopes in a character’s fate or them getting better for you to get better.

The other is that while this volume again is pretty bleak after a while.. it’s also NECESSARY. Part of the series charm is i’ts realisim and a sad part of real life is people can drift apart from you, and things can change seemingly all at once. And things moving the way they do is necessary for the ending: every step and move here puts things where they need to be for the final chapter. The pain our heroes go through is necessary so they can all grow.. except Stephen and Wallace. Stephen sucks and Wallace dosen’t need to change. He does need his own spinoff. But for Scott, Ramona and Kim the trials to come are necessary to make them into their best selves by series end.

So join me under the cut as we get sad so very very sad, this is Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe.

Precious Little Life: We open with Scott’s Birthday! Hit it MC Chris!

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But yes it’s septmeber and Scott is now 24 years old. Also Julie is there because presumibly Stephen dredged her out of her swamp for the evening despite Julie likely not wanting to be there and Scott sure a shell not wanting her there. He vows that he will be the best 24 year old ever...... yeah let’s take a brief look into the future to see how that pans out

But we have a full volume and more metaphorical rakes to whack Scott in the face before that paticular one.

A MONTH AND A FEW DAYS LATER

It’s the day of the dead, whoa ho way down in Tornoto. It’s hosted by Satan Herself, who dosen’t realize the holiday for hags was yesterday. This is for remembering the dead and rising out of the grave to go resuce your young wards by ramming a bunch of guys in butterfly costumes with your car or stealing your children’s kidneys. This is Rat Girl’s new place, a fancy loft she and 3 other girls went on to throw the best parties beaause of course. She’s also a bitch to our hero and heroine because of course.

But Scott soon has more important things to worry about: Ramona spots his next two opponents.. the twins hinted at last time, Kyle and Ken Kataynagi, Perfect Jerk and Handsome Asshat respectively.

Kyle and Ken are easily the least intresting of the 7 exes. With the other 4 so far having been a loveable ham, a stoic movie star whose suprisingly nice and dies via skateboard, a gloriously douchey and dumb psychic evil version of our much more loverable dumb douche with personal connections to both him and Ramona, and Roxy who was genuinely sympathetic, held back by her own selfishness and anger.. we get.. two smug assholes who use robots. Their not UNINTRESTING, the robots have cool designs and the fight with them is genuinely exciting.. but they just don’t have the charisma or personal factor. Their jsut two assholes ramona dated at the same time who happen to know more about her well guarded past than the other exes and are more liable to bring it up.. and even then it’s not anything new as Envy pulled similar tactics far more intrestingly in volume 3. THey don’t ruin the volume or anything, thier fine, but I just wish O’Malley had done more. Especially since he clealry had more intresting ideas with them: the sound battle we saw in the movie was an early draft of this and one early draft had Scott’s previously unseen brother Laurence working with them. I don’t knowWHY he scrapped that as it raises the stakes and makes this far more personal for Scott. Which at this point is what the exes SHOULD be: Todd and Roxy BOTH were more personal threats, Todd being his ex’s boyfriend and first love and Roxy being a genuine competior for Ramona. These guys again are just two douchers who show up because we need 7 douchers to complete the doucher circle.

So the twins declare their not going to fight scott.. and instead send a tiny robot to fight him. Awww. But for this fight O”Malley does something really intresting and creative.. he dosen’t focus on it. No really Ken and Kyle are dicks to Ramona so Kim wisely gets her out of there, and the two have a casual talk on the balcony while Ramona smokes. It’s some fun banter between the two that both shows why their shipped to all hell. The two just play off each other really damn well. Though we also get Craphole asking people if they want to come watch Scott get beat up because the worst.

Something important character stuff comes up though: As was shown last time at her rightful rage that Stephen HAD an opportunity to book a gig and kept refusing it for his fecking album, Kim is still fairly salty about the whole recording an album bullshit. The biggest part of it..

It’s something you really DON’T expect to here coming out of kim: that she really LIKED the band. But beneath the pillar of salt she puts out daily... these were her friends, this was getting to do something creative and passionate, and it was a break from the daily grind. Even if her job isn’t TERRIBLE, getting to watch movies and hang out with her best friend Clerks style.. it’s still a retail job and those still weigh on you.. though frankly i’d take one of those over food service but sadly tha’ts what i get most of the time. This was fun.. and Stephen ripped that away from her for his own selfish reasons. No one else in the band really cared about making an album.. if Stephen REALLY wanted to find a more professional band.. then he should’ve just told them so Scott and Kim could find someone else to do guitars for them. Instead he forced them into doing something they don’t want to do and refuses to actually play shows, which COULD help both perfect songs for the album version and get them new fans for said upcoming album and provide them recurring venues to SELL said album, because he really just wants to be with Joseph and fuck anyone else. Stephen is really just an inhernetly selfish git and i’ll get more into that in a bit. But first Wallace has a text for Scott.

Now I COULD have just skipped over this.. but I didn’t want to. Plus we dont’ se Wallace for a while in this story so i’m taking what I can get.

So back to Stephen being a repugnant ass. I’ve been waiting for this scene for the entire retrospective. I”ve hinted at it, and largely blamed it for why I hate him so damn much. The time is nigh to explain WHY.

Stephen is with Knives, as the two are close friends and such. Stephen expalins Sex Bomb-Omb isn’t playing because he and the personfication of bitchiness broke up. Which knives points out is for...

But it’s clear from context this was the LAST time. Why he still got invited I dunno, plot convience. So far so normal.. until Stephen picks up that Knives is STILL hung up on Scott. Which is understandable crushes can last a while but i’ts equally understandable that Stephen is utterly baffled by it. Which I get, I didn’t make an entire tom lucitor retropsecitve because I liked that his relationship with Star ended with him stepping aside due to what the show thought was “true wuv” but what comes off instead as his self loathing casuing him to blame himself for a realtionship that’s crumbling for reasons that aren’t his fault.

And his actions here are incredibly well meant: He bluntly gives Knives the wake up call she DOES need: Scott cheated on her, he dated her because she was easy to date, strung her along for a bit while seeing someone else, then dumped her with not one care for her well being. That is stuff she NEEDS to get into her head so she can move on. She needs to see him for what he IS and not for what she’s built him up as in her head. And while yeah his rant DOSNE’T take into account the fact Scott geninely tried to make up for his actions in volume 3, Stephen wasn’t there for that and Knives probbably didn’t tell him about it. So from his point of view scott broke her heart and did nothing.. and evne IF he knew that, Scott still hasn’t tried to do anything since despite Knives still being obessed with him nor come clean to her or Ramona at any point. Scott deserves this call out and the consequences that come with it.

So your probably wondering WHY I hate Stephen because of this scene when he’s you know, RIGHT. Well it’s simple: being right dosen’t save you from being a MASSIVE hypcorite. He’s railing on Scott for cheating and hurting someone.. when he cheated on Julie and would’ve hurt her if she had the capacity for human emotion, empathy, or self awarness. The ending of the last volume and how bad, even for them, their relationship was implied the hell out of it, with him nervous when she brings up being paranoid over knives.. as if he WAS cheating. on One Face just not with a teenage girl but a grown ass man who hates everyone as much as BLARARARGAGAG does.

Not only that.. but he was with Julie for the SAME DAMN reasons Scott was with Knives: it was easy. Now I WILL grant Stephen some sympathy: he’s a queer man and as one myself, bi for the record, I GET how fucking hard it is to come to terms with that, that what you thought you were isn’t ENITRELY true or, if Stephen is gay and not bi or pan, ENIRELY FALSE. So I do have some care that it was hard for him to sort all this out. I do and that Jospeh could’ve seduced him or what not. We don’t have all the context here. But he STILL cheated at the end of the day instead of telling her he was queer until MONTHS later. And why yes the fact I have to feel bad for JULIE does make it that much worse. And yes their relationsihp COULD simply be that toxic or she could’ve gaslit him, but it seemed more like their relationship was messy breakups and getting back together over and over. While Julie IS vile, she’s not a domestic abuser mental or physical as far as I can tell. She’s a bitch and their relatioship is unehlathy but there was no indication their relationship involved gaslighting or evne phsyical violence: it was just fucked from minute one. So yeah he stayed in an awful relationship beacuse it was easier than coming out, when he should’ve broken it off as soon as it was clear he and Joseph were actually going somewhere. Waiting while he figured out who he was is one thing, tha’ts fiar, but cheating on someone just because you don’t have the nerve to break it off with them when their genuinely awful to you and your only hurting them as much as they can be hurt by dragging this out... yeah that just makes you an ass.

Another point of contention is that he NEVER called Scott out on this. Never. Not even after this scene. Never encouraged him to tell Ramona or apologize to Knives, again he didn’t know Scott already had tried that. Never gets on him.. he just ignores Scott’s shitty behavior like eveyrone else and unlike Kim, whose still got unresolved feelings and is at the very least clearly bothered by his shitty behavior, and Neil, whose young and thus like me likely looked up to Scott at the time, he dosen’t have an excuse other than “Well I don’t want to ruin our friendship by actually calling him out when he does something objectivionally awful.” Especially since Wallace DID actually take action: he didn’t break up the relationship or say anythign to Ramona, which is wrong... but he did tell scott flat out after his first date with Ramona to break up with Knives. And when Scott chickned out of that, Wallace gave him the ultimatium, may it live in empathy, to do so or he WOULD tell Ramona. And at least Wallace has a motive for not telling Ramona other than “I don’t want to risk my friendship with a guy I really don’t care about and think is shitty”. He wanted to see Scott recover from Envy, something Stephen never gave ONE. SHIT. ABOUT. He saw Ramona was good for him and knew telling her, while the RIGHT thing to do, would severely harm Scott, and by volume 4 leave him homeless. Plus Wallace frankly enabled him for some time anyway, letting him live at their place rent free and paying for all his food and frequently letting Scott steal his credit card. WIth Wallace at least while it’s not the RIGHT move, it’s understandable and complicated vs Stephen who really dosen’t seem to like or get along with Scott after volume 1, suddenly cares what happens to his relationship.

And what proves this... is this little exchange that ends the conversation.

Knives despite her issues, despite blinding herself to how Scott treated her, despite everything... thinks Ramona should know. And she’s right. And Stephen KNOWS THIS. He knows it was the right thing to do and just.. takes a swig instead of admitting he’s a fucking hypocrite or explaining himself in any way. He NEVER cared about Ramona’s feelings or how this would effect her or saw her as important in any way shape or form. Kim at least clearly feels guilty. Wallace clearly is only doing so because it’s better for both her and Scott that their together and is a flawed human being. Stephen.. just dosen’t do so out of some masculine bullshit code of not ratting out your friend and his own cowardace. He clearly COULD go walk up to Ramona right now and tell her, but he won’t. And again I don’t buy he honeslty cares enough about Scott for their friendship to TRULY be enough of a factor to stop that. Fuck. Stephen. Stills.

So Scott wins naturally, but is bummed there’s no reward.. but Stephen points out there’s tons of free food over yonder so he noms before he and Ramona leave.

We get some cute domestic bits with Scott and ramona: Scott playing games on her phone all day, the two cooking dinner, and Scott admititng he hasn’t thought of envy at all. “I have you now”. Though through it there are some signs of unease: Scott finds a letter to Gideon, and Ramona asks about her hair and stares out into the window. Nice little hints that even before the big bomb abotu to drop she’s not at ease.. she loves Scott.. but it’s hard for her to let herself BE happy. It’s easy to wager she wasn’t for most of her life.

Can’t Face Up

So next we find Sex Bomb-Omb working on the album. Or rather Stephen and Joseph are. Scott and Kim are praying for death but death won’t come and Kim wonders why the fuck this isn’t finished. Joseph wants her out of his house... forgetting that Kim lives in said house.

Still his expressoin implies he’s going to do a murder on her if she stays in the room and since Drummers are hard to come by Stephen spirits them to kim’s room for a band meeting. Turns out they do have a gig but naturally Rosemary’s Baby booked it... and they haven’t practiced in months because Stephen’s a moron. He theorizes it’s Freddy’s Revenge, which is admitely probably valid though Kim can TELL something worse happened Stephen won’t cop to because he’s a piece of shit. I spent several paragraph’s establishing that. They try blaying and two sucktacular minutes i’ts clear their fucked sunday.

So after a scene of Knives trying HARD to justify Scott’s actions and blame htem on Ramona, to no success, we get one of my faviorite parts of this book: Scott rambling on for god knows how long about the x-men while Ramona gets dressed and is presumibly barely listneing.

I relate so hard to this it hurts. While not this era I wll GLADLY go on and on about X-Men and anything X-Adjacent at any goddamn opportunity and anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis and you know this. I need to tlak more x-men outside of my slowly failing New X-Men retrospective (Which is on the back burner because no one seeems to genuinely care after chapter one). If I did have a signifgant other, they would probably end up in a situation like this quite a lot and i’d have no shame about it.

I also love this scene even more as while I DID love x-men at the time, I wasn’t quite the mega fan I was, nor as familiar with Claremont’s long, epic and often fucking weird in the special wonderful way only comics can run. Given I OWN over half his run at this point, that has changed. Though oddly not this part. So not only do I get Scott’s talking about x-men I Know what SPECIFICALLY.

And for the unitatied, a quick explination of what the fuck Scott’s going on and on about: In the late 80′s, the x-men fought a reality warping malevolent trickster god named the Adversary. IN order to beat him their friend forget had to perform a cermony to lock his ass away that required willingly given life forces. The X-Men did REALLY fucking die.. but the Goddess Roma, daughter of Merlin and enemy of the advesary brought them back to life. With their deaths having been broadcast on live tv, and with tons of dangerous enemies at their heels, the X-Men choose to let the world continue to think they were dead so they could hit said enemies where it hurt.

SO this is where Scott’s story comes in:The X-Men’s first mission was clearing out the reavers, a bunch of racist cyborgs, from a ghost town which they took over as their base. As Scotty said they traveled all over the world, fought aliens, more racists, and then went to New York as it literally went ot hell. it’s a LOT and I haven’t read most of that era. I just know about it. I have read that last part though: the x-men were ambushed while wolveirne was away by said racist cyborgs so Psylocke shoved them through the siege perilous, a gate thingy romana gave them that would give them a new life and amnesia and such, leaving wolveirne to get crucified till Jubilee, who’d been hiding in their base gary busey style, freed him. The two would travel the world, find psylocke body swapped which is why she was asian for several decades, and get into general stuff for a few years real time till the X-Men slowly reunited. And you probbaly dind’t need to hear all of that but your life is better for knowing it.

As you can tell Ramona’s discontent is mounting. And probably not because of Scott rambling about x-men. Last night he told her about the time Magneto beat them all because they stupidly rushed him one at a time then forced them into high tech chairs while a robotic nanny babbied them and then esecaped because shut up before fighting magneto, getting surrounded by lava and having beast ASSUME they were dead because fuck actually coming back and searching just in case like a rational human being because magma or no the x-men have surivived worse, including the depths of space, and restoring all of reality from scratch. I may of just read those issues tonight.

She procedes to make things worse for our hero as when he asks fo rher advice.. she reveals she dosen’t like his band.. and while she means nothing BY that, she’s nice about it, telling him his band sucks days before a sudden show where you guys eat a lot isn’t something you do. Wallace is naturally even less helpful and maybe his not liking the band is why we barely see him interact. Maybe he just figured Stepheen was on the fence sexuality wise but wasn’t willing to put up with Julie to test that. I dunno.

So at the restraunt Stephen’s a dick, refusing to help Scott with his problems. WHich for once are legitamte as he worries abotu Ramona keeping secrets. He just wants to talk about hte band.. but 48 or something hours after this he has no real plan.

Scott mopes to Kim about Ramona and she has some sage advice for him...

Also thing one and thing two are at the bar with a remote. This cannot end well... granted givne our heroes are not at all prepared and are playing two diffrent songs, this was never going to end well.

And things only get worse for Scott in the bathroom.. he’s not there.. but his girlfriend and his ex are. Knives tries to work it out.. but Ramona being a bit short with her, which is fair given Knives tried to stab her a bunch a few months back and never apologized, leading to a quick fight.. but with Knives heart not in it this time and Ramona pissed and this time NOT confsued as to what the hell ihs going on, it ends with Ramona slamming knives into a wall... and Knives sadly revealing the truth to Ramona...

The scene hits like a truck with both devistated.. Ramona not having realized Scott with this shitty.. and Knives FINALLY accepting that he is. Finally letting her obession with him drop and realize what he was and what he did and let the full impact hit. The last part also hits hard “No One Else Would’ve Told You’. It’s a sad hard truth and it’s CLEARLY something that hits both women hard. For Knives it’s realizing Kim and Stephen, who she’s increidbly close to at this point, both don’t have the stomach to do the right thing, and thus hid this from her and Ramona. Stephen DID tell her.. but he still didn’t have the guts to tell RAMONA nor the actual care. It’s the realization the people she looked up to truly let her down and that she had to do what they couldn’t, even if it tore her apart to do it. For Ramona it’s realizing her closest friends outside of Scott could’ve told her and never did. No matter how close she’s gotten to Kim and Wallace, neither gave a fuck about her rights or her need to know.

So Ramona is rattled and barely speaks while Scott has been fighting anothe rrobot and ends the gig accidnetly smashing his bass. Stephen is pissy with him and blames hi mfor runing the gig, which turned out to be a trap anyway complete with fliers.

Ramona decides to gently throw him out as he forgot his keys while his other friends won’t house him leaving him with the one friend he has who dosen’t hate him right now. WALLACE!

The Glow:

So at Casa De Welles, Wallace has some buddy time, not making any bones about the fact Ramona clearly threw Scott out for the night and wearing a neat robe. Scott mopes about the fact he hasn’t met mobile whose apparenlty on the astral plane. I wonder if he has any buisness with Emma.. I mean the x-men did live in san fran sicsio but given decimation didn’t have many psychics. Might’ve been tryign to get another one. THey didn’t have a whole island that walks like a man yet. And while Wallace wasn’t in much of a coaching mood last time he is willing to help. He couldn’t get bupkiss on the twins since Scott can’t even remember their names, but he did pull off a miracle. Despite their being a million Gideons in New York.. Wallace found THE Gideon. Granted all he got was his full name, Gideon Gordon Graves, and a few burry photos, one with Ramona confirming this is our douche, but given he had only a first name and an ex to work with this is some damn fine work. Wallace asks scott about his future with Ramona but he just.. has no earthly idea because of course he dosen’t. He hasn’t REALLY thought about what comes after beating the exes because he never thinks anything through. Interesting stuff The next day Scott meets up with Kim at No Account Video and we get our first, and I mean literally first, indiciation things are falling apart with her and Hollie. Scott wants to say hi, Kim refuses him and gives a smart ass comment when he asks if them being roomates isn’t working out. He wasn’t even being a dick it’s just clear SOMETHING bad’s going on she won’t talk about because she puts up walls around hrself on a GOOD day and this clearly isn’t one.

It gets worse when they stop by Stephen’s place only to find Neil whose both taken up a combination of smoking and moping in a dark room. Never a good sign. Nor is Stephen apparenlty being at band practice.. meaning either he lied to Neil about where he went.. or he already started the band we’ll see him with next volume and is already stabbing his friends in the back. There wasn’t much to like about the guy to BEGIN with, but his behavior just gets worse with every volume and it’s reached it’s apex here. The speech was shitty enough, I spent several paragraphs explaning why, but the rest of his behavior isn’t much better. He abandoned two people who were, for god knows what reason loyal to him and abandoned the band because of some bearded asshole probably encouraging him to.

We also get some telling behavior on Kim’s part. Whlie she’s usually morose around Scott in the face of this both just hang out, it’s plesant. She even smiles when she asks if it’s going to be a regular occurance when he stays with her that night. Granted she brings back her frown soon after, but as has been clear her feelings for him never really went away entirely, and this is the closest the two have been in volumes, just enjoying each others company. It’s also telling that Scott trusts kim with a favor.

We see the favor the next page: Kim hangs out with Ramona.. and Scott marchs in completely on purpose soon after. Granted Kim probably didn’t know THIS was part of the plan, and it’s mildly stupid.. but it DOES show progress for Scott. Keep in mind his usual tactic is “avoid the fuck out of it and hope it goes away’ So ACTUALLY wanting to talk about things and find her again, and not doing it in a creepy way but simply drawing her out with a friend, shows SOME maturlity. It’s still not the most mature.. but with Ramona clearly not wanting him at their place, her work not having a set location as she just picks stuff up and drops it off (And even if she’s picking up packages at the post office we don’t know which one or if there’s multiple and even if we did scott sure as hel l does not), he was out of options. It also WORKS, with Ramona breaking her mopeynesss to laugh and Kim stunned it didn’t just piss her off further.

So we find out what happened with Hollie when Scott brings up jason. She points out they were dating but... welllllllll

Yeah... as you could probably tell I do not like this plot point at all. For one thing we never really got to KNOW Jason, and with him and Hollie getting a little too cozy at the end of the last volume...

It’s clear his ONLY roll in the story was to be there so Hollie could betray Kim in some way. And look I get a LOT in this series happens while we’re not looking, ti’s part of it’s charm. Things not pausing for the side cast is a trope I enjoy: it allows some things to progress faster and allows for some intresting stories when the main cast catches up. Steven Unvierse and Ducktales both used this well as does Scott Pilgrim but all three weren’t immune to someitnes goofing up and taking it too far.

This whole situation is that: Hollie is a character I got attached to: She had a great report with kim, they were really close and she offered her a place to stay when it was clear she was miserable with the four horseman of the bitchpocalypse she lived with. So while having her suddenly heel turn is realistic... it just feels thorughly unsatisfying. We do not see Hollie again after she’s sudeenly derailed, so we never get to see what she’s apparenlty REALLY like or get any explination why this happened. Suddenly Kim’s best friend is a douchebag even though it makes no sense for her character. Just because in real life people can turn out to be really shitty on a dime dosen’t mean it’s a neat thing to READ in a story and it feels like a waste of what was one of the series best side characters. And granted i’ve been through FAR worse treatment of side characters, trust me but this one still blows to this day and if there is a netflix adaptation this either needs to not happen or have actual depth. Seriously Netflix your adapting everything else, get on the bus already.

Scott is GENUINELY apologetic, we’ve rarely seen him this nice but he genuinely feels bad for her.. and unlike Stephen’s thing it’s okay to feel shitty someone got cheated on even if you were a cheater in the past. As I said Stephen wasn’t wrong about how Scott treeted knives.. he just also was trying to take moral high ground which Knives proved he absolutely did not have in seconds.

This triggers Ramona’s glow, the squggly line thing that shows up over her head ocasoinally.. and while Ramona grills Scott... Kim just finally asks what the hells up with her head. Scott’s reaction is “OH good you guys see it too”. Kim does try to show it to ramona but it’s gone by then and she drops it for now and outside encourages her to come to Julie’s latest shitty party.. I mean their miserable but at least it gives thems omething to do

So we get another instalment of “Scott rambles about the X-Men” or New Mutants in this case as we’re talking about Magik, Aka Illyana Rasputin

So for the long version: The X-Men were staying at a creepy temple that Magneto had been working out of beause the mansion was being repaired. Colossus, everyone’s favorite Russian and Deadpool co-star, had his kid sister Illyana with him as Arcade, a ginger maniac assasian whose gimmick is creating elaborate murder theme parks, kidnapped her in a plot to get the x-men to fight Dr. Doom for him. Given this was during the Cold War they coudln’t exactly take her back, so she stayed with the X-Men and her beloved big brother.

So naturlaly the spooky temple decorated in Cthulu’s had a portal to hell in it and an evil and genirc looking fucker named Belasco kidnapped her to a hell dimension known as Limbo> the X-Men went after her as you’d expect and things got WEIRD as due to some complicated and weird time dialition stuff I sitll don’t quite understand there ended up being two copies of the x-men: ours who came in right after, and a second batch who stayed there for about 7-8 years and got warped by Bellsaco’s magic as he killed or changed most of them. As a result Storm became a sorcerer to fight back, Kitty Pryde became some sort of cat creature and Kurt became a creepy evil version of himself. Illyana stayed htere, learned magics from both storm and asshole, learned to fight from cat kitty, and eventually escaped after a lot of horrible bullshit, hardnered and with her soul scarred from it, now a teenager. She joined the New Mutants, the training class of x-men in the comics, soon after. She’s a member agian in present day, one of the great captains of Krakoa, and one of the two co-leaders of Krakoa’s younger mutants, i.e. 20 something to teens and kids.

This is the best of the two scenes as the narrative , or at least Scott’s versions parallels Ramona’s own; Getting taken in by an evil man and feeling tainted by that.

So at the party Ramona runs into Neil whose a dick about it and with some girl. She WAS going to be fleshed out more in the original draft but Brian ended up scrapping it for time, but does regret it. It’s here we get Neil’s face punchingly dickish comment that’s also a massive hint as to Stephen’s sexuality.

Yeah even if Stephen’s been an UTTERLY shitty friend to him.. this was uncalled for even for the late 2000′s. What a prick. I do like the arc of Neil slowly falling apart though getting more and more bitter as his old friends abandoned him casually, especailly Stephen. While his comment was still HORRIBLY unwarranted even with Stephen being a dipshit.

Speaking of assholes we get our last major with Julie who berates Scott for grabbing some booze and brings in the twist. I’m.. i’m not even bothering to give her an insluting and weird nickname. She’s still a HORRIBLE piece of shit, as she brought Scott’s enemies there to try and beat him to death for her own amusment and berated him for getting booze at a party she CLEARLY expected him to come to, but she’s ALMOST gone. Seriously after this she’s GONE for the volume and barely in the rest of the series. So i’d rather celebrate FINALLY having earned my freedom over worrying about her any more than i have to. Cue the music!

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So with that Kyle.. or is it Ken.

But the blonde one needles ramona, giving her her faviorite booze and telling her “this is all just temproary”

So Ramona gets all glowy.. and Kim gets her phone out....

The Universe Fights Back So in a random bedroom Ramona gives up the ghost: SHe DOES know what that is she just can’t tell Kim. Kim accepts it and they share some drinks. Scott, after beheading the douche bros latest science project, joins them and we get a lovely scene of the three drinking and bonding and geneuinely just having a good time. Though Kim DOES mention that she wants to go back to school.. This will naturally be very important.

What’s more important is this scene is ENITRELY while I poly ship these three dum dums. I mean while part of thier hapiness here is their blasted out of hteir heads, it’s also just Kim’s wall sbeing down. She tells the two she loves them, and I think MEANS IT. Not to mention this...

Okay maybe it’s just the two of them but they also love Scott. And again I get htier VERY obviously drunk.. but given Kim and Ramona are clearly actively supressing any bi parts of themselves most of hte time this is telling. The fact Ramona asks kim to sleep in THIER bed, likely with them, is ALSO very telling and Kim only dosen’t because their using sub space. No really that’s the only reason this volume didn’t end VERY diffrently with the three of htem having a three way before the argument coming up.. and possibly fixing said argument by having kim to mediate. I mean I get Scott’s not a big part of this so if you don’t want to ship him with them and just leave them alone that’s fine, ut I like the idea of them as a throuple: they ballance each other out.. and frakly with Scott’s irresponsblity and Ramona’s emotoinal issues they need someone to call them b oth out in the relationship, while these two are two of the only three people in the work i’ve seen Kim take her walls down for. Not even Jason got that, but Jason was also a carboard cutout.

Things take a turn from Kim.. from an almost threesome where she CLEARLY would be getting most of the attention... to two assholes kidnapping her. Now while I don’t like the twins that much their plan for the final act IS actually clever: their the first ones to think to actually use the people Scott cares about.. or anything resembling strategy really. Matt just charged int here, Lucas coudln’t give less of a fuck, Todd just used brute strength like a teletkentic juggernaught, and Roxy DID use some but it was less to actually fight scott and more to get into ramona’s pants again. The twins see Kim clearly still loves Scott, and that while he acts aloff to her sometimes she really is one of his best friends. No really, think about it. Wallace is his BEST friend.. but Kim sticks by him even when he’s shitty, calls him out when needed, and despite her grumpiness is the one who has the most faith in him out of ANYONE. It’s a large point of the volume: she dosen’t bother watching the fights.. because she belivies he’ll win simply because he’s Scott. That’s love right there. The kind of love that gets you kidnapped as part of an elaborate scheme but love nonetheless.

So we then get the scene that’s been coming for five volumes... after having sex, Ramona confronts Scott. While Scott admits he didn’t cheat on her with knvies, the other way around, that’s not better. He admits he’s been trying to forget about it.. and she calls him a bad person. And that. .hits him hard. While he DESERVES scorn for what he did... as he puts it next he’s been trying to change for her. To BE better. And all she sees, and outright confirms is another evil ex in waiting with Scott DESPERATE to prove her wrong and wrongly thinking beating the next three exes will fix this. It’s a VERY hard sceen to watch as while Scott does deserve this.. it’s also hard not to feel bad for him too. It really sums up the character: He is a dick.. but he’s TRYING to be better. He WANTS to be, he just dosen’t know how. And MAN can I relate to that. It dosen’t help that Ramona is clearly projecting her own insecurties about this lasting, about actually being happy and about this really being her life onto him, using this as an easy out after having a month of doubt. Yes Scott did something unbelivibely shitty.. but both are trying to take the easy way out of it instead of genuinely discussing why it’s shitty, what he did was wrong and geniuinely unpacking if this is the end. Ramona clearly wants to bail, and Scott clearly just wants to punch a few guys to make it better. Neither thing will work. They need to work thorugh their issues to work... but neither is capable of that right now. They both want to run from the problem.

This volume is in part about Ramona herself.. and showcasing her OWN flaws.. and like Scott her biggest is that she runs. She wants to escape her past too and both assumed the other would be an easy fix, that by having a good partner they’d be better.. when really their both mildly shitty people who need to make peace with their past and repair the bridges they’ve burnt and flip off the ones not worht reparing instead of running from it all the time. But sadly before both can.. their just gonna run again. Because sometimes fixing yourself is just not that easy.

So the next morning Scott’s heart stops fo ra second when Ramona is seemingly gone.. only for her to instead be in teh shower. But Scott gets a text telling him the twins have Kim and TRIES to tell Ramona.. but she’s in the shower. As a result she’s worried he just ran off... and makes a decision , her hair cut back down after growing it out this volume, a sign of her hapiness.. now gone.

The Glow Part 2 So at an abandoned wherehouse the fight is on. The twins have the advantage in part because Scott is hung over.. something they take offense to.. even though they were THERE last night. He was at a party. They don’t know he teatotles. What state did they THINK he’d be in this morning?

We also find out their origin: as Scott correctly guessed at the end of last volume, Ramona dated them both at the same time and pit them against each other. They found out and vowed to always fight as one.. which means Scott is not only fighting two equally powerful opponents at once, but two who work as a perfct team and double hurricane kick him. They also mentally break him down, pointing out her previous job and how she’s a runner and she’s here to run from her past working for Gideon.

They aren’t but I already went into that so let’s get onto more pressing issues: Scott is not only hung over but now doubting himself and his dumbass plan to beat gideon and magically fix things, while Kim is naturally not happy about being stuck in a cage all night. And while at first she’s genuinely just grumpy as always as it becomes clear Scott has lost hope and the twins are going to win this one her expression is heartbreaking...

After EVERYTHING she still loves him and can’t bear to see him in so much pain... and can’t loose him.. so she gets desperate and claims Ramona texted him to give him hope.

This is one of Kim’s definting moments, the other coming next month. When faced with the person she loves possibly dying.. she lies to him.. so he can surivive. So he can have hope and make it through this.. despite how much it’s CLEARLY KILLING HER to not only tell him someone else loves him but to clealry lie that person loves him, knowing it’ll hurt him more.. but knowing if she DOSEN’T he’ll die. It’s one of the most painful, heartbreaking and beautiful moments in the entire series. It’s why I said earlier while I don’t like the brothers their climactic fight his excellent.. because it is. Their verbal breaking down of Scott is hearbreaking and Kim’s sacrifice equally so.

And before stomping them into coins SCott shows further growth.. by showing he CAN give off a good one liner now...

So Scott beats them and gets Kim out of the cage, worried about her.. but despite having a chance, Kim lets him get on his way to ramona and morsoely wlaks off... while ominously the sign points out this will soon be the Chaos Theater. There’s still one left to go.

But.. it’s sadly not enough. While Scott gives her a heartfelt speech... even if he quotes the song as long as you love me... he dosen’t care who she is.. but Ramona does.. calling herself a bad person.. as she vanishes.... and I cry my eyes out again. God two really heartbreaking scenes in a row sweet jesus this volume will be the death of me.. and not just because i’ts taken so damn long to write this review. And on top of tha the looses the cat and ends up locked out.

World of Ruin:

So yeah if you thought those bits weren’t easy.. it only gets roughter as we see Scott in the aftermath of the breakup. His dream world is now desolate and he’s alone. Now to his creidt as much shit as i’ve given him Stephen didn’t ENTIRELY abandon Scott: he put him up fo rth enight (though he kicks him out after work) and offers to take him to after work drinks. We also see a nice side of Scott’s intimdating boss as she offers her symaptheties at him crying... while he says it’s the onions... he’s transparenlty lying.

Next up is Kim. Though she dosen’t have a couch because Hollie sold it.. which as dickish as she suddenly is it IS her couch as Kim points out.. so yeah Kim and Scott end up sleeping awkardly in the same bed facing away from each other.. and to add another emotional guttpunch at the worst possible time: She’s going back home.

Stacey is even lesss helpful as SCott continues to ask about cats and is unsypantethic about her leaving despite you know, him REALLY not being at the shit talking her stage yet bud. At least we do get to see Stacey in this one I genuinely forgot she was in it.

So at Wallace’s he’s no help either pointing out she might be with someone else because he’s wallace and we meet a guy with Glases.. and in his bad state Scott assumes i’ts gideon. it’s not though. WE finally meet Mobile!

He’s exactly what wallace needs.. a fellow sarcastic asshole.

So next up is Kim’s goodbye.. which once again is really emotinal..a nd not just because my faviorite character is leaving and again, younger me didn’t know this wasn’t forever.. or that she’d be back for a rather huge role next time. But still it’s a damn good scene that shows how far Scott’s come...

While the first part is standard... the second is Scott realizing that she still had feelings for him, clearly given her actions during the fight, and he’d been a right dick this whole time never dealing with it or apolgoizing for his past. Granted he still has a way to go to REALLY apologize for it... but he’s trying and means it. And with her possibly never seeing again.. she needed that. Also her coat is damn cool. I’d say I want one like that btu i’d really prefer one like Scotts complete with x-men patch. Pax Krakoa bitches.

We get a really nice scene after where we meet Scott’s parents! Their also really kind helping him get a new place and move on... and runs into another glasses guy. But this time it’s Laurence! Who he drop kicks.. and then gives a broken bass back to. Eh... i’ve seen worse relationship with siblings honestly. He didn’t murder scott’s friend or plunge a whole galaxy into war or try and murder his daughter. Other Scott’s weren’t so lucky.

So after that awkardness SCott finds the note to gideon which is a break up letter... she never sent. However there’s something more pressing as he gets a call... and you can probably guess given his luck lately who that’s from.

Eh it’s not that murderoius creep but another one.

The end.. is in a few weeks.

Final Thoughts:

As I said I hated Vs the Universe on first read but re-reading it with hindsight and maturity.. it’s damn good. It’s depressing as hell.. but the things it does need to happen to push scott into a bad enough place for the next volume to work, and are natural: Ramona and Kim leaving, The band breaking up, Scott kicking his brother in the face.. all natural things. It hurts, this was a HARD one to write and I only feel the next one will be harder because it’s way longer with less slice of lifey stuff to skim through in my recapping.

But it’s a damn good one, with fantastic art, really gripping scenes, x-men refrenes and a spotlight shone on my girl kim. Even it’s weak spots dont’ hurt it: the twins are only weak by comparison, and still work well enough for the story, pushing ramona into the bad mental place she needs to be for the story to work. Hollie’s thing DID Need to be written way fucking better... but it does push kim into leaving which is CRITICAL for next time. So they aren’t GREAT elements, but they work. The only real other problem I have is knives just.. vanishes after her scene outside of one bit with Stephen, but that I can understand as the book is pretty tightly packed and she gets a fitting sendoff next time anyway. All in all another amazing entry and the perfect warm up for one of the best endings in comics history

Next Time: I said it and I meant it: one of the best endings in comics history as Scott hits on some exes, fights himself and betters himself as he prepares for his finest hour! Will Ramona Come back? Will Kim? Will Julie?... to answer your questions yes yes, and god dammit. Thank you all for reading, see you at the next rainbow.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim vs the world #scott pilgrim vs the unvierse #kim pine #ramona flowers #julie powers #julie power #steven stills #stephen stills #joseph #wallace wells #kyle kyatanagi #ken kyatanagi #gideon gordon graves #gideon graves #stacey pilgrim #mobile #laurence pilgrim #knives chau

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stanfordsweater · 3 years

Text

incredibly embarrassing homestuck x spn classpect thoughts

dean:

-knight of heart/blood. knights are the protectors of their session, yet are also the most vulnerable emotionally.

heart because heart players split their internal selves under pressure and dean is a very black and white thinker, fully devoted to whatever cause he is championing at the time but liable to fully turn against it if he can be convinced by someone close to him. heart players are the emotional core of their session, and dean is the emotional rock of the winchester family. heart players are very impulsive in anger or in fear. thematically, dean’s role as a mirror of whoever needs him is a very heart player trait.

blood because blood is the aspect of family. blood players take point in uniting the players and dean is the one who is able to convince cas & other antagonists to fight on their side in spn. it’s also the symbol of manipulation through emotional and familial bonds and the belief that they know best. they have a tendency to let their emotions dictate their actions.

sam:

-mage of mind/life/doom. sam is tricky in aspect, but for me he is DEFINITELY a mage because all mages suffer through their aspect yet are uniquely aware of it; he could be a mage of blood, who would suffer through family and close connections, but i think blood suits dean more.

mind could be his aspect because of how calculating he is, how aware he is of how things could go wrong and what to do to make things right. karma is another big part of the mind aspect, and sam absolutely suffers through karma

life could be it because they’re the healers of their session and they are able to stay resilient through great suffering (the cage, sam’s whole life) and even convert their suffering into better things. thematically sam as the mage of life is a “sufferer of living” which works for his character arc

doom could be it because all doom players receive visions of death and destruction and ultimately have very bad luck. i like doom because thematically speaking, swan song would be sam’s quest bed (and he would absolutely be the first one to ascend to god tier, but with doom it wouldn’t make his situation any better-- his visions would strengthen and only serve to weaken his sense of self)

cas:

-sylph of space/breath-- sylph because they’re the caretakers of the session, but it isn’t always a good thing because it can lead to delusions of grandeur--i’m thinking aranea’s arc where she fucks EVERYTHING up out of hubris.. very cas-like.

space because with help from his time player (jack) he is able to create a new heaven and propagate his species, plus space players are the ones who seem to have knowledge of where the other players are but not why they’re making the choices they do.

breath because cas is the ultimate agent of free will and changes the course of heaven in bad ways-- makes decisions that result in the destruction of most of the angels, but in good ways-- is able to rebuild heaven through his choices/rebellion/free will, which is the basis of the breath aspect

jack:

time player for sure! time is the symbol of entropy and death, but also inevitability. jack is fated to become the next god through his connection with sam/dean/cas. he HAS to be a time or space player because he’s introduced late in the game and is the reason that the ‘session’ succeeds.

i think jack could easily be a prince of time-- it ties in with the way the narrative in spn presents him as the ultimate chess piece for destroying the world, but because the potential ‘breath player’ cas intervenes and presents him with the choice of free will, he is able to turn the princes destructive impulses to creation instead

kevin:

-page of ... hope? hope is about belief in yourself or your mission and ultimately kevin fails in both returning to his normal life OR completing his ‘mission’ with the tablets because he isn’t fully committed to either. pages begin their session as their basest self and grow through being challenged, and kevin is killed right as he is beginning to reach his growth arc so it’s fitting

anna:

-seer of light. seer because she is the one who guides dean, and light because it is the aspect of knowledge and she’s able to hear angel radio even as a human, yet ultimately understands that her role is to die-- seers are mature about the fate of their fellow players and have a tendency to see the whole picture

#this is not well thought out #but i am insane so :/#.txt

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prorevenge · 4 years

Text

Hippity Hoppity, this is no longer your Property (to manage)

After graduating college, my girlfriend and I moved to a new state where she was accepted into an engineering program. We found a lovely garden apartment style complex that advertised 100 Mbps internet speed included in the price among a few other amenities. When we met the property manager (PM), he seemed strict but well mannered, nothing out of the ordinary. Until we signed the lease...

The first problem:

Suddenly, walking into his office was not allowed without an appointment. I had come by to ask a question, saw him browsing social media, and figured he was as available as he made himself to us when we first came by, unannounced, to view a model apartment. Nope. He refused to answer my question and asked me to make an appointment via email.

The second problem:

The terms of our lease included an attachment to complete within 48 hours of accepting the keys that details all discrepancies within the unit. We submitted the attachment via email around the 40th hour. The PM responded that the terms recently changed from 48 to 24 hours and since we had passed 24 hours, we would be held liable for all found damages. When citing our copy of the lease which explicitly stated 48 hours, he informs us that we signed an outdated copy and would need to make an appointment to come by the office and sign a new lease.

The third problem:

The internet speed was not 100 Mbps as advertised. It was less than 15 Mbps off peak and about ~5 Mbps on peak. We again contacted the PM to complain but were referred to make an appointment.

The fourth problem:

We made an appointment to address the previous three problems. During this meeting and after I finished voicing our issues, the PM leans forward and says, "There are other communities in this neighborhood that may be more accepting of people like you and your girlfriend. You're welcome to break the lease and leave."

"people like you and your girlfriend"

I had thought he was referencing our no nonsense response to his nonsense (daily communication, scheduling multiple meetings to address these issues, etc) but my girlfriend believed he was speaking towards our skin colors. Her, a black woman, and myself, a white man. My girlfriend jokingly told me to check my privilege before getting serious and explaining to me that we were experiencing discrimination at the very least.

The solution:

I did some research and discovered the PM worked for a larger organization that owned several complexes throughout the country. I found their director of human resources on LinkedIn and made a connection. I then emailed her copies of all email correspondence, screenshots of the lease, pictures of the internet speed flags advertised by the road, and more screenshots of online speed tests. We further noted his comment and the implications behind it.

The HR director replied within a few hours and promised us she would look into the issue.

About two days later, the PM called and asked us to come by his office at our convenience. We showed up near the end of the day, and sat down across from him. He then proceeded to ask us if we would be willing to write a letter stating we accepted his apology (despite not yet offering said apology) and in return he would credit us a months rent, accept our damages attachment, and promise to have the ISP on site within a week to assess the internet issues. We declined. He got personal with us and revealed his job may be at stake and asked us to reconsider.

My girlfriend leaned forward and said, "There are other communities in this neighborhood that may be more accepting of people like you. You're welcome to leave."

The PM was replaced in a week with a super sweet older woman who not only gave us all the things the original PM had promised; the one month credit, accepting the damages attachment and then further scheduling maintenance to fix said damages, having the ISP assess and upgrade the internet to promised speeds, but she also made it clear her office was always open for anything we may need.

I looked up the old PM about a few months later on LinkedIn. Still unemployed.

(source) story by (/u/AE2AW)

#prorevenge #by /u/AE2AW #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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wildborn-witch · 4 years

Text

“There are tales spoken in hushed whispers, beyond the ears of the Emperor’s Coven, about a tribe of witches who were bonded to spirits—mystical beings born of wild magic. An ancient race they were, said to have been the first children of the Titan when it fell. Taking the form of beasts, they had the ability to heal and speak to the Isles, calling upon its natural power. These gifts they shared with the witches, who took their name in gratitude, and together, they and their descendants settled near the Heart, wishing to live in harmony with the wilderness and their ancestor.’

“Centuries passed, and eventually their neighbors came to wield magic of their own, sparking a new age of discovery. In this time, the original covens were formed, each following one of nine disciplines, yet they all recognized the ancient tribe as the first masters. On their part, the tribe stayed distant from the others, though anyone willing to learn from them was welcomed among their ranks.’

“Everything changed, however, with the coming of the Savage Ages. Chaos reigned, and conflict and unrest divided the land until a new figure arose: a mysterious witch who called himself Belos. Claiming to be an emissary of the Titan, he vowed to bring unity to the Isles, insisting that unbound magic only brought disorder. One by one, the nine covens bowed to his teachings, but the ancient tribe resisted—they saw him for what he truly was, and would not give up the old ways. Their defiance led to their destruction, as Belos and his coven hunted them all down until, at last, only their chief remained. Accused of high treason, he was sentenced to petrification, frozen in stone as Belos took the title of Emperor over the Boiling Isles.’

“It has been thirty years since the tribe’s extinction, and the spirits have fallen silent, fading into myth and legend. But nothing lasts forever, for a new awakening has begun. The old ways will be found once more, and in time, the Isles will see the return of…’

To those who have followed me already on both this blog and my main account, I want to thank you all so much for your patience and continued interest as this has taken shape. To those who are here for the first time, my name is Drekasál, and I’m proud to announce the official master post and FAQ for the Wildborn AU!

I intend to update this as often as possible as I continue to work on new pieces—both artistic and literary—as well as answer whatever questions that may come up in the future, but for now, I figure the basics would be good to start with, first and foremost being…

What is the Wildborn AU?

The Wildborn AU is my personal contribution to The Owl House fandom, centering around my witchsona Tristan O’Connor who is its main protagonist. Taking place after the events of Season 1, it explores my own take on the history of magic on the Isles by introducing the Wildborn—a tribe of ancient witches bonded to powerful spirits of the same name.

Lore

Originating from days long before the Savage Ages, the Wildborn came into being when the Titan first fell, and hold great power over the Isles’ primordial forces. Reflecting their wild natures, their spiritual forms take on the form of beasts, both mythical and mundane.

In the past, the spirits had a rocky relationship with the early witches, whom had not evolved bile-sacs yet and thus relied on harnessing the wild magic of the Isles through glyphs. At some point in history, however, a young witch from an ancient tribe formed a Bond with the Thunderbird, the first of the spirits and their guardian. After that, the two groups grew closer, with more witches and spirits forming Bonds with each other, eventually becoming the Wildborn tribe. Harnessing the power of their spirits, the Wildborn witches did not need to rely on glyphs, and those pairs who developed strong Bonds could Merge to become a new being, a reflection of the spirit’s beast form combined with the traits of their witch.

Regarded as the first masters of wild magic, the tribe was well-respected for centuries, even as other witches eventually evolved bile-sacs and formed the original covens. Tragically, that came to an end during the Savage Ages, which saw the appearance of Emperor Belos and his enforcement of the coven system. Seeing the Wildborn as untamable and a threat to his teachings, he ordered for their persecution, hunting them down and forbidding any mention of them, until at last it seemed they had been wiped out. But the tales still persist, and the spirits live on, waiting for the day their Guardian will return, and restore balance to the Isles...

Inspiration

This AU draws inspiration from both Wolfwalkers and Brother Bear, both of which are beautifully animated movies, but the latter especially I consider a criminally underrated Disney movie. Wolfwalkers mainly inspired the Hellhounds, the secondary group of characters in the AU, but both movies played a part in developing the Wildborn themselves, particularly their powers and portrayal as animal spirits.

The Characters

Tristan O’Connor - Protagonist in the Wildborn AU. He is a faun witchling enrolled in the Beast Keeping tract at Hexside School of Magic and Demonics. Shy yet kind, he has a deep love of nature and the wild, though it is a passion he has been forced to curb up until now due to the rigidity of the coven system. It is revealed later on that he is Bonded to the spirit Anam, making him the first living Wildborn to exist in thirty years.

Aedh - Deuteragonist in the Wildborn AU. He is a member of the Hellhounds, a pack of wolf-like fire elementals who live hidden beneath the Titan’s skull. Daring and adventurous, he doesn’t have the same bitterness against witches like his elders, having not been born during the time of their persecution, and he welcomes Tristan warmly as a friend. He proves vital in helping the witchling adjust to his Wildborn powers, teaching him how to be a Hellhound when he is Merged with Anam.

Anam - Tritagonist in the Wildborn AU. He is Tristan’s Wildborn spirit, originally being the soul of a Hellhound pup born with “too little fire”. As the AU progresses, it is discovered that he is Aedh’s younger brother and littermate, thus making Tristan, through his Bond with Anam, Aedh’s spiritual brother and and a member of the pack.

Tuft - Supporting character in the Wildborn AU. He is Tristan’s pet griffin, getting his name from his tufted ears uncommon to his kind. A frequent companion of the witchling, he is fiercely loyal and protective, accompanying him on his adventures in the wilderness.

Eleri O’Connor - Supporting character in the Wildborn AU. She is Tristan’s mother and a member of Bard Coven, stated to be well-respected as a master of her craft. She is shown to be a caring and loving parent, though she constantly worries about her son, partly due to her frequent absence in the household, as well as her fear that Tristan might never fit in and suffer for it. Although she is Adar’s daughter, she is not Wildborn herself, having never Bonded with a spirit.

Adar O’Connor/The Thunderbird - Supporting character(s) in the Wildborn AU. Adar O’Connor is Eleri’s father and Tristan’s grandfather, and was the last great chief Bonded to the Thunderbird before the extinction of the Wildborn tribe. When Adar was sentenced to petrification, the Thunderbird permanently Merged with him to save his life, and they act as guides to Tristan and his allies as the AU unfolds.

Arduinna “Rina” Ward - TBA

Arwain the Seeress - TBA

This list will be updated as new characters are developed and added!

Are the main cast of The Owl House involved?

Yes, actually! Their roles are still being developed, but I do intend for Luz to play an important part in this AU, given her rediscovery and usage of glyph magic, and she becomes one of Tristan’s close allies. Eleri herself has had interactions/relationships with Eda and Lilith in the past, when they were attending Hexside together as teenagers.

Is this an open AU? (Can anyone participate/make connections?)

I definitely wish for the Wildborn AU to be as open-ended as possible, as I love making potential connections with the stories/characters of other creators in the fandom. Fair warning, however, that this AU is still in constant development, so things are liable to change! Don’t be afraid to reach out if you have ideas you want to run by me!

Is fanart/fan fiction allowed?

Y E S. Fanworks are 1001% allowed and would honestly make me the happiest person ever ;;V;;

Master List

Eye of the Storm - Lore of the Thunderbird.

No Mercy - Hellhound lore

Reassurance - Aedh welcomes Tristan

Locked or Free - 100+ follower Instagram DTIYS

One Being - Tristan describes the Merge

Dumb Animal - Tristan and Aedh encounter Boscha’s gang at the Knee

Tristan’s Beast Form - Reference sheet

Forces of Nature - Wildborn lore

The Thunderbird - Official model sheet

Adar Concept Art

Hellhound Reference

The Last Wildborn - Official banner

Healing - Gift art/animation for @sobsinfrench

«—•—»

If you have any more questions for me, don’t be afraid to submit an ask, and my inbox is open if you want to reach out to me directly! I also post artwork and occasional updates to my main blog @drekasal, so be sure to follow me there as well! Thank you all so much for reading through this, and have a wonderful day!

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butwhatifidothis · 3 years

Note

Theory? It's a bit of a combination of 2 things: 1 the rejection of the idea that Edelgard is anti-religion and 2 the rejection of the notion that Edelgard is replacing the goddess. For the first they pretty much take her support with Manuela as proof that she changes her mind on religion and bank on the fact that Sothis can still be married along with those odd pairings that involve the creation of a new church/reformation? as instances to remove her of the crime of going against religious 1/2

freedom. Despite all the other stuff that people can pick up on that she says and the framing of her ending cutscene that says otherwise. For the second I will give credit that, despite Edelgard filling the spot of the removed goddess as you pointed out in your Marianne post, it is most likely entirely unintentional. But that's a difference of opinions between different groups of people and how we all view religion and what a god is. If god is a flying spaghetti monster than you can't 2/3 oops

replace things that likely aren't real at all. So the point wouldn't make sense. And that seems to be Edelgard's understanding and framing in game. For others like Seteth and Dimitri, and other fans of 3H, that call that part out it could be more god is a metaphorical ideal that guides humans. So if the thing that humans reach for is removed it would have to be replaced. 3/3

Edelgard not being anti religion is about one of the most wrong things you can say about her character. She says once right before she’s about to try and kill the religious figure that she supposedly “has only made an enemy of the Church, not of the faith,” which 1) is fucking hilarious for her to say and/or think as she’s toppling down the institute that has helped an innumerable amount of people and is doing so by trying to kill the beloved leader of of institution so she is absolutely making an enemy of the faith and 2) isn’t even her saying that she doesn’t hate religion, it’s just her stating who she thinks she’s making an enemy of.

I point that specific instance out to refute the claim because that and two lines in one support are all that Edelgard has to offer to dispute the claim that she’s not anti religion. Meanwhile, in the base game:

she bemoans the existence of gods entirely and repeatedly

that very support reveals that before Manuela she thought of religious people as weak and lacking will

she states the Rhea as well as servants of the Goddess must be destroyed

she only ever allows state-mandated religion in very few CF endings

she marvels at her proficiency in destroying Garreg Mach, a monastery, if put on clean-up duty with Hubert

her supposed entire goal is to be rid of the presence of gods and god-like beings

Recently in FEH she has this line:

“Why was someone so despicable called to this world (referring to Kronya). And why call any so vile as gods?”

(possibly among others but I’d have to go into my alt to hear them again and that’s too much hassle lmao)

People can try to argue that her hating gods doesn’t necessarily mean she hates religion to mean that she hates what gods do with their power, and they might would have a point... if, again, she didn’t show an existing disdain towards the faithful as well, on top of only allowing one version of faith and only if she is allowed direct supervision over it.

Like... they know that’s not... a good thing, right? They understand that CF is the only route where there exists a church and a state that is not separated by choice, right? They understand that AM has a distinct separation between the two institutes (as in, Dimitri and Byleth’s paired ending, as in their fucking married, literally says “as leaders of the church and state respectively”) and that VW and SS are a little lacking in alternatives (if there even is no separation, think I remember a post floatin’ around sayin’ otherwise but can’t say for sure)? That state-regulated religion doesn’t exactly have the most pristine track record?

And also, again, religious people are hiding from Edelgard’s watch. And they are hiding because if they don’t they liable to just disappearing. And that’s if they’re not just flat out chased out of the nation for being religious. What else are these actions if not those fueled by anti religious sentiments?

And this is just me talkin’ here, but I don’t agree that it was unintentional. There’s only so many times a theme can be repeated before there has to be some thought behind it. It’s like the lighting symbolism used throughout the game; none of it individually would really mean anything, but when it all just so happens to connect perfectly and it happens so consistently, then there is far more credit to the idea that it might supposed to point towards something.

Marianne referring to Edelgard as she does doesn’t mean much by itself, Dimitri and Seteth accusing her of trying to be a stand-in for the Goddess doesn’t mean anything by itself, Manuela saying that Edelgard is the same as the Goddess in terms of offering her people emotional support doesn’t mean anything by itself, a statue that is reminiscent of a Goddess ushering (PLEASE can someone tell me a good fucking synonym for this word I hate it SO MUCH) in Edelgard in her mural doesn’t mean anything, her mural being only one of two where people are revering her - with the other being Byleth, the religious figure - doesn’t mean anything by itself, Edelgard only allowing the church to be rebuilt under her direct watch and only in a few endings and after she has destroyed the existing church doesn’t mean anything by itself, Edelgard saying and believing that there can only be one ruler of the world (i.e. herself) doesn’t mean anything by itself... but these things don’t happen by themselves. They all happen in the same game - hell, most in the same route. It’s definitely... a lot, to say it was unintentional, at least imo

#ask #anon #anti edelgard #Anti-edelgard #Edelgard discourse #Edelgard critical #just to be safe #sorry if i ended up missing something from the ask #tad tired #but yeah i'm just sayin' there's a LOT goin' on here

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sepublic · 4 years

Text

Ideas for a Blight Twins Episode

Continuing off of some ideas from a previous ask;

Jerbo and Edric isn’t a very popular ship (not disliked, just not widespread), and I know there’s no canon basis whatsoever for Vinira, alas... But I really do like the idea of Edric learning to be his own person, apart from Emira, WITHOUT necessarily finding this through romantic love? It’d be a way of showing that other forms of love are perfectly valid… And it kind of reminds of some of those aroace headcanons I saw for Ed, a while back!

Maybe it could even tie into his insecurity of not wanting to be alone… Thinking that because he’s aroace, he’s somehow unlovable, and incapable of feeling loved; And his clinginess is a desperate way to avert this view of himself and his identity! So having Edric find meaning and identity by hanging out with, say, Lilith, Luz, and King… I think it’d be a great way for him to learn that not only is romance not required to ‘be your own person’, that you’re not somehow less grown up for not being in love… It’d also make him finally getting a ‘pet’ for himself more meaningful, too!

(And I see Edric as a kid at heart who never really got to be himself and had to grow up fast, and even as a rebel he still doesn’t let himself relax.)

And Edric is able to find solace in multiple different relationships at once, instead of clinging extremely to the one he has with Emira… Relationships with different meanings, with Lilith being a surrogate mother, Luz being a regular friend/sister-in-law, and King… Well, I’m not sure WHAT King is, a little brother? Regardless, it’d really expand Edric’s horizons and allow him to experience ‘love’ in a different way that isn’t necessarily related to just being a blood sibling… Which could alleviate his concerns about never having a bond as close as his with Emira.

THAT could then tie to Edric realizing and understanding Emira’s desire to be her own person more… As for Emira and any interactions with Viney, she might simply recognize how Viney and the other Detention Kids found solace through solidarity and shared similarities, and interactions; But still manage to be their own people! Though, they aren’t siblings, so there might be more of a desire to meet someone who can make it clear to Em that, no, you aren’t going to lose your identity by being close with your sibling…. Again, this ties back to my idea of Eda being a good mentor to Emira as well.

At the very least, being around Viney, Jerbo, and Edric, who are understandably more sensitive, could lead Emira to being a lot more mindful and understanding of how others feel, and not necessarily steamrolling over that like her mother Odalia would… THAT could translate to her paying attention to Edric’s concerns and at least respecting them, instead of just casually throwing them to the side; Even if she still disagrees, at least she considered his side of the story first!

Emira is someone who got defensive, in her attempts to be ‘herself’, by feeling like she had to push Edric away and become closed-off… When Edric suggests discussing their worst fears, Emira looks away as she says something that shuts him down- Even if it WAS likely honest, she low-key discouraged any further openness between the two at that point. And while it’s important for Emira to be her own person… Perhaps by opening up to Viney and the others, she could realize she’s still her own person, and better able to appreciate that- Especially since Emira opening up allows herself to be, well, herself around Viney, instead of just the confident mask she’s put up as a charming Blight!

And because the twins are more honest and open with each other… It could lead to them being even closer, as again- They no longer fear having to hide or suppress parts of themselves, in fear of jeopardizing their conformity (which they mistake as synonymous with their bond), and in turn, they can enjoy one another while being happier individuals… And NOT worry about losing themselves in the process, because they know who they are, they know the other twin respects that, and they have other connections as well!

…Legit, I have to wonder how Amity would react to all of this. If she may feel obligated to step in, or just stand back and let the Twins figure themselves out… Obviously she’d CARE for the two and be concerned. But at the same time, they ARE closer to one another than Amity… And I can see Amity being afraid of either twin singling her out as a new sibling-bond to form in the absence of their other one, for Emira to get away from Edric’s in her case, and Edric to replace the one he can’t back with Emira. Maybe it could lead to either twin trying to be more appealing to Amity, being less themselves to get her approval; And Amity, who initially may find it amusing, quickly shuts them down because she sees herself in them… And she does NOT want to make others feel obligated to change themselves for her approval, because they feel like they have nobody else!

Which, that’d likely lead to Amity either participating in encouraging either sibling to mature, to grow… But given how she’s got her own issues, more than likely she’d recognize that it’d be mutually health for them both to split off for now. At the very least, she doesn’t want to risk taking advantage of Emira or Edric… And either twin might feel disgruntled at Amity, but then remember they were also cruel to her in the past ‘for her own good’, but on the other hand, THAT hadn’t been for her own good after all- So who was to say that Amity was correct, pushing away the other twin and not accepting their friendship (laced with dependency) ‘for their own good’?

Regardless- It’d probably make Amity feel worse if one twin, or both, began to depend on her. She already feels like she has to conform to what her parents expect of her, what Boscha and the others expect of her as the top student… So it’d just put more pressure on Amity to take care of others, VS herself; Especially since she admittedly is not responsible for Emira and Edric’s identity issues this time, unlike with Willow. Plus, she may not be in the right mindset to help them either, as she’s still figuring herself out with Luz…

Not to mention, Emira and Edric may or may not have reservations about having to depend on their own little sister for help; And they might be too aghast at forcing Amity to take care of the other. Maybe they wouldn’t want to keep bothering her after everything else, after seeing how much they already hurt Amity, who tried to be both like AND unlike them, paradoxically, at the same time (tried to have the same talent but not be a rebel). There might be the insecurity from Ed and Em both that as lonely individual who barely have their own identity, they might just screw over Amity further… Amidst some pride and shame at being seen like in front of their little sister.

Though, I can ALSO imagine a hilarious scenario where Emira and Edric viciously compete for Amity’s affection, offering incentives and favors, maybe aggressively downplaying the other and holding a bit of a grudge… Until for her own health, Amity tells them to STOP, and leave her alone and figure their own issues out, on their own- Or with literally anyone else!

I can totally see them going to Luz for help, though… Or again, maybe not- They might see Luz as too cool for them by this point, since Emira and Edric DO seem legitimately fond of Luz, as someone who is likely their only friend outside of the family, and the only person who actively reciprocated friendship with them and wanted to earn approval! Emira and Edric might feel obligated to still be those too-cool-for-school twins, so they may avoid telling Luz about their own problems to ‘live up to her expectations’, afraid Luz would no longer like them as much for being so ‘pathetic’… When in reality, Luz likes the twins as whoever they are, whoever they choose to be! She’s interested in getting to knowthem, whether or not that identity matches the façade the Twins have put up or not; It makes no difference to her.

Still, I can see Emira and Edric trying to start ‘fresh’ with a total stranger… But as I said before, Edric isn’t identical to Emira and vice-versa. So ultimately, while I think Emira would have more of those reservations about opening up to Luz, as I mentioned earlier; Edric is someone who’d just want companionship, and thus be more liable to others’ opinions for approval. In this scenario, this could be good for him, as then Edric would be more receptive to genuine, positive feedback from Luz… as well as Lilith, etc.

Like, I’m just imagining a hypothetical episode of the Blight Twins doing some soul-searching, beginning with the separation and following Emira and HER misadventures with Viney… Emira assumes it’ll be oh-so-easy, that she can rely on that charm and confidence and just that, no being open or honest and vulnerable… Which then leads into that fan concept of Emira trying to connect with Viney, but because Em refuses to be up-front about her feelings because she thinks she has to be ‘cool’ to get affection from a stranger, Viney just thinks the girl is out to murder her!

Emira gets more and more frustrated, ends up accidentally tormenting Viney while Jerbo and Barcus are forced to defend her… And eventually Luz or somebody else, maybe Willow, just throws in their two cents and tells Emira to be straight-forward; Exactly like that ‘Stop lying, stop manipulating, just be nicer’ meme, and Emira is just utterly lost and baffled; But she finally obliges and it works out! And after experiencing happy, formulating relationships, Emira appreciates Edric’s concerns more, and then wonders what happened to him and how he’s doing…?

And then once THAT ends, we immediately cut to see what Edric was doing; And how alone and dejected after she basically ‘ditched’ him, we have a humorous montage of Edric wandering Bonesborough like a traveling vagrant without a home, connections, or identity…Even though he’s not, but he’s being dramatic! And as he sits by himself alone, he ends up picking up a pet or two that he befriends, because it just strolls up to him and sits down besides Edric in mutual solidarity, as he starts talking to it… Openly appreciating the company, and then maybe projecting some of his own insecurities regarding him and Emira.

Then maybe the ‘pet’ leaves him by that point, and Edric starts crying out in abandonment! A mean yet hilarious wake-up moment, perhaps alluding to Edric pushing people away for being too clingy and projecting his needs onto them. Maybe Ed DOES find a proper pet, then or later…! Either way, his wandering leads him to the Owl House- Either he sees Eda and the others selling stuff and follows them, he just ends up there on his own, or he deliberates on his other connections, dismissing going to Mittens as ‘too desperate’, even for him; And then he brightens up and remembers Luz, remembers how she always makes people happy, including Mittens of all people! If Luz can help Amity, she can help Edric… And somewhere along the way, Edric is surprised to find himself valuing an unexpected bond with Lilith, and maybe the other Owl House residents as well!

Certainly not Hooty, though, even if him and Edric may share issues of being ‘desperate’ for companionship. Hooty is a freaking war criminal. Actually… perhaps like Eda in Episode 9, talking to Hooty will help Edric realize where he messed up, and/or come to an epiphany of what he might become, or do to others! In turn, he appreciates Emira’s decision more… Maybe Ed bolts off, understanding how Emira may have viewed him, but he also still needs to figure out how to value himself, and Emira’s desires VS Emira just not wanting to be with someone so ‘desperate’, as it leads to Edric thinking he needs to be more confident just to win back his sister. Either way, Hooty is left in the dust mid-sentence, RIP. Maybe Edric even narrates his realization aloud, ending on him declaring that he doesn’t want to be like Hooty, right to Hooty’s accursed face!

As Edric gets along with everyone, maybe he picks up a pet, possibly with Viney’s help… And he learns to respect wild animals as their own creatures with their own lives, and not just toys for him to kidnap and take into his own possession! Edric respects the autonomy of these animals, that they don’t owe him anything and he can’t just force a bond… And like with Emira, he better understands how his sibling felt!

The two meet again, talk awkwardly, mention to their individual journeys in passing, possibly with the others watching- And they have a tearful reunion hug! Maybe Amity even joins in, because why not- She’s happy to see her older siblings healing like Luz did for her, and this could make all three Blight kids better with one another. Of course, Ed and Em ‘ruin’ the moment by teasing Amity but messing with her, but in the end everybody is happy, and Luz does that ugly-crying face from the end of Understanding Willow, reveling in and appreciating wholesomeness.

#the owl house #owl house #the owl house emira #emira blight #the owl house edric #edric blight #the owl house amity #amity blight #the owl house luz #luz noceda #the owl house viney #vinira

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chemical-cat · 3 years

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So I don't know if there's a lot of truth to this claim, of course there's a few questions I have of my own regarding the situation but via tiktok (specifically more so "witchtok"), a tarot reader who goes by the user name: staci_luna_ (if you want to check out her direct page for yourself, here is a link to her page:

And more specifically here is a link to the video in this post that I'm going to be referencing: )

So essentially, if you didn't want to go into the videos themselves regarding this, the break down of the situation is that:

staci_luna_ has had her PayPal account placed on hold, this is an account in which not only did she already have hard earned funds placed in that are now in limbo, but it's also one of the ways her clients pay her and is even a part of her website. When she contacted PayPal regarding this, she was informed due to both multiple reports/disputes being filed against tarot readers, and also multiple people informing PayPal that tarot is fraudulent. Now according to Staci_luna_ this is PayPal's algorithm going through and automatically closing tarot readers/psychics accounts.

Within the comment section of this video, staci_luna_ also further elaborated that:

"@staci_luna_: Fortunately Stripe likes metaphysical companies. Square, Wix and I guess now PayPal have clauses they can take the funds and close the accounts." (This was in response to another user, who stated they had not run into an issue but they use Stripe as well)

"@staci_luna_: It’s crazy! I’m insured and been in business without incident for three years. When I called in PayPal said the algorithms was recently set up to auto close anything saying Tarot, Psychic, Reiki and they would do their best to fix it but no good news yet." (This was in response to another user expressing their shock)

Within the comments of this video, the overall consensus seems to be a 50/50 split, some users commenting that they haven't experienced any issues nor have they heard of this, and others stating that they have, one user going as far as to comment:

"Unfortunately!! When I tried to setup a PayPal for my website they said that my business model aka tarot/medium wasn’t valid!"

Now essentially when I first had this come through my feed, I was both scared at first as I use PayPal for my own business, and skeptical. Once my anxiety calmed down, I started thinking about some valid questions, now putting aside whether or not staci_luna_ is a 100% on the up and up (Little to no disputes filed against her), let's say for a moment she's had a few...

Was this a termination due to multiple disputes filed against her? (Whether for various failures to deliver or actual fraud)

Was she possibly targeted directly by another creator? (As out there of a claim as it can be, in this day and age you never know)

Is this legitimately true or is it another fear mongering tactic that's being used on tiktok?

Ultimately, I was left with a lot of questions, some of which can be answered and others can't. Being that I don't have any proof to suggest that staci_luna_ herself, would use this as a fear mongering tactic, or a reason to lie to try and cover up possible disputes against her. I'm going to treat this as an objective case scenario, I don't personally believe that staci_luna_ is covering anything up, nor is she fear mongering, but rather trying to warn others before they lose large sums of money. Staci_luna_ went on in the comments to clarify that:

Her PayPal account was a business account, had an EIN, and everything goes through her website under the name: Staci Luna.

For clarification: an EIN is a "Employer Identification Number", also known as a federal employer identification number, or federal tax identification number. Just like with your social security card number, this is a unique 9 digit number assigned by the IRS to businesses that are operating in the US, for the purpose of identification.

Now if we take this as blantaly true, this is 100% factual. What this essentially means is that there is a possibility that regardless of if it is processing through your account via the person sending you money on a "paypal.me" link, or its connected via a check out at your website, PayPal is targeting metaphysical shops, specifically tarot and psychic readers. It does not matter if you like Staci_luna_ have an EIN, PayPal still has the rights to not only terminate your account but also withhold any funds within the account should it be terminated. In PayPal's OWN terms of service:

"Hold the balance in your Cash Account, the balance in your business PayPal account, or any money waiting to be claimed through your personal PayPal account if you do not have a Cash Account linked to your personal PayPal account, for up to 180 days if reasonably needed to protect against the risk of liability or if you have violated our Acceptable Use Policy"

"If we close your PayPal account or terminate your use of the PayPal services for any reason, we'll provide you with notice of our actions and make any unrestricted funds held in the balance of your Cash Account linked to your personal PayPal account or in the balance of your business PayPal account, or any money waiting to be claimed through your personal PayPal account if you do not have a Cash Account linked to your personal PayPal account, available for withdrawal."

These along with the rest of paypal's policies can be found in their terms and conditions, which do cover both business and personal accounts as well as their buyer and seller protection policies. The two listed above were found in the section labeled: "restricted activities and holds"

Now this is a lot to process and brings up the question, if my shop/my readings are processed through PayPal where do I go to ensure I don't lose my business?

So there are a few options, while some have been suggesting to move to venmo and cashapp, others are suggesting etsy and square. So where should you go? Well there are a few things to keep in mind with some of these platforms as well that could be a make or break point for your shop/business as well.

As mentioned before by staci_luna_ both PayPal and Square, reserve the right to terminate your account and keep your money. While PayPal does elaborate that they will place funds on hold for 180 days, and should your account be closed they will move your money from a cash account to your personal account (the differences between these are elaborated on in paypal's terms and conditions, as while they may be linked to each other they are two different types of accounts, if you have a PayPal debit card, then you more than likely do have a PayPal cash account). Square's terms of service state:

"We may terminate ... suspend or terminate your Square Account or your access to any Service, at any time for any reason. We may add or remove, suspend, stop, delete, discontinue or impose conditions on Services or any feature or aspect of a Service. We will take reasonable steps to notify you of termination or these other types of Service changes by email or at the next time you attempt to access your Square Account. "

" ... your Square Account is terminated or suspended for any reason: ... we will not be liable to you or any third party for compensation, reimbursement, or damages for any termination or suspension of the Services, or for deletion of your information or account data. "

These can be found in squares general terms of service in section 11 and section 12.

Venmo does now offer a business option, however this is a profile that is set up within your personal account, specifically for the use of receiving payments for the sale of goods and services. This is an option that within their terms and conditions they state is offered at their sole discretion, and may not be offered to all users. They go on to state several things within their terms of conditions as well, including if you use your personal profile to conduct business:

"Except for commercial transactions expressly authorized by Venmo, for example, transactions with authorized merchants or business profiles, or purchases made using your Venmo Mastercard®, personal accounts may not be used to conduct business, commercial or merchant transactions with other personal accounts, which includes paying or accepting payment from other personal accounts held by users you do not personally know for goods or services (for example, concert tickets, electronic equipment, sneakers, a watch, or other merchandise). If you plan to use your Venmo account to sell goods or services, you must have an approved business account or a business profile."

"If your Venmo account is closed for any reason, any business profile and any Venmo Debit Card affiliated with your account will be canceled."

"Payments sent via the Venmo app or the Venmo website to another Venmo user do not qualify as payments to an authorized merchant. ... Except for transactions for goods and services that are expressly authorized by Venmo, for example, purchases from authorized merchants, business profiles and Venmo Debit Card purchases, you are not permitted to use Venmo as a payment method for purchases of goods and services."

(If found in violation of the restricted activities policy) "Terminate this user agreement, limit your Venmo and/or PayPal account, and/or close or suspend your Venmo and/or PayPal account, including cancelling your Venmo Debit Card (if any), immediately and without penalty to us ... Limit your access to our websites, ... your Venmo or PayPal account or any of the Venmo or PayPal services, including limiting your ability to pay or send money with any of the payment methods linked to your Venmo or PayPal account, restricting your ability to send money or make bank transfers ... "

These can all be found within venmos terms of service under their legal tab.

It may be important to note that venmo is a sub-company under PayPal, as well as within their restricted activities section they do have listed that if you are using your personal account to purchase goods and services from another personal account (unless otherwise previously authorized by venmo - authorized merchant, business profile, or venmo debit card transaction), that you are participating in a violation of their restricted activities policy. Like with PayPal, venmo will hold any unrestricted funds for 180 days, but if they close or terminate your account/use of their services, they will make any unrestricted funds still available within your account avaliable for bank transfers. Because they are a sub-company of PayPal, it is unsure of whether or not the same algorithm applies as used with PayPal. Through their terms of service, it does appear that venmo DOES offer a buyer protection policy IF the goods/services are purchased through their authorized means (authorized merchants, business profiles, venmo debit card transactions), however if these are purchased from one personal profile to another there is no buyer protection policy. From what I could see, it does not appear at the time of me writing this, that there is a seller protection policy in place, however venmo does offer a similar dispute system as PayPal. (Through the research I've done so far, and the on going research I have done, it does not appear currently at the time of writing this that tarot readers accounts are being shut down when using venmo despite PayPal being venmo's parent company).

Cashapp, is a sub-company of square. Within cashapp you can only send money to another user, however you can opt for a debit card from cashapp. You can use this debit card to make purchases from merchants (similar to the venmo or PayPal debit card), it is important to note that in cashapp's terms of service in regards to the debit card: "you do not have the right to stop payment on a transaction originated with your cash card", in the instance of a lost/stolen card, you may disable the card via the app however this does NOT prevent the processing of pending transactions initiated prior to the disabling of your card. If you are also no longer deemed eligible for the cash card, the card may be canceled with no notice at any time (as deemed by the terms and services of the card). Within cashapp's terms of service are these: (within their terms of service because their parent company is Square, Square is used as the overall judgement in terms of your account and not cashapp itself):

"Square may terminate, close, or suspend your Account or use the Service at any time for any reason. "

"Any pending transactions at the time of termination, closure, or suspension of your Account will be settled. Any funds that we are holding in custody for you at the time of termination, suspension, or closure of your Account, less any applicable fees, (1) may be made available for you to cash out in Square’s discretion and subject to the other conditions in these Cash Terms, and (2) we may require you to link a new bank account that has not been associated with your Account to cash out such funds ..."

These can be found within cashapp's general terms of service.

In terms of Etsy, there are a few things to keep in mind with it specifically. Below is information I have gathered from etsy itself in its terms and conditions, as well as information that has been provided via forums such as reddit. While within the forums, I have no ability to prove whether these things said are true, it is something to keep in mind if using etsy is you're go to area.

Before we dive into etsy's terms of service, I want to dive into some of the things said on some of the forums:

While some users expressed that an advantage to etsy versus some other payment options were the ability to have a store front, easy managing, and that etsy will even send you a 1099 tax form. Others expressed that etsy can take a "hefty" chunk out of your sale prices, while .20 cents per listing and an extra relisting fee if you sell out or relist after 4 months, may not seem that overwhelming bad. There are individual fees that etsy charges at the point of sale as well. (All of these can be found on their website in more detail). Others have expressed that etsy has periods of times where they are strict with their rules and laid back with them at other times, specifically with metaphysical shops. Some expressed that, in order to avoid not just your listing being taken down but your shop as well that with tarot readings and other such listings you need to specify that they are for "entertainment purposes only", some users have specified that etsy has relaxed this, and that they have a set "tarot reading" listing, however you need to be selling an actual item and not a service. They further specified that some users have gotten around this by doing tarot readings via email, or in a pdf file (rather than via phone), or by sending an infographic with a reiki healing or something similar. Some have even said with listings that you need to give them something tangible, even if it's just a mailed copy of their reading.

An article on the matter stated that while etsy does allow tarot and psychic readings that "to qualify for sale, tarot or psychic readings must be sold in digital format or a physical document. Both the listing title as well as description need to state the format the reading will be sent in". (This was posted in 2015)

Within etsy's own community of threads, it seems there is some debate as to whether or not tarot reading/shops and other similar stores fall under etsy's 3 categories: handmade, supplies, or vintage.

Well, as of 2020 etsy has elaborated on this themselves:

"Etsy welcomes a wide variety of divination and spell-related items, as long as they meet our Seller Policy. Tarot, psychic, or other divination readings must include a tangible good, such as photos of the tarot spread, audio/video of a reading, or text of the reading. You may deliver the tangible good through Etsy Messages or email."

This can be found in their "our house rules - services" section.

Etsy does go on to list that there are several metaphysical services which can NOT be sold on their market place including:

Reiki and/or distance healing, spell casting, prayers, rituals, or items with a metaphysical outcomes (attracting wealth, love, gambling luck, more business, employment opportunities, or assistance with legal or relationship situations).

Ultimately, items sold need to have a tangible aspect as outlined by etsy themselves, and follow the same guidelines as any other piece sold on the site.

Etsy's terms of service, are this:

"... we may take actions that limit the visibility of your shop, listings or ads, or that impact your payment account. ... In the event a shop sees unusual order activity, or we otherwise believe that your actions or shop may result in buyer disputes, chargebacks, increased risk of fraud, counterfeiting, or other claims, Etsy may take actions such as limiting visibility of your account, or placing restrictions or reserves on your payments account, in accordance with our Terms of Service"

"In the event a shop sees an unusual spike in orders, particularly in a high demand category, a shop may see an increase or decrease in its search ranking. Often, if a shop sees an increase in fulfilled orders and good reviews, this may result in higher visibility and search rank. However, sometimes a rapid increase in orders can reduce visibility. "

"If Etsy has reason to believe you ... violate our Terms, including this Seller Policy, we may deactivate Your Content or suspend or terminate your account (and any accounts Etsy determines is related to your account) and your access to the Services."

These can be found in etsy's "seller policy" section.

While etsy DOES offer seller protection, it is limited and only applies to sellers which meet the requirements of their protection program.

As a tarot reader myself, who is now on the fence about potentially keeping my PayPal separate from my business, it opens the question of where to go. I dived into these terms and conditions on various apps, because through my own experience and what I have observed of other readers on multiple platforms, I know various readers use different services. My concern was if I was potentially losing my ability to use PayPal as a way to not only protect my customers but myself as a seller, what other options were out there that not only provided me but my buyers with the best interest in mind? A main factor being something similar to a buyer/seller protection like PayPal has. While venmo is a sub-company of PayPal and does offer a business profile to purchase goods and services through, there's no word on whether or not they will be affected like PayPal has. While square may seem like a very good professional fit, as well as it may be easier to use for tax purposes when it comes to book keeping, like PayPal they have the ability to terminate the account whenever they see fit, the same goes for cashapp. While etsy on the other hand, you have to fine tune each listing to ensure you're abiding by their guidelines, which while it may not be directly stated for those who do lots of love readings/relationship readings for example could potentially be affected. (A personal benefit I like is not only the store front aspect but the fact people can openingly rate your services, so it's not just by word of mouth).

Ultimately, it seems that no matter which platform you choose to use, there is going to be some type of pitfall or con in using the app. For me personally, I think for the well being of my own business until I know more information on whether or not PayPal is actively doing this or if they resolve the situation, I'm choosing to move away from PayPal as a main payment form for my clients. I'm personally, strongly considering moving to etsy because even though PayPal directly may not be the best option, there is still the option of clients being able to secure their purchase with PayPal while on etsy which gives them paypal's buyer protection but also etsy's. Personally, I'm still going to have my venmo and my cashapp as well, since on both I have the ability to make a business profile and fall under their guide lines but I'll be making a conscious effort to at least toe the line and provide some type of tangible source even if it's just applying etsy's guidelines elsewhere.

Ultimately the main reason I spent time on typing all of this and putting the word out, is that while it is on tiktok, both the original video along with a handful of others that I went searching to see if it was getting spread are getting almost no traction, so the word isn't fully getting spread. This has the potential to hurt small business owners, and I just want to help get the word out there for others. I definitely recommend diving into the terms and conditions on any platforms you are using for your services in order to best know where any dangers may potentially lie for your business. But I hope that putting even just some of this information out there gets to who it needs too.

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dimitrescus-bitch · 4 years

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Mixtape of Our Love -Ch. 1: Violet

"I don't understand why we even went to that party. It was no more fun than if we'd stayed in and played board games," Spencer complained. Not only had JJ and Penelope dragged him away from his nighttime reading, but they'd screwed up their usual night before school routine. Sure, the smile on Spencer's mother's face whenever she saw his friends taking him out to socialize was nice, but the party was a bust. The punch probably would have been fine if nobody had spiked it, but it seemed that most of the student body in attendance that night wanted to start their school year off hungover. "Are you even okay to drive?"

"Spencer, you don't have a license and Garcia can't walk on her own, I'm kind of the only option. Besides, I didn't drink the punch, only had two beers, and got something to eat before we left," JJ reasoned with him. Rather than admit she was right, Spencer just sat back in the backseat of JJ's car and stared out the window as she drove towards the apartment complex he lived in with his mother. "Hey Spence, I'm gonna need you to make sure that Garcia gets inside her place."

"Okay," Spencer agreed. JJ stopped to let them out and then sped home, wanting to make it before her dad came down to lock the gate. She was sure that he knew about the party, it'd been a tradition since he was in high school to go buck wild the night before school. JJ remembered hearing Roslyn coming home from that party at night. Their parents hadn't told either girl that they weren't allowed to go, but after what happened to Roslyn, Richard had gotten much more strict.

"Stealth mode," JJ muttered to herself as she turned her car lights off. She got past the gate at the opening of their driveway and then parked her car about a quarter of the way down. That way, it was unlikely that her parents would be woken up by the sound of her car's engine or the closing of her car door. JJ snuck around to the basement window, which she had left open, and then climbed inside. She landed with a soft thud on a pile of blankets she'd laid out earlier and then made her way upstairs.

JJ knew that her father would get the notification on his phone that their gate was open in just a few minutes, so she had to be fast. It was an every night ordeal, Richard not closing the gate when he got home from work. Sandy would go unlock the gate when she left to check on JJ's grandparents in the morning, it'd be locked again by the time that JJ got back from school, and she'd leave it unlocked, but shut for her dad when he got home. Since she'd gotten her license and own vehicle, that was the order of things at the Jareau home.

As if on cue, just as JJ was pulling back the covers on her bed and turning off her TV, she heard the heavy footsteps of her father as he walked by. He paused by her door for a moment, but then kept walking down the stairs. JJ sighed in relief and changed out of what she'd worn to the party and into a pair of pajamas. Since he didn't check on her on his way down, JJ knew that her father would on his way up. JJ brushed her teeth and sprayed herself with perfume to get rid of any trace of alcohol on her body. It wasn't uncommon for Richard to invite JJ out to the garage for a beer after dinner, but JJ had rushed off to Garcia's after dinner, so he didn't that night.

"Jenny?" Richard asked quietly as he pushed open his daughter's bedroom door. JJ's light was still on, so he had presumed that it was okay to come in. "How was game night?"

"It was fun dad," JJ answered. She felt a little bad about lying to her dad, especially not that she was on good terms with him again. After Roslyn's suicide, the relationship between JJ and her parents had left a lot to be desired. As she got a bit older and dealt with her own grief, she realized that they had been trying to be there for her, but they had also just lost one of their children. "Forget to shut the gate again?"

"I don't see how you can set the code from inside, but you can't shut it," Richard said as he sat down on the edge of JJ's bed. JJ was sitting at the vanity that she had painted with her sister whenever they were younger at their grandparents. "Are you nervous about tomorrow? I remember how crazy your sister would go before the first day, especially this one."

"I think it's going to be a good year," JJ told her father. She turned to put her hairbrush away, so she didn't see the flash of fear in his eyes at what she said. "I should go to bed though. Night dad."

"Night Jenny." Richard got up and walked out of JJ's room. He glanced over at her one last time before shutting the door and letting her get to sleep.

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

Three quick knocks to JJ's door from her mother woke the teenager up like always. JJ checked the clock as she rolled out of bed. She didn't need to wake up whenever her mother left, but Sandy didn't trust JJ to wake up with her alarm after not using it all summer. Richard wouldn't be awake until after JJ was already supposed to be in school, so JJ just had to wake up at 5:45 whenever her mother left until it became a routine for her. Weekends were different though, JJ would either spend them at Garcia's or she'd roll out of bed and join her family at her grandparents' place around 1, just in time for lunch.

"Morning sunshine," Sandy greeted her daughter. JJ rubbed her eyes and grumbled about how it was too early. "Eat up, you'll feel better then."

"Promise?" JJ asked, her voice a little raspy. Sandy set a plate down in front of JJ and didn't move until the young blonde started to eat. JJ knew that her mother wanted to sit down and have some sort of little talk with her. Senior year was a big deal and a lot of pressure. It didn't help that this was the first school year that JJ was going to be off medication since the seventh grade. The old family psychiatrist had moved to Maine and the new one seemed to think JJ was too normal to need medication. "Mom, shouldn't you get going?"

"Oh, yes, you're right." Sandy threw her hands up in a frazzled-looking motion and then turned on her heels to go. JJ finished her breakfast, ignoring the fact that her mother still shaped her pancakes like Minnie Mouse. It was sort of cute and caused JJ to be overcome with a wave of nostalgia. It was bittersweet, the fun memories of family breakfasts in the morning before school. Now, she had to go through the morning motions all by herself. The cartoons that she'd watch with Roslyn were replaced by a morning run.

JJ plugged her earbuds into her phone and pressed shuffle on her phone. The music was blaring from the earbuds before they reached her ears. JJ's legs moved to match the beat of the song. She ran fast and hard, ignoring the burning in her legs and lungs. She would do this every morning, pushing herself to go longer and longer. On the outside, it looked like JJ was a dedicated athlete, but really she just wanted to reach a point where she didn't feel the emptiness of losing her first best friend.

Roslyn had been the person JJ looked up to. JJ knew that she'd gotten lucky with Roslyn, who had always made sure that there was time for JJ. Whenever Roslyn had started playing soccer, she'd let JJ sit on the sidelines at her games and during the practices. Roslyn had been the person who JJ had gone to for everything, but now JJ didn't have that and even though it had been years, JJ couldn't help but to feel so lost sometimes when she was alone. Garcia and Reid were good about being there for her though whenever she'd have particularly bad moments.

JJ turned herself around and ran back to her house. By the time she'd gotten inside, she had worked up a pretty good sweat. JJ dropped her clothes on the floor of her bedroom on the way into her bathroom. She double checked to make sure that she had set a towel by the shower before she turned on the water. JJ connected her phone to the Bluetooth speaker she kept in her bathroom and then stepped into the shower. As she washed away the sweat and grime from her run, JJ pretended that her sadness went along with it. With a content sigh, JJ turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. JJ stopped at her dresser to get some of her outfit for the day.

There had once been a time whenever JJ had put a lot of effort into what she'd wear for the first day. That had been back before she had a car and went to parties. That was a time whenever she had rarely seen her classmates over the summer because she'd been at the farm riding horses most of the summer. Of course every weekend, she'd go into the city for a playdate with Garcia, and then eventually Reid too. Once she was dressed, JJ sat at her vanity to fix her hair and put on a little makeup. It'd be gone after gym class, but if she didn't put something on, Garcia was liable to do her makeup for her in the car on the drive to school.

"Decent," JJ commented to herself. She slid the chair she'd been sitting in back and stood up to look over her ensemble fully. JJ looked good in her casual and simple, but not sloppy outfit. Her jeans were a light blue with a few small rips strategically placed. JJ had gone with a plain white long sleeved shirt that would have the sleeves halfway up her forearms by the time she got to her car. JJ turned off her speaker and went downstairs to grab her backpack and put on a pair of shoes. JJ smiled as she saw the new shoes her mother had bought her for school already sitting out.

JJ grabbed her backpack and walked into the kitchen to get her water bottle and some snacks for during the school day. She made sure to grab one of the birthday cake protein bars for Reid, who never ate breakfast at his house because he was busy with his head in a book. Garcia always had breakfast, and would have at least one snack for both JJ and Reid to eat on one of their between class breaks. JJ grabbed Reid a bottle of Powerade on her way out of her house and then ran out to her truck so they wouldn't be late to school. Since she'd gotten her license, JJ had been Garcia and Reid's ride to school. Garcia didn't like having to wait for the bus or subway and people tended to pick on Reid when he used public transportation.

Garcia and Reid were waiting outside in the parking lot for JJ when she got there. Reid got into the backseat and Garcia put her backpack next to him while JJ got the door for her. Once Garcia was settled in the passenger's seat, JJ shut the door for her and then walked around to her own side. JJ got in and buckled up, knowing that Reid was watching to make sure that she did. JJ glanced back at Reid in the rearview mirror and flashed him a smile. Much like he had whenever they had first met in middle school, he smiled at her excitedly. Not a lot had changed for their group since it had formed. Reid was literally wearing the same exact outfit he wore every single year: brown pants that had been ironed about a week ago, a light blue shirt, and a semi-ugly sweater vest that JJ had punched a guy for teasing Reid about freshman year.

"Reid, are you buckled?" JJ asked as she placed her hand on the gear shift.

"Yes, I am," Reid said and JJ shifted into drive.

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

"They are really nice. Spencer can come off as a little odd, but he is super sweet and insanely smart. JJ is probably the nicest person you'll ever meet, unless you're mean to Reid or me," Garcia told Emily as they walked through the cafeteria. "I'm sure that they'll both welcome you into the group."

"Even if they don't, thank you for trying," Emily said. Garcia frowned at that for a second, recognizing the self-deprecating comment from years of JJ and Reid both subtly doing it. "I don't expect myself to fit in here. I'm not even sure how long I'll be in DC for."

"Well, while you are here, you're welcome to join the band of merry outcasts. Even though JJ could definitely be the queen of the school if she really wanted to," Garcia said as they sat down at the table. "Emily, this is Spencer Reid. Reid, where's JJ?"

"I think she was talking to Will by the forks," Spencer said, not looking up from what he was writing in his notebook. Garcia cleared her throat and Spencer looked up, surprised to see Emily sitting across from him. "You were in my Advanced Literature class. Prentiss right, the ambassador's daughter?"

"Emily Prentiss." Emily reached out to shake Spencer's hand. "What are you working on?"

"Book analysis," Spencer answered. Just as he was returning to his paper, JJ came up behind him and shut his notebook. "I was working on that."

"And now you're eating lunch. Hi, Jennifer Jareau, but you can call me JJ." JJ smiled politely at Emily as she sat down next to Spencer and across from Garcia. Spencer pouted for a couple of moments and then turned his attention to his food. "Are you new here? I don't think I've seen you before."

"Oh yeah, my family moved back to DC after awhile. I'm Emily," Emily said, hoping that nobody caught the fact that her voice was slightly higher than normal. "It's nice to meet both of you."

"I wouldn't speak so soon, Spence here hasn't told you about meat processing while you're trying to enjoy your chicken nuggets," JJ joked as she nudged Spencer.

"I don't know why you're still upset about that because since then you have eaten at least 326 chicken nuggets," Spencer said and JJ rolled her eyes at him. "Not counting the ones on your plate or whatever you took from Will when you were talking. What I said didn't deter you in the slightest."

"So Emily, how long has it been since you've lived in DC?" Garcia asked Emily, hoping to deter JJ and Reid's little back-and-forth.

"Well, we moved to Europe when I was like six, but I spent a summer around here when I was 14. I spent most of my time hanging out in federal buildings though with one of my old friends, Aaron," Emily answered. Garcia kept Emily talking until she stumbled upon something that Emily and the other could bond over.

#jemily #criminal minds fanfiction #mixtape of our love

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