#My way is very Arab child coded

[idontmindifuforgetme]

sorry if this is a weird question, but i was wondering if you knew respectful words in arabic when talking to older women? ive been talking with Palestinian women in Gaza, and it always feels wrong or rude to call them by first name esp since im young. maybe its just the east asian in me but was curious if theres any cultural respect norm that i should know here since its hard to find online

OHH this is tough bc the Iraqi in me grew up referring to older women by “khala” or “ama” which is literally just the Arabic word for aunt …….. and most times it goes well but sometimes women take offense to it bc they’re like I’m NOT that old lmao I love Arab women

[koneko48]

Queer characters in HxH

btw this is da part 2 and I wanna say tysm to my 4 new followers (hope i'll get more haha ^^ )

we got: @ph4nt0mk4rm4 @satur-no0o @jubilentj @sx44x

And a biiiiiiiiig thank to @musicalmoritz

Anyway....

Is there lgbtq+ characters in hxh ?

Guess what... Yeah !!!!! there's a lot!!!!!

Before I start listing them all, just know this: Hunter x Hunter is a QUEER reference. It’s honestly one of the most respectful mangas out there when it comes to minorities — whether we're talking about LGBTQIA+ people, women, or Black and Arab characters.

P.S.: If you’re looking for Killua — I saved him for last (best for last, lol ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧) And my next post will be all about him x3!!

1.Alluka Zoldyck

Alluka is one of my favorite characters, and in my humble opinion, she's the best trans representation in any shonen manga to date. ^^

But just look at that angel face, hellllllllllllll... she's just too cute!! <3 <3 <3

Actually, Alluka's case is pretty unique, since the fact that she's transgender comes more from headcanon than official canon (to me though, she is clearly a little trans girl 🏳️‍⚧️).

There are several things in the canon that really make me think she's trans:

The Zoldyck siblings are all boys — Kalluto isn’t a girl either (I'll explain that later).

Her whole story (like Killua’s, in a way) feels very coded as a trans narrative.

For example: her family hides her away because she’s “different” (they literally walled her in, the poor thing).

Everyone in the family — except Killua, the only one who truly loves and respects her — refers to her as “he” instead of “she.”

And remember that moment when her older brother told Gotoh: “Alluka is a girl, so she needs a woman to accompany her — not some scary old guy.” 😭

they are so cuuute i can'tttttt

but we also got this:

Illumi keeps calling her "he", and we can’t really check what she was like as a child because her clothes were gender-neutral.

And don’t even get me started on her hair — that’s a trap! Just look at baby Killua, he had hair just as long as hers!

2. Hisoka Morrow

To me, Hisoka is basically a drag queen. I mean, think about it — the guy fights in high heels! That alone is unheard of.

And then there's his body type — it looks a lot like the way women are drawn in manga:

It’s pretty over the top… especially since he wears makeup and crop tops.

And I won’t even talk about Hisogon here, sorry Pdiddy fans.

Also, it’s CANON in the manga that he’s married to Illumi — who is a man — which makes Hisoka a bisexual man (remember Machi?).

3. Pito

In all the stupid debates about HxH (which are super heated and that I often join...), one of the most popular is: Is Pitou male or female?

For those who don’t know HxH, Pitou isn’t human or a cat... Pitou is an ant.

Yes, an ant. (When you really think about it, HxH is pretty weird...)

In the anime, Pitou uses the pronoun “boku”, which is usually used by boys, though some girls use it too, but it’s often seen as a tomboy thing.

Really, it’s all about translation and personal opinion, since in French and English versions, Pitou is called “he.”

For me, Pitou’s a girl — because I think she’s just too badass!

4. Kurapika Kuruta

Like I said earlier, the whole MamaPika thing is really funny, and like in many anime, it all comes down to perspective and culture.

How was I supposed to know???!!!

For example, the very first time I read Hunter x Hunter, at first glance I thought Kurapika was a girl (because of the dress).

But actually, no. I know that in the 1999 anime, the pilot of the Hunter Exam boat hinted at Kurapika being a woman. (I couldn’t find the screenshot, sorry hahaaaa...)

Also, Kurapika uses the pronoun “watashi”, which is gender-neutral, so it’s hard to tell his gender...

And honestly, Kurapika is pretty androgynous!

This might be connected to the Leopika ship, which reminds me of the classic BL Togashi loves, like Patalliro (which I’ll talk about later with Killua).

Here, Bancoran (on the left) and Maraich (on the right) — just to clarify (in case) — both are men.

Leorio and Kurapika

5. Kalluto Zoldyck

Killua’s little brother is the youngest in the family.

And yes, I said “brother” because Kalluto is canonically a boy — only his mother insists he’s a girl (but honestly, everyone in that family is crazy).

I think it’s stated in the Data Book that Kalluto is a boy.

Also, in the 1999 doujinshi Weekly Togashi Empire, Yoshihiro Togashi said that Kalluto was inspired by Hotaru from Sailor Moon (another reference... I guess Togashi and Takeuchi really liked each other).

Hotaru in Sailor Moon

Kalluto in Hunter X Hunter 99

A little side note about her plot: she’s looking for her brother (Killua) to bring him home and play with him.

Bad news for Kalluto — Killua hates her, just like all the other family members except Alluka.

6. Illumi Zoldyck

Looks like we’re going to meet the whole family...!

Illumi is the eldest sibling and follows a strange Japanese tradition where the oldest brother is the head of the family.

Well, it’s true Silva has more authority, but still...

What shampoo do you use, please?

My chapter about him will be short because, honestly, I don’t like him btw ^^

Illumi is married to Hiso-Hiso, so he’s either gay, bi, or something else—I don’t really care.

The only interesting thing about him is his psychopath-level powers.

7.Ging Freecss

Guys, since he apparently impregnated himself, I think Ging Freecss is ArOmAnTiC !!!

Just kidding haha!

Honestly, I think he’s gay because... uh... Pariston?

There’s a really weird tension between them. It’s just… creepy.

Honestly, we don’t care if he’s gay!!!

No, the real problem is his son!!! But how???

There’s actually a theory that Gon doesn’t have a mom. Well, he does, but his mom is Ging.

Sounds weird when you say it like that, but you have to remember HxH is weird anyway, so...

Actually, in Greed Island there’s a VERY special card:

So this card lets anyone get pregnant.

And with all the mysteries around Gon, I think his crazy dad must have tested the card for his game and, well... that’s how Gon was born!

It’s hilarious, but I’ll probably talk more about Gon’s weird birth in another post dedicated just to that.

8. Gon Freecss

My favorite character aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

He’s super cute oh my goooood.

But, uh, the IQ didn’t stick with the brain.

So get this: Gon is so dumb that he can’t even tell the difference between “a date with a girl” (I quote) and just going grocery shopping with his aunt (because his dad went out to get milk lmao).

I have questions about him!!!!!! But not right now, I’ll save them for later (or not).

Most of the fandom thinks Gon is pansexual (yep, I know them all heheeeeeee).

Mostly because he doesn’t care about anything (his best friend is literally an assassin).

And also because... he blushes just as much around girls, boys, and dolphins.

But look at him — he’s just too iNnOcEnT!

Oh wait… wouldn’t that be the ant he decapitated with his own hands???

helppppppppppp

9. This Guy...

What is this help me omg

Okay sooo this is a chimera ant ....

he's in love with another ant so he is ... antsexual ???

10. Another drag queen ( or idk what is this )

11. Morena Prudo

She is so cooooooooooooooooool my favorite antagonist all the time ( false )

I pretty sure that she is lesbian becauz she already kissed females and only females...

Okay this was randomer than my whole life btw

So Morena' pretty strange and intelligent. When she was playing with Borksen she was... evil.

Seriously, I think they’re going to be the new-gen Meruem and Komugi! The way she teases Borksen so much about it being her first kiss makes me pretty skeptical, and I can totally see them trying to destroy the world together lol!

12. Killua Zoldyck

So, this guy is my favorite character!!!! I absolutely love his story—it’s incredibly beautiful!!!

I’m really sorry to my first followers because I know his story is super loved by the community, but I wanted to post this Tumblr as fast as possible, so I’ll develop it more in my next post. Sorry again!!!!!

I’ll try to focus on the most important points without getting sidetracked...

So, Killua Zoldyck, one of the Zoldyck kids (between Milluki and Alluka), and his story is EXTREMELY coded as a gay character, and I’ll try... to prove it to you in just a few lines (and by playing with emotions, as always).

First of all, he runs away from home to take the Hunter Exam, where he meets Gon:

Then they become best friends, blah blah blah, BFFs—nothing really interesting there, honestly...

To understand some things and most of the subtext Togashi scattered throughout his work, you have to dig into hidden info, bad translations, and databooks.

Regarding our young assassin, we’ve been more than spoiled:

Romantic birthdate

Romantic theme music

Character design inspired by boys’ love characters

Reactions heavily inspired by shoujo, and so on

The Birthdate

Killua’s birthdate (July 7, 1986, calculated by myself) perfectly matches the Japanese Star Festival (Tanabata). You should check out the official Killugon video (for French speakers) or Sash Mash (for English speakers) that explain this legend in more detail.

In short, it’s the story of two lovers, Orihime and Hikoboshi, who loved each other so much they neglected their work. Orihime was the daughter of the sky god and worked for him every day weaving without ever seeing anyone. Hikoboshi was a farmer in a village on the other side of the river. The king introduced the farmer to his daughter, they fell in love, blah blah blah—boring and cheesy, but it’ll be useful for the next point.

Very angry about them neglecting their work, the king separated them to punish them, each on one side of the river. The only night they could see each other was July 7. So Orihime waits, and finally comes the awaited day...

Except there’s a problem—she can’t cross the river by herself, so she begged the gods, who sent her some birds to build a bridge.

That’s how they meet every July 7, and that’s why the day is celebrated.

In short (very badly explained), that’s the story of Orihime and Hikoboshi.

For HxH fans, despite my messy summary, you probably noticed their story resembles Killugon’s... Let's think aboout how I forced with the word canary... what a coincidence! But it’s not over!

Remember that scene where Killua talks with Meleoron, who worries about him and Gon if they ever have to run away? Killua answers that in the worst case, "they’d both die."

Well, that might sound okay, I’ve seen worse in other anime, but...

That translation is wrong, or rather, it was too difficult to translate and explain to readers without spoiling the subtext. Here’s the Japanese version that I’ll of course translate for you:

In the little panel where he’s supposed to say “we’ll both die” in the English version, in Japanese he actually says: “sayaku shinjuu da na.”

This hits hard for Japanese readers, who are now pretty much convinced that Killua is in love with Gon... For English speakers, that phrase carries a very romantic undertone.

If we were to translate it accurately, it would be something like: “At worst, we’ll commit double suicide.” Yeah — definitely not the same vibe anymore.

So, what is shinjuu? (I’ll keep it brief.) It’s a word that comes up a lot in Japanese literature, especially in romantic contexts. Shinjuu is basically the Japanese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet — a tragic love between two people who can’t be together in life, so they die together in the hope of being reunited in the afterlife. (It’s super heartbreaking, I know, ughhh (╥﹏╥))

That’s why I really don’t think this line was a joke or something to brush off. I believe the author did this intentionally.

Because Killua grew up being told that he’s not allowed to love — that no one would ever love him.

I won’t get into all the details (you’re probably familiar with the series anyway), but the way he’s manipulated and made to fear his own feelings by his family really mirrors how some real-life families reject or even demonize homosexuality.

Then there’s his character design — which is very clearly inspired by Maraich from Patalliro.

Here is Maraich Juschenfe from the manga Patalliro. And yes, he is a man.

By the way, the author even said that Hiei was inspired by a character from Patalliro! and so he even said that killua was inspired by Hiei — which happens to be his favorite manga, and yes... it's a BL.

Mariya Ise's Interview

Mariya Ise is the official Japanese voice actress for Killua. In a 2022 interview (if I’m not mistaken), she responded to a fan’s question:

— (a woman asking): “For those of us who have same gender fiance, we love Killua, we love Gon, we see ourselves in their relationship. So my question is: Do you think Killua is in love with Gon?”

— (Mariya Ise, translated): “Of course he is! I mean... if he wasn’t, why would he go that far for this guy?”

So that’s the point of view of the woman who literally became Killua for years — and worked closely with the anime staff.

Hiroshi Koujina’s statement

In this interview, the director of the 2011 anime, Hiroshi Koujina, says that he sees Gon and Killua as a married couple, with Gon being the impulsive husband and Killua the smart wife who keeps him grounded. (Those are his words, not mine...)

I'm sorry, but I had to cut the article short because of the large number of images...

Anyway, I know I forgot a ton of other characters, and you can remind me of them in the comments. Have a great day, and thank you for reading!

[myalit]

Blog Post #3

What can be an issue with the "New Jim Code"?

In the beginning of the article it talk about how it is serious when it comes to to naming a child. Their name will be stuck with them for the rest of their life and tied to their identity. The woman explains how when her younger son was born. She wanted to give him an Arabic name because that was part of their family heritage, but unfortunately, he was born around 911 which made her hesitant. This story was an example of how the new Jim code plays in society. The new Jim code is about how people are becoming influenced by social media and marketing tools to convince them of other ways of thinking and living. Unfortunately, the world that we live in people care a lot about others opinions on themselves or things that they do and with social media on the rise this just gets worse because everything is so publicized.

Why does facial recognition need work and why is it upsetting people?

Facial recognition needs work because it is not up to the level that it should be with the level of technology that we have. People are upset because it has been proven that on darker colored features and skin tones. It is harder to make out the facial recognition than it is on lighter skin tones. We use facial recognition for a lot of things which is why it is important that it’s accurate especially in cases of crime. It feels unjust for the time. That were in to be having these facial recognition issues specifically for darker colored skin.

How is intersectionality shown in our world today? 

I think there are many examples of how intersectionality is shown in a world today, but I think the most important one having to do with race and gender. For example, it is normalized to see that a transsexual woman of color is faced with double discrimination over a transsexual white woman. as a society, it is clear that we have come along way when it comes to discrimination, but we are nowhere near where we need to be. There are still underlying stigmas and internal discriminations that we as humans make, and this is one of them. I have seen multiple times in real life with my own eyes discrimination within this realm. When you ask people about it, they don’t really have an answer as to why the discrimination is different between the two in certain circumstances. This is because our brains have just adapted to this way of thinking, which is wrong.

What should we be worried about with CalGang?

Calgang is know for being a large database that is used by law enforcement to keep tabs on gang affiliated activity. With this being said unfortunately if you were just to be at somebody’s house that is in a gang even though you aren’t, it could put you in danger. Another example could be if you followed somebody that was in a gang on social media. The hard truth is, you could even just be in the vicinity of a gang area and you could automatically be put in danger with the database. if you’re put on the database, you could be watched and looked at closely. To this is really sad because it seems very unfair and it doesn’t seem to have that much logic behind it. In the sadness of it all is that I don’t think the law-enforcement cares enough to make the system more accurate and just for everyone.

Cites

TED. (2016, December 7). The urgency of intersectionality | Kimberlé Crenshaw | TED[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o

National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). (2018, June 22). Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViDtnfQ9FHc

Benjamin, R. (2020). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity. 

[cannoli-reader]

My Notes from Watching the Wheel of Time Show, season 1, episode 6

Originally posted on 12/10/2021. Possible spoilers for any or all WoT novels.

I skipped watching this when I went to Prime Video for that purpose, because an episode of "The Expanse" had dropped. This might have been the first time since 1992 that I have ever prioritized other media over new WoT content.

1:30 - Is this a Belter in the world of WoT? The hammock and hut suggest poverty, but those are some fancy tattoos for a child.

1:48 - Li’l Siuan is from a primitive fishing tribe, rather than an urban dock district

2:31 - Okay, that looked like a city in the background, so maybe their hut is in the Fingers of the Dragon. Probably not an important distinction, but it’s a thing about Tear that the High Lords exercise tight control over the area, and would not likely allow people to settle in the Fingers, for no other reason than to prevent anyone getting an navigational advantage over their own pilots.

3:15 - “A wise woman knows the breaking point of her line,” is a very interesting comment, given that’s a lesson that Book-Siuan utterly failed to learn her entire life.

4:14 - Always with the tragic backstories.

5:20 - I guess this is a cheap way of having her sent to the Tower, without having to hire an actor to play the authority figure or a group of extras to play a mob who compel her departure.

8:27 - Liandrin’s actual braids make an appearance!

8:41 - I can’t but notice they have yellow-washed the canonically Arabic, Leane Sharif, and at best are subbing in the background character with a hijab and no lines.

9:45 - I wonder if those are Accepted uniforms, or if this is supposed to be some sort of female guard force.

11:33 - This is a good way, I guess, of expositing the Tower’s grasp on the world is slipping, and they even found a natural way for someone like Logain to demonstrate that knowledge, without compromising too much the concept of proprietary channeling information or Tower secrets. And the fact that outsiders generally don’t make much, if any, distinction between Ajahs is already undermined by their propensity for color-coded garb.

11:36 - I wondered in the trailer why Leane looked so pissed. That explains it.

11:59 - “I am not so easily fooled” says Siuan, commenting on Logain’s factual statement (I assume it is; why bring it up otherwise, unless you’re looking to shit on the books just because). Do they realize this is not making her actually smart?

Also, that silly wing thing on the front of her ridiculous dress looks like it might be the Amyrlin’s stole.

12:35 - Logain is to be kept captive until he “lose(s him)self entirely to the madness”. Gentling stops you from going mad. That’s the justification for doing it, as opposed to just killing them on sight.

14:00 - Not for nothing, but Liandrin has a point. That it is what she wanted to do anyway does not change that fact.

14:09 - Siuan’s reference to the rules of engagement doesn’t make much sense here either, since killing is on the list and Liandrin has already pointed out that they managed not to resort to the last extreme. This just looks like a bureaucrat passing judgment on actions taken in the exigencies of combat. And considering we spent a whole episode on the tragic response to the consequences of Logain’s breaking free, we really should be considering Logain lucky to be alive.

But having the normally smooth and cool Liandrin’s voice breaking and sounding stressed and panicky seems like the show is trying to say she’s wrong and Siuan is this supreme font of wisdom and fair-mindedness

17:00 - Liandrin is really coming across as speaking truth to power, even if she is being portrayed as a troublemaker.

18:58 - My general motto with regard to the Tower ITB is Voltaire’s ecrasez l’infame. Siuan’s tirade suggests the show version won’t be much better despite the girl-power vibes I get from everything else about it.

21:20 - The subtitles call the innkeeper in Tar Valon “Basel Gill”. A character defined in the book by his devotion to the Queen of Andor and his loyalty to friends, including charity to a couple of friends of friends, has been repurposed as a Tar Valon innkeeper who charges high prices to the same kids Book-Gill took in and fed for the sake of a mutual friend.

21:53 - “It’s nice to see you, too” snarks the guy who has done nothing to make contact with Rand and Mat for a whole episode while he was preoccupied by personal bullshit instead of the candidates for savior of the world.

22:00 - I suspect Barney Harris is being replaced, because his moans of sickness sound more like there should be another person in the bed with him.

23:30 - So much better done ITB. No reason I can see for the changes, aside from Moiraine being the clear authorial favorite. They give her the lightning reflexes to stop Mat’s attack, and made Rand an encumbrance who distracted Lan from being the one to catch Mat.

25:16 - So Mat has to be watched lest he touch the dagger again, says Moiraine, after leaving the room to the person who followed her out. Even if the dagger is on Lan’s person, they still left it in the room with Mat, and we can’t really say this version of Lan is as good as a safe for holding objects secure, given how differently he has been portrayed from the Book version.

25:36 - Moiraine would absolutely say something like this. The problem is, the show seems to be on her side, when ITB (and on the show) she has given them little reason to trust her. How are the Two Rivers people supposed to trust she would not have treated Mat as an impediment to her mission and offed him like the ferry?

26:45 - Okay, Maigan’s agreeing with me about Siuan, but on the other hand, she’s also denouncing a Green for speaking on behalf of a Red, just because they had fought together and she believed the Red to be in the right. So it’s a crazy whacky world, when Aes Sedai display integrity? Sisters choosing the truth over factional rivalries is the equivalent of dogs and cats living together?

27:15 - One of the pseudo-feminists’ greatest whines criticisms about the book series is the frequency of nudity. Now, we are not subjected to descriptions of the women’s bodies, and it is seldom in a sexual context or with gratuitous sexual connotations for ordinary nudity, but, fair enough. Women get undressed a lot. But on a TV show, with a female writer and director, where actual human beings have to get undressed and partially display their bodies in context that encourages the viewer to see them as naked, we get an inserted bathhouse scene (not to mention an inserted sex scene and a prior bathing scene with similar display of female bodies, in the pilot), where women are striking poses & lit so as to draw attention to their uncovered skin. ‘Rules for thee and not for me’ feminism.

28:33 - Okay, why is she keeping their survival a secret? That’s pointless even for Book Moiraine.

29:05 - Please don’t give us more melting scenes for these rings.

29:15 - That angle, for a second, made the crease of Perrin’s shoulder look like Egwene’s buttcrack.

29:22 - How did they get Perrin here if the damage is so bad?

29:57 - They are doing a good job of keeping the camera on Egwene’s right profile and the other side in shadow to conceal Madeline Madden’s nosewart.

31:00 - Moiraine is leaving the kids alone, in two separate establishments, with no trustworthy supervision.

31:42 - ITB Moiraine does not think of the Two Rivers folk as friends, no matter how benevolent her actions, because she knows she might have to do something horrible to them for the greater good. She never even indicates any care for, or affection toward, them in her stream of consciousness. Show-Moiraine, whose treatment and behavior toward them has been considerably less benevolent and friendly, on a mere month’s acquaintance, most of it spent apart from all but Nynaeve, has even less reason to use that term.

32:04 - Okay, Lan’s going to stand watch, but over whom? They are in two different places and neither group knows the other is alive.

32:16 - She’s leaving them unattended to get laid?! I am just assuming. As I may have said previously, the sector of the fandom toward whom this show appears to be pandering tends to ship Moiraine and Siuan, so that's how I take the "give her my love." Only now the shippers are going to whine that we are deprived of the implied poly relationship with Lan and presumably Siuan's warder, too.

33:12 - Oh, so they have Traveling. What’s the nonsense limitation they are going to claim for why they have not used whatever this is for something more important than secret-sexy-times meetings?

33:24 - I bet Siuan’s dad could have afforded a second rowboat for the price of all those tattoos. Edit: 'kay, she got some as an adult.

34:05 - And now celibacy is a thing for the Amyrlin? And Moiraine’s “when have we ever followed the rules” in this context is not about going around petty restrictions or thinking outside the box or doing what must be done, so much as “rules don’t apply to us, because we’re all we care about.” While I might not agree with a rule of celibacy in this case, the point is generally to demonstrate the priority one places on the institution that requires it. So being Amyrlin is important, but Siuan & Moiraine hold themselves and their feelings more important. Which is super hypocritical considering the level of supremacy she is declaring in the Hall.

36:20 - Okay, the Dragon’s soul being split up is dumb, because it makes them all partial people. A soul IS a person. Bodies are just like clothes. This is the reality, even if you don’t believe in souls and use the word merely to mean the essential component of a person or concept or object. So, best case scenario, what they are saying is that the most important thing about the Dragon is his power and status. What he is, not who he is. And never mind that’s 180 degrees in opposition to the message of the books, for every character.

And if they are not actually doing this, and there is only the one Dragon Reborn, this is a stupid diversionary speculation.

36:33 - “You think I’ve forgotten that?” Moiraine asks in response to Siuan’s admonition that they will be stilled if anyone else discovers what they are up to. Um, yeah, Moiraine. It looks very much like you forgot that, since your immediately prior line of dialogue was suggesting that you tell lots of people what they are up to, and create the conditions for that to happen!

Moiraine: We should tell lots of people Siuan: If anyone finds out, we will be punished. Moiraine: Did you think I had forgotten that? Me: Well, since you don't seem to remember your own immediately previous statement, that's a fair guess.

36:37 - Is it weird that their post-coital garments are different than what they were wearing to bed before Moiraine came to Siuan’s room? Especially since Moiraine is wearing something more revealing than what she had on when she approached her sexual partner?

38:50 - Sacrificing a bunch of people for a stupid plan to beat the Dark One through a loophole is pretty in-character for Siuan.

39:41 - Why does Liandrin keep describing things wrong? “Nursed back to health” is not remotely an accurate way to describe Healing.

40:02 - I don’t know what’s dumber in this fan-fiction adaptational change: the Reds doing horrible things to men suspected of fooling around with their Ajah sisters, and the implication that the Red Ajah has explicit anti-male policies (nearly every non-Darkfriend PoV Red ITB has male sexual partners), or Moiraine overlooking a Darkfriend meeting place by underestimating Liandrin. Or worst of all, the Reds would not do anything to a mere trysting partner, therefore Liandrin’s association with him is a serious crime (such as treason or Darkfriend stuff) and Moiraine is in sole possession of this knowledge of Liandrin, but is letting it go unreported for blackmail purposes.

40:18 - Loial’s shoes are clearly just to make him look taller. With little success.

40:45 - Moiraine is as giddy as a YouTube fan reviewer at her encounter with Loial. Why?

41:22 - Nosewart! Fitting it gets a moment in the spotlight as the show is doing a bit of metatextual snarking. It’s not clever to bring that sort of thing up without a good answer, because it just looks like you are mocking the work you needed to crib from in order to get a job yourself. See, no one would pay for a show entirely from the mind of the Coffee Fetcher for the Good Seasons of Game of Thrones, so Rafe needs a best-selling fantasy novel series to get that level of attention. It’s not clever of him to use his show to criticize much more successful writers.

And the obvious answer to the issue of the throne and office holding the same name is that the point is the woman is subsumed into the office, that in her official capacity she is acting as the institution, not the person. Furthermore, it’s only confusing to morons, as a person and an inanimate object will almost never be discussed in the same practical context. Telling a servant to clean the Amyrlin Seat is unlikely to result in a feather duster being applied to Siuan, and describing the actions or policies of the Amyrlin Seat are unlikely to cause one to confusedly assume the chair has become animate. Unless nosewarts are a symptom of some sort of brain disease.

41:30 - One unfortunate consequence of the loss of royalty and whatnot is that people keep trying to make up stories of it without having any idea how it works. The Amyrlin Seat would not request an audience with a peasant girl still in her fake-Scottish skirt. All they had to do was copy the book dialogue where people receive a summons to an audience with the Amyrlin, not a request for an audience. And if the point of the change is to show the Tower as somehow egalitarian, the entire rest of the episode has epically failed in that regard.

41:40 - Nosewart.

41:40 - Also, Nynaeve’s question of Lan is really really dumb. I’ll just write it off as an honest attempt to show Nynaeve’s attitude of constantly questioning and refusing to be dictated to and charitably just assume the writers are simply incompetent to execute that depiction through dialogue.

41:57 - Is it possible for TV women to describe their actions without humble-bragging?

42:08 - Stating that Siuan waits for only one woman, when the Amyrlin is, by her own words, the highest ranking person in the world, just invites speculation as to whom she waits for, and how Moiraine is so certain of that fact. For someone keeping so many pointless secrets, Moiraine sucks at intrigue.

42:48 - A het man demanding that the two attractive young women come closer would be seen as creepy. So why not the equally gynosexual Siuan?

42:45 - Nynaeve does not bow. Actually, ITB, Nynaeve would make a half-hearted effort but get it wrong, because she could not care less about crap like that. But this is okay.

43:02 - If that was an allusion to Egwene’s nosewart, it was extremely rude, Siuan! And stop trying to steal my joke across the fourth wall!

43:16 - Egwene visibly deflating when Siuan names Nynaeve is the best thing ever to appear on a screen!

43:20 - And they immediately ruin it with Nynaeve’s stupid response. How is that even an insult, let alone a burn? Nynaeve would not expect people to be impressed with her strength, but she would also not mock the Tower for being weak, because she cares about the person, not their strength. Her “comeback” demonstrates exactly the reverse.

43:54 - Nynaeve does not use bad words! Not “ass” in the real world or “smoke” in WoT! And she’s not deliberately rude. She thinks “Go away, we don’t want your help” is being polite, but she doesn’t try to offend people for shits and giggles, especially powerful people who could make trouble for her or her companions.

44:53 - Egwene silently turning to go in support of a friend from back home, especially turning away from a person of power who is tacitly offering power or the chance to effect significant events, is even more OoC than the Nynaeve & Siuan stuff.

45:03 - In my headcanon, that reaction shot of Moiraine, as Siuan saying “The Wheel does not care…” is her biting back the comment that the Wheel can’t care anymore than it can want.

45:42 - Nosewart! It’s like she’s leading with it!

45:46 - Egwene: “…what do we need to do?” Siuan: glances at Moiraine Me: I hope she’s not proposing a foursome.

46:03 - Please, not another ring-melting, please.

46:30 - Last episode, Moiraine said Tar Valon and/or the Tower is not her home. So what’s with the waterworks, especially when her imminent sentencing in the Hall has been prearranged? If Siuan is the great love of her life it hurts so much to leave, instead of a Friends With Benefits deal, why’d she say that last episode?

47:28 - More than ¾ of the way through 1/8 of the season and we’ve got nothing from this episode except a sex scene. It makes me extremely suspicious of the intent in the slow, lingering close-up shot of Moiraine kissing the Amyrlin’s ring.

48:09 - Siuan is saying a lot of stuff everyone in the room should know already. And if this is a sacred object, why use it so casually? If she is already bound to speak only the truth, why not simply make her promise to do what she’s told? If that Oath was not binding on her, why bother with another go-round?

I’m not even going to bother with the colossal deviation from the books of using the Oath Rod for an ordinary punishment.

49:38 - Why is her ear gilded?

And what is the point of all these compliments? Not the time or place, especially if the whole point of her sentencing is to conceal their relationship and collusion from everyone, especially the Hall. Siuan’s fall is going to literally be Moiraine’s fault, with this pointless shipper-fan-service dialogue.

53:06 - Are Moiraine’s tears blinding her to the giant samurai hiding behind the hill?

53:50 - Ordinary Shienarans call Loial “Builder” out of respect for his people having built their lost city. Moiraine calls him Loial and treats him like a kid because A. he is and B. it keeps him in line. And IIRC, it was made very clear ITB why he is called that. I feel like a WoT Novice will be expecting him to finish whatever that structure is behind Moiraine.

54:02 - Why are Perrin & Egwene accompanying Loial with whom they are onscreen for the first time? Why is the group not together, instead traveling so far apart Moiraine cannot see the different elements of the group across this wide stretch of clear ground?

54:09 - Why is Perrin smiling? What or how does Perrin feel about anything, when he has had no dialogue in this episode, and before it, was last seen lurching out of the Children's camp?

54:27 - Rand & Egwene’s reaction suggests they have not actually been in contact offscreen this whole time, so again, why is Loial with her and not him?

55:09 - Even if the horses can’t go into the Ways, you could take the luggage off, in case you need it, or at the least, take off their tack. That’s not a good way to leave horses unattended.

55:16 - Is there a point to changing it so horses can’t survive the Ways, besides saving on the horse budget?

56:21 - The fandom defense of Moiraine’s secrecy, that she could not trust the Two Rivers folk is exceedingly stupid and not in keeping with her other actions and behavior toward them. Having her claim that she was keeping secrets because she could not trust them, but now has come to know them after a month+ apart (and being unconscious before and throughout Shadar Logoth) is even dumber.

57:07 - Egwene would never for a moment entertain the idea that the Dragon is anyone but her. And in the face of her own apotheosis, she would not have much thought to spare for the fates or cost of others. Not necessarily out of malice, just considerations of power, status and advancement take up a disproportionate share of her attention.

57:26 - Loial’s expression is like “Um, have I just agreed to help a psychopath plug the Bore with teenage bodies?”

57:50 - If you need to channel to use the Ways, isn’t that largely defeating their point in the story?

58:24 - Why did we need three different reaction shots of people who can’t see what Moiraine is doing?

58:49 - “It’s too late to turn back. Whatever happens is beyond our control…” Does that include the choice to turn back? Because that kind of feels like a dumb answer to the half-facetious question about changing one’s mind.

59:02 - “The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills” says the person who pedantically denied any such agency to the Wheel a few episodes ago.

1:00:10 - Can’t wait to see how this latest “improvement” is going to play out. It’s funny because just the other day, a browser feed had an article saying how the show has improved on the books by not keeping the cast separated for so long.

[colorfulyetsinful]

Happy new years everyone!!! I hope everyone had a good nesw years and if not...welp :/

Anways, I got more headcannons! :D

As I mentioned in m last hc post, these are hc I've written on my phone to send to my friend. I thought I write so much hc might as well post them. Also, Jason is Latino bc I’m Latino and I say so.

Ok, headcannon time!

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

Batfam Accents

Dick:

Has a Romani / European accent

It’s a bit watered-down bc of him traveling in the circus

He knew english, but it was very broken

Or it sounded broken with how heavy his accent was

He learned how to switch accent and talk proper American english after becoming Robin as a way to further mask his identity

When he’s Robin and upset, he talks in his born dialect,

but in an American accent...

Yes, it is very funny

The teen titans thought he was going craz when he code switch

“Wait, you’re not (American) White?”

“Now where the fu-”

He uses his accent when in civilian form to keep the image

Jason:

Is an immigrant from Dominican Republic,

but immigrated when he was a baby

He only knew Spanish for the first few years of his life, until his mother died

His accent is also watered-down, but it's still strong to your genric American

It works when being questioned by the police,

just pretend you don't know english

As he got older and learned more english his accent basically went away (Still there, technology, just not as stronger)

Since he's from Gotham's streets, he has a heavy Jersey/Gotham accent (If you ever heard a jersey-ian (?) talk then you know what I'm talking about)

When he met Batman, he tried to play the "No Hablo inglés"

and Bruce pulls the uno reverse card and starts throwing spanish right back at him

"Abort mission"

When he teams up with Roy, Roy find him hot when he speaks spanish

He also teaches Lian spanish bc "I'm basically raising her too, Roy. That's my child as much as she is your's, and I'm teaching her spanish, danmmit"

Tim:

The only one withot an accent,

like he has a Gotham accent, but its posh Gotham (people with these accents are rich and think their shit dont stink)

Knows Korean and Yiddish fluently

Bc Tim is haft asian (I hc him as Korean and Jewish) and rich, ofc his parents had him learn a bunch of languages

Languages such as; Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Mandarin

One time the YJ (who didn't know his identity) ran into his civilian personal at a banquet and he had to speak Korean

Yj was on a mission, however, to watch over him (much to his displeasure) and he had to pretend to only speak Korean the whole night

When frustrated and/or in pain, he switches to one of the many languages he know

"What is your ethnicity? You're fluent in too many languages"

"Human. No more questions"

Damian:

Is actually an immigrant

(At least, I believe so...corrent me if im wrong)

His accent is the heaviest out of all of them bc he grew up in the middle east for a good chunk of his life

He hides it with posh European english (how he was taught english)

Knows a lot of languages bc Talia said knowing all of them is important

He doesn't know Cantonese, Portugese, or Hawaiian

Still getting use to speaking more in english and not Arabic

Still wasn't able to properly mask his accent yet as some words are weird to pronounce.

Cassandra:

Is taking speach therapy so she also doesn't really have an accent

She just speaks broken english bc she's getting used to talking

Talks very softly

Uses ASL mostly as it is an easier wa to communicate

Slowly gaining a Canadian accent bc her speech instructor is from Canada

Duke:

Like jason, also has a Gotham/Jersey accent

Grew up in regular gotham streets, unlike Tim, so it's more slang words

The "Blaccent"

Is very heavy, like he cant turn it off

which is fine bc he's a gotham base vigilante

Teaches Damian Jersey slang

Bonce!!!!

Bruce also has a posh Jersey accent that Tim as bc all rich and high society do

and Alfred is obviously british

[writingwithcolor]

Desexualized Mammy & Strong Black Woman, too busy for “frivolous love”

“Alyse” (Anon Submission) asked:

My science fiction story includes a black woman (Talia) who raises two children that aren’t her own and takes on two young adults as apprentices. One of the children she is raises has Arabic background and was taken into her home upon his father’s death (his mother’s whereabouts are unknown). She was a close friend of his father and the closest thing he had to a relative. The second child has mixed French-Latinx background and was taken in after becoming shipwrecked with no means by which to contact her people. Talia was the first non-hostile individual she encountered and one of the few who would so openly embrace a stranger. Since Talia is Master Medic (the highest medical authority in her community) she is training two apprentices (think residency) and eventually mentors the second child as well. She was once married and passionately in love but lost her husband to illness. In this setting, some technology we take for granted is inaccessible and violence against their people is commonplace. Most have experienced sudden loss. This particular loss was the catalyst that drove Talia into medicine- a desire to protect her loved ones and prevent others from experiencing similar tragedy. She is usually kind (though businesslike) but sometimes succumbs to a frigid, furious depression when, despite all her knowledge and determination, she can’t save someone. 

I worry that her maternal association with the two children (one of whom is an outsider) mires her in the mammy trope. On top of that, she hasn’t pursued romance since the death of her husband. I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career. 

In terms of race and culture in this story, practically every character can trace their ancestry back to populations displaced through war. Even Talia’s second child was shipwrecked during a botched evacuation from a military science lab. The people who live here have been isolated for generations and no longer have a real concept of their ancestry. Cultures have blended, new religions have formed, and many of our familiar racial/ethnic issues are forgotten. However, new and different but equally toxic ones have replaced them. In this way, Talia’s blackness doesn’t carry the same associations in her world as it would in ours. However, readers may still make these associations. Do you see any issues with her character that I could amend? 

So! You have:

A highly educated Black-coded woman (the highest medical authority in the community)

She raises two kids alone 

She also looks after two apprentices

She is widowed (not sure the race of the husband, was he Black?)

Having experienced heartbreaking love, Talia's drive to look after, protect and save people through medicine is a great motivation for the way she is. Her experiencing depression and taking losses seriously is also very human and is dynamic characterization. 

However, such characterization with Black women is prone to brush across several tropes. You have a Black woman who gives and protects, but what does she get in return? Who cares for her? 

Prioritize your Black character’s happiness

"I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career." 

Priorities, priorities. Is love a frivolous pursuit in her eyes, or yours? Because I strongly disagree. You probably don't mean to but you, as the author, having an excuse to NOT give the Black woman romance is showing that you do not think she's worth being loved. TV viewers and stans who are uncomfortable when Black women characters have relationships find similar excuses to explain away not wanting BW in relationships.

"She's too strong and independent for a man/relationship" 

"I liked her better alone." 

"It'll take away from her character."

“A romance doesn’t feel right for her”

These sorts of statements above are grounded in racialized misogyny. 

Relationships do not lessen the woman.

Relationships does not lessen Black women. 

Love

Whether that love is romantic, familial, or friendship, it can come in many forms. Give Talia love. Because Black women characters deserve it! Either one or all! 

Let her have a loyal best friend, a cat, and a girlfriend. Because why not? And not to downplay the love of children to parents, but please provide her love beyond what she gets on a maternal level from the children she looks after. 

The stories that Black women are in today severely lack love for us, so why add to the narrative of Black women being all work and no play, and too [insert excuse here] to be loved? 

Of course, you didn't provide all the details from your story, but I'm not seeing much of a balance from the struggle. She is a caretaker, teacher, doctor (or doctor-like figure). 

Her position and background in itself is okay. It's the Strong Black Woman being presented with seemingly no commentary that strikes me. 

Where is her team to help balance the weight of the world? 

Who takes care of her when she's depressed from another loss? 

What does she get in return from taking an emotional and physical toll to heal her community? 

Do those around her recognize all she does for them and offer their friendship? 

When does she get to relax and turn off the need to be everything for everybody?

Fitting love into a book with many characters

There are many books with several characters to keep track of. People tend to manage. Also, I'm sure some of those characters are in and/or out of relationships. Even stories that couldn’t be classified as romances have relationships of some sort. It’s unrealistic to have a ton of characters and none of them be in relationship(s) of some sort. Not when there’s so many forms of it and many sexualities. 

Friends, frenemies, enemies, romance, affairs.. Relationships make stories (and life) interesting. By no means do I think adding these dynamics harm your tale. And what’s one more for a hard-working Black woman who sacrifices a lot and clearly deserves a shoulder to lean on? And, if you use an existing character to be that friend, family, or lover, then you won’t need to pencil in another character.

For romance specifically - I think a misconception when it comes to including romance in stories is that they have to somehow take over the story. Romance does not have to bombard the plot nor be described in lavish detail. Not every story is a romance and those sort of details aren’t everyone’s style or things they’re comfortable with. A sentence or two establishing relationships does not take away from the story.And how those relationships look and affections expressed will vary based on the characters, sexuality, etc.

Not every character needs to have a deep level of detail. 

“Katie and Lisa, a newly engaged couple, walked into the meeting.”

“Jack and Jamie are a married couple in their 40s.” 

“The two met in college. After two months of blissful courtship, they eloped, eager to start their happily ever afters. Twenty years together, they were still blissfully in love and never too far from one another.”

Sentences like the above are enough for some characters. You don’t always need to put in paragraphs worth of relationship-establishing details or plot. 

When it comes to the characters whose love you would like to highlight, at least a bit, you still don’t have to go over the top.

Use subtle details. 

“As soon as Talia’s back was turned, he gave her a longing look before shaking his head and getting back to the patient.”

“He squeezed her hand before taking hold of the stethoscope.”

“She kissed her wife goodbye before racing out the door.”

“You mean the world to me.” he had said, holding her face. Those words stayed with her all day, making her heavy load light as a sack of feathers.

“She soaked his shirt with her tears and he just held her tight, saying nothing, silently holding her together.”

As for Talia specifically…

Talia having the mindset you described, as love being frivolous and not a priority, is understandable knowing her background (I just don't agree with you as the creator using this as a means to keep her alone. Whether she’s romantically alone or without close friendships). She has lost so much, and continues to experience loss with patients. This can be extremely traumatizing. I gave some examples of being subtle, so perhaps that will help with the burden of feeling a thick subplot of romance doesn’t fit in your story. 

And as Talia doesn’t strike me as someone who would go looking for companionship, what if she stumbles upon it without trying? Is there someone on the medical team that can offer her friendship? Someone who admires her and feels the urge to care for her that she feels the same for, or has pushed feelings down for? What happens when she can’t hold those feelings down anymore?

Takeaway

Talia deserves healthy love, even if she doesn’t believe it or feel she has time for it. That love can come in any and many forms, not necessarily romantically required, although it is a plus. A struggle-ridden novel is balanced by love, support and rest for characters that hold the weight of the world. If you do not, evaluate why you want to write Black characters in these struggle roles without at least a social commentary. 

~Mod Colette

[dragynkeep]

It's always funny to me, Owl, that Yang and Taiyang's names are a prime example of "giving your child an ethnic name to make yourself seem cultured". Like, an aussie with a Chinese name is such a fucking hilarious concept considering that for all the Wasps yelling about Yang and Taiyang being "Chinese", you wouldn't be able to tell aside from their names. They're more aussie than Chinese from an external perspective - especially if you wanna take into account their geneological records (again, using "wasp logic"). And it's ironic that Yang and Taiyang have these names, considering this is the same crew and company that said, in the same breath, "You can't name a white guy [Flynt Coal]".

Honestly, this is the same case with Blake - considering she's supposed to be "Japanese", even though her name is French and both her parents' respective names are Indian - one of which is based on a slur.

it’s pretty much just because of two things :

taiyang & yang are based on two white people respectively  —  burnie & barbara  —  so they’re going to reflect a more white appearance like blonde hair & light eyes. this also isn’t like naruto or other japanese media where they are still given the benefit of the doubt of being japanese or otherwise asian despite european features like hair or eye colour because we have clearly coded characters in the show like sienna or ren.

they needed a name that began with y that meant yellow; ergo, yang.

i don’t know how much of them is aussie specifically, because nothing about them screams that to me & i really would’ve just put them as generic european, which is also what people would guess if you showed them the pair without giving their names. which isn’t applicable to characters like ren, emerald, sienna, etc.

& the same issue comes through in blake, nothing about her speaks to anything but a european look  —  she is based off a spanish actress with an english  /  italian name & a french allusion & mostly european based attire  —  yet somehow she’s “japanese / arabic coded” by virtue of very pale skinned parents who didn’t exist until v4. & it’s especially notable with kali who follows rwby’s very concerning pattern of white women being drenched in orientalism  —  see : raven & salem also  —  but also that like you said, her name is a slur in the culture she’s meant to partially represent. it’s also wholly inappropriate to use religious figures names like that, i would be incredibly uncomfortable if rwby had decided to use one of the names of my god or prophets for a character & i can imagine many others would also.

& all of this exists in the same environment where these white men make racially insensitive jokes about the name of a black character that references the colour of his skin in comparison to dirt  /  coal; which is just. uh, okay then. you do that then, mk lmao. but these are absolutely the same people who would have the cultural cognisance to make blake multicutural in a nuanced way or have yang be reflective of how diaspora can be more “westernized.”

[1ddotdhq]

🐕 Sun 25 Oct ‘20 🌶

Well it sure is SUNday isn’t it? We woke up to a hidden Reels from HSHQ (that has since been taken down) that showed a *golden* retriever swimming in the blue blue sea with Golden playing in the background. HSHQ has made a Habit (that they can’t break) of hiding media and random phrases in their source code, the most recent one in circulation being:  “Jewel-coat migration headed to Eroda!” within the Eroda site’s code. Fans quickly speculated that the dog in the video might be @/goldenloutriever on instagram, but I have no clue what brought that on, because there is no indication on the dog’s instagram nor on HSHQ’s instagram that would lead me to that conclusion. The best I can give you is that Harry seems to have taken a page out of Eleanor’s book and really embraced the dog content - he knows what we like! And THEN HSHQ dropped the official teaser AND the drop date of the music video! It drops tomorrow, 10/26? WHAT TIME asked Twitter with a worldwide trend. HSHQ ignored us all. The teaser trailer shows Harry running in a dark tunnel, I’m assuming chasing the sun. I would say that this time, he looks VERY ready to run! 

But Harry isn’t the only one with content to debut! LIAM put out his newest “show which has no name” on YouTube, and went live on instagram (wearing a headband that rival’s 2013!Louis’) right before the premiere! He went live with a young fan who ran a 1D fan instagram account and gave her some tickets, talked about not having seen the Golden music video, yet (me: YEAH NEITHER HAVE I UR NOT SPECIAL) and mentioned that Iron Man was his favorite avenger (“...after the sacrifices he made - for us all” hmmm, yup yup, totally, I remember that time Thanos came and made us disappear). He was also told by the chat to “Call Louis”, to which he promptly responded, “Louis was meant to call me a couple of days ago and he hasn’t yet...Louis where are you?? If you’re creeping around my Instagram live again, just. Give me a call”. Twitter then took it upon themselves to remind Louis and trended LOUIS CALL LIAM. Louis, always knowing what’s being said about him, took to twitter to say, “Answer your phone then dickhead @/LiamPayne”. Soooo...does this mean they’ve been playing phone tag?? Could timezone differences have anything to do with this? *Corneilus voice* whoooooo knooooowwwwssss…. 

And! In the roundup we got to hear a bit more about Cornelius! It started as an idea that he and Conor had “coming home after work one night” (if you’re counting - and I am - this is the second time he’s mentioned living with Conor) and that he thought it would be funny if there were a ghost haunting the place asking about the show. They tried out different names (first Peter), but settled on Cornelius as it tied back into an old 1D joke where Louis dared Niall to thank "Cornelius the Trombone player" but there never was a trombone player. So he was a ghost, Get It? Sigh, I love Liam’s sense of humor. In other round-up news, opener Carly Gibert will be zooming in from LA, though Tom Felton (“love ya, Big T!”) will be there live. He talked about how he’s known Tom for years, meeting at one of the HP premiers, though he wasn’t a big fan at the time, “I wasn't a massive fan then, it's just as I went along - you know how it goes - that I became a MASSIVE fan, but I already knew all of them". Okay, no need to rub it in Liam! But, speaking of fans, he thanked one on his live (twitter handle @/modeftziam), calling them “a good friend of mine”, and praising the awesome instagram filter that they made! He says that he sees their content on his timeline often, and loves it, and to go follow them. I ADORE (a door haha) how Liam treats his fans, it’s always so kind. Kinder, even, than he treats himself sometimes: he went in a bit on the behind the scenes video that Hugo put on their Instagram story about last month’s Esquire shoot, saying he was "super super hungover I’d partied all night the night before...you can see the drunkness on my face there". I mean, I hadn’t noticed it BEFORE he pointed it out, but, um...yeah he’s not wrong. I hope that, going forward, he treats himself more gently, because, as we all know HE’S GOLDEN TOO! 

And was Louis done tweeting after he told Liam off? No! He wasn’t! He went on to answer a fan about a child who really liked Louis’ music. Louis told the fan, “This is a beautiful story. Send my love to your gorgeous little lad. You’re both welcome to any show. Would love to meet the little lad. You’re an incredible mother, keep your head up!” The fan he replied to was NOT the mother of the child, but instead a 17 year old who had translated the story, which she had explained, but he clearly missed.  Who’s gonna take him up on the free ticket, d’you think? He also - once again - recommended the Red Hot Chili Peppers, once in a reply, and then went nah, I gotta put this on main, and posted a tweet with a link to the same liveshow, saying, “Anyone who’s missing live music. Watch this top to bottom...Incredible.” And he answered a question about the Social Dilemma, a documentary about the effects of social media, saying, “...Anyone who hasn’t seen it should watch it. Food for thought.” 

Niall described his COVID experience as “a lot of finger pointing, ankle injuries, and naked Instagram”. This time, can we please trend #DONTstripitdownNiall? They chatted a bit about the song (“ a delicate song...about divorce”) and Niall’s involvement (“I wouldn’t have been upset if she’d had said no [to having him on the song”), and they urged young US voters to get out the vote! Which, yeah! Please! And Zayn joined in the fun, tweeting “@UFC mashallah Khabib 🙌🏽”. The word mashallah is an Arabic phrase that means “what God has willed” and expresses appreciation, joy, praise, or thankfulness. Khabib is a boxer who has just announced his retirement. So, in the way that we often thank the guys for their hard work, Zayn was just showing off his fandom appreciation!  And, in Z’s extended universe Gigi also joined the Get Out Vote efforts by saying, “I voted absentee last week with my daughter next to me for an America I wanted her to see...”. Did it tell us anything about her daughter? Nope! Not even her name!

[ladycatofwinterfell]

Raindrops, snowflakes, sunshine, part 4

Summary: Catelyn meets a northern boy in her algebra class during one of London’s many rainy days. Initially she doesn’t expect much, but this boy brings her a surprising amount of sunlight.

@leialannister and I discussed Scandinavian Starks and I realized I really wanted to write a fic so that’s what I did. Swedes depicted in media makes this Swede happy, and NedCat also makes me happy so why not combine it and publish him for everyone to see?

A sigh escaped her when she finally put the cookies in the oven. That had taken a lot longer than she had expected it to. She glanced at the clock, maybe she would have to message Ned and tell him that she would be a bit late.

“What are you baking?”

Elia came into the kitchen and opened a cupboard to take out a glass.

“Chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter” Catelyn replied.

“Any chance I can get one when they’re finished?”

“Absolutely. I made too many anyway.”

Either she was baking for a country or for one small child, she could never make anything in the right amount. That day she had apparently decided to bake for all of London. But that was good, then she could leave some at home and bring some to Ned. Taking up her phone she quickly wrote him a message about that she would be a bit late. She had planned on starting to bake earlier, but then there had been some obstacles. The obstacles were that she had promised Cersei to paint her nails and do her hair for her date. Which she didn’t regret, Cersei had looked awesome when she was done.

“Can you make too many cookies?” Elia asked.

She opened the fridge and took out a carton of orange juice.

“I can only bring so many to Ned without looking like a crazy person.”

“Who’s Ned?”

Had she never told Elia his actual name? She guessed not. He was known as the Swede in their household, Ashara and Cersei exclusively called him by that name.

“The Swede.”

“Ah, I guess your date went well, then” Elia said, smiling.

“It wasn’t a date, we’re not dating.”

“Whatever you say. Ash told me you wouldn’t talk much about it, so I figured it didn’t go well but if you’re baking for him it can’t have been too bad.”

“It wasn’t bad at all, he’s really nice. I like him.”

“So why not date him?”

Catelyn sat in a chair at the kitchen table while Elia poured her juice.

“Because I’m not interested in him in that way. He’s cute, I can admit that, but no.”

Elia just shrugged and put the juice back into the fridge before leaving the kitchen again. Catelyn wasn’t baking because she was interested in him, she had just been walking around feeling guilty about that she had nothing to give in return for him teaching her to draw. So she had decided that the least she could do was bring him some homemade cookies. It didn’t feel enough, but it was something. She started gathering up all the things she had used so that she could clean them, but just after she had filled the sink with water her phone started buzzing. She cleaned her hands and walked to take her phone, expecting it to be Ned, but instead her uncle’s name was on the screen.

“Hello, Uncle” she said.

She had been calling him twice a day all week to find out what that phone call from Edmure had been about, but he hadn’t answered her. She had almost believed he had got into an accident, but her father had assured her that Uncle Brynden was just fine. He hadn’t known what it was about though, and he hadn't known why Brynden wasn't answering his phone.

“Little Cat, good to hear your voice!”

She put the phone on speaker and picked up the dish brush, beginning to scrub away remains of cookie dough.

“You could have heard my voice much earlier if you had taken my calls” she responded.

“My phone died and I lost it, but my husband found it behind a shelf earlier today so now I could call you” Brynden said.

Catelyn had to keep herself from laughing.

“How did it end up behind a shelf?”

“Believe me, I would also like to know that.”

“Alright. Edmure said you wanted to know if I would be home for Christmas, can I ask why you wanted to know that? You know I always come home for Christmas.”

“I thought of visiting you soon if not, but now when you’re coming home for Christmas I can wait until spring.”

None of her family members had come to visit her in London, she had just gone back home. Which made sense, but she still wanted to show them her life there. She would have insisted he come before Christmas if she had not had an exam coming up. She wouldn’t have much time to spare, and if he was coming to London she actually wanted to be able to see him and do things.

“You’ll have to promise you’ll come this spring. I would love to finally get to show you how I have it here.”

“I promise. Might bring Edmure too, the boy is eager to see London.”

Edmure had never been to London. When she thought of it she didn’t think he had ever been outside of Ireland.

“You should bring Edmure. It’s about time he gets to see something different.”

“A shame it’s London and not a good city.”

She didn’t like Britain, and she hated what they had done to her country. What they had put her people through. But she had nothing against London in particular. It was a okay place to live and she had made great friends there.

“London isn’t bad, he’ll like it.”

“Of course he will, the boy has no taste.”

“He’s a child” Catelyn chuckled.

“He’ll always be like this. You're a lot like your younger self, I can still see much of little Catelyn Tully in you.”

“Well, you still call me Little Cat so I figured that.”

She stopped what she was doing when her Uncle didn’t answer her. She waited a few seconds to see if he would, but her phone was silent.

“Hello?” she called.

Then she heard Brynden’s voice. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, he clearly wasn’t talking to her. Had to be his husband, he probably had to go. She didn’t have time for a long phone call anyway, so that didn't bother her at all.

“The husband insists it’s time for dinner” he informed her. “So this is farewell for now.”

“There’s no need to talk like it’s the 18th century and you’re going on an adventure at sea, just say goodbye like a normal person.”

“Life is a lot more fun if you see it as an adventure. Therefore I’m telling you farewell for now. Until next time, Little Cat.”

A smile appeared on her face.

“Goodbye, Uncle.”

The phone clicked as Brynden ended the call. Catelyn finished the dishes in silence, listening to the music coming from the living room and Ashara and Elia’s laughter. Often she dreamed of getting her own place, but in moments like those she really liked sharing a flat. Despite that it didn’t have a balcony. She took the cookies out of the oven to let them cool before she would put some in a jar for Ned. And as expected the two other women swept in like vultures.

“Don’t touch them, you’ll burn yourselves” Catelyn warned as she turned her back on the cookies to see if she could find a jar.

She was sure if that she had at least one somewhere in the back of a cupboard. Behind all that other crap they never used. She dragged a chair over and stepped up on it to be able to reach the top shelf.

“Ouch, fuck, goddamnit!”

Catelyn didn’t have to turn around to know that Ashara was jumping around, holding her burned hand to her chest. Her first words were followed by a sentence in Arabic that Catelyn strongly suspected just consisted of more swear words. Elia was laughing and a moment later the tap was running.

“Oh my poor darling” Elia chuckled.

“Told you” Catelyn said calmly.

To her triumph she found a jar. It was ugly as sin, the psychedelic flower pattern was enough to give her a headache, but it was what she had and it was a lot better than nothing.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think they were so fucking hot!” Ashara howled.

“I just took them out of the oven, what did you expect?”

“Not this!”

She rolled her eyes. It wasn’t the first time it happened and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Every time she baked either Cersei or Ashara burned a hand. No matter how many times she warned them of the heat.

“Leave the kitchen and come back in fifteen minutes when they have cooled down a bit, I promise they’ll still be here.”

“Sounds like something someone who’s planning to take the cookies away would say.”

“Just go.”

Ashara pulled a face at her before leaving the room closely followed by her girlfriend. Finally, inner peace. Half an hour later Catelyn left with half of the cookies. She had a suspicion of that the rest would be gone by the time she was back. If Cersei came home before her they would definitely be gone. But she was happy that liked what she made them. That was all she could contribute when it came to food. She didn’t even bother swearing over that the lift was still broken. She just took the stairs. It had already been dark for two hours when she stepped outside the building. She hated it. Autumn was nice, things were very pretty during autumn, but the cold and the darkness she could do without. Catelyn had been surprised when he asked if she wanted to come over to his place. They had been talking about meeting up again, and Catelyn had assumed maybe they would go for another walk or something like it. But then Ned had said that she could come to him if she wanted to, so that he could honor his promise. She was breaking a lot of safety rules when it came to meeting new people by seeing him in a private area so soon, so she hoped he wasn’t a serial killer. She had given both Cersei and Ashara his address so if she went missing they would know where to start looking. But she was very sure of that she would be fine, he was a good person. She was still nervous when she arrived at his building though, but for a completely different reason. She didn’t know what reason, but she sure was nervous. What was up with her? Why couldn’t she just go over to her friend’s place without feeling like her heart would make it’s way out of her chest. It was ridiculous. She was ridiculous. All of it was ridiculous. The building’s door required a code to be opened. She didn’t know the code, Ned hadn’t said anything about that. She took up her phone and texted him.

Code?

His answer came just a second later. It made her happy to know he had been waiting for her.

I’ll be down in a minute

Less than a minute later she saw him come down the stairs through the glass panels in the door.

“Hey” he said after having opened the door.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late.”

“No need to apologize. You’re here now, aren’t you?”

They began walking up the stairs.

“The house doesn’t have a lift” Ned said. “Sucks when you have groceries.”

Catelyn couldn’t hold back a smile at that. The house had four floors, how bad could it be? She guessed it was sort of a problem if he lived on the top floor, but that was still less than what she was used to.

“What floor do you live on?”

“The third.”

“Not to belittle your struggles or anything, but I live on the sixth floor and we have a lift, but it never works. That sucks.”

“Wow, I take back everything I said.”

When they reached the third floor there were three doors. One to the left, one to the right, and one right ahead of them. He opened the right one and then gestured for her to enter before him. He held the door open for her as she walked inside and she found herself in a small hall. Only a shoe rack and a coat hanger fit in there. Past that was a small flat, consisting of only one room and door that lead to what Catelyn guessed was a bathroom. Directly to her left was a very clean kitchen, across from it, on her right was a neatly made bed. Ahead of her on the right was a couch and a TV, and across of that was a round table with five chairs around it. On almost every flat surface there was a plant, on the window sills more than one, giving life to the otherwise white and grey room. A lamp above the table was on, but apart from that the place was only dimly lit up by smaller table lamps and fairy lights. All the walls had some sort of art on them, ranging from sketches to full paintings, the only exception was where the bookshelf was. The bookshelf didn’t seem as organized as the rest of the flat, she found no pattern, and books that didn’t fit in it had been placed in piles on top of it. The scent of coffee and something sweeter filled the air. Maybe it came from one or several of the flowers, maybe it was the laundry detergent he used, maybe it was something completely different. She didn’t know, but she liked it. It wasn’t large, but it felt so much like a home. One was immediately hit with the feeling that someone had made that small area their own. She had been in homes where it was clear that the owner only used it as a place to sleep, but so was very much not the case with Ned’s home. And best of all, he had a balcony. She would have killed for a balcony.

“Welcome to my humble home” he said, closing the door behind them.

“I love it” she responded in complete honesty.

“It turned out a lot better than I initially thought, it didn’t look very nice when I moved in.”

“One has to trust the process. And that balcony can’t have made things worse.”

“It faces an alleyway, the view is terrible.”

She didn’t care what the view was, it was the balcony itself that made her happy. Though of course she wanted her future balcony to have a nice view if it wasn’t too much to ask for. She put her bag down, and took off her shoes and her coat. She liked the shoe rack, she would have to raise the question of getting one for her own home with Cersei and Ashara.

“We don’t have to draw if you don’t want to, but I thought I would at least present the option" he said when he went inside before her.

She noticed that there was a bunch of papers and pens on the table. She also noticed that Oden was sleeping underneath it. She hadn’t seen him at first, but she smiled when she did. She didn’t think she had ever smiled at a dog.

“I’m eager to learn every little thing you have to teach me.”

“Amazing, where would you like to start?”

A class where she got to make her own curriculum, how nice.

“You said you’re good at drawing people, right? Can you teach me to draw a face?”

He sat by the table and pulled out the chair on his right.

“That shouldn’t be impossible.”

Catelyn sat next to him and they began. She believed he had said that he wasn’t a very good teacher or something close to that the previous time they had met, but she heavily disagreed. With patience he guided her through everything, redid stuff half a hundred times just so she could see it and understand. After a while the table was covered in drawings of facial features and faces from different angles. It was easy to tell which ones were his and which were hers, but she wanted to believe she was improving. And Ned said she was, he came with much encouragement. But she came to a point where it didn’t feel like it. She had trouble getting lines straight, it looked very shaky.

“I can’t get it straight” she sighed in frustration when she tried for what had to be the tenth time to get a nose right.

Ned studied her drawing and her hand for a moment before answering.

“You need to relax your hand, you’re too tense. It makes you shake.”

“I am relaxing my hand!”

He put his pen down and scooted his chair closer to her. At first she didn’t understand what he was doing but then he put his left hand over hers, gently helping her adjust her hold in order to relax her hand. Maybe she should have been focused on trying to get it right, but she was mostly focused on keeping her breathing steady. He was close to her. He was very close to her. She could smell his cologne. And he was essentially holding her hand. She kept her eyes downwards, tried to do what he wanted her to do, but she was positive her heart was going to stop.

“There you go” he said. “Try now.”

“Okay” she said, hearing that her voice was a higher pitch than usual.

She hoped he didn’t notice. She tried to keep her hand steady despite that she was shaking a lot more than she had been before.

“It looks better now, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Both of them jumped in their chairs when the door opened. In stepped a man who somewhat resembled Ned, they had the same hair color and the same facial features, but he was taller. And very attractive. Catelyn had to stop herself from looking at him too much and instead turned her gaze to the dog he had with him, another German shepherd, who seemingly didn’t have Oden’s calm temper. He pulled on his leash, wanting to come over to where they sat. She hoped he would stay right where he was with that dog, she had a feeling of that she wouldn’t like it as much as she liked Oden. Oden immediately left his spot at their feet and walked to lie down in a corner of the room, clearly wanting nothing to do with the other dog. Catelyn realized that she had instinctively tensed up, so she took a deep breath and forced her shoulders down. It was just a dog. Except for that it wasn’t. It was a scary dog, and she could feel her pulse go up.

“Vad gör du här?” Ned sighed, scooting his chair away from her again.

It made a loud, scraping noise. Not like when he had came closer to her.

”Jag skrev att jag tänkte komma förbi, men du svarade inte” the man said with a shrug.

Catelyn wasn’t sure of what she was going to do, and as usual she didn’t understand a word of Swedish. She assumed he was Ned’s older brother, as they looked alike and both spoke Swedish.

“Det fanns en anledning till det” Ned said, annoyed by whatever it was that his brother had said.

But the brother didn’t seem to hear him, he instead looked at Catelyn and smiled.

“Didn’t think I’d ever see you again” he said.

She had never seen him before, what was he talking about?

“You must be mistaking me for someone else, we haven’t met” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He laughed.

“I’m not mistaking you for someone else, you don’t forget hair like that. You have nice hair.”

She tried to remember when and where she could have seen him. They didn’t have class together, she would have known if she was in the same class as Ned’s brother. Had she met him at a pub? She never got drunk enough to not remember people she had met. Was he a friend of a friend? That seemed like the most plausible explanation. She would have to ask around about that.

“Thank you, I suppose, but I have to apologize, I don’t remember you.”

It was embarrassing. She didn’t believe that had ever happened to her before, she usually remembered people. Though at least she wasn’t blushing.

“Then I won’t be the one to remind you, let’s start over” he chuckled. “I’m Brandon, the better looking one. I never got your name last time so what’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Men för fan, Brandon, bete dig!” Ned said firmly.

“Language, little brother” Brandon said. "And I am behaving."

She assumed Ned had told him to behave with a swearword thrown in somewhere. She didn't know which word it was though.

“He has a point, you’re being a bit of an arse. So please replace sweetheart with Catelyn next time, that’s my name.”

“That’s prettier than sweetheart anyway.”

He didn’t seem to be that sharpest knife in the drawer, it sounded like something out of a book on how to compliment women. But he was good looking, and maybe he was better after one got to know him.

“Thank you” she said once more, twirling her pen between her fingers.

“Vill du ha henne eller kan jag ta henne?” Brandon then said to Ned. “Hon är snygg.”

”Vad är det för fel på dig?” he responded in an exasperated voice. “If you didn’t want something important can you please take your dog and leave?”

“Du behöver inte bli sur” Brandon said, raising his free hand into the air.

“I’m not, but you’re being inappropriate towards my friend and Tor really upsets Oden. So can you leave and come back tomorrow?”

“Varför på engelska?”

“Because Catelyn doesn’t understand Swedish.”

“Du pratar inte med henne.”

“No, but she’s here.”

Catelyn certainly was there. She was also thoroughly confused. She had no idea about what Brandon was saying, and she had no idea about why Ned was talking about her. It almost would have been better if she didn’t understand anything at all instead of only getting bits and pieces.

“Look, I’m free tomorrow, you can come back then. Men nu skulle jag uppskatta om du lämnade oss.”

Brandon studied his brother for a moment, then he grinned.

“Absolutely. Godnatt.”

”Godnatt, Brandon.”

Brandon and his dog, who she assumed was named Tor, left and the door shut behind them. She had to do a lot of assuming as she didn't understand much. Oden stayed right where he was, his gaze fixated on the door like he was expecting Tor to break back in. She understood him.

“He’s most often not like that, I’m sorry” Ned said as he got up from his chair and walked over to sit by Oden on the floor. “I won’t excuse his behavior, but I want you to know that he can be nice.”

Oden immediately placed his head in Ned’s lap, but kept his eyes on the door.

“Mind if I sit with him for a bit?” he asked. “He gets stressed around Tor. They’re from the same litter and Tor partook in the puppy bullying that went one when they were little.”

“Puppies are so small and cute, how are they capable of bullying?” she said.

“Kids are small too, and they still bully each other.”

“I guess. Still hard to wrap your head around it. I mean I get it now, that was a scary dog, but a puppy?”

“Are you afraid of dogs?” he asked, surprised.

How could he be surprised about that? She had believed that she had clearly shown him that she was afraid of dogs.

“They have lots of sharp teeth, they make loud and sudden noises, large ones can easily kill you, it’s not really my thing. Oden is fine though, he’s very polite.”

Ned chuckled.

“More of a cat person, huh?”

Catelyn looked him dead in the eye.

“If you make one single cat pun I will get up and leave” she threatened.

“Based on the look on your face it feels like you have heard them all already.”

“I have heard them all. Multiple times. I doubt anyone can come up with a new one at this point. They aren’t worse than the fact that an ex used ‘Kitty’ as a nickname for me through.”

She had learned to accept KitKat, she would never learn to accept Kitty. She hated it, she was a grown woman and didn’t want to be referred to the same way one referred to a cute kitten. Luckily no one else had used that nickname and she thoroughly hoped it would stay that way.

“I take it you prefer just Catelyn, then?”

“Or Cat. I don’t mind Cat, it’s short and easy to spell.”

People never seemed to spell her name correctly on the first try. There were simply too many ways to spell the way her name was said. People often replaced the C with a K and threw in a couple of i’s for good measure. So sometimes it was easier to just go by Cat.

“I get it, often it’s easier to go by a shortened name.”

She snorted.

“Your name is three letters and super easy to spell, you don’t get to complain.”

Ned laughed at that.

“I always go by Ned, but it’s not actually my name. My name’s Eddard.”

So she had been right, Ned was short for something.

“It’s a nice name.”

“You said that about my dog too, so I don’t know what to believe.”

Had she? She had no memory of what she had said upon learning Oden’s name. It had been weeks since that. But he was probably right.

“You both have nice names, that’s all there is.”

“Thank you.”

She left her pen on the table and stood up.

“Do you want cookies?”

He shrugged.

“Cookies are good, but I unfortunately don’t have any. I would have got some if you had said you wanted it.”

“No worries, Eddard Stark” she said as she went to get her bag from the coat hanger. “I can supply the cookies.”

She pulled out the jar and went back to the table.

“Did you bake?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

He got up from the floor.

“I hope you don’t have any severe allergies because I really don’t want to kill you, and I also hope you like chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter because that’s what I baked.”

“Sounds amazing. Can I make you some tea to go with the cookies?”

“Absolutely.”

Catelyn sat at the table again while Ned walked to the small kitchen.

“You know you didn’t have to bake” he said as he took two mugs out of a cupboard.

“I wanted to give something back to you for inviting me into your home and trying to teach me to draw. And I’m good at baking, so I thought I would bake you something” she explained.

She picked up her pen again, once more put it to the paper and tried to get the shading on the nose right so that it didn’t look so flat. Very softly she moved the tip of the pen, and found that she managed to keep her hand steady while doing so. Maybe he had managed to get something into her head, after all.

“I really appreciate it, thank you” he said and she heard him fill a kettle with water.

“It was the least I could do.”

She stopped for a moment to look at the paper in front of her. That actually looked like a nose. It wasn’t nearly as good as what he had done, but it was the best nose she had ever managed to draw. Maybe her pride was childish, it wasn’t a big accomplishment, but she really hadn’t expected to do so well. She could feel herself smile.

“What kind of tea do you want?”

“Uhm, preferably something fruity, if you have it. I like sweet teas.”

High on the feeling of success she moved onto the eyes of the person on her paper.

“Fruity? That’s not very British of you” he responded.

“I know, it’s a conscious choice. Drives one of my flatmates mad.”

Cersei refused to drink sweet teas. She only drank black tea and Earl Grey. Nothing disgusted Catelyn more than Earl Grey. She was also sure of that Cersei only refused to drink other teas out of spite. She was a very proud Brit when it came to tea.

“Is she British?”

“Yes, a born and bred Londoner. My other flatmate is from Morocco, so the British are outnumbered in my home. She’s very strict on the tea though. We’re working on humbling her, but our attempts so far have been unsuccessful.”

“It’s very hard to humble a Brit, I’ve tried.”

“Do you have any advice for me?”

“No, because I failed in epic proportions. He’s still the same.”

She looked up at him. He stood with his back to her, pouring the hot water into the mugs. She wondered who he was talking about. She would have liked to ask, but it didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about it. Whoever it was was probably a lot like Cersei. She loved Cersei, but she sure was a handful at times. Especially when it came to her Earl Grey.

“We have a word for this in Swedish” Ned said.

“You have a word for trying to humble Brits?”

That was unreasonable and way too specific. He laughed.

“That would be ‘försöka göra en brittisk person ödmjukare’, which is a sentence and not a word, but that’s not what I meant. I meant we have a word for sitting down with someone to eat a pastry or something like it and maybe drink something.”

That mad a lot more sense.

“And what’s this word?”

“Fika. Most people do it daily. We have breaks at work for fika.”

"Is that a verb or a noun?"

"Works as both. You can fika, but you can also sit down for a fika."

“That’s brilliant, there should be an English word for that.”

“One of many things I miss from Sweden.”

She turned her gaze downwards again, but found that she didn’t have the same luck with the eyes that she had had with the nose. She tried to do what he had showed her, and she looked at everything he had drawn out for her on a different paper, but she just couldn’t get it to work.

“You’re doing very well.”

Turning her head up she found him standing right behind her, leaning forward slightly to see better. And for some reason she could once more feel her heart racing in her chest. And that time he wasn’t even touching her. What was wrong with her?

“Thank you” she said.

That time she managed to keep her voice normal, so that was always something. Ned put her mug down and sat next to her again. Catelyn opened the jar and offered him a cookie before taking one herself.

“I hope you like them.”

She raised her cookie in a cheers before taking a bite. She couldn’t know what he thought, but she was more than happy with the result. Those were some tasty cookies, if she could say so herself. And based on his reaction he seemed to like them as well.

“These are really good” he said. “Like, really, really good. Screw drawing, can you teach me to do this?”

Catelyn tried to keep herself from smiling as she had her mouth full, but found that she was unable to do so and raised a hand to hide her mouth.

“This isn’t even my best, you should taste my carrot cake. I make a killer carrot cake.”

“I love carrot cake.”

“Me too.”

He paused for a moment before smiling.

“Do you want to hear a word that’s even more brilliant, but that doesn’t exist in English?”

“Definitely, share your Swedish wisdom with me.”

“Lagom. It means just the right amount of something. Not too much and not too little. It doesn’t matter what it is, anything can be lagom.”

Her phone started buzzing and she threw a glance at it. She planned on not answering, whoever it was that demanded her attention could wait, but when she picked it up to put it on silence and saw that it was Cersei she quickly changed her mind. Cersei was out with some guy Catelyn didn’t know, and maybe something had happened or she needed an out. Helping her friend was way more important than not having a small interruption.

“I’m sorry this keeps happening, but my friend’s out and I really don’t want something to happen to her” Catelyn said before taking the phone.

“You don’t need to apologize, make sure your friend is okay.”

“Hey, is everything alright?” Catelyn said after having accepted the call.

“Yeah, it’s alright, thanks for asking. And you, are you alright?”

There was nothing in Cersei’s voice that suggested otherwise and Catelyn was instantly relieved. She was okay.

“I’m good.”

“Great, I was just wondering if you and the Swede would like to come to a Christmas party?”

“What?”

“Yeah, Robert hosts these large Christmas parties every year and he’s in the bathroom at the moment so I thought I’d call you and see if you wanted to come.”

So that was the name of her boyfriend. Robert. Catelyn would have to remember that. And if she went to the Christmas party she would get to meet him too. From nothing to both a name and an opportunity to meet him in person in a matter of just a few seconds, how nice.

“Can we talk more about it when we’re both home?” she said.

There was no need to talk about it right then, both of them had other things to do. And it wasn’t like the party would be anytime soon, there was still awhile until December, they had time to talk about it later.

“Of course, I just didn’t want to forget, you know how I am. But check with the Swede, will you?”

“I’ll check with him” Catelyn promised.

“Good, I’ll se you at home.”

“See you at home.”

Ned was quite obviously pretending not to be curious, but she saw right through it. She had noticed he wasn't very good at pretending.

“My friend’s boyfriend is having a Christmas party and she wondered if we would like to go.”

He didn’t try to hide his surprise though.

“We? As in me, too?”

“She asked for you specifically, so yeah.”

She didn’t know if it was because she wanted to meet Ned or because she didn’t want to make Catelyn feel lonely. Catelyn didn’t feel lonely. She was fine on her own and it didn’t bother her that her flat mates were in relationships.

“Unless I have something else I guess I can go.”

Catelyn smiled. Before starting to speak she realized how much she had been smiling since arriving there. He made her smile a lot, he made her feel good. She liked that about him. She liked him.

“Yay! It’ll be much more fun with you there.”

“I’m not the biggest fan of parties, and I won’t know anyone. But I can try for you.”

Oh God, he was sweet. Really really sweet. Boyfriend material. Husband material. Perhaps even father material. Catelyn wished she had been interested in him. He could try for her.

“I’m not sure I’ll know anyone either. I’ve never even met her boyfriend, and I learned his name just now. So we’ll be in it together.”

“What is his name?”

It made her think of Cersei demanding names every time Catelyn met a new person and teasing her over it. But Ned didn’t know about that, he just asked a polite question.

“Robert.”

A frown appeared on his face and that, and he turned his eyes downwards for a moment.

“Robert? Robert Baratheon?” he asked.

“I don’t know, why?”

“I used to know a Robert who hosted yearly Christmas parties, that’s all. But most likely it’s just a funny coincidence. Many people have Christmas parties, there has to be more than one Robert.”

“London is a large city and Robert is not an uncommon name, the probability of it being the same person is very small.”

She would have been able to figure out the exact probability for it being the same person if she had got a bit of time. But that was unnecessary, it wasn’t hard to understand that it was low.

“You’re the one who knows math, I’ll have to trust you.”

“It doesn’t take much math to figure that out.”

“I’ll just have to trust you in general then.”

She felt like her math skills were more trustworthy than her general knowledge on stuff, but that was unnecessary information to share.

“I hope you’re not going to regret it” she said instead.

“How nice of you.”

Ned sipped his tea and finished his cookie. Then he picked up his pen again, but instead of continuing on the drawing he had started while she did hers he took a blank paper. With an incredible speed he began moving the pen over the paper, and it left Catelyn somewhat confused as it didn't look like anything he had shown her.

“What are you drawing?” she asked curiously, stretching to see better.

He glanced up at her, his gaze focused in a way that made it seem like he was studying her. It didn’t make her wonder what he was doing any less.

“Could you be still, please?” he asked gently. “Or, well, you can move, but it would be good if you remained in the same position for a bit so that I can do a quick sketch.”

Catelyn hadn’t even reflected over how she was sitting until he said it. She had pulled her legs up and was sitting cross legged on the chair, as she always sat at home. In one hand she held her half eaten cookie, and the other was fiddling with her pen. When had she picked the pen up? None of that mattered even a little though. Because he was drawing her. And she was immensely flattered, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around why.

“Why are you drawing me?”

“I just liked the setting, and thought it would make for a good drawing” he responded casually. “Och du är vacker.”

She couldn’t be entirely sure, but she believed she had heard that last word before. And the more she thought of it, the more she grew sure of that he had said it to her before.

“You’ve said this to me before, right?”

He paused for a moment, as if he hadn’t believed she would notice that. But she had noticed. And she wanted to know what the hell it was that he was saying to her.

“Might be that I have.”

“What does it mean?” she asked, putting on her most charming smile in order to convince him to tell her.

“Nothing.”

“Then there’s no reason you can’t tell me. Come on, I thought we liked each other enough for you to translate for me.”

She couldn’t tell if he was blushing or not because of his beard, but something gave her the feeling that he was. She didn’t know exactly what that word meant, but she had somewhat of an idea about what it could be.

“If you’re flirting with me it’s okay to do so in a language we both understand.”

Not even a second after the words had left her mouth she regretted having ever been born. She shoved what remained of her cookie into her mouth before taking her mug and raising it to her lips, drinking the tea despite that it was still too hot for taking more than a little sip. She would rather burn her tongue than look at him after whatever the hell that had been. He was quiet and she wondered what was going through his mind. Did he think she was stupid? Or did he think she was flirting? Was she flirting? No, that hadn’t been flirting. She wasn’t even interested in him, he was just her friend. She liked him as a friend. And still she had heavily implied that he was flirting with her. She didn’t even know if that was what he had said. She knew no Swedish at all. Fuck.

“It means you’re beautiful” he finally said. “‘Vacker’ means ‘beautiful’.”

“You think I’m beautiful?”

“You probably think I’m a total weirdo right now, and I really don’t blame you, because this was very weird. And I want you to know that I would understand if you wouldn’t want to see me anymore” Ned said, and she had never heard him talk as fast as he did in that moment. “Not that we’re seeing each other in that sense, we’re not dating, och helvete, jag gör bara det här värre för mig själv, I’m so sorry.”

He had that miserable look on his face again. The same one he had had when they spilled coffee over themselves. But all Catelyn could do was laugh. Laugh at how he felt the exact same panic that she had felt just seconds earlier. Laugh at how they were both nervous wrecks pretending to be calm.

“Are you laughing at me?” he asked.

“No, I’m not, I just think the whole situation is funny.”

“How nice, I just feel like an idiot.”

“Believe me, so do I.”

“Once again, I’m sorry for ruining everything.”

“You didn’t, Ned” she assured him. “Nothing‘s ruined. At least I don’t think so.”

Did he think so?

“So we’re fine?” he asked.

“Yeah. We’re fine.”

He looked at her for a moment before sighing. Then he kept on drawing. And so did she. They didn’t say much more, just sat in silence except for an occasional exchange of words. And even though it had started very awkwardly Catelyn soon found that it was a quite comfortable silence. She could sit with him and be quiet.

“There” he said after a while. “It’s not my best work, the colors are a bit off, and your hands look awful, but it’s okay.”

She looked at his drawing and was left speechless, wondering what his best work was if that was just okay. Because she was looking at a drawing that was very clearly her. Sitting cross legged on a chair with half a cookie in one hand and a pen in the other, smiling. So what if the color of her hair wasn’t exactly right and her fingers looked a bit weird, it didn’t matter. It was still good. It looked good.

“What was that word you called me?” she asked.

He frowned.

“What?”

“Beautiful in Swedish.”

“Uhm, ‘vacker’, why?”

Catelyn wouldn’t have been able to pronounce that correctly if so her life had depended upon it, but she could give it a try. And she would give it a try.

“Because this drawing is vacker.”

Ned smiled at that.

“You think so?”

“Definitely, I love it.”

He slid it over the table to her.

“If that is so you can have it.”

She left not much later with the drawing in her bag, her head so full of things that she two times almost tripped and fell down the stairs because she forgot to watch where she was going. Most of all she thought about Ned. Everything about him, from the way he smiled to how he had thrown in a sentence of Swedish when he was embarrassed. She also thought about how he had called her beautiful. She hadn’t known it before, but Ned believed she was beautiful. That knowledge made her chest flutter. Maybe she was interested in him after all. Just a little bit though, it would most likely pass. 

[kob131]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buv3TA7dvdE

You know, for someone who supposedly watched Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid-

How is it I caught onto that Ilulu isn’t a fucking loli just at first appearance? Me, where the closest I’ve come is playing Dragonmaids.

So the first section is just the speaker setting up how she wanted to like the anime but apparently she got less and less enthusastic as the show expanded beyond Kobayashi and Tohru.

... Red flag. In my personal experience, this tends to taint a person’s view of a work and causes them to seek out problems with the work in question even when it goes beyond what a normal person or even what they themselves would do in other circumstances. So right away- I’m pretty damn skeptical.

We further go into the video and the person states that are an artist and they know what they are talking about. ... Okay, first off- You’re talking about coding as if it isn’t your internal projections (we’ll get to THAT later) so no, you don’t. Second, I don’t know if the artist thing is suppose to be connected to the ‘know what you are talking’ part but considering by the same logic a writer would know an abusive relationship in media...and Twilight exists- That’s bullshit. And third- why should anyone trust someone they likely never have watched before?

Next we get into ‘Coding in Media’. Here we have the person giving a definiton from the wikipedia article. I’ll copy paste the highlighted stuff:

“- a reader may initially interpret a set of signifiers as a literal representation, but clues may indicate a transformation into a metaphorical or allegorical interpretation diachronically “

“- i.e. acknowledging that there is sometimes an ideological quality to the coding system, determining levels of social acceptability, reflecting current attitudes and beliefs. “

However, I would like to point something out- This is from the ‘Discussion’ tab. Not the general part which she shows but doesn’t focus on. Here’s the definition she gives:

“Coding is a term used in media to refer to when the author wants to convey an aspect of a character to the audience but does not want to or isn’t allowed to explictedly state what that is.”

Here’s the article’s definition with an added definition of semiotics.

“ In semiotics *{the study of sign processes (semiosis), which are any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the sign's interpreter} , a code is a set of conventions or sub-codes currently in use to communicate meaning.”

Here we start to see things crumble. Semiotics and by extension coding is inherently indirect. Meaning that there isn’t a defined or solid meaning. And what does that mean?

You can basically insert whatever the fuck you want into the ‘code’. Hell, you can even insert meaning into a code that DOES NOT EXIST.

The speaker does it herself in the coming examples.

Scar from Lion King is apparently ‘queer coded’ because he’s ‘effiminate and willowy’.

Jafar too since he wears ‘eyeliner’.

Ursula was ‘literally’ based off of a drag queen.

... Order-

Scar’s ‘effeminity’ is shown with him making a hand gesture...that is a sign of SARCASM. And his ‘willowiness’?

This is a normal feline body.

Jafar’s ‘eyeliner’? Common practice in Arab culture with men. (it’s called Kohl).

Ursula being based off a Drag Queen? Yeah...

“ Calling Divine (real name Harris Glenn Milstead) "the great actor from Baltimore", Musker revealed that one of The Little Mermaid's writers, Howard Ashman, knew Divine and had Rob Menkoff - one of the film's principal animators - to do "some drawings that were based on Divine".

"Even though it’s sort of disguised, it’s based on the character [of Divine]," he said."It just fit the character," agreed Clements. "She was outrageous, theatrical..." “

She’s based off a drag queen...because they happen to have the same personality. And thing is here, even if they are ‘queer coded’- Ressiannce Disney villains are made to be LIKEABLE and ENJOYABLE villains. Contrast this with say...Looney Toon caricatures. They’re meant to be mocked and disliked.

But going back to the Ursula thing- The speaker never actually proves how Ursula was based off a drag queen. She just says it with a picture. And considering that looking into it reveals the basis is a COMPLIMENT. This is relevant because either the person didn’t know this and shows they are just jumping to conclusions (considering what she is talking about- that’s NOT good) or she did know...and continued anyway. Says a lot when ‘shit research’ is the GOOD option.

But let’s strike at the heart. Why would these minor things (even drag queens are not inherently LGBT) be ‘queer coded’ on her eyes when the use of LGBT characteristics as negative are usually MUCH more blatant? Well it kind of has to do with how ‘coding’ works. See, how do you code something as complex as being LGBT? Well, we have a word for it already. A very well known word.

‘Stereotyping’

No really. The hand gesture Scar used is a stereotypical gay man gesture, gay men are stereotyped as being thinner, wearing makeup with men is stereotypically gay, drag queens are stereotyped as LGBT. The speaker is using stereotypes of LGBT people to determine of a character is ‘coded.’

Issue- Stereotyping assigns universal things to specific groups simply due to connotations, ignoring reality in the process. In reality, Scar’s gesture is one of sarcasm, condescension and sadism with his lithe figure being a connecting thread to the Hyenas, his mooks. In reality, Jafar is just an Arab man. In reality, drag queens are not inherently LGBT NOR is Ursula displaying any other traits associated with being LGBT.

If you wanna hear what I hear- replace every instance of ‘coding’ with ‘stereotyping.’

Also I find it hilarious that she goes on about how ‘not all coding is bad!’ when showing Steven Universe characters later on...as she ignores context with the Disney villains (and I suspect with Ilulu).

So she goes onto specifically ‘child coding’, using things like ‘small, naive ect.’ She also acknowledges that shorter women exist, using La Brava from MHA as an example, talking about how her figure is proportionally more like an adult than a child and how she fits into MHA’s style despite her face looking like a child’s apparently

Moving beyond the Kanna stuff (don’t care)- she talks about how Ilulu’s face looks like a child’s and how her height is proportional to Kana...similarly to how she mentioned La Brava. And talks her body? Non existent.

Why? Well, let me show you a full body picture of Ilulu without her loose shirt.

Here’s a picture of Kanna.

Notice something? 

Ilulu has a thinner waist, a more pronounced buttocks and wider hips.

All things that indicate a more mature body than Kanna.

‘But KOB! We can’t actually tell what Kanna’s body type is like!’

Okay, here’s the chapter 100 cover-

Kanna’s body is clearly different from Ilulu. In fact, Ilulu more resembles Tohru, an ADULT. 

And if you REALLY think Ilulu’s body type is out of the ordinary for dragon bodies in this manga-

No, no she really isn’t.

The speaker tries to say they ‘de-babified’ her in the anime with this image from the manga-

But you can tell from the way she’s drawn this isn’t normal and is likely a comedic moment.

And going back to coding- Ilulu has a job, something children CANNOT HAVE.

‘But she admitted that her face in the anime was more defined than Kanna’s, her eyes are still lower though!’

Yeah, here’s the thing-

Ilulu’s not an adult either. She’s a teenager. Of course she’s not the same as adults but she’s also not the same as a fucking CHILD.

‘B-but she admitted La Brava is also short but she’s still unquestionably an adult!”

And yet she ignores how Ilulu is, by the same metrics, not a child. She says Ilulu talks like a child. ... But doesn’t explain HOW with the season 2 trailer. In fact, her La Brava example can actually be seen as childish due to her high tone. Yes I can here the...inflections that are similar to Kanna but numerous anime have used it with non-prepubescent characters to denote immaturity.

And as the final nail in the coffin- Back in the coding section, she mentioned that authors do this because it might not be socially acceptable. Issue is, the manga has the adult Lucoa trying to seduce a child (which she never mentions or even alludes to which is surprising) so clearly, the author doesn’t feel uncomfortable with the idea so even the justification is bullshit.

All in all, this comes across as projecting her own interpretation of things onto the original work. Which DEEPLY pisses me off.

[spartanbunjase]

This week’s server sunday random dialoge prompt was:

I continued my Jason Todd/Ra’s al Ghul fic. 

Warnings: mpeg, omegaverse, Bruce is rude but he is trying. 

All the Batfam are involved. 

The Batcave was silent. Jason had been missing for close to six months. His safe houses completely stripped bare, even set alight in some cases. The family had been suitably worried. All except Damian, his only change in behaviour being how oddly quiet he’d gotten.

 They all assumed it was because he was missing the one person from his early years who cared for him. They’d pulled him into the centre of their group as they stood around Bruce at the computer. The head of their family had a dark pensive look on his face. Which wasn’t anything new for the brooding alpha. Especially not while he was wearing his ‘night’ suit.

 “Robin,” the man growled. The family tensed. It was never good when he addressed you by your code name. The boy let slip a small whimper, trying to hide behind Dick as if he knew what was about to come. “You knew didn’t you. You know where Jason has been this whole time and didn’t tell any of us.”

 Before the pre-teen could resist the pack alpha pulled up video footage from outside one of Jason’s old safe houses. It was the one that most resembled a permanent place of residence. Something Jason had refused to have since coming back.

 The family watched as the pair exchanged words then hugged. Jason handed the small alpha a package and gave him a quick scenting before disappearing from view. As they watched they saw Damian slip the package into his hand and disappear too.

 The omega looked different. Lighter in a way that reminded them of the boy who’d died. His clothes were like nothing they’d really seen him wearing and there was a cuff in his ear that sparkled so much it was clear on the video. He was also smiling, the family realising they’d only seen that expression on the omega’s face if Damian was around.

 Bruce then pulled up another video. This one showed the inside of Damian’s room. Dick was disgusted at the blatant invasion of privacy. Curling his arm around the young boy and holding him tightly.

 On screen Damian opened the parcel and pulled out a phone. It was a basic model, cheap and easily replaceable. They all knew what they were for. Calls that were difficult to trace. Bruce had cut the video so it skipped forward to the following morning. The young alpha awoke and immediately picked up the phone. Punching in a number he clearly knew by heart. The call lasted half an hour, the pup getting visibly more relaxed as the time passed.

 Next to appear on screen was a file filled with similar videos. One for each day of the six months Jason had been missing. Realisation dawned on the family.

 Damian knew.

 Damian had watched them running themselves ragged looking for the man. Had heard the distress from his brothers as they cried on their father when safe houses were found burned down and no reports of Red Hood had been heard anywhere in the Underworld. Each wondering if they’d pushed him away and triggered whatever meltdown caused him to run.

 Unable to control his reactions as the titanium box he kept around his temper shattered, Dick pushed Damian away. Screaming in frustration as tears poured down his face.

 The young alpha looked heartbroken. He’d anticipated a bad reaction, he just hadn’t expected to get pushed away. To be outcast, rejected, in a manner similar to how they’d acted towards the omega in question.

 “Where is he?” Bruce turned on his youngest. The Bat wrapping around him so he didn’t display the difficult emotions he was feeling. “Where is our pack omega Robin?”

 The pup seemed to turn in front of their eyes. Gone was the distressed child. Now he was the embodiment of his parents stoicism. Damian pulled the phone from his pocket and hit dial.

 After two rings a sleepy voice came over the line. “Pup? What’s wrong, you’re earlier than normal.” It was Jason. Their omega. He didn’t sound hurt or lost. He didn’t sound unstable like one idea that had been put forward. He just sounded sleepy and, apart from the obvious anxiety over his pup calling, strangely calm.

 “Nothing is wrong Ummi,” Damian said. He quickly changed to League Arabic. “The family discovered that I knew where you were but I didn’t want to tell them until you were ready so I phoned you instead.” The young alpha watched Bruce twitch at the language swap. He’d never taken the time to learn League Arabic; never having the intention of needing it. Damian had no plans to teach him either. There were only two people in the family who knew it and both were talking via the phone.

 “Ugh, seriously,” Jason groaned. Dick could just picture his brother running a frustrated hand through his hair. He wasn’t speaking Arabic, luckily. Although there was the edge to his voice indicative of a man who’d spent his early years speaking exclusively in Spanish.

 Tim stepped between the youngest Robin and their father. Hands held out in a placating manner. “Hey Jay, it’s Tim. We just want to know where you are, that you’re safe, and that you’re happy. We know Damian didn’t intend to let us worry as he did, he did a bad thing for a good reason. Just, please Jay.” Everyone present could tell he was using his victim voice. The one they all had a variation on that they used to help calm the victims and get the most evidence from them.

 The omega let out another groan. It sounded like he was rolling over in bed. Sheets being untangled as Jason cursed quietly in Spanish. “Sorry about that Baby Bird, just getting comfortable as I have a feeling this isn’t going to be a quick call. Yes, I’m fine. I’m safe and, excusing this phone call that’s woken me up far too early, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

 The family felt the guilt land over them like a thick blanket. They’d not managed to make him happy. A pack filled with alphas and betas hadn’t managed to make their only omega happy. How much had they failed him that that was the case. What hadn’t they done to let him know how much they loved him.

 A smooth, recognisable voice suddenly came over the line. Slightly muffled as they spoke more to Jason than the phone. “Why are you on the phone so early my Beloved? You must get your rest.” Damian’s cheeks flushed as he listened to his grandfather. He’d never heard the man sounding quite as fond as he did, a softness to the sharp edges that made the man. The man was right of course. As it was around eight in the evening in New Jersey it’d be closer to six in the morning for the couple.

 The Bat growled. Ra’s al-fucking-Ghul had his son, his pack omega. It didn’t make any sense. Jason wasn’t one to be easily manipulated; so why was he there?

 Another curse came across the line, almost as if Jason had forgotten he was still on the call. “You calm down, right now B! I mean it! Otherwise I’ll come get my pup and you know it’ll be bloody.”

 Bruce looked like he was going to murder someone, fists clenching and straightening out as he tried not to punch something. Dick, however, was too lost in nostalgia to notice. His little brother had been chopping and changing between English and Spanish. An adorable behaviour he’d always had in the mornings. It was another thing he’d not heard his Little Wing do since before his death. The list now suddenly inexplicably very long. Well, no, there was an easy explanation but Dick didn’t want to admit to himself that he was the reason they’d not bonded.

 “If you bench Dami for doing something bad for a very, very good reason I will shoot you. Or at least order the ninjas that follow you all on patrol, on our behalf, to pull back from protecting you. Wonder how long you’ll last without it.” Jason was more awake now, ranting and cursing Bruce out in Spanish. A sure sign that Jason was getting too angry too quickly. The den mother that he’d become to Damian awakening at the imminent threat to his pup. Even if that threat was only to have something he loved and thrived with taken away. He wouldn’t let the kid suffer for something he’d asked them to do.

 Damian whined as Bruce began to growl louder. A thunderous noise that had him whimpering in fear. He’d not had a fear response like that in a long time, not since he’d been a couple of years old. The League and his mother training it out of him. The noise cut Jason off from his tirade, the man always having allowed Damian to be a kid and relax enough to have any response he needed.

 More shuffling came over the line and a whispered conversation was almost heard. More noise than words. “Okay, Beloved, if you insist.” Ra’s said, his voice getting louder as he obviously bought the phone to his ear. “My deepest apologies for all that, my Beloved is just getting dressed. He said you would know the code you needed to input in the zeta transport and he will meet you there. I look forward to having my Jason’s pup coming to stay with us.” Without waiting for a farewell the man ended the call.

 The pup could feel the eyes of the rest of the pack on him. He had deceived them all, but what was he supposed to do with how they’d made Jason feel. His Ummi was the most important person to him. Damian had just wanted them to find happiness and had known that that happiness would be found with Ra’s since he was a young pup. The man doted on his Ummi like no other alpha ever had, valuing him for his strength and mind as much as his looks.

 Training forced Damian to straighten his back and look each member of the pack in the eye. He didn’t regret what he’d done. He couldn’t. Jason had sounded happier with every call. More relaxed and closer to the Jay he’d spent many an hour with in the nest back in the palace. The pre-teen raised his gaze to meet that of his father. That sliver of fear trying to work back in was mitigated by the fact he’d be in his Ummi’s arms sooner than he thought he would be. A plan from years ago now coming into effect if he’d heard Ra’s correctly.  

 “You have something to say I presume Father.” Damian’s voice was a haughty coldness they’d not heard in years. A boy trying to hide his emotions like the man in front of him.

 “That was highly irresponsible of you. We are all coming with you to get Jason back. He is this pack’s omega, not another one of Ra’s harem.” It’s clear the pack alpha expects to be obeyed. His brain visibly blue-screening when Damian tuts at him and rejects him.

 “You seem to be mistaken Sire.” Dick cringes at Damian changing to Sire. It’s a great offence to call anyone that in America, even if it is accurate to their role in conception. It showed you place that person lower than pack, lower than anyone you have come to see as a parental figure. A role Dick is now sure Jason has filled for Damian. “I am going to see Ummi. I might send for my things, however, knowing Jason and his alpha as I do; I probably won’t have need of most of them. Richard, I am sure you will know the items I wish to have with me. Thank you for all you did for me while I couldn’t be at my Ummi’s side.”

 He cast a scathing look back towards Bruce. Green eyes ablaze with a torrent of emotion. “Jason was just reaching a point where he was going to invite all of you out to stay for a week. I will talk with him but I am sure the offer will now only extend to my siblings.” He bowed, just as he had been trained to do. Just as he’d stopped doing when Jason had returned to the family after Bruce’s disappearance in time and he’d been the Robin to Dick’s Batman.

 Without waiting any longer the young alpha marched over to the Batcomputer and input one of the codes he and Ummi had buried there years ago. Take me home. A simple code that would be verified on Jason’s end with; wherever you are is home. It overrode the tracking ability of the zeta and allowed them to travel to Nanda Parbat undetected. It would only work if the person on the other line was there to respond. The code he’d used would be wiped clean as soon as Jason accepted it.

 As the swirling light of the transport filled the bay behind the vehicles Damian cast his Sire’s pack one last look. He would be seeing most of them again just outside of the place they all felt most at home. They wouldn’t be being true to themselves. As the light enveloped him, Damian gave those present a wave.

 When the swirling light receded he found Jason waiting for him. A car idling nearby and the area clear of all personnel. Damian ran to his Ummi, fully intending to throw himself into them. Skidding to a halt when he realised why Jason had called him to Nanda Parbat instead of collecting him from Gotham. A soft curve barely visibly under the baggy t-shirt. Ummi was pregnant.

[bluesunsdusk]

✏️ Any particular reason for the names you used for your ocs?

✏️ Any particular reason for the names you used for your ocs?

–// I have a lot of ocs, so I will pick some. It’s going to be long either way… ))

Overwatch

Najma (Najma Daher)

When Naj was first made, they had Prima as placeholder name and their kit was based around light, but I struggled to really place them in the universe. They were still based in Oasis, with sumerian aesthetic, and they were an AU for a fandomless oc. I was still trying to pick where the heck they were from. I added Najma as possible name because it means star and is Arabic. As they finally developed to suit the universe more and be an own character, the name stuck, because I like it and they are a warm person and the sun keeps us alive, and Naj was made to help keep someone alive. Dunia, their owner, was named to reflect her meaning in Naj’s life. Dunia was their whole reason for existing, their world, their life. 

Najma coincidentally also works for…other reasons.

Najma’s code name, Nazar, comes from that their abilities are most effective when looking into their lights and optics, which flare up when they use their ult as well. Their optics are also blue.The evil eye, which causes harm upon those who have been struck by it.

I think Daher meant clear. Najma does’t actually have a surname, as they are not a member of the family rather than just property of said family. However, I still wanted the surname to be something with a tiny bit of a fitting meaning. Rather than doing it by naming conventions used with Mamun, I went with them just having just a family name, much in Europe and the US. I also kept it to just two names this time.

Mamun Wasif Said

Mamun had a long list of names on his hero sheet. See, the given name is an aspiratory trait, the second the father’s name, and the third the grandfather’s name or family name. In Mamun’s case, Said is his grandfather’s name. So, that means Mamun’s dad is called Wasif. Gien names he could have been Majdi (commendable, praiseworthy), Marwan, Naseer, etc. His surname could have been Assaf, Kassar, Al-Mansur (the victorious), or Nasrallah (god’s victory). Now, I am not at all close to being an expert on arabic naming conventions, so I was like let’s keep it simple. 

Now, Mamun is supposed to be a tank hero and his character design was made to emphasise that he is a soft and huggable man who deserves the whole world. He needed to look sweet,warm, trustworthy, and dependable. Mamun is a name that feels like it has soft edges. It’s gentle. There’s no hard tones in it. Mamun means dependable, which is something he wants to be and his parents would have wanted him to be as well. A good son, brother, and eventually (if he so wished) husband. 

I forgot what Wasif meant… I think I just liked how it sounded with Mamun compared to the other names listed along with it. I matched several names that were listed on his hero sheet behind Mamun and they didn’t sound nearly as good with it as Wasif did. It means ‘one who praises’.

Said was just a good name to follow Mamun Wasif with. It just wraps it up nicely when I wanted three names in there. It means happy. 

Spigel

Spigel’s name is explained in his bio, I think. The name is given because he’s able to copy the appearance of a person and uses this after eliminating them to blend into a faction he’s trying to infiltrate or wipe out. It takes observation of mannerisms, appearance, speech patterns, etc. to do a convincing guise, and once that is done, it will be like looking into a mirror for the target.

He was always called Spigel because that’s Luxembourgish for mirror. Sure, it’s not smart for the assassin to take a nickname from his own personal origin, but…it’s fine if a guy from Luxembourg gave him that nickname rather than him giving himself said nickname.

Roland Marie Schroeder 

Roland is a pretty common name in Luxembourg, and Marie is a common middle name. I liked Roland as a name, because is seems warm and strong, and Roland is a quiet dude at times, but even though he’s pretty small as well, he can take up a lot of social space just by being a little… dramatic. He would have liked the name because it is, as Monty Python would say, woody. At least, I think it was Monty Python, I’m not sure anymore and can’t find it.

Michael Abatangelo 

Michael was the general of the archangels, and putting Michael together with Abatangelo makes it sound close to Michelangelo. Though, the latter was on accident and I was like yep that’s his name now. I went through several names I don’t really remember. Michael was a strong name that also sounded pleasant.

Fable

Aidan Fawkes

Aidan is an Irish name that means fire. I didn’t know quite what to call him. I didn’t want a name that was just big strong man large energy. It needed to sound not too thick, in a way, maybe a little light to suit his personality. He also had a lot of energy growing up and was a sweet guy. 

His father’s name is actually Mac Lochlainn. That’s a reference and not chosen for the meaning because it’s not used on Aidan. Also, it’s just really nice sounding surname. His grandma on his father’s side’s surname was Kelly. A very common surname where they were from. Anyway, Aidan’s dad didn’t want his kids to have the disadvantage of having a foreign surname. The given names, however, weren’t too odd, and both of his parents did want to give him a link with his father’s heritage in their names. Furthermore, he was born with red hair. 

As such, Aidan was given as his name, and he was bestowed with the surname of his mother, Fawkes. I picked Fawkes because 1) It sounds good with Aidan 2) it means falcon, making his name fire falcon 3) Guy Fawkes. 

Duncan Reynold 

I know the hero in Fable 2 is called Sparrow. However, that is a title/nickname, not a legit name. Surely, his parents, whom Sparrow canonically knew, gave him a real name. I wanted him to have a legit name. I wanted him to be of scottish-type origin. Now, Duncan has tanned skin from being out and stuff and dark hair. He’s also a brawny guy. He would have picked himself a pretty awesome name that feels strong, also… it has can in it, because he can do it. I jest. 

Duncan is a mix of two parts. Together, these parts form a name meaning dark-haired warrior or dark warrior. Of course, he doesn’t know that. He just thinks it’s an awesome name. 

Reynold is a carry over from trying to give king Logan a surname. It’s also a mix or two elements, advice and rule. English meaning is wise/powerful ruler (or something like that. It can also be advice from a ruler or king’s advisor, but let’s ignore that). While Duncan was that, Logan eventually proved not be.

Mass Effect

Medesa Adrestis

It’s actually from Medusa, because she’s a bit of a protector who gets spun into a villain because of the methods she uses to protect herself and others, which is often violent and rather fatal, since slave traders deserve no rights. I think there was something else, but I forgot… Oh, right! Her surname, Adrestis. I saved it in my drafts and idk if it’s still there…

I looked it up to jog my mind!

It’s from Adrestia and Adrasteia, and I didn’t want to name her exactly after that despite Asari names looking painfully ancient Greek inspired and very feminine. 

Adrestia is a figure from Greek mythology, she who cannot be escaped, venerated as a goddess of revolt and just retribution. Adrasteia, “inescapable”, was a nymph charged with taking care of a child Zeus. Medesa was charged with taking care of Toreg. 

Vicarius Hzzek and Lictor Kgrln

So, I won’t explain their names, because I assume Kett names are either just ID codes or can’t be easily changed into a more human tongue. I will go for their titles, though I believe I have explained it in a hc post before. Kett ranks seem based on Roman Empire influences, as is a part of their culture in general. They have Cardinals, Archons, Anointed, Ascendants. These seem religious. A Vicarius is a word that means substitute or deputy. It’s the root of the English word “vicar” as well and is used in things like vice-president. Anyway, Hzzek is a secondary to a Cardinal, making her vice-cardinal of an exaltation facility. 

As for Lictor, this comes from another Latin thing. A Lictor is a type of bodyguard to a magistrate. Kgrln is one of Hzzek’s Destined, who is also assigned with escorting and guarding her. He does this together with other Destined who would also be of the Lictor role/title. 

Dragon Age

Kata

Kata used to be an arvaarad and he considered himself the death of many a saarebas. That, and he is an assassin type, like a katari. He brings death to those who try to oppose him with violence, so basically he’s still death, just to other people now that he’s no longer in the qun. It’s sort of a method of intimidation. If a qunari is told they’re about to meet death, they might reconsider their current course. 

Kost

Kost had another name, aban, which probably means sea, when going by “Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun.” Which means “The tide rises, the tide falls, the sea is unchanged.” He chose it, because the sea is unchanging and also clam. He was the same after leaving the qun as he was when he left. 

Eventually, however, he changed his name to Kost, after staying with a group of Tal-Vashoth who helped him become less stuck in his qun ways and more able to see himself as a person. He came to be at peace with himself and took on the task of assisting some other new Tal-Vashoth in the process. As such, he took on the name Kost, “peace”, to reflect this. 

[sarasfm]

Sarauniya “ Sara ” Davies, 24, pansexual, cisfemale, ISFP Enneagram 9w1; Pisces sun, Sagittarius moon, Pisces rising 1st year Advanced Encryption Major; did not go to a spy prep hs

Imma keep it real with you, chief, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. I mean, obviously, I know what espionage is ; I’ve read books and articles, and I’ve seen Spy Kids and all the Charlies Angels and James Bond movies, but I genuinely think I need a minute to wrap my head around everything. Make that two weeks, because what’s this I hear about two murders ?  I literally just got sent here to be safe, I — I’m sorry, I’m freaking out. Give me five seconds, and we can start again, because I promise I can totally pretend this is all normal. @gallagherintro​

full name: sarauniya “ sara ” davies

dormitory room: 105

birthday: 20 march 1995

soundtrack: “ go gina ” by sza

favorite dish: efo riro

aesthetic:  when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of light reflecting from her earrings, eyeglasses perched on top of her head, and a caviar iphone always in her hands

Bio Points

her mom’s a nigerian baddie billionaire & her dad’s a soft academic brit

she grew up between london and abuja where their family’s business is based. it’s a trading enterprise, the largest industrial conglomerate in sub-saharan africa

she’s the eldest of three siblings, was raised to be prim & proper and groomed to run their family’s business. her family’s not pushy though and they’re really cool. very healthy dynamic so she doesn’t mind ; she loves her fam and would do it w a smile !

Coding is her Passion though. total dork. stayed up all the time just sleuthing and being an internet geek since she was a youngin’

loves education and is the type who would willingly stay in school to learn. has a degree in economics from harvard and was almost done with her mba when her littlest sister got abducted !  was it about business ? money ? who knows ! the sister’s fine now but her family sure is Scared especially since sara’s alone in the big bad united states

her mom made some calls and went “ gimbiya, look, u aint safe n we sorry. we’ll work something out to make sure u get ur mba degree somehow but shit is wild so we gotta get u somewhere near that’s safe asap. u like studying & ur a geek with computers right ? cool beans, go back to school & welcome to gallagher, babe ”

she enters gallagher in the middle of the spring semester very overwhelmed & inwardly ignoring how unhappy she is about having to be here bc she is not & does not want to be a spy. she just tryna distract herself by looking at this entire thing as a weird vacation where she can do stuff she wasn’t able to before because it’s literally detached from the world. she is mostly probably in way over her head, but let’s see ! 

Other Information

Nicknames: Sara (to everyone), gimbiya (to family, means princess in Hausa)

Languages: English (native), Hausa (native), Arabic (C1), French (B2)

Strengths: is money a strength ? also coding. and being the sweetest. and a general smartypants but that’s in a university setting & gallagher probably doesnt give a fuck

Relationship History: only has one (1) experience. ( well,,, 2 if a three-second drunken kiss w kass counts ) his name’s royce and they’ve known each other since their bougie secondary school back in britain. started dating at sixteen and went to harvard together. they’re long term as fuck. he’s like her best friend and their families adore the couple & each other. got engaged last september and sara broke it off before leaving for gallagher, oof. she deadass milked the opportunity but lbr she wasnt rlly Feeling It so she’s kinda glad for the ‘valid reason’ to appear bc it rlly wasn’t Love for sara so boy bye

Physical appearance: 1.76m, 55kg, long black hair, slim and toned build

Classes: GEN 105, GEN 206, AE 101, AT 101, PE 101

Personality

the sweetest. v charming & sensitive to others & curious about things. enthusiastic too ! loves adventures & is very passionate. queen of empathy. 

she’s not stuck up even tho she loaded. she doesnt rlly talk abt her family having 12B or the fact that she’s an ivy league girl, bc she’s just generally very uwu 

easily stressed and flustered and overwhelmed ! man, gallagher’s gonna shook this goddamn academic dork to her core for the love of god someone pls get the aed ready

rlly fun !!! can be a lil unpredictable bc it b lyk dat for rich girls. loves her independence which she hasn’t maximized bc of her ex fiancé & responsibilities but it’s chill so chill totally chill, no ounce of further longing exists in the crevices of this girl’s heart

she is so not good with confrontation and is so allergic to conflict ok. she will sweep discomfort under a rug and lie on it ‘til it’s flat which makes her a queen of repression & conforming

is she easily overwhelmed & stressed ? yes, but she’ll try not to show it so much. it’s all mostly an internal monologue so don’t underestimate her pls. she’s v smart and competent. can be so competitive ( albeit mostly inwardly ) and a boss ass business bitch like her business momma bc that’s what she’s been training for altho she is still generally a soft bab so ... yeah, if u would be so kind as to Estimate her, that’d be grand

she needs to always be on top of her game. maybe not the best in the class, but definitely pushes herself to be her best, so a lot of late nights studying & won’t settle for bad grades ever. gonna be rough in gallagher bc she is not spy material ok, she’s just a pretty rich geek behind a computer

just imagine her as the nice girl in ur ap classes who’s a lil awkward & just so happens to be super hot & stinking rich

Fun Facts

has a six-month old rescue pup named sooty ! who kinda looks like a sheparnese

has a tendency to ramble if she’s comfy w u enough or mayhaps if it’s too much man 

is v diligent w keeping a journal & does it everyday 

likes to dance ! not super good but she likes it. hits da clubs for dat shit 

is a lil instagram famous bc she’s a gorgeous rich harvard girl & all that jazz. queen of selfies & of looking hot but doesn’t actually get to play around rip ffff 

doesn’t drink much bc she is an extreme lightweight and 2 is her tap out limit

if she’s had more than 2 drinks, she is Very Honest but still very ramble-y 

she is physically active but mostly just runs and does yoga. knows very basic self-defense. is not sporty, definitely not a fighter, may god have mercy on her soul

isnt a virgin but is not sexually experienced lmao lbr she kinda Itching to get out there 

don’t ask me what her accent is because i have no clue it’s all over the place

Established Connections — just bc i think y’all would like to know

kassandra sutton — internet friends ! loves kass to bits. have known each other since sara was 14. when kass was 18, sara took her on a grad trip to montreal and became a lil lowkey into her. doesn’t help that kass drunk kissed her & doesn’t remember lmfao. poor sara told her then-bf & they had a lil fight but they made up bc sara didn’t talk to kass for months. eventually they became friends again & now sara’s in gallagher w no idea that kass is a mf sutton & honestly, my girl is just very shook w everything 

Possible Connections

crushes — she does not know how to flirt. she is ,,,, p pathetic tbh but a real heckin cutie. will be super nice to ur bab ok  

flirtationships — sara and i r gonna continue to keep it real w u chieves, her ex fiancé royce was vanilla and bland as fuck. can u believe she has not been single in a decade ? ? someone give her love & attention & fluster this soft innocent child. get her Experienced but also dont hurt her

enemies/angst !!! —  or maybe do ! maybe hurt her. maybe obliterate her. maybe smash her poor heart to pieces, because tbh i would love that.  so someone pls for the love all things holy and divine, someone hurt her !!!!

fwb — probably just one (1) bc she’s still a romantic ? and she’s probably gonna want something exclusive even if it’s no strings attached and will surely want to ,.,. get to know them a little bit more first ,,, at least ideally , idk , maybe impulse & thirst gets the better of her one of these days who knows lets find out !

friends !!! — sara will love u ok. she may be a lil easily flustered but she’s doesn’t rlly give up on ppl quickly. as i’ve said, queen of empathy. probs feels v sorry for majority of the gallagher & georgetown kids bc, .,.,., this environment just screams highkey Trauma to her and she’s valid bc she’s right

mentors !!! — she hates feeling dumb ok she Always has to be on top of her game, so u can bet ur ass after her first meetings in her classes she goes to ppl going “ hey could u help me out w working out ? boxing ? firing a gun ? literally everything & anything ? ”   

anything & everything — meaning just come @ me & let’s talk about it uwu 

( did i just create georgina’s antithesis ? fuck yes, and i am sooo excited to have a child that’s not always plotting & scheming & being mean like y’all have no idea ;_; nywy, that was long bc shutting up and brevity are things i do not possess. whats up it’s ur og flower garden girl rose here aka bugleweed aka fiancée of many and lover of all, and i am open to anything and everything ! just drop an IM or hit dat like & ill slide in ur dmz w love, plots & sanitized hands x )

[aneasternsoul-blog]

Starting from India and heading to the west, this area had strong contacts with ancient India from many years ago, and is said to have been a part of greater Bharatvarsha before the war of Kurukshetra, which is said to have been about 5,000 years ago.

In the Ramayana we find wherein Valmiki describes present Afghanistan as Gandarvadesh. It was Pushkal and Taksha, two sons of Bharat, the brother of Lord Sri Rama, who defeated the Gandharvas to rule there in the capital that had been built as Pushkalavati (known as Pukli in Afghanistan) and Takshashila, now in Pakistan. Gandarvadesh became Gandhar in the Mahabharata era. A princess from Gandhar married a prince of Hastinapur, namely Dhritarashtra.

The Gandharvas, when they were defeated at that time, moved farther west where they established the “Gana Rajya” republics. They continued to move farther west and established the Avagana Rajyas republics, which become known as “Avaganasthan” until the arrival of Islam when the name became Afghanistan. The rivers also changed names, such as the Kubha became the Kabul, Krumu became the Kurran, Gomati became the Gomal, Sarayu became Harayu, and the Sarasvati became the Harhaity. The Savastu became Swat Valley, and the mountain Mujavat became Munjan.In about 250 BCE, Emperor Ashok sent Buddhist monks to Avaganasthan and Buddhism was accepted. That is when vihars and stupas were built, along with huge images of Buddha on the hillsides. It was after the 10th century CE when many Islamic invasions took place and changed the Vedic and Buddhist nation to Islamic. Even Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian, was from Salatura, Afghanistan.

The Mahabharata also calls the area of Persia as the land of Parsikas, which some people think of as the Parsu (Axe) wielding people, who carried it for defense. However, this can also refer to those who were removed from Bharatvarsha by Lord Parashurama many years ago. The name Persia is a derivative of the Sanskrit name Parasu, which was the battle axe of Parashurama. Lord Parashurama had led 21 expeditions around the world to chastise the Kshatriya warriors who had swayed from the Vedic principles and became cruel and unruly. This was before the time of Lord Ramachandra. Persia was overrun by Lord Parashurama and his troops and succumbed to abide by his administration. According to E. Pococke on page 45 of his book, India in Greece, the land of Persia was known as Paarasika.

One of the first to begin recognizing how the influence of Indian forces spread throughout the Mideast was E. Pococke. He says, “I have glanced at the India settlements in Egypt, which will again be noticed, and I will now resume my observation from the lofty frontier, which is the true boundary of the European and Indian races. The parasoos, the people of Parasu Ram, those warriors of the axe, have penetrated into and given a name to Persia; they are the people of Bharata; and to the principal stream that pours waters into the Persian Gulf they have given the name of Eu-Bharat-es (Euphrates), the Bharat Chief.”

The Persians or Parsikas, having been banished from Bharathvarsha by Parashurama, later changed their religion even more with the appearance of Zarathustra who established Zoroastrianism. However, it is said that the Parsis who have settled in India are accepted as the Parsikas, the ancient people of Persia, and are also related to the Koknastha Brahmins of Maharashtra who worship Parashurama at Chiplun in coastal Konkan. Dr. Poonai is another researcher who describes the ancient migrations out of Bharatvarsha, India. He explains that several Sanskrit speaking Aryan clans emigrated to the west beyond the Aegean area. He says that in the early part of the third millennium BCE that states of Caria, Miletus,Lydia, Troy, and Phrygia and surrounding areas were occupied by people who spoke various Sanskrit dialects.

The Indian fables, legends and literature also made their way to the West and into the Middle East as early as the 6th century BCE and had considerable influence wherever they went. The earliest of these collections included the Buddhist Jatakas, and the Vedic Panchatantra and the Hitopadesha. Also the Shukasaptati was translated several times into Persian under the name of Tutinamah, and through its transmission many Indian stories found their way into Europe. The story of the two jackals, Karkataka and Damanaka is yet another example of an Indian fable which was rendered into Pehlavi in the sixth century, and then in the seventh century into Arabic before being translated into Persian, Syriac, Latin, Hebrew, and then Spanish. Most of these fables and stories, if not all, were woven into the very fabric of European literature, and Indian motifs continued to be utilized in medieval Europe no matter if people recognized them or not.

Mr. Pococke further explains his conclusions. Even during his day of the mid-1800s, he wrote: “Who could have imagined that latitudes so northerly as the line of Oxus and the northern Indus would have sent forth the inhabitants of their frozen domains to colonize the sultry clime of Egypt and Palestine! Yet so it was. These were the Indian tribes that, under the appellation of ‘Surya,’ or ‘the Sun,’ gave its enduring name to the vast province of ‘Suria,’now Syria. It is in Palestine that this martial race will be found settled in the greatest force.”

Here we can see also, as did Pococke, how the names of the countries changed yet still held the seeds of its original influence, and from where that influence was coming from.

However, things changed, and the Vedic influence subsided, which is briefly described by V. Gordon Childe in his book The Aryans: “In Palestine the Aryan [Mitanni] names have totally disappeared by 1000 B.C., and even in the Mitanni region that have scarcely a vestige behind them. Here at least Aryan speech succumbed to Semitic and Asianic dialect, and small Aryan aristocracies were absorbed by the native population.”

THE SUMERIANS

The Sumerians were considered some of the earliest residents of the Middle East, namely Mesopotamia, who originally came from or had been a part of Bharatvarsha. The Sumerians also claim to have originally entered the valley of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris some four thousand or so years BCE, bringing with them some basic elements of civilization already developed to its final form, such as a script and a code of law. The original homeland has not been positively identified, yet many researchers have stated that the Sumerians were a part of Vedic Aryan culture, meaning that they had to have come from the land of Bharatvarsha.

“After extensive research, Sir Arthur Keith concluded that one can still trace ancient Sumerians eastwards among the inhabitants of Afghanistan and Baluchistan, until the valley of Indus is reached some 1500 miles distant from Mesopotamia.”

L. A. Waddell has also expressed that the Sumerians were a part of the Vedic tradition, as was discussed in Proof of Vedic Culture’s Global Existence. But there was also the discovery of inscribed tablets that are said to be from a period before 3000 BCE that bore the names in Sanskrit of the Sumerian kings in Babylonia. Some of these names coincide with the names of the Puranic personages who were either kings or great sages. This would also further indicate that the Sumerians were of the Indo-Aryan stock, emigrating from the area of ancient Bharatvarsha into Babylonia. This is why the names like Indaru (Indra), Baragu (Bhrigu), Kush, Mana (Manu), Dasratta (Dasaratha), Kashipu (Kashyapa), Varen (Varun), Barama (Brahma), and others are found on these tablets in Sumer. 19 The book called The Sumerians, an Oxford publication, also says: “We find that the Sumerian civilization was an off-shoot of the Vedic Aryan civilization. Archeological evidence, in the form of relics of the past Sumerian language still exists which leaves no doubt as to the real incentive behind the origin of the Sumerian language.”

THE KASSITES

The spread of the Vedic culture into the region of West Asia can be seen with the Kassites in 1750 BCE in Mesopotamia, where they worshiped Surya. Other Vedic groups were undoubtedly in the intermediate region of Iran, which consisted of several ethnic groups including the Elamite and the Turkic.

The Kassites were Indian immigrants who entered Babylonia around or before 1760 BCE. The first Aryan presence is marked by the use of the Sanskrit word suryas, designating the sun, by the Kassites in Babylon. 20

This shows the reason why the clay tablets excavated at Boghazkoi in Asia minor in 1907 invoked the gods as guardian of the treaty with the names of the Vedic gods, such as Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatyau. This was the treaty between the Hittite king Shubbiluliuma and the Mitanni king Mittiuaza at the beginning of the 14th century BCE. This sheds a good deal of light on the Aryan expansion in that part of the world 1400 years before the Christian era.

SYRIA

The princes and towns and gods bearing Sanskrit names or names derived from classical or Vedic Sanskrit abounded in Syria so freely that it is natural to presume that there had to have been a settlement from India in that region during this period of time or even earlier. Or that the area of Mesopotamia was once a part of the Vedic culture, and many of the people there had been worshipers of the sun, or Surya. This is where Syria, once called Surya, got its name from the tribes of sun worshipers there.

For example, the Indo-Aryan families that had settled in Syria were known as the Mitannies and Hittites, along with a prince named Dasaratha.The Hittites were known to have been in the Middle East since 2200 BCE. Another king in the region entered into a treaty invoking the Vedic gods of Indra, Varuna, Mitra, and Nasatya as guardians of the terms of the treaty. The treaty was drafted near the beginning of the 14th century BCE. And we know that the oath to the gods in the treaty has value only if the members of both parties hold allegiance to the gods who are invoked. 21

LEBANON AND THE DRUZE

The Druhyus ruled in northwest Aryavrata some 5000 years ago, but after being defeated by the Purus, they moved to the northwest. They brought their culture with them as they moved through different areas of Central Asia. The Vedic relics in these areas arrived there because of the Druhyus. However, they were greatly reduced during the onslaught of Islam. Nonetheless, they became known as the Druze and still practice similarities of the Vedic tradition where they can presently be found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Jordan.

They have their scripture, kutub al-hikma, or wisdom books, which is a collection of epistles and correspondence between their great thinkers, one of which is called Epistles of India, indicating some of them are from India. Within their wisdom books you can detect the influence of the Koran along with Greek and Vedic philosophy, especially in their conception of a transcendent God and their acceptance of reincarnation of the soul and karma. 30

Amongst the Druze prophets, Jethro is one of the most recognized, and is a major preceptor of the Druze. Some consider him to be the father-inlaw

of Moses, though the Druze feel Jethro was only the guardian of Zipporah and not her father. Nonetheless, Jethro had great influence over Moses. Jethro was a Kenite, a part of the Midianites, a tribe descending from the sons of Keturah who were sent by Abraham to the East, such as India. It is from there, it seems, that the origins of the Druze oral and written traditions were based. And in turn, Jethro was the teacher of Moses.

In this way, the roots of the Judaic traditions are likely to have been based on the Vedic culture and its philosophy of India, through the instructions given by Jethro.

The Druze are considered to be an Arabic sect of Islam, though an unorthodox one. Still, most Druze believe their roots to be in India. And they can still easily relate to the teachings as found in the Vedic texts today. Their own scriptures describe a history dating back hundreds or millions of years, with avataras of God appearing in human form on a regular basis. They also accept the transmigration of the soul from one body to another as a central tenet of their philosophy.

In fact, the late Druze political hero and renown spiritualist Kamal Jumbalat often glorified Lord Krishna, the Bhagavad-gita, the Ramayana, and other Vedic texts and divinities in his own writings. He also spoke about the Druze going to India and taking up the renounced order, such as sannyasa. Jumbalat himself was a vegetarian, and later lived accordingto the principles of the retired order as found in the Vedic system.

The term “Druze” was coined by the Muslims of the time. Nearly 1000 years ago El Drazi was considered a heretic, and the other Muslims, to deride this new sect that he was a part of, referred to the group in a derisive manner using the name of El Drazi to identify it, which became the Druze.

The Druze considered themselves as the Muwahidoon, meaning the one, eternal religion, similar to the meaning of Sanatana-dharma. 32 The current manifestation of the Muwahidoon, known as the Druze, oiriginate from al Hakim Bi-Amr Allah, the sixth Fitimid Caliph, who ruled Egypt during the late 10th and early 11th centuries. Some Druze have revealed that the original language of their scriptures was Sanskrit, and that avataras such as Buddha and Krishna are described therein.

TURKEY

In briefly looking at Turkey, more recent research by B. G. Sidharth, writing in his A Lost Anatolian Civilization: Is It Vedic? (Research Communication, 1992), relates that he was startled to see a sculpture of the head of a priest, excavated at Nevali Cori in Anatolia (present Turkey) by archeologists headed by Professor Harald Hauptmann of Heidelberg. Sidharth had gone to the Nevali Cori site. Sidharth in mentioning the head said, “It is identical to the head of a Vedic priest, so common in India even today. The sculpture represents a clean shaven head with the typical plait or Shikha.” According to radiocarbon analysis, this head dated to further back than 7000 BCE, thus making it clear that the Vedic Aryans had been in this area from before that time.

[chiseler]

Boris Karloff: Creature Comfort

Not many actors paid their dues for as long and as hard as Boris Karloff did. Born William Henry Pratt near London in 1887, he was the self-described black sheep of his family (both of his parents were Anglo-Indian). In a photo at age three-and-a-half, he already looks alarmed by something, or by someone.

Pratt traveled to America to become an actor and changed his name so as not to embarrass his family. He played on stage in stock and learned through make-up how to become any character he wanted to be, much as Lon Chaney did. In between plays—and later in between films in the 1920s when he was slotted into many small and usually villainous roles—Karloff had to sometimes work as a day laborer or ditch-digger, which meant that he had problems with his back when he was an older man.

His 1920s villains were usually of Arab or Indian extraction, and his staring eyes and molded features lent themselves to glowering wickedness. Karloff very often didn’t get enough to eat in these years, which added to his impression of aesthetic gauntness. As a mesmerist in The Bells (1926), his best part in silent pictures, Karloff does mesmerize with abrupt gestures that he somehow slows down even before we have taken them in. Just watch the way he manages a very false slow smile, moving the corners of his mouth up and then tossing the smile contemptuously away. This shows an actor in tune with what the camera needs, and what it needed from him was menace.

What made Karloff such a distinctive screen player was the slow, lingering way he moved through space, which created its own atmosphere of dread. In Howard Hawks’s The Criminal Code (1931), which he had played in on stage, he is a convict named Ned Galloway, a man bent on revenging himself on the stool pigeon who got him sent back to prison just for taking a drink. Karloff has a way of suspending his words here—creating a whole little protective world around them—but it is the slowness of his movements that really makes the strongest impression.

Stealing up on the stool pigeon, Karloff approaches this man with slow and almost slow motion physical grace. The man turns and sees him and gives a start, and Karloff gives his own little start, as if to say, “You’re done for, and you must accept it.” There’s something almost tender about the way Karloff does that, something lyric and inevitable, like a movement out of a Martha Graham dance.

It is this skill in silent movement that would come to the fore in the part that finally made Karloff a star at age 44, the creature or monster in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). The creature was given the brain of a murderer, yet he is new born, innocent, and untouched. Karloff always gave make-up artist Jack Pierce much credit for the look of the creature, but he himself suggested the heavy eyelids.

Karloff had to make the full imaginative leap into the creature’s point of view in Frankenstein, and he chooses to portray him as a very poetic figure. Lon Chaney, who was supposed to play the part before his untimely death, would almost certainly have been far harsher in the role, far more the re-animated man with a murderer’s brain, whereas Karloff’s later partner and rival Bela Lugosi, who had made such a hit earlier in the year for Universal as Dracula, would have been scary as the creature, maybe, but never touching (Lugosi actually turned the role down).

Karloff has an essentially gentle, dreamy sensibility, and he emphasizes the pure yearning of the creature, the way he reaches out for light and smiles when Little Maria (Marilyn Harris) gives him a flower. What happens next with Little Maria is the stuff of child nightmares, a scene that was almost always cut but now stands in most release prints: Karloff’s creature throws her into the water of a lake after he runs out of flowers to throw. The murder of Little Maria is only mitigated by the uncomprehending way the creature reacts when he tries and fails to understand what he has done to his little friend.

Karloff’s creature has anger, but it never seems to be the anger from the past life of the murderer’s brain in his head; it is always the anger at what he sees in the world and how he is treated, and it was Karloff who decided to play him this way. “The Monster was inarticulate, helpless and tragic, but I owe everything to him,” Karloff said. “He’s my best friend.” Karloff would remain the fastidious, colorful silk thread winding through the coarse, itchy fabric of the horror genre, and he stayed with it through many incarnations and revivals.

He played a twitchy gangster for Hawks in Scarface (1932), and there his acting seems a bit old-fashioned and external, a mark of the stock theaters he’d played in as a younger man. Karloff is given a big build-up in the credits of Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932) and top billing, with a title card trumpeting his “great versatility,” but he was limited by his looks and demeanor.

It’s hard to imagine Karloff playing something like Alec in David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), or anything so romantically straightforward. In The Old Dark House, Karloff is a drunken and mute brute of a butler with a lech for Gloria Stuart, a straight man in a semi-spoof for the first of many times to come, and he brings some genuine menace and fear to the screen in between the campy laughs of that film.

He was billed as just “Karloff” now, like “Garbo.” He played The Mummy (1932), an Egyptian man buried alive and still seeking his love, and this was a feat of make-up and his slow vocal delivery. Over at MGM in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), Karloff is forced into a camp mode himself, for there is no other way to play the absurd and racist script of that film. “Boris was a fine actor, a professional who never condescended to his often unworthy material,” wrote his on-screen daughter in that movie, Myrna Loy, in her 1987 memoir.

After scads of work for years (he had 15 credits in 1931 and nine in 1932), Karloff slowed down and went back to England for the first time in decades, where he was reunited with his family and made one picture there, The Ghoul (1933). He made several movies with Lugosi, including Edgar Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934), and there was no feeling of rivalry between them, at least from Karloff’s side. His films with Lugosi could get pretty gruesome, with characters skinned alive and vindictive plastic surgery and other things to bring about the shudders and the heebie-jeebies.

“Poor old Bela, it was a strange thing,” said Karloff of his screen partner in an interview in 1964 for Films in Review. “He was really a shy, sensitive, talented man who had a fine career on the classical stage in Europe. But he made a fatal mistake. He never took the trouble to learn our language…He had real problems with his speech, and difficulty interpreting his lines.” Karloff was aware when his films were poor, whereas Lugosi didn’t seem to be, which makes Lugosi a lesser actor than Karloff but also somehow scarier because of this lack of awareness.

Karloff was a religious fanatic in John Ford’s The Lost Patrol (1934) and an anti-Semite in The House of Rothschild (1934) with George Arliss, but the public clamored to see him in more horror. He returned to the creature in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), where he went deeper into the Monster’s conflict between self-protective and even outright malicious urges and a vulnerable reaching out for beauty and love, and friendship. “Alone bad…friend good,” the creature says here, after being befriended by a blind hermit. (Karloff didn’t think the creature should talk, but he was persuaded otherwise.) Karloff’s creature even sheds a tear after deciding to blow everyone up because he has been rejected by his hissing bride (Elsa Lanchester).

Censorship helped to bring an end to the first cycle of horror movies, and so budgets for Karloff films plunged while he played many a mad scientist, his intensity and trouper’s belief rarely wavering in the grind of similar and often threadbare material. He tread a fine line between threat and camp threat, and few players can equal Karloff for pure stamina. Surely he must have sighed sometimes as he got script after script along the same lines, so that it is difficult to tell one of these films from another.

Karloff was reduced to appearing at the poverty row studio Monogram by 1938 but returned to his creature one last time in Son of Frankenstein (1939). He was a man who “looked like Boris Karloff” in the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace for years on Broadway and missed out on the film version because he was still playing it on stage.

Even his patience had some limits. He was scornful of the monster mash House of Frankenstein (1944), and he was vocal about the fact that producer Val Lewton subsequently saved his soul as a performer in a series of low budget, intelligent movies beginning with The Body Snatcher (1945), where he dug up graves himself as once Dr. Frankenstein had dug him up. Lewton allowed Karloff to play three-dimensional people rather than the cardboard cutouts he had gotten used to, and he responded expressively, with lots of careful, poetic character shadings.

There were some changes of pace after World War II for Karloff. He steals Douglas Sirk’s noir Lured (1947) in his reel as a demented and embittered fashion designer, which stands out in his career for its sheer unexpectedness. This film showed his skill at being slightly funny and also fully menacing all at once, which he also needed for the awkwardly titled Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949). Karloff often had better luck with parts on stage than in movies in his later years, scoring as Captain Hook opposite Jean Arthur in Peter Pan and winning a Tony nomination for his work in The Lark, which starred Julie Harris as Joan of Arc.

On TV, Karloff had his own anthology series and also played Kurtz in a 1958 adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for Playhouse 90, realistically and stirringly shuddering about the horror he has seen, and he was the voice of the Grinch in the much-replayed animated special How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

A TV program called Shock Theater re-ran Karloff’s old horror films, and this brought him into the nightmares of Baby Boomers who are still scared by the thought of what happens to Little Maria, or by The Mummy. His program pictures became a staple on television, for they featured those baleful eyes and the hypnotic, soothing voice that could send late-night TV watchers off to sleep sure of a nightmare or two involving the supposedly dead and the supposedly living.

Karloff was in very ill health in his last years, but he still liked to work, finding himself in some campy horrors for producer Roger Corman that co-starred Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and a young Jack Nicholson. The gravity of his face and voice were undiminished by time or poor assignments, and he brought some human dignity and feeling to nearly everything he did.

Karloff played a vampire for Mario Bava in Black Sabbath (1964), and then he was given an affectionate and knowing swan song by the young cinephile director Peter Bogdanovich in Targets (1968), where he played Orlok, a retiring star of horror films. “Do I have to say such bad things about myself?” he asked Bogdanovich, fully aware that Orlok was based on his own image. Bogdanovich reassured him that audiences would disagree when Orlok calls himself a relic, but Karloff wasn’t so sure. He is maybe a little uncomfortable with the meta aspects of that film, but he was a good sport about it.

“He really was a gentle soul,” said his only daughter Sara for a TV documentary. “I don’t think he scared anybody, not in real life.” Karloff was a very generous man and very loath to have that talked about (look at the horrified way he reacts when something generous he had done was mentioned on the This Is Your Life show in the late 1950s). By the time he was finished, he had 207 credits, some of which were only being released after his reported death. Surely some real life mad scientist somewhere might one day re-animate him for us.

by Dan Callahan

[eurekq]

got my full fanganronpa designed with names and backstories and personalities and everything... character info is under the cut! all the bios took about a week to put together so i hope you give them a look <3

basic premise: 16 fresh-out-of-highschool prodigies are invited to star in well-respected and widely-watched reality tv show, which takes place on a cruise ship. what they weren't expecting was for the show's 25th season to be a killing game! the students: TOMOKO KAITA: a peppy and outgoing astrology guru who can read your deepest flaws and strengths with just your date and time of birth. known worldwide for her extremely accurate personal horoscopes. despite this, she strongly believes in the ability of an individual to defy their fate through hard work and self improvement. she dislikes giving negative horoscopes, and does her best to focus on the positives that the stars hold in store. her smile brightens the whole room! she is intensly loyal to her friends, to the point of self-sacficing emotional labor. KENJI MINAMOTO: a formal and eccentric olympic fencer whose strange insistance on not wearing protective gear during practice (he believes it makes him better by giving him a stronger motivation to not get hit) has earned him many a scar over the years, and has left at least half of his joints in braces at any given time. he follows his own bushido-esque moral code, although he will not put himself above whapping the occasional really annoying person in the ankles. his épée is his best friend and he carries it most everywhere. most of the scars on his face and hands are actually from trying to put in his very sharp industrial piercings while drunk. despite his oddities, his lightfooted and elegant fencing has been compared by many to a graceful dance. HAZUKO KAGENO: a secretly sweet and polite orphan who took up puppetry as a child in an orphanage to amuse the younger kids. years of retreating into her puppets' personas has left her unable to communicate normally, and she prefers to talk through her puppets, her favourite being lady ravensdale, a proper lady in victorian fashion. she doesn't take very good care of her actual appearance, with long, tangled, split-ended hair and rips in her clothes. the only exception is her hands, which she keeps meticulously maintained and manicured, since they're the only part of her body visible during shows. her creepy smile and wide, glazed-over eyes are offputting to most she meets, but she is a truly kind and passionate person whose animated and lively puppet shows can bring a smile to any childs face. EISUKE ITOU: eisuke grew up sewing clothes for his younger sisters barbie dolls, and he particularly loved dressmaking. he gained exposure in his first year of highschool by handmaking gorgeous outfits for his class's booth at the school festival, and, through application to various junior fashion competitions, he was eventually noticed by a big-name designer in paris. however, he found learning french next to impossible and has spent the year prior to the game in relative isolation, unable to have any real human conversation. his pyschological state was fairly severely impacted by his long hours spent sewing and designing on internship with no company to get him by, and he is now debilitatingly socially anxious and finds conversation difficult and awkward. SHIN TOKUGEN: a silver-tongued and charistmatic human interest and general news reporter who specializes in getting personal accounts from those affected by newsworthy events. growing up billingual in english and japanese due to his american mother, language comes as easy as breathing to him. in addition to his mother tongues, he fluently speaks chinese, korean, arabic, spanish, and russian. news outlets pay hefty prices for his emotionally provacative and insightful interview stories, which covers all his travel expenses. he has a unique talent for getting complete strangers to reveal to him things that they might not even tell close friends. actual casual conversation with can be a little offputting, since it always feels like an interview, even when he's trying his best to not. MARIKO MIKAMI: mariko was a sickly child, and spent a large part of her elementary school years in hospitals. around the age of seven, she began folding paper cranes as something to do, and wished to live normally after she folded her 1000th. she soon recovered, and feels that she owes her life to origami. she is precise and calculating in everything she does, which shines through in her art: every delicate, artful piece of origami that she makes is creased and folded perfectly. she also dabbles in wet-fold origami. she's most famous for her dry-fold though, and her pieces are well known for their complex, precise, mathematical beauty. she refuses to fold paper cranes anymore, feeling that they are too sacred for her to touch after they saved her life as a child. a calm, slightly disconcerting smile is always on her face, no matter the circumstance; her manner is consistantly cool and polite. YUU IROIKE: yuu iroike isn't even his real name, and it's a mystery as to how show staff even tracked down his mailing address to get him on the show. he's a well-known public figure for painting huge, sprawling, colorful murals in tokyo, yet who he really is remains unknown. he paints faster than his murals can be scrubbed away, and has somehow never been prosecuted for vandalism because his graffiti is generally considered an improvment. he's sly, mysterious, and teasing in person, and gets a bit of an itchy trigger finger when he hasn't painted in a while. His skill with spray paint is so great that it seems as if the paint bends to his very will. MARIYA HAN: born and raised in rio de janeiro, mariya moved to her father's home country of japan at the age of eleven. inspired by the more vibrant trends in brazil as opposed to japan, mariya broke out of her mold at the age of 13 by experimenting with dramatic makeup and dying her hair blonde. she has adopted a delinquent-ish persona over the years due to general disapproval from teachers because of the looks she presents. her impeccable sense of all-around style has made her one of the very few half-japanese models to appear on the covers of magazines like kera and zipper. she has an uncanny sense of color and structure and is able to create attractive and stylish looks for almost any face. HARUMI HAMANAKA: harumi is a sweet and bubbly girl, if almost cloyingly so. her good luck is a fairly stable force (nowhere near as chaotic as komaeda, for example), generally acting in the favor of wishes of people around her. her mother intensly wanted for her to be on the show because of the exposure it provides, and this is what harumi attributes to her being selected. despite the way her luck operates, shes no doormat and in fact has an overwhelming force of personality, and her sweet demeanor can become rather passive aggressive if challenged on pretty much anything. MOMOTAROU KOBARA: momotarou, born into a rich family that fufilled his near-every want, made a name for himself in the world of collecting at the age of just eleven by, through luck and love for the series, collecting every pokemon card. from then on he set onto collecting just about anything non-perishable: pins, collectors set bandaids, vinyls, etc. he has exceptional luck in finding deals on ebay and other sites. he cant really be called a hoarder, since he likes to have just one of everything; he resells, gifts, or uses any duplicates. his mood swings between a dreamy, chilled out, flirtatious persona and periods of numb depression when it hits him that his whole life revolves around material possesions and that he has no real human connections. CHOUMI YUKIYAMA: exceptional among even her fellow shsls, choumi made her historic mark on ballet by becoming the world's youngest ever prima ballerina at the age of 13 and japan's first ever prima ballerina assoluta at 18. fans flock to her ethereal, angelic grace on stage as well as to the percieved sense of otherworldlyness surrounding her albinism. on the darker side of her popularity, repeated sexual harassment from fans and male dance partners alike has hardened her world view to make her not quite cold, but definitely reserved in her emotions. she adapts fairly easy to stressful situations and pushes through pain with almost no visible outward struggle due to her all too common experience with dancing through foot and ankle injuries. because of this she usually ends up taking initiative in difficult scenarios if no one else steps forward. she is also a quite talented hobbyist figure skater and is fluent in both english and russian. REN KIKUHARA: a fairly odd florist in that instead of ordering flowers to arrange into bouquets, every flower he sells is grown himself. although this means that his selection is seasonally and fairly regionally limited, he has an incredible talent for working with plants and can even sometimes coax out-of-zone flowers to grow. he's fluent in hanakotoba and is surprisingly good at flirting through flowers without it seeming cheesy, although he doesn't do it very often. people often remark that his bouquets often seem to have more love and life in them than store-bought ones. ren is a calm and kind soul and prefers listening to talking, with what he does say always seeming to be just the right words for the situation. JUN TENSEI: born jun harada, many believe that his spiritual connection is the real deal, but a few critics hold that he is most likely just an incredibly talented bluffer. the real truth about him is unknown, but many say that his seances do accurately reflect the personalities of their deceased loved ones and help them feel at peace. he is deeply religious, but not to any one traditional faith (although he does use traditional christian symbols such as crucifixes and items such as holy water on occasion). he believes strongly in the power of the soul and its ability to exist beyond death. his voice is soft and low, and he has a penchent for gentle teasing and riddles. he comes off as pretty shady to most, but he's fairly harmless. SARA KUROKAWA: a talented young woman from a long line of popular backalley tattoo artists. she combines traditional symbolism and youthful influence in her designs to make something new and more appealing for the younger generation, and is a huge proponent for tattoos being shown off for fashion rather than hidden away in the traditional style. sara does have (illegal) tattoos done by her older siblings on her arms despite the minimum age being 20, although her being homeschooled, looking older than her actual age, and having a tendency to wear long sleeves year round has led her to encounter few problems. she and her family are among the many who simply choose to ignore the statute requiring a medical license to tattoo. sara is a fairly rude person in a backhanded way, acts stereotypically catty, and enjoys making herself the center of attention, whether through her appearance (dyed pink hair and white contacts) or the things she says. the only two things that can break her shell and make her excited and genuine are tattooing and piano, which she has played from a young age and loves. SHOU KATSUKI (PROTAG): pushed to succeed in the game from a very young age, shou is japan's reigning chess champion, a FIDE-certified grandmaster, and went to international competition the year before the killing game. he played through to the finals with influenza, which worsened through the matches due to lack of treatment and culminated in debilitating pneumonia that left him in the hospital and unable to play for first. because of this, he's cultivated a sort of inferiority complex that he tries to cover for with self-confidence, which actually comes off as condescending rudeness. he has a natural talent for cause and effect analyzation and is good at planning ahead. he gets flustered easily over trivial things and is a sore loser, but tends not to crack under actual pressure. shou doesn't like to be associated with his family due to the intense pressure they put him under only to steal his winnings the second he began to succeed and thus prefers to be referred to by his given name, even by near-strangers. he does genuinely love chess, but his favourite board game is actually risk. (no one ever wants to play with him, though.) MIKI SHIMAZAKI: a child prodigy from a family of cheerleaders, miki learned to love the sport over years of family pressure. famous for winning back to back nationals from age 13 to present, she's well aware of the image of unintelligence and sexualisation that comes along with being a young girl in cheerleading, and these two topics are sort of trigger points for her. after a while she grew tired of people telling her that they were suprised she was nice and were expecting her to be a bitch, so she adopted a fake-nice, popular girl type persona to basically give people what they were expecting. miki trusts very few people due to the many creeps shes encountered, but her few friends are the most important thing in her life and she would stop at nothing to protect them.