#PROVIDE GODDAMN SOURCES

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

very good, peer-reviewed tags via @a-commas-a-pause

the amount of people my age (i think im an older gen z though ive been called millennial so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) or younger who trust the first search result on google is terrifying.

and the volume of them who trust the information from a tiktok with no sources or citations even mentioned let alone linked is even worse.

[ID: A tweet by Popbase that reads, "Nearly half of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram as a search engine instead of Google, new data shows.". Below the tweet is a pic of a poorly drawn Goomba from Super Mario Bros with text below him that reads "are you out of your fucking mind".]

[snekdood]

wonder if trans people advocating for a bloody revolution weigh in the fact that you will have absolutely 0 access to consistent hormones.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An end to the climate emergency is in our grasp

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

The problem with good news in the real world is that it's messy. Neat happy endings are for novels, not the real world, and that goes double for the climate emergency. But even though good climate news is complicated and nuanced, that doesn't mean it shouldn't buoy our spirits and fill our hearts with hope.

The big climate news this past week is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's clarion call about surging CO2 levels – the highest ever – amid a year that is on track to have the largest and most extreme series of weather events in human history:

https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/during-year-of-extremes-carbon-dioxide-levels-surge-faster-than-ever

This is genuinely alarming and you – like me – have probably experienced it as a kind of increase in your background radiation of climate anxiety. Perhaps you – like me – even experienced some acute, sit-bolt-upright-in-bed-at-2AM anxiety as a result. That's totally justifiable. This is very real, very bad news.

And yet…

The news isn't all bad, and even this terrible dispatch from the NOAA is best understood in context, which Bill McKibben provides in his latest newsletter post, "What You Want is an S Curve":

https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/what-you-want-is-an-s-curve

Financier and their critics should all be familiar with Stein's Law: "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." This is true outside of finance as well. One of the reasons that we're seeing such autophagic panic from the tech companies is that their period of explosive growth is at an end.

For years, they told themselves that they were experiencing double-digit annual growth because they were "creating value" and "innovating" but the majority of their growth was just a side-effect of the growth of the internet itself. When hundreds of millions of people get online every year, the dominant online services will, on average, gain hundreds of millions of new users.

But when you run out of people who don't have internet access, your growth is going to slow. How can it not? Indeed, at that point, the only ways to grow are to either poach users from your rivals (through the very expensive tactics of massive advertising and sales-support investments, on top of discounts and freebies as switching enticements), or to squeeze your own users for more.

That's why the number of laptops sold in America slowed down. It's why the number of cellphones sold in America slowed down. It's why the number of "smart home" gizmos slowed down.

Even the steepest hockey-stick-shaped exponential growth curve eventually levels off and becomes an S-curve, because anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop.

One way or another, the world's carbon emissions will eventually level off. Even if we drive ourselves to (or over) the brink of extinction and set up the conditions for wildfires that release all the carbon stored in all the Earth's plants, the amount of carbon we pump into the atmosphere has to level off.

Rendering the Earth incapable of sustaining human civilization (or life) is the ultimate carbon reduction method – but it's not my first choice.

That's where McKibben's latest newsletter comes in. He cites a new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute, which shows a major reversal in our energy sources, a shift that will see our energy primarily provided by renewables, with minimal dependence on fossil fuels:

https://rmi.org/insight/the-cleantech-revolution/

The RMI team says that in this year or next, we'll have hit peak demand for fossil fuels (a fact that is consistent with NOAA's finding that we're emitting more CO2 than ever). The reason for this is that so much renewable energy is about to come online, and it is so goddamned cheap, that we are about to undergo a huge shift in our energy consumption patterns.

This past decade saw a 12-fold increase in solar capacity, a 180-fold increase in battery storage, and a 100-fold increase in EV sales. China is leading the world in a cleantech transition, with the EU in close second. Cleantech is surging in places where energy demand is also still growing, like India and Vietnam. Fossil fuel use has already peaked in Thailand, South Africa and every country in Latin America.

We're on the verge of solar constituting an absolute majority of all the world's energy generation. This year, batteries will overtake pumped hydro for energy storage. Every cleantech metric is growing the way that fossil fuels did in previous centuries: investment, patents, energy density, wind turbine rotor size. The price of solar is on track to halve (again) in the next decade.

In short, cleantech growth looks like the growth of other technologies that were once rarities and then became ubiquitous overnight: TV, cellphones, etc. That growth isn't merely being driven by the urgency of the climate emergency: it's primarily a factor of how fucking great cleantech is:

https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/the_incredible_inefficiency_of_fossils.pdf

Fossil fuels suck. It's not just that they wreck the planet, or that their extraction is both politically and environmentally disastrous. They just aren't a good way to make energy. About a third of fossil fuel energy is wasted in production and transportation. A third! Another third is wasted turning fossil fuels into energy. Two thirds! The net energy efficiency of fossil fuels is about 37%.

Compare that with cleantech. EVs convert electricity to movement with 80-90% efficiency. Heat pumps are 300% efficient (the main fuel for your heat pump is the heat in the atmosphere, not the electricity it draws).

Cleantech is just getting started – it's still in the hockey-stick phase. That means those efficiency numbers are only going up. Rivian just figured out how to remove 1.6 miles of copper wire from each vehicle. That's just one rev – there's doubtless lots of room for more redesigns that will further dematerialize EVs:

https://insideevs.com/news/722265/rivian-r1s-r1t-wiring/

As McKibben points out, there's been a lot of justifiable concern that electrification will eventually use up all our available copper, but copper demand has remained flat even as electrification has soared – and this is why. We keep figuring out new ways to electrify with fewer materials:

https://www.chemanalyst.com/NewsAndDeals/NewsDetails/copper-wire-price-remains-stable-amidst-surplus-supply-and-expanding-mining-25416#:~:text=Global%20Copper%20wire%20Price%20Remains%20Stable%20Amidst%20Surplus%20Supply%20and%20Expanding%20Mining%20Activities

This is exactly what happened with previous iterations of tech. The material, energy and labor budgets of cars, buildings, furniture, etc all fell precipitously every time there was a new technique for manufacturing them. Renewables are at the start of that process. There's going to be a lot of this dematerialization in cleantech. Calculating the bill of materials for a planetary energy transition isn't a matter of multiplying the materials in current tech by the amount of new systems we'll need – as we create those new systems, we will constantly whittle down their materials.

What's more, global instability drives cleantech uptake. The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused a surge in European renewables. The story that energy prices are rising due to renewables (or carbon taxes) is a total lie. Fossil fuels are getting much more expensive, thanks to both war and rampant, illegal price-fixing:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-oil-price-fixing-conspiracy-caused

If not for renewables, the incredible energy shocks of the recent years would be far more severe.

The renewables story is very good and it should bring you some comfort. But as McKibben points out, it's still not enough – yet. The examples of rapid tech uptake had big business on their side. America's living rooms filled with TV because America's largest businesses pulled out all the stops to convince everyone to buy a TV. By contrast, today's largest businesses – banks, oil companies and car companies – are working around the clock to stop cleantech adoption.

We're on track to double our use of renewables before the decade is over. But to hold to the (already recklessly high) targets from the Paris Accord, we need to triple our renewables usage. As McKibben says, the difference between doubling and tripling our renewables by 2030 is the difference between "survivable trouble" and something much scarier.

The US is experiencing a welcome surge in utility scale solar, but residential solar is stalling out as governments withdraw subsidies or even begin policies that actively restrict rooftop solar:

https://twitter.com/curious_founder/status/1798049929082097842?s=51

McKibben says the difference between where we are now and bringing back the push for home solar generation is the difference between "fast" and "faster" – that is the difference between tripling renewables by 2030 (survivable) and doubling (eek).

Capitalism stans who argue that we can survive the climate emergency with market tools will point to the good news on renewable and say that the market is the only way to transition to renewables. It's true that market forces are partly responsible for this fast transition. But the market is also the barrier to a faster (and thus survivable) transition. The oil companies, the banks who are so invested in fossil fuels, the petrostates who distort the world's politics – they're why we're not much farther along.

The climate emergency was never going to be neatly solved. We weren't going to get a neat novelistic climax that saw our problems sorted out in a single fell swoop. We're going to be fighting all the way to net zero, and after that, we'll still have decades of climate debt to pay down: fires, floods, habitat loss, zoonotic plagues, refugee crises.

But we should take our wins. Even if we're far from where we need to be on renewables, we're much farther along on renewables than we had any business hoping for, just a few years ago. The momentum is on our side. It's up to us to use that momentum and grow it. We're riding the hockey-stick, they're on that long, flat, static top of the S-curve. Their curve is leveling off and will start falling, ours will grow like crazy for the rest of our lives.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

[ghost-mantis]

I may be American, but only one of us is threatening the other with violence and gun imagery. But at this point I’m pretty sure you’re one of those propaganda accounts run by North Korea or Russia.

I’m honestly asking, why do you think North Korea isn’t a terrible place to live?

I have plenty of non-American sources I’m happy to cite for you. What evidence would you like? What goalpost will you set for proof of atrocities?

Also, I’m fascinated by your username. Can you tell me how Marxism and the capitalist nightmare that is Taylor Swift can coexist as implied by your -ism?

me: the us govt lied to you about Palestine

western liberal: yes, I know

me: they have also lied to you about Iraq, Syria, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and China

western liberal: yeah what’s your point

me: okay so keeping all that in mind, wouldn’t it be plausible that the US govt has lied to you also about the DPRK?

western liberal: NO YOURE A FASCIST NORTH KOREA IS A DICTATORSHIP FULL OF BRAINWASHED ZOMBIES. ITS THE TRUMAN SHOW FOR WESTERNERS!!!

[logans-whore]

Hi~

I was reading your old man logan one-shot and mwah chief kiss

Can I ask for some more old man logan and young reader?maybe he's unsure of whether he should give into his desire or keep pushing her away but when he saw her laughing at her phone or talking to a boy friend of hers he loses it?

Or anything like that love yaa

I swear I'm working on my other requests, but holy hell, this caught hold of my brain like a dog with a chew toy and it didnt let go. This can be read as a prequel to this fic, but can be read as a standalone too! Also this turned out way fluffier than I thought it would, but oh well. I hope you like it!!!

https://www.tumblr.com/logans-whore/773031900713451520/may-i-please-ask-you-to-write-something-for-old?source=share

Logan is fully aware that he's too old for you. He's too aware, if you're the one being asked.

The two of you were the only ones to survive the Westchester incident, him because of his healing, you because you hadn't been at the mansion on the day of the incident.

So you, him, and Charles move in together, hiding away. Later, Caliban joins you.

Now, you've had a thing for him for years. But seeing him there, caring for you, for Charles, being protective, and providing? Yeah, that scratches the lizard part of your brain just right.

And he notices, sees the way you look at him like he's the only thing you'll ever want. And he turns you down, over and over again, keeping you away. He's way too old for you, and starting to look it too. You deserve someone young. Someone good, and kind, and caring and perfect, like you.

And you're not the kind of girl to push it. To force a relationship with someone who doesn't want you. (Or so you think. He wants you. Very much. He's just an idiot)

So you put yourself out there. You've been working as a waitress to help pay the bills. And a customer gives you his number, and he's sweet and funny and cute, and you say yes. Thinking this is your chance to get over Logan, to move on, find someone new to love. You start texting him, and he seems great. You really like him, and you think, with time, with patience, maybe you could grow to love him. Not the all encompassing, full body experience that loving Logan is, but maybe a simpler, less painful love.

Logan on the other hand, sees you texting. All the damn time. After several pointed remarks on phones, and how young people should get off them and have a conversation, he finally asks who you're texting.

When you tell him about Adam, the cute guy from the diner, his heart drops. He's grown to love you, to love your kindness, your compassion, the way you look at him, how absolutely fucking stunning you are. And thinking about you with anyone else? Hell no. You're his. Not that you belong to him, but you're his, and he's yours, the way only people in love are each others.

And he can't lose you, he realizes with startling clarity. He just can't.

So the next morning, as you make breakfast, about to start your shift, he slinks iinto the kitchen, looks you dead in the eyes and says. "I love you."

You nearly drop the spatula you're using, choking on your own spit. "W-what?" you sputter, surprised and confused.

"I love you" he says again. You look at him for any sign of him joking, of him playing some fucked up prank. You find none.

"I'm sorry I didn't say it before", he continues, like he hasn't just dropped the emotional equivalent of an atomic bomb on you. "I'm sorry. But I love you, honey. And I don't want to see you with anyone else but me. I know-" he hesitates, but continues. "I know I said I'm too old for you. Know I said you should find someone your own age. But I'm taking it back. And I'm asking you, not to fall in love with him. I want you in love with me."

You stare at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "You- you're serious?"

"I just gave you the cheesiest goddamn speech I've ever given in my life, of course I'm fuckin' serious" He grumbles, and you can't help but laugh, before crossing the distance to stand in front of him and kissing him stupid

"I love you too," You murmur against his mouth, and feel him beam against you, smiling into the kiss. "I'm not gonna fall for him. I'm already in too deep with you"

Hours later, when he's fucking you into the mattress, you cry his name over and over again, and he knows, warm and safe in your arms, in your heart, that you mean it. That you're his, and he's yours.

Logan is full aware that he's too old for you. He loves you anyways.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

hey so i saw the despicable me 4 trailer and i have a very specific beef with it that's making me insane

so, like, disclaimer, i havent watched any of the minion cinematic universe movies since despicable me 2 came out... holy fuck eleven years ago, jesus christ. but anyway i'm probably gonna get minute details wrong but like hold with me a second

so idr when despicable me 2 takes place in regards to the first film. from what i remember, agnes was having issues with not having a conventional nuclear family for mother's day so this implies it's the first mother's day that the girls have had in gru's household. i'm pretty sure that the first movie took place during the summer-ish, and iirc the second movie is also summer (fitting with my "roughly may" estimate) so we'll say like eight-ish months have passed since the first film. no big deal, right?

so then at the end of the film gru and kristen wiig get married but the timecard states that it's "147 dates later." i doubt they went on a date every single day leading up to the wedding but if we're assuming the date list also covers the engagement and wedding prep period, that's at the VERY VERY least one-hundred and forty-seven days after the events of the film. so with the timeskip at the beginning, that puts us at well over a year since the first film, thirteen months minimum

okay so the third film from my research doesn't state how long it takes after the wedding. so again, let's be generous and say that it's not too long after. i'm pretty sure the film itself takes place over a couple of days so we'll ignore its place in the continuity for now. that brings us to movie number four, which just got a trailer and just revealed a new player in the game

so gru and kristen wiig have a new biological child. this kid is old enough to move and emote, which puts him at 7-12 months old if he's able to crawl. let's again be generous and say it's seven months. assuming that human reproduction works the same as it does in our universe, and again being generous as hell and assuming that lucy may have been pregnant through the third film or right after the wedding, we have to add nine months to all this. so from the first film, we have ~8 month timeskip, then a 147-day minimum timeskip, then let's say 16 months to get to the baby being able to crawl. again, this is absolute bare minimum, and we still get to a conclusion of it's been roughly 29 months since the first film, or 2.5 years.

so okay. two-and-a-half years since the first film.

so then why the everloving fuck are the girls the same. fucking. AGE??

how have these motherfuckers not aged a fucking day??? they haven't grown a goddamn inch. it should have been, again, 2.5 years minimum, more likely 3-4 years if we're being realistic.

and to double check my work, i went on the despicable me wiki and found that they also put movie 4 at a three-year timeskip from the first movie, specifically putting margo at 10 in the first movie and 13 in the fourth, edith at 8-11, and agnes at 5-8; their main source is margo being stated to be 12 in the third movie, and her sisters' relative ages being provided by tweet, so even then this is, again, bare minimum on timeskip. and not only have these motherfuckers not changed style one fucking time, but they haven't changed height, weight, anything. agnes has hit eight years old and is the same height as the tiny-ass fucking minions. edith's hat still fits. margo should be in high school and she looks the same as she did three goddamn years ago

what kind of motherfucking witchcraft is the gru family using to keep themselves young??? they said gru stopped being evil but are we sure there isn't some vampire blood rituals happening in the minion basement

make them a new character model. please god

[cloudypariah]

How to perpetrate and sabotage your own kidnapping: A guide for dummies.

- The creation of the board (and its subsequent discovery)

Summary: Step One: host a brainstorming session with your teammates on how best to kidnap your future abductee. Step Two: have said abductee show up half an hour into the session and begin correcting your entire plan. Step Three: realise at the beginning of their impromptu presentation the target has absolutely no idea that they’re the target. Step Four: fail anyway.

Pairing: Dark!Poly!Task Force 141 x fem!Reader

Word count: 1.8k

Content tags: Dark content - Discussions around kidnapping, tense situations. If this is not your cup of tea, please go and find something different might better suited your palate. This is an 18+ fic meaning minors do not interact with this work. No one has permission from me to repost, copy or translate my work. No one has my permission to put my work into any AI source.

Notes: This is my first foray into the COD fandom and will be the first part in a dark comedy series. Please let me know what you think. Not proofread very well, sorry for any mistakes! Thanks for the motivation @live-love-be-unique !

Link to Task Force 141 masterlist / Link to COD masterlist

Captain John Price likes to think he knows his men well enough to trust them when his back is turned. Now that itself doesn’t necessarily mean knowing each and every one of their dirty secrets - he definitely wouldn’t come out smelling like fresh daisies if any number of his were revealed - but it does mean that he has the awareness to recognise that they all share one particular secret.

He sees it in the way Lieutenant Riley’s body language shifts when you give him his medical forms to look over, your consideration at offering him the option to disclose only certain personal information making the reserved soldier relax just enough to offer you a low thanks, accompanied with a stare that stretches on for a few moments longer than considered socially polite.

It’s also so amazingly obvious with Sergeant MacTavish. John’s surprised everyone else misses the way Soap’s smile takes a little longer to fade after departing for yet another mission, your swift congratulations on completing yet another physiotherapy appointment - “ Keep it up the good work big guy” - leaving the Scotsman floating on cloud nine damn near until the plane lands.

And how could he forget Sergeant Garrick? The man’s quick to change his tune and focus up, but the captain has observed Kyle absentmindedly rubbing his shoulder, thumb gingerly stroking the spot where your palm was only moments before, your figure long gone as you retreat down the corridor to where you came from.

No, Jonathan Price doesn’t miss a thing about his men. And it only takes two weeks and a long chat in the corner booth of the bar one quiet night - sans you or Laswell - before somehow his place becomes the meeting point for an unusual, though not unwelcome, topic - you.

More specifically, how to keep you.

The wooden shit box of a sports bar was where the first two facts were confirmed amongst them: 1. Every single one of the 141 men wanted you for themselves, but they weren’t above sharing. 2. You weren’t worth killing each other over, not when there was a much easier solution staring them in the face.

John’s house became the go-to place to discuss fact number three - They needed a plan.

It was Gaz who initially suggested the whiteboard after numerous interjections from Ghost and John; from everything to how to keep this from Laswell, to deciding which of your usual hangouts would provide them with the best opportunity to commence your “relocation”, to how to delicately but firmly explain said "relocation" to you once it was complete. Kyle loves his brothers in arms and never regrets a moment where his life is on the line if it means saving any one of them, but his patience began to wear thin when Soap got bored and started using goddamn paper planes instead of words to get his point across. At that Price finally relented and bought the damn thing.

Now, John was expecting you to pop by his place on Wednesday night to drop some papers off. A perfect opportunity, were it not for the fact that the gentlemen were still disagreeing on where to relocate you. However, it’ll allow you to grow more comfortable with him while he has some alone time with you, your presence like a balm on a wound - soothing and necessary (at least to him).

He had been looking forward to seeing you… tomorrow. So when you turn up not just on the doorstep but in the middle of the bloody hallway in his own bloody home halfway through the 141 “guys night”, his secondary action of shitting bricks quickly overrides his primary instinct to eliminate the threat.

He’s on his way back from the bathroom when he sees you standing, familiar folders firm in your grasp - fucking hell, is that his spare key too? - and a sour expression on your pretty face.

Your eyes narrow further when you spot him, striding over with fury rolling off you in small waves. “Captain Price, I know you did not leave these dossiers on my desk just before the end of my work day with a note stating they all need to be completed by the end of the work day.”

John’s senses are briefly overwhelmed by you being so close to him, the sight of you angry having a different effect on him than what you had originally intended. He’s never seen it before, and his hand twitches when you’re less than a foot away - fluctuating adrenaline or the desire to reach out and hold you, he’s not sure which is more prevalent. 

He always forgets to not be so obvious around you, but it isn’t as though you usually notice. (He’s not sure if the thought should make him feel sad or grateful.)

The sounds of his men arguing in the background, merely the next room over, are enough to bring reality crashing down hard.

His voice is deliberately loud and stalwart when replies. “You can’t be here.”

“Tough shit. Your lads night can wait.” You lean past him to the origin of what your gut was telling you was the sounds of the remaining 141 members quarreling. It’s easy to slip past Captain Price once your mind is set, the push of files against his chest preventing him from reacting for a few seconds - all the time you need to move down the hallway to where everyone else is bound to be.

John is quick to rush behind you, the arguing noises having swiftly changed to near cartoon-like crashes just moments before you enter the room. 

Ghost has migrated to the corner of the sitting area, standing as stiff as a fucking nutcracker, a mountain of crumpled notes and paper planes spilling out from between his arms. (His mask is still on thank god because it’ll hide exactly how caught out he feels, and if there’s one thing Simon Riley cannot stand it’s feeling like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar). His eyes instinctually watch your every move, waiting for your reaction.

Both of your gazes drift to the other side of the room, with neither of you failing to notice how the couch cushions are strewn widely across the space, (with one being stuck on top of a bookshelf for some odd reason) to find not one, but two soldiers gecko’d to the standing whiteboard.

Their demolitions expert is currently splayed out on the left side of the board and desperately grabbing the top of its metal frame, his stomach pressed into the cold porcelain and a left leg hitched up in a poor attempt to conceal the incriminating writing.

Price’s protégé is in a similar state. Dear Gaz has his back against the right side, with his arms outstretched to - much like Johnny - cover as much of their group planning as possible, a coloured marker clasped in each fist.

Two deers in headlights.

The sight of his task force is enough to bring back flashbacks of his original conversation with Kate about bringing these men together because Jesus H. Christ, what the fuck was he thinking?

There are a few moments when nobody moves or dares to breathe…

… except for you, of course.

You waste no time walking over to the two youngest members of the 141 as you attempt to shove them off the board. “Move,” you demand, palms pushing firmly against their sides. “I want to know what’s so important to everyone.” When they refuse, you do your best to stare at them, pleading with a pleasantly soft, “Please.”

Yeah, they both do what you say with ease when they hear that, giving you enough space to take in the somewhat smudged scribbles.

You miss the signal John gives Simon, the Ghost moving closer to your position as John quietly locks the door, and when your attention is drawn back to the board after the other two move you also miss all of the knowing looks shared behind your back. This was very far from ideal, but how can they recover from this?

They hope you understand that whatever comes next, they didn’t plan for it to start this way.

Kyle and John call your name but you ignore them, still processing the information written in front of you.

Johnny flexes his hands, preparing for the worst as you step back and say, “This is… bullshit.”

Every single member stops. That was not the reaction they were expecting.

Turning to face the group, you scoff. “I’m not even kidding. Firstly, you’re using guys' night to work, which is horrible for your mental and emotional health. And you should all know better.”

Four sets of brows furrow in united confusion. You don’t let that deter you from continuing, your arms gesturing haphazardly at the whiteboard. “Secondly, this is hands-down one of the worst brainstorms I have ever seen. This is not cohesive in the fucking slightest. Garrick, mark me.”

Kyle chokes on his spit, his brain short-circuiting before he sees your fingers wiggling at one of the markers he’s holding. The sergeant promptly gives it to you.

Your free hand takes turns pointing at everyone else in the room, a verbal command of, “sit down” directed at each man also. Dumbly and cautiously they all do. Ghost places himself at the end of the couch nearest the entrance, John strategically chooses a spot between yourself and the kitchen, and Soap and Gaz sit closest to you, where the two of them can hear you muttering under your breath as you draw what appears to be a massive cloud shape in the middle of the board.

Once completed, you fill your shape in with the word ‘TARGET’ and slam your free hand against the board. No one flinches, but if one were to look closely there would be some eyes widening in response. Johnny swears he sees one of your eyelids twitch.

“So,” you call out, “what do we know about the target?”

There are not only wide eyes looking at you, there are full glances exchanged between your audience.

“Seeing as you had the nerve to not invite me in your little meeting while keeping me on overtime” - Kyle and John squirm at that, and your finger makes a little circle - “we are going to be working on this project together. With all due respect, I’m not asking.”

Surely not…

And it’s when Captain John Price reviews the writing left over from the others that he realises Kyle and Johnny did one thing right during their clusterfuck of a coverup.

They managed to erase your name.

… you have absolutely no idea you are the target.

 A piece of writing far in the coroner catches your attention, and your shoulders slump. “The target likes knitting and ‘The Karate Kid’. In another life we would have been the best of friends.” A dramatic sigh leaves you, “Oh well, at least I’ll be able to give you some insight into the mindset of this individual. Any questions?”

Four hands shoot up.

Rubbing your hands together with glee, a maniac smile grows on your face. “Excellent.”

[corvidexoskeleton]

Actually fuck it. The lich path isn't bad for Emmrich, and in this essay I will explain to you why that is, as well as some of the strange shortcomings about the way the lich path was handled that I don't think make any narrative sense. This is gonna be long, so please bear with me

1. Manfred and Johanna

So before I get into any of the "why the lich path isn’t bad" stuff, I'm gonna start out with what I believe is a genuine flaw in the narrative of Emmrich's personal character arc: the way it handles Manfred and Johanna.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any problems at all with Manfred or Johanna as characters existing in the story. I find them both absolutely delightful and loved all of their interactions in the game. However, Manfred's death - and in turn Johanna's undeath - don't quite fit the narrative they've set up for Emmrich, nor does Manfred's death fit into the established narrative of dragon age broadly. The problem is that the source of conflict for whether or not Emmrich can accept the inevitable loss that comes with immortality, is Manfred's death, when it should be Johanna's.

Now before I explain why it should be Johanna, I need to explain why Manfred's doesn't make any sense. I don't judge anyone who might not know because they either never played inquisition, missed the quest, or just simply forgot about this, but one of the things you learn from Solas in inquisition is how death works for spirits.

Normally when you fight and kill spirits and demons in the games, the spirit is just banished back to the fade, but it is also possible for a spirit to be properly killed instead of simply banished. Solas explains that if a spirit properly dies, then the energy and magic that made up its being is reabsorbed back into the fade. That energy can potentially go on to form something new - eventually - but it won't be the same spirit. It may even be similar to the being that that energy and magic was made of before, but it’s not the same being. It will be something new entirely.

And this is why Manfred supposedly dying and coming back makes no goddamn sense. Manfred is a spirit of curiosity, he's an incorporeal being made of magical energy and emotion. If Manfred were to truly die during the fight with Johanna, then his energy would have been absorbed back into the fade, and that would be it. There wouldn't be an option to bring Manfred's wisp back, because it wouldn't exist anymore. You could maybe wait an indeterminate length of time until the energy that used to make him up formed something new - provided you could actually do that - but it wouldn't be Manfred. It would be something else entirely, someone else.

But of course, Manfred can come back. Clearly he wasn't killed, just banished back to the fade. In which case it makes no goddamn sense for the lich lords, and also Emmrich, to act as if Manfred made some grand sacrifice and died because of it. He's still alive! His wisp is still out there, in the fade! Stop telling everyone I'm he's dead!

So, if Manfred isn't actually dead, and you couldn't bring him back anyways even if he was, who does that leave? Well, as I said above: Johanna.

Johanna is, by all accounts, Emmrich's oldest and closest friend. Even though Manfred is near and dear to Emmrich's heart, Johanna objectively has a much deeper connection to Emmrich than Manfred does, rooted in decades of personal history between the two of them that dates back to when they were both kids, or at least students. And while their relationship is currently going through an admittedly rocky patch, it's clear that they both still care deeply about each other.

But, at the same time, Johanna is a disgraced former member of the mourn watch who was exiled for her gross mistreatment of spirits and the dead. The way that Emmrich talks about it makes it seem like he agrees that her exile from the order was correct and just, that he does disapprove of whatever it was she did, but the way he discusses her seems to imply that they still maintained some degree of contact afterwards. In fact, the two of them stayed friends through all of it, and it was only after her exile occurred that the two of them had a falling out and lost contact with each other, rather than her exile being the cause of their falling out. The way that Emmrich talks about Johanna in the gardens betrays the great deal of care and loyalty that he held for her even after she was disgraced and banished, and that he still holds for her after everything.

When Emmrich is explaining how Johanna attempted to become a lich, he explicitly states that she figured it out because of him. Because he told her about a highly kept secret among the mourn watch - and from the sound of it, some of his own study into becoming a lich himself - Johanna put the information from Emmrich together with her own research, and figured out how to become a lich on her own. Regardless of whether or not Johanna was a still a member of the mourn watch at the time, Emmrich still revealed highly classified secrets about the order that she shouldn't have had access to, and this little oopsy resulted in her stealing an entire section of the necropolis, attempting to murder and steal the life force of a great number of mourn watchers and mortalitasi, and attempting to construct a massive golem for her soul to inhabit and use to wreak destruction.

Emmrich is undeniably loyal to Johanna, no matter what she does or how much they drift apart. Hell, he even admits that if she had sought him out, he would have helped her become a lich. He would have helped her conduct this extremely well-hidden and secretive rite that is probably hidden and secret for a very good reason. And one can only assume that attempting to become a lich is explicitly forbidden within the mourn watch, considering Emmrich has to undergo several years of tests and ritual in order to even have the opportunity to attempt it. The lichual isn't just some expert-level conjuration shit; this is significant, serious shit that the mourn watch doesn't seem interested in fucking around with if the application process is so rigorous and difficult to pass, so there should realistically be some degree of repercussions for Emmrich letting something like that slip to someone just because they happen to be his friend.

So, you might ask, what should happen, then? Well, what would make much more sense for Emmrich's character arc, while also keeping in line with both the previously established series lore and the lore introduced in veilguard, is if Johanna was so severely injured by what happened when the souls and spirits in the lantern were released, that it essentially completely killed her physical body, as well as damaging her soul in a way that people really shouldn't be able to survive. But, because she attempted to become a lich and failed, Johanna's soul is still bound to her (extremely dead) body and is unable to either heal or move on.

Emmrich's choice should be between healing Johanna's body and soul from the damage she caused by undergoing a failed lichual, thus allowing her to be alive once again and live the rest of her natural life, or for him to help her damaged soul move on from her already deceased body and into... wherever souls go when they die in Thedas.

By choosing to help Johanna's body and soul heal and be revived, Emmrich would be accepting the role he played in the situation, and also choosing to bear the (probably massive) mark on what would otherwise be a very impressive track record and history. He would also be forfeiting his chance to attempt the lichual, for one because he went against the mourn watch's rules by telling Johanna such a dangerous secret, and for two because choosing to bring Johanna back from undeath is exactly the type of thing that the lich lords would be forbidden from doing as a way to prevent them from abusing their power.

But, by choosing to help Johanna's soul move on, Emmrich would be accepting the role he played in what happened, and choosing to try and make amends with the order that raised him and that he's dedicated his life to. He does genuinely believe in the ideals and tenants of the mourn watch; from his view, he's not just a member of an insular group of mages the way that the circles are, but he's someone who is responsible for the care and processing of his nation's dead, for making sure they're respected and given dignity in death in accordance with Nevarra's cultural practices, so of course he would put a lot of value on making amends with the mourn watch and righting any wrongs that he might've accidentally caused. Not only that, but he would be proving in the eyes of the lich lords that, even if he may make mistakes or break some rules, he's still capable of recognizing his mistakes and attempting to fix them, and most importantly: of recognizing when it's time for someone to move on, even if they're someone he cares deeply about.

Neither of these things should be seen as inherently good or bad, because they're not. Johanna is objectively doing more harm than good to herself ingame, and is so stubborn that even Emmrich can't talk her down from what she wants to do. Eventually, she would end up hurting herself - or her soul - in irreparable ways. Emmrich already steps in before she can do too much damage to herself and others, but I think that this should have played a much greater role in his journey to find peace of mind than it did ingame.

Now then, with that all being addressed and out of the way, we can get to why we're all here: why the lich path isn't bad.

2. Fear and Death

There's an incredible misconception about Emmrich's fear of death and where it stems from, and a misconception about how he might deal with the deaths of people he loves and cares about. I don't blame anyone for believing that he simply is just afraid of dying, because I also thought the same thing until I sat down and thought about it for a bit. It's also just easier for a lot of people to look at him and go with the first thought everybody has, that it's ironic for a necromancer to be so terrified of dying himself, even if that might not necessarily be the case.

To start, I think the idea that he might be new to dealing with the death of someone close to him is, frankly, pretty stupid. Even if it's not something people outright say, it's clear that that's what's being implied when people react to how he expresses his fear of rook dying before tearstone island. However, I want to point out that he deals with death every day: the death of strangers, the death of colleagues and associates, and the death of friends. And his recruitment mission involves you helping him kill people - venatori, to be specific, but they're still people.

If you go with the datamined info, he's in his 50's. If you go with what Sylvia thinks he should be, he's in his 60's. With how many people he's had to have met and/or befriended over the years, he undoubtedly has already experienced the loss of those he cares about besides just his parents. And during none of this, does his fear arise, because it's not death that he's afraid of. I don't think he could possibly do what he does - to the extent that he does - if it was just death that scared him.

Ultimately, his fear of dying is not borne out of death itself: his fear is driven by control. What Emmrich is really afraid of is not having control of things in his life. He controls everything else about himself to a fastidious degree; his speech, his vocabulary, his mannerisms, how he looks, all to try and keep his life under his own control, to control the way that people perceive him, to control the way he reacts to things in order to prevent himself from acting out as a result of his anxieties. It's not enough that he appears confident and assured of himself, he needs to give the illusion - to himself and to others - that he is in control. It's a compulsive behavior that he's developed in order to soothe his own fears that he can't control things, borne out of the death of his parents. He couldn't control the circumstances that led to their deaths, and he couldn't control whether or not they survived. It's also implied that he didn't manifest his magic until after they died, so I imagine that for him, manifesting the ability to use magic - something he could have potentially used to save them, if he'd been able to use it - felt like another nail in his skull when it came to things he had no control over.

Now, typically - barring extenuating circumstances like suicide - people can't control when or how they die. You can put it off, you can take care of yourself to the best of your ability, but death is the one thing you can't ever have control of, and that terrifies him. He can attempt to soothe himself by compulsively trying to control everything else about himself and his life, but he knows that death - his own death, to be specific - is the one thing he can never have total control over, because death is the one inevitability of the world that cannot be skirted or avoided, no matter what you do. And that is what drives his fear.

3. Becoming a Lich

So, I think the logical next step in thinking for a lot of people would be that attempting to become a lich is merely the result of him desperately trying to soothe his fears and give himself the illusion that he is in control of his death, but again I have to disagree.

There's this idea that he wants to undergo the lichual entirely because he wants to skirt death, but that's simply not the case. Emmrich could have undergone the lichual before the events of veilguard even take place, before Bellara begins exchanging letters with him, before rook seeks him out for his extensive knowledge of the fade. He explicitly states during the scene where he reveals it to rook that the reason he hasn't already undergone it, is because of his fear. Emmrich's fear is what is holding him back from it, not what is driving him towards it. At that point in the game, he is incapable of going through with the lichual because he still hasn't made peace with the fact that, even if he would be choosing when and how he dies, he still doesn't have control. His life would be in the hands of the lich lords and Vorgoth, not his own. And in order to be able to go through with it, he needs to accept that he cannot have control, no matter how much he uses the delusion of control in order to comfort and soothe himself.

The choice for whether or not to bring Manfred back from the fade - or the theoretical choice to save Johanna that I discussed previously - isn't about him making peace with death and others dying around him, it's about whether or not he can accept that sometimes things really are just outside of his control. It's actually a very common method for dealing with obsessive compulsions and other things in that vein, because fighting with your own compulsions in order to try and overcome them by force of will doesn't really work. What you need is acceptance. You need to accept the things in life that you cannot change or do, and in Emmrich's case, the things you can't control.

So... why does he want to become a lich, then?

Emmrich wants to pursue the lichual, not because he's so unbearably afraid of not having control of his own death that he'll do anything to feel as if he has control, but because he is a person who finds genuine joy in life and in loving people. He's a teacher for god's sake. He's unfailingly kind and polite even when he has no reason to be, but most of all he finds purpose and beauty and joy in even the smallest things in life. He loves the people he meets, he loves his friends, his family, the partners he's had over the years, he loves life itself and everything and everyone in it, be they alive, dead, or something else entirely.

And he finds genuine satisfaction with his work and the ways in which his work allows him to help people in ways he might not be able to otherwise if he were just a common mortalitasi, or as a botanist. He helps people mourn, grieve, and find closure during extremely difficult times in their life, and even uses his corpse whispering to help those who have already passed on, instead of just using it to the benefit of those who are still alive. He does this because he has the ability to do so - to help people in ways he might not have received when he was a child - not because it's just another part of his job that he has to do.

For Emmrich, becoming a lich isn't just a means to avoid his obsessive, compulsive need to control things, or to avoid dying. He wants to do it because he is, as his writer Sylvia put it, a man of big emotions. He has such a deep and genuine love for life and everything in it that he wants to continue to experience all of the joys of life, and to continue helping both the living and the dead.

Another common misconception is that Emmrich's intense emotions and deep care for people would be a detriment to him as a lich, because having to watch everybody he knows age and die while he remains would be too much, but I think it's the opposite: Emmrich's love and care for life and people in it is precisely why he is a candidate for lichdom. Dialogue from Emmrich and the lords imply that the lords have strict rules in order to prevent themselves from becoming corrupt and abusing their power, and that it's exceptionally rare for a watcher to be accepted as a candidate. I suspect that the lich lords specifically try to select for people like Emmrich, who are unfailing kind and hold a genuine love for life, who are also able to accept the inevitabilities of life and death as off limits for them, even if they have the powers to circumvent them. Someone who hardens themself to death and keeps themself from becoming too attached, or from caring about others in order to become numb to death, would make a shit candidate for a lich, because inevitably their callousness and disregard for life and death would lead to precisely what the lords are attempting to avoid: corruption and the misuse of their power. Emmrich's love of life is a feature, not a bug.

And also? If it really was just fear of dying that motivated him, then Emmrich could have just as easily gone and done the lichual on his own, or gotten Johanna to help him. It's not like this is something that only the lords know how to do, he could just Do It if that's all he really wanted lmao. Becoming a lich isn’t the end goal, it’s just a step in what he actually wants, which is to help people. 

4. Necrophilia and Romance

Well, that's all well and good, but there are also quite a few people who seem to think that the lich route is bad for Emmrich's relationship with Rook, for some reason. The various reasons I've seen thrown around have varied from legitimate doubts of whether or not it's actually Emmrich's soul in his skeleton or not, to people being understandably put off by the thought of their Rook engaging in necrophilia, to just straight up parroting some rather ableist and acephobic talking points without realizing that that's what they're doing.

I'll start with the necrophilia stuff first. And it is necrophilia, I should note. Just because he doesn't have any skin or organs, doesn't mean that Emmrich's body is any less dead. He's a soul possessing his lifeless skeleton, of course rook having a sexual relationship with him is necrophilia, regardless of whether or not it's something you the player or the character is into or not. Letting someone tie a belt around your wrists even if you're not necessarily into it is still engaging with some degree of bondage, mild as it may be, and having sex with a skeleton is still engaging in some degree of necrophilia.

But, there's nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with a character engaging in a necrophiliac relationship. You don't have to be into it in order to like the lich route, or even to like Emmrich as a character. It's Fine if your main issue is that he's a skeleton and you think having sex with a dead body is weird and gross and creepy, It's literally OK. You don't need to justify the disgust.

That being said, the ways in which I've noticed some people try to justify those feelings of disgust have been... interesting.

For one, what exactly intimacy - emotional or sexual - looks like between people in a relationship is not something you can just summarize as a list of boxes to check. The exact ways in which Rook and Emmrich engage in sexual intimacy aren't shown ingame; the most explicit examples are them kissing and a fade-to-black of Emmrich - fully clothed - climbing on top of Rook in the sarcophagus, and those scenes really don't differ much depending on if he's alive or undead. That is to say, the game leaves a lot of room open for interpretation when it comes to what the physical aspects of their relationship looks like.

I think the idea that the relationship between Emmrich and Rook would inherently be worse off because of Emmrich becoming a lich - whether because he wouldn't be able to love them the same if he's undead, or because Emmrich would no longer have skin or genitals and thus be unable to have traditional sex anymore - are just incorrect. It's one thing if you want your Rook to have these difficulties in their relationship with Emmrich, because the sudden change in how they engage with intimacy and the difficulties in it are legitimately quite interesting and worth exploring! But those things are not inherent to their relationship as it is shown, and I think acting like it's indicative that Emmrich being a lich is bad is just silly.

And that's not to say that there wouldn't be challenges in figuring out how to be intimate once he's undead - there absolutely would be - but to say that Emmrich or his romance is somehow lesser because of those challenges is just wrong. This line of logic that tries to justify that disgust or disinterest by painting it as something else doesn't come across how you might think it does.

It's just wrong to say that someone is inherently incapable of pleasing someone, or receiving some form of pleasure, because they have lost some aspect of themself, be it an ability they previously possessed, or a body part that they lost. Many people in real life have to deal with the loss of function of their bodies while also figuring out how to navigate their own romantic and sexual relationships when something about them has been lost. As a disabled person myself who has lost some of my physical mobility over the years: there's nothing bad about it. There's nothing about any form of loss of function that makes loving someone inherently less capable of loving or of being loved, only your own prejudice.

It is absolutely something that comes with difficulties, but if you are in a romantic relationship with somebody that you genuinely love, that you care about as a person because of who they are, then you love them even when they change. And everybody changes over the course of their life. If things become difficult because of something that has happened to them, then you try to find ways to work through the challenges together as a couple, try to find different ways to be intimate - emotionally or sexually - or find different ways to satisfy your individual needs, because you love them.

And, I might add, as an asexual person, this conflation of romantic love and sexual intimacy is stupid as hell. While Emmrich as a character is very much not asexual himself, he is a tried and true romantic. Sex may play a large part in typical romance and in his own relationships, but it's not the only thing there is. I do believe that, while Emmrich may see sexual intimacy as an extension of his own feelings of love for somebody, he still understands that desiring someone is not always the same as loving them, and what Emmrich wants is to be loved. He doesn't want to just be desired, he wants Rook to love him for who he is as a person. I think that he would be genuinely hurt if he discovered that Rook's love for him diminished or disappeared altogether just because he [checks notes] can't have traditional penetrative sex with his own body parts, as I’ve seen a concerning amount of people tout.

As if that's all there is to sex, anyways. As if people haven't been finding creative ways around barriers like that for thousands of years. If you really want Rook to get dicked down nasty style by Emmrich as a lich, you can just? Slap a dildo on that bad boy? And he's literally a MAGE. Man can use MAGIC and you're worried that he can't have sex without his own set of genitals? Conveniently ignoring the fact that he explicitly has a glamour that looks exactly like his living body, and that the game never addresses just how much substance this glamour has, if it's just an illusion or has any proper form to it. The world is your oyster to fuck. Or to not fuck, if you'd like.

5. Life, Death, and Grief

Ok this is the last section to this I promise. The last thing I want to address is Emmrich's state of mind and how he interacts with the world as a lich vs. as a living person. I think the idea that he can't love Rook, or anyone else for that matter, as much as a lich is very silly, as well as the idea that his love for Rook would be diminished by him potentially outliving them. Also the weird idea that Emmrich eventually finding someone else to love as a partner after Rook dies is somehow bad? Not to mention the fact that some people seem to claim that all he's doing by becoming a lich is shifting his fear of death off of himself and onto others.

But anyways. The game doesn't really go into too much detail on how exactly being a lich works in Thedas, but myself and @rockshortage have been discussing it, and our best guess is, that by becoming a lich, what is happening is: Emmrich's soul is being disconnected from his physical body without letting it pass beyond to wherever the hell souls go in Thedas after death, and then he is possessing his own dead body the way a spirit might possess a person or object. I don't think there is any doubt that it's Emmrich in there, because the souls of a physical being and a spirit from the fade, while having similarities, would still be distinctly different.

Emmrich explains that, as a lich, some of his physical senses would dull - makes sense, since he would just be a disembodied spirit - he would still be in possession of his mind, and would have access to other senses that physical, mortal beings just Don't have. I've seen some claims that he's completely losing his physical senses since he's becoming undead, but I actually think that the description of his physical senses dulling is more accurate than a complete loss. If Emmrich is becoming more akin to a spirit than a physical being, then it would make sense for him to eventually be able to project his senses out to a degree. I mean, christ, he can see and hear things for god's sake. Sight and hearing are types of physical sense that are usually tied to the possession of eyes and ears, and their ability to function properly and communicate with a functioning brain. You know, things that Emmrich objectively doesn’t have as a literal skeleton. It may take some time to learn how to do and get used to, but Emmrich should logically be able to project his other senses, like smell and touch, outwards from his body, or whatever form he happens to be taking at that moment.

As for his mind, I think this is another way in which Emmrich is becoming more similar to a spirit. With people, our emotional states depend on our brain chemistry and our environment. Spirits, on the other hand, are beings made of magical energy giving shape to emotion. As a disembodied soul, Emmrich wouldn't quite be a being of pure emotion the way a spirit is, but he also wouldn't be restricted by brain chemistry either. As a lich, I think that he would be experiencing emotions in a different way to how he did before. It's still him, and he still feels the same big emotions as before, but it's just a different way of existing. His memory is also no longer dependent on the physical synapses formed inside of his brain, which means that he can apparently recall everything in his memory with perfect clarity. These two things, when combined, would likely give him a type of clarity of mind that is probably quite literally unfathomable to someone who hasn't experienced it.

And he can apparently see shrimp colors now, too. These shrimp colors specifically being the literal life energy inside of living beings, which he describes as a "thread of diamond flame", and also I think he can perceive literal magic in a very tangible way that people just straight up Can't, given the way he describes certain things after the lichual. Think about how much life there is in any given place in the world, from grass to bugs to microorganisms in the water. Now think about how much ambient magic there must be in a world like Thedas, flowing and being manipulated by the world around it as it moves. Can you imagine how overwhelming it might be to suddenly wake up and be able to perceive all of that? How the ability to perceive these things might make someone like Emmrich feel? He's a man of big emotions who feels things very deeply, and holds an intense love for the world and the things in it. To suddenly be granted the ability to see even more layers of complexity and beauty in the world would only make Emmrich love life and the world around him even more. That's not to mention the flowers he loves so much. He expressed concern that they wouldn't be the same for him as an undead, but with his new lich sight, the flowers would be more beautiful than before, not less.

To tie it back to the stuff about his relationship with Rook, Emmrich is clearly just as devoted to Rook as a lich as he was when he was alive. He's arguably a lot more upfront and willing to be an absolute sap on main, as he constantly calls Rook "my love", starting from the very moment he steps out of the lichual chamber.

I do actually think that there is some credence to the idea that Emmrich’s fear shifts from it being centered more on himself, to being centered on those around him. That is to say, it seems perfectly logical for him to become more worried about the well-being of the people he cares for once he is a lich, because he can quite literally see their life energy in their bodies. However, becoming a lich doesn't inherently change anything about his emotional or mental state. It changes some things because he needs to adapt to how different things are for him, but it doesn't automatically mean that he doesn't need to put in the work to manage his fears or compulsions, and this is not a bad thing. I think it would actually be worse if his mind was stuck in a static state, to be honest. Him still needing to put in the work to regulate his emotions and fears is not bad, nor is him still sometimes falling victim to his compulsions of wanting to control things about his life inherently bad. It’s something he needs to manage and keep on top of, but progress and overcoming problems does not necessarily mean that the problems disappear entirely; it means that you’ve found ways of dealing with those issues and know what to do when they resurface, and are able to adapt and figure out how to deal with other problems that may arise afterwards. 

Likewise, Emmrich’s OCD and fear of not having control does not go away just because he accepts that he can’t control everything as a self-soothing technique. Is he afraid of rook and other people around him dying once he becomes a lich? Yes, he absolutely is, but to say that this is indicative of an attempt to overcome fear only to shift it to something else, isn’t entirely accurate. I think it also ignores the fact that Emmrich is very much concerned about the well-being of rook and the other party members even if he remains mortal, as seen when he attempts to push rook away right before tearstone island. He’s afraid of losing them, so his fear drives him to try and remove the source of the fear, which is rook.

Him continuing to have fears and intense negative emotion responses to things as a lich is not inherently bad. It’s just something he has to be mindful of in order to not let those fears control him or dictate his unlife

The very last thing that I wanted to address, as I mentioned above, is the nature of Emmrich’s relationship with rook as an undead. There are several things that I’ve seen people discuss that seem incredibly short-sighted and ignorant of the ways in which real relationships work, the first being that Emmrich outliving rook is bad because it would mean he would have to spend the rest of his unlife missing them. I think this is ignorant of how real relationships work in real life, because death itself is a fact of life that every single person in the world has to live through and deal with at some point or another. 

I actually had someone say I was being disingenuous for allegedly saying that Emmrich dying before rook is the same as rook dying before Emmrich, but I think that response really betrays how much they didn’t understand what I was trying to say, which is: there is no way to know how much time you will have with somebody that you love. No matter how young or old you may be, no matter how old or young - or in good health - your partner may be, there is no guarantee that you will spend the rest of your life with them. One of you might die, or you may decide to go your separate ways at some point down the line for whatever reason. There is infinite space for you to play in and explore the different ways in which Emmrich’s relationship with rook might conclude - regardless of which choice you make - and I think painting the lich route as bad because Emmrich would outlive rook and leave him sad and alone forever, is, I might say, pretty damn stupid. It also sounds like the things someone would say if they haven’t actually experienced the death of somebody they love or care about.

Grief, especially grief over losing somebody, isn’t something that goes away eventually. It stays with you for the rest of your life and can change you as a person in significant, often extreme, ways. But how grief affects you and how you live with that grief is largely dependent on how you choose to handle and deal with it when it happens. Many people are unable to cope with their grief because they simply don’t have the tools or support network to work through things like death, and many people are capable of accepting and moving on and living happy, fulfilling lives with their grief. To state that rook dying would condemn Emmrich to grieving rook forever (or however long Emmrich exists as a lich) is only half right; yes, Emmrich will carry that grief with him for the rest of his unlife, but he is also someone who understands the nature of death and mourning. 

Emmrich experienced the traumatic death of his parents at a young age and it fundamentally changed him for the rest of his life. He also had the mourn watch to help him grieve, accept their deaths, and to live with his grief afterwards. As a mourn watcher, he helps other people to mourn and find closure both for the deaths of others. As a corpse whisperer and necromancer, he helps the dead move on. You’ll have to forgive me for thinking that Emmrich might be the type of person who is capable of mourning and grieving the loss of those he loves, and also of living with that grief without it metastasizing and rotting him from within. That doesn’t mean he won’t miss rook or anyone else, it doesn’t mean that the love he feels for them is in any way diminished or less real, because that’s not how that works. 

Being able to work through the death of somebody you love in a healthy way doesn’t automatically mean that you didn’t actually love the person, nor does it mean you can’t then go on to love somebody else afterwards. People do not have a finite amount of love - romantic or non-romantic - in them that they can only give to one person ever, nor are people only capable of having one true love in their lives and that everything else was either Not The One or Will Never Be Just As Good, because that’s not how people or feelings work.

So no, I don’t think that either rook or Emmrich outliving each other is the exact same in terms of how it will affect either of them, but I do think it’s shortsighted and ignorant of the ways in which people think and feel to act as if lich Emmrich outliving rook would be so much worse for him just because he would have to live with the grief for longer. 

I would like to end on the caveat that I wrote this mainly because I feel there’s been a lot of misinterpretation of aspects of Emmrich’s character and the different options for his storyline that have led to people expressing genuine concerns, fears, and anxieties of theirs in ways that veer too far into things like ableism, acephobia, and of how things like obsessive compulsions manifest. Especially the ableism, if I can be honest, because as a disabled person, seeing people gripe on about how lich Emmrich is bad because he “can’t have sex”, or at least can’t have “normal sex” really grates on more than a few of my nerves. 

I also want to say that I didn’t write this to try and say that somebody headcanoning the relationship between Emmrich and their rook having some of the issues mentioned above are wrong for doing so. By all means, please explore the space and the different ways in which their relationship could unfold, I think it's much more interesting to explore how problems could affect a relationship in fiction. I just don’t want people to automatically write off the lich route as inherently bad and not worth it just because the difference between Emmrich's storyline choices are a bit more nuanced and different than “do you want to forgive or get revenge”. 

[sweet7simple]

Mech Pregnancy, Cybertronian biology and the gestation system, and what I like to call the Gestational Protocols

(A sparkling has two parts: The spark and the birth metal).

I have written about mech pregnancy before and that actually went really well! It got over a hundred notes, my most popular post ever.

So I thought, why stop? I love reproductive science. I love science fiction. I want to develop this more.

I spent more than five hours drawing and labeling and I am not fully pleased with it, but I am just pleased enough and tired enough to show you all what I am thinking.

If mech pregnancy, breeding, world building and/or messy hand drawings bring you joy, check below the cut!

(When I say I drew these by hand, I mean I drew them by hand).

(Note: When I mention a CPU, I am referring to a Central Processing Unit, otherwise known as the brain module.)

The codpiece: A goddamn problem. They can transform into transportation, though, so moving a codpiece out of the way surely has to be doable for them.

The valve: It has very large and noticeable exterior energy node and the reason for this is to indicate charge. We see the portus majora, or the larger port from the outside. If we spread these folds, we'll see the portus minora, or the smaller port. The portus minora is where the interior node system begins. Within the portus minora is the valve entrance, which gives way to the valve sleeve.

The spike: It can be modified or replaced, but the design has to be such that it can collapse in on itself and fit inside of the housing. Whatever your personal preference, the plug (the head of the spike) should expand outward in some way for reasons I will explain shortly. The plug is densely populated with small interior nodes while the cord or cable (the shaft of the spike) is sparsely populated with large exterior nodes. This makes the plug more sensitive. When the cable drains of its gel (which is recycled back into the system via a pressurizer fluid reservoir), these exterior nodes sink into depressions within the interlocking segments so that they don't snag on the housing rim when depressurized.

Note: In the diagrams, I call the nodes "energy nodes". There is a reason for that, but it's not necessarily necessary to the system.

Let me explain: I wrote a story where the nodes captured energy from the friction of the spike's external nodes striking against the valve's internal nodes and then that energy was sent to the spark chamber as a backup source of power during spark merging as spark merging dispersed energy and thereby diminished the sparks.

They don't have to be energy nodes, though. Those fun little goodie spots that create so much pleasure don't have to have a dual purpose. They can just be sensory nodes connected to the sensory net, a subsystem of the neural net.

When it comes to spark merging, I use stellar collision to visualize it. Here is a Youtube video that shows the collapse of a binary stellar system that pretty much sums up what I think happens, but on a much smaller scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsIMDKMKUWw

The result of the spark merging, however is that a third body is generated from the collision. This third body is created from the intense heat and energy of the spark merging, and from the fragmented copies of life codes duplicated during the spark merge. This is the sparkling. When its creators' sparks retreat to their own chambers, the sparkling will attach to the creator that is receiving transfluid (I will explain shortly).

A form of gestation control includes putting a shunt on the spark chamber to disperse the foreign energy body.

2. The birthing conduit is what it says it is. Once the sparkling has created its own life code, it will descend down the conduit and join with its birth metal, or sentio metallico, in the gestation tank.

3. The gestation tank is where the birth metal is produced from the metal alloy particles carried in transfluid and the energon provided by the carrier. You can also think of it as a crucible furnace, which is used for melting metals in small quantities within a foundry. The crucible is the innermost cavity where the birth metal is made. That crucible is lined with a layer of refractory material, which withstands high heat. That refractory material is going to keep that crucible hot enough to maintain the birth metal as a liquid without melting the protoform layer between the refractory material and the outer shell of the tank.

So the layers from outermost to innermost are :

Outer shell -> protoform layer -> refractory material -> crucible

Also, I move to call the carrier creator a foundry now because I love that word so much. The Google definition for a foundry is a workshop or factory for casting metal. It just sounds so good.

"Hey, First Aid, is Ratchet your foundry?"

"No, but I get that a lot."

I can't think of an equally cool word to replace the term "sire".

4. The valve sleeve is a semi-permeable layer of elastic protoform that can stretch to a certain degree. The interior nodes are within this protoform layer and creates a bumpy texture. As already discussed the sleeve is self-lubricating. I am starting to realize that I labeled this diagram horribly, but please bear with me.

5. Calipers! They in all the sticky sexual interface stories. I just imagine them as these segmented, arm-like extensions that squeeze and relax depending on stimulation. In fanfiction, they have a habit of "cycling down" whenever stimulated. What I love about calipers is that they do set a minimum and maximum range of flexibility for the sleeve. With calipers, there is such a thing as being too small (the calipers can only tighten so much) or too big (the calipers can only loosen so much). They are synonymous to the pelvic floor muscles in a human that makes a vagina contract and relax, but they just make me think of pussy bones. You have to be careful not to break them.

6. THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART. Here is where the valve sleeve meets the gestation tank. There are two orifices: The tank cap and the lockring. The tank cap is where your mech is going to put some kind of seal as a form of gestation control. If a spike can't get into the gestation tank, then there is no birth metal. If there is no birth metal, a signal will be sent to the mech's CPU and then to the spark chamber to disperse the potential sparkling. How the tank cap is removed depends on how you want it removed. If you want a screw-in cap, then that cap will have to be removed via an invasive procedure (otherwise known as we're going to have to stick this instrument up your valve and twist the cap open and then we have to pull out the cap). If you want almost any other kind of seal or door, you can hypothetically just send a signal from the CPU to the neural net attached to the gestation system and have that seal slide out of the way into a depression within the rim of the gestation tank.

BUT THAT LOCKRING, THOUGH. This is why your spike needs to have a plug that expands to some degree.

Once that cap is out of the way, the mech's spike is going to pop through that lockring, sticking their plug directly in their partner's gestation tank. I like to call this "plugging the tank". Once that plug is in that tank, a signal is going to hit the CPU to start up GESTATIONAL PROTOCOLS. More on that at the end.

That lockring is going to cycle down just behind the plug, tight enough that the spike can't pull out without being too tight.

The purpose of this is to ensure that the gestation tank is filled up with transfluid. The lockring will only cycle open once the tank is full or once sensors within the tank indicate that the flow of transfluid has stopped for a certain amount of time (meaning that there is no more transfluid to be had, even if the tank isn't full yet).

It's a reverse knot! Instead of having a spike that knots, we get a valve that locks! I love it so.

7. The energy - or sensory - nodes are part of a positive feedback loop, meaning that "the product of a reaction leads to an increase in that reaction" (https://www.albert.io/blog/positive-negative-feedback-loops-biology/). In this case, pleasure created from stimulating those nodes (such as friction) encourages more stimulation, which creates more pleasure, which encourages more stimulation, until the loop breaks. What breaks this loop is overloading the sensory net or removing the friction.

When we state that the valve is self-lubricating, you can decide for yourself how it does that. The trick is making sure that the mech can can replace their own lubricant when necessary. One system is to have lubricant be a type of consequence from energon circulation.

Humans self-lubricate their vaginas in several different ways and one of them is that the vagina is somewhat permeable. Plasma (the liquid part of blood) is able to discharge from the bloodstream through the walls of the vagina.

Or perhaps your lubricant comes from the same reservoir as the transfluid for your spike. Since the valve sleeve is only somewhat permeable, the metal alloy particles in your transfluid can't get through. What does leak through is the fluid medium that the metal alloy particles reside in.

The plug is itself not an interlocking segment because the plug, as explained, has to expand so that the lockring can tighten between the plug and the topmost interlocking segment. If the plug is smaller than the interlocking segment behind it, then the lockring will either not tighten enough or will tighten too much. Instead, the plug has an outer protoform layer that is expanded with the same pressurizer fluid that fills the spike. In the diagram above, we see the spike, the spike housing that the spike has to depressurize to fit inside of, and at least three different connections at the bottom. One of these connections bundles the wires for the sensory net and attaches to the neural net.

The bottommost connection is to the pressurizer fluid reservoir. When the spike is pressurized, the reservoir compresses and fills the matrix within the spike to give it its form and rigidity. When the spike depressurizes, the reservoir decompresses as it fills with fluid.

The connection that has a dashed line going all the way up the spike connects the transfluid reservoir to the transfluid line (signified by the dashed line) and out the plug. The transfluid reservoir is actually pressed against the outside of the valve!

So it is possible to bang a mech's valve so good that they leak transfluid all over themselves because you are more or less hitting their reservoir with every thrust. You just have to get the angle right or else you're hitting the sleeve calipers and that might not be as fun.

The Gestational Protocols:

This has turned into a very, very long post. I have been working on it for nine hours now between drawing the diagrams, writing the post, and checking with Google to make sure my science isn't horrifically, unforgivably wrong (I could be using the positive feedback loop wrong, but I don't think I am).

So let me wrap this up with the Gestational Protocols. It's like a mech heat fic, actually, except the heat is very short and starts toward the end of sticky sexual interfacing.

For this scenario, Ratchet and Drift want to produce a sparkling. Because Drift is concerned about Ratchet's health, they decide that Drift should be the foundry. Drift has his tank cap removed beforehand.

They're having a great time, creating all the good friction, lighting up their sensory net like a growing fire. Drift is charged up, Ratchet is charged up, and they're about to hit that overload.

Drift's lockring is cycled all the way open. His calipers are trying to pull Ratchet closer. When Ratchet knows he can't hold on any longer, he pushes as deep as he can go. There's a small moment of resistance when his plug meets the lockring and then he pops through. The lockring cycles down and he's stuck. There's no pulling out now.

Ratchet told Drift what to expect from the gestational protocols, but it wasn't enough. The moment Ratchet is locked in place, a signal is sent from his gestation system to his CPU: Gestational protocols initiated...

His cache memory crashes. He has no past or present or future. He has no idea there was a war lasting millions of years. He doesn't even know what a Cybertron is. Programs are halted, tasks are paused, processing units block external input. Hydraulics fall to the lowest power possible. His frame goes completely limp.

Drift no longer exists. He is now a foundry. He is the function of his gestation system. His CPU has a primary and secondary task: Primary is to maintain the protocols and secondary is to reward Drift for maintaining the protocols.

As long as he lays there and lets Ratchet fill him up, he's fulfilling his primary task. Because it's so easy to let Ratchet fill him up, his neural net rewards him with pleasure and feel-good signals. He is riding a type of euphoria that is thoughtless bliss from the tips of his pedes to the tops of his finials.

A task pops up in his CPU, but he doesn't have the processing power to interpret it. He accepts without caring. He experiences his chest plates cracking open without actually seeing it or hearing it. His system rewards him for accepting the prompt, so he still doesn't care. His spark chamber opens next and he is thrown into the intense, beautiful pleasure-agony of having his spark collide with another mech's spark.

He doesn't remember who this other mech is, but Drift loves them. They're filling Drift up so well, both his tank and his spark. He's so full. He's being such a good foundry. He's receiving all those good neural and sensory signals and he's fuzzy/fizzy with joy.

The spark merge ends after several collisions and spirals. Drift loves every moment of it, and also loves it when his spark returns to its chamber. Now his spark feels swollen and his CPU registers a foreign body. There is a potential sparkling attached to his core. Chances are very good that this potential sparkling will not disperse.

His CPU rewards him with another rush of emotional glee and pride. He's sparked! He did so well, laying there and letting himself get sparked. He's a great foundry. He's the best foundry to ever get sparked. No one has ever been or will ever be as well-behaved as he was.

A notification hits his CPU and he doesn't even try to understand it. Apparently, it's the notification for his tank being full. A second notification and his lockring relaxes. He is deliciously, fully aware of a thick spike dragging across his oversensitive interior nodes, sending one last wave of hot, crackling pleasure through his frame.

Another notification. He doesn't read it. A task pops up. He accepts lazily.

The notification was that the gestational protocols had been completed. The task was to enter a soft reboot. Drift slips into recharge feeling like his only purpose in life is to embody pleasure and creation.

He wakes up feeling swollen and sloshy.

Ratchet is smiling down at him.

"Am I...? Are we...?"

Ratchet stroked a servo across his chest plates. "It's early still. The spark might disperse. But chances are looking good. We're sparked, kid."

And that is how I imagine the Gestational Protocols going: You get your tank plugged and then nothing matters but getting filled up with a sparkling.

Thank you for reading my book-length discussion! Please feel free to interact with me.

I have been working on this for ten hours now. I should proofread, but I am not going to at this time.

EDIT: I was in the shower when I realized I forgot something important - where does the protoform's first colony of nanites come from?

@earthstellar explains here (https://www.tumblr.com/earthstellar/659541951144738816/transformers-medical-analysis-essay-what-are?source=share) what Cybertronians use nanites for, including construction and self-repair. So we can readily assume that the protoform needs a nanites colony.

I'll tell you where the new spark's nanites came from: Their foundry's valve.

Humans do the same thing. We pick up friendly bacteria from the vagina we come out of.

That is all I had to add. Remember to start your protoform off right with a healthy nanite colony.

[flagellant]

I remember you being something of a scholar on christian theology. I have a question if you don't mind. My tumblr is full of people clowning on american conservative catholics that are angry that the pope basically fired that bishop in Texas, and the tumblr posters saying "lol u disagree with the pope that makes you disagree w/ god's word" or "that makes u a protestant" etc etc.

And while I do enjoy dunking on the trad caths, I think I heard at some point that the pope isn't always talking with his authority as god's most special boy on earth. That most of the time he is just being a human and therefore could be wrong/make errors. Not that I care about the jerk bishop losing his job, but I'm curious, how do we know when the pope is or is not talking with the authority of God backing him up? Does he have to say a special phrase at the start and end of the speech, or hold both hands up above his head, or something?

Okay so what you're referring to here is actually the concept known as papal infallibility, which is one of my favorite pieces of Catholic canon for one very simple reason:

You learn about it as being essentially the Pope is God's most special boy on Earth and what he says is always directly spoken to him from God and therefore is infallible. And if you are like me when you first hear about this concept, you will immediately get trapped in shower arguments for the rest of your life fantasizing about calling the Pope homophobic and arguing for the Catholic church to please stop being so goddamned homophobic all the time.

This is when you learn that papal infallibility is much more fallible than it is made out to be, and this is basically the source of the issue with Strickland, Torres, and any other Bishop that Francyman has decided to give the boot. See, papal infallibility isn't merely a divine play-pretend godmode button, it's a complex and intricate place within theological debate and Vatican hierarchical bureaucratic structure.

Without going into too much of a in-depth explanation, another way to think of papal infallibility is that it's essentially the Holy Roman Catholic version of the President of the United States declaring an executive order that bypasses the Senate. Infallibility is used for similar reasons--it's got a semi-strict set of rules attached to its usage, which means that the Pope is not constantly infallible, but rather that the Pope as God's chosen elect on Earth therefore commands His greatest attention, which allows the Pope direct intercession and communication with God on paths that the Church as a body should walk.

There are usually supposed to be bureaucratic machinations for dethrocking or deposing a bishop, much of which is directly connected to confirming and providing direct evidence for certain crimes that the Holy See would consider too serious to allow him to continue serving in his position. But the Pope is the divinely elected God-Emperor Best Favorite of Oily Josh and his Daddio Self, so generally speaking when it comes to the Pope, there's always the option baked in for him to say "Fuck you I'm the Pope and you're going to do what I say without precedent".

This is the core of the issue for the current Strickland debacle--there might not be hard-and-fast written rules stating that Strickland can be removed from office through traditional means, but Francis doesn't approve of what he's preaching and using his office for since it's causing the minorest of itty-bitty issues with his principled stance of being The Pope That Liberals Might Vaguely Not Hate As Much. So he's functionally exercising a form of papal infallibility by skipping over procedures and etiquette to tell Strickland "Fuck you I'm the Pope and you're going to do what I say without precedent", and Strickland is going "But I thought you would only do that to bishops who belong to brown countries :(", and here we are.

[imissivan]

so i think in every universe that’s not the present one, ivantill is requited openly and goofy and sometimes still repressed and bad at communicating, but however long it takes, they find each other. but i have to admit. what they’ve gone through — the lack of freedom, happiness, the total lack of human social networks, not even not being raised by humans but the total absence in their lives of humans who connect with humans AS HUMANS — rather than as human pets — it prevents ivan and till AND mizi and sua from forming relationships like we think of them. yknow? mizi and sua are much more open about their regard for each other, because of mizi’s unique character and situation, the level of innocence she’s able to retain. but the rest of them know what’s going on. the pain of that existence stunts what possibilities are available to them. in that environment, they do what they must to survive — which means ivan keeping his feelings under tight control and accepting his fate to yearn and never have; till deeply, deeply repressing whatever he feels for ivan bc mizi represents innocence and a hope for a joyful, free life that has been denied to all of them; sua not connecting with anyone besides mizi, marching to her death without consulting mizi bc it’s all she can think to offer. the circumstances of this universe are such that it’s nearly impossible for healthy or full human relationships to form. for children destined for alien stage — for whom growing old is already a distant dream, much less growing old with someone they love by their side — it’s even less likely. this is also what makes these relationships that DO form despite the circumstances so damn powerful and compelling — the time mizi and sua get to share (mizi crying with frustration when they drift apart when they’re so little) — the stability that ivan and till’s bond provides, even if it is volatile and characterized by miscommunications and misunderstandings. for me, with ivantill, it’s key that it’s NOT totally unrequited — the feelings till has for ivan are confused and unexamined, but like, i don’t blame till for that! he’s got plenty to worry about already, and the circumstances of the garden also exacerbate ivan’s struggles to communicate and understand his feelings properly, too. loving gently and warmly and out in the open like mizi does does not come naturally or at all to ivan in this world! and that adds barriers between ivan and till. but they still care for each other so much — till does look back, there are moments of tenderness, of ivan being different for till than other ppl, of till treating ivan differently, which along w the narrative structure and their relationship paralleling mizi and sua’s and so on, express a deep regard for ivan that goes mostly unexpressed / is made difficult by their situation.

but then!!! you look at the goddamn AUs and shit!!!! and one, look at ivan’s character — outside of the trauma of alien stage, he’s so much more open and soft and loving! to till, specifically — able to get his attention and form a relationship not just based on proximity or thru antagonizing him. that’s very important, in my eyes, to making ivantill work. it’s something ivan can’t do in alien stage, that kind of open expressive love, but if he could, i think it would present him as a viable option for love in till’s eyes (as much as such a thing can exist in that world). like at the bare minimum, till would KNOW — whether ivan confesses or not — that ivan loves him, be more aware or sure of that. ivan can express affection or admiration for till in the open, at times when till’s not asleep or distracted or whatever.

second, till is also different! mizi is not the only source of warmth and happiness in an otherwise bleak and deeply painful, abusive life. without those incredibly challenging circumstances forcing till into survival mode, he has more options for how he can imagine his life, relationships, and express himself. he doesn’t have to put his whole being into loving the one person who expresses warm love as a survival mechanism to keep inspiring himslf to live. instead, he can observe and better understand ivan. and ivan is also less difficult to understand, himself better at expressing himself. with fewer thorny barriers between the two complicating their attitudes towards one another, the two can be friends, best friends, without complication — and thus also more. and i feel like i can’t ever stop thinking about the biggest barrier to their relationship in the alien stage world, the lack of examples of loving human relationships. how do you know what it means to love someone, if you have never seen it? never felt it? i think about this on a queer level, too — took me forever to figure out that i DO feel certain kinds of attraction differently towards different kinds of people, that i do feel it at all, bc at first, i only had 1 narrow example of what romantic or sexual attraction could be. without examples of other possibilities, it never occurred to me that what i was feeling counted. and that’s still with and understanding of any concept of love or romantic relationship!! poor ivan and till are out there fuckin tryna invent human social networks from scratch, RIP

this has been such a long stream of consciousness thinking about these guys so i just want to mention one final thing.

THE GODDAMN ACTOR AU.

they can be platonic OF COURSE. but the depth of emotion and their bond and everything in the other universes — to me, actor AU is the healthiest and easiest and sweetest universe in which the two of them get together. they’re not in each others lives from childhood, and it works in their favor acrually — they’re both fully realized humans, who have lots of chemistry, who deeply admire each others abilities, have similar interests — if we can bring the knowledge of their dynamic and the depth of their bond from the alien stage world to consider what they’d be like together in the actor AU, like 🥹🥹🥺🥺🥺🥺. an open and confident and loving ivan. a mature and expressive and affectionate till. they’re at their best in actor AU, and it’s that AU that really settled my brain into “shipping these two forever and ever” mode. because it can’t happen in their original universe — not without huge changes and a lot of time, like even if they both escaped with their lives, they would need time to heal and grow into their own people before they could really have a health relationship. but in actor AU 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 what they have and can have in actor AU 🥺🥺🥺🥺 gives us a glimpse at what they could be, if they got that time, if they got that chance. what they can be in every other universe, whenever they get that chance. AHHHHH i just love them so freaking much

[two-white-butterflies]

parallel lines | d. targaryen | part eight

Description: An ordinary middle school teacher moves to a desolate town with her fiancee. After suffering episodes of vivid nightmares, she realizes that his uncle looks exactly like the man in her dreams.

Pairings: daemon targaryen/reader, aemond targaryen/reader

Trope: Reincarnation

TW: Murder. Non-Con.

series masterlist |

"If you know it in one glimpse, it's legendary You and I go from one kiss to gettin married." - loml, Taylor Swift.

(TARGARYEN RESIDENCE. 2008)

It was a hail mary from the beginning. Two people who had everything to lose, plotting to have more than they could handle. "She must've known." Alicent breathes, playing with the rosary-styled bracelet on her left wrist. "- I told you not to cheap out on the assassins. We'll get the money back anyways." she scolded.

Her grip on the bracelet tightened. Viserys' took a deep breath.

"I did not hire mediocre mercenaries. It was a recommendation from the goddamn Governor of Texas. If you're searching for good mercenaries, you're not gonna find them because people who kill people for a living don't have a moral compass." he gritted his teeth. His anger doubling at every second he spent in his wife's presence.

"I couldn't care less about their moral compass. You should've hired someone who had a follow through." she hissed, glaring at him. "I'm sorry but I'm not the one who wanted Olivia L/N dead." he groaned, standing up and attempting to exit the door.

She stares at the side, the sight of a crucifix snapping her back into reality. "I don't like the role that you're giving me, Viserys." her voice cracked, her fingers dancing along every bead. Along every Hail Mary. Her breath hitched for a second.

Fearing the person that she's become.

He made her this way. He manipulated her, made her believe that the love that they shared was true. He made her fight for every scrap of his love. He made her a monster. Now, she was finally thirty, fifteen would never cross her mind. "You're the one who wanted to give your children part of Aemma's company. I was following your wishes." he tried to flip the table at her.

Our children. She wanted to correct him.

It might've been her idea, but he didn't give her a choice. Her children would live in poverty without the money that Aemma provided. Alicent didn't have a job. She didn't even finish High School, and it was obvious that Viserys wasn't going to be around for long.

"Don't worry about Olivia. She doesn't have the guts to sue us. I hope that you learn to be content with what you've been provided. Not everything has to be handed on a silver spoon." Viserys remarked.

Aemond breathes. "They're fighting again." he spoke through the landline. Fighting was a normal occurrence in the Targaryen Household, it was always about the inheritance.

"Mom ought to accept that the old man isn't gonna leave us a single dime." Aegon chuckled. His older brother long accepted the fact that Viserys hated all his children from his second-marriage.

"- Rhaenyra has always been the golden child. I don't know why we bother." he added with an eye-roll.

Aemond pressed his lips closer to the microphone. "Dad hired someone to kill Aunt Olivia." he dropped the bomb, and the other line answered with silence. "- Mom figured that if Aunt Olivia died, then all the shares would go to Dad, and there'll be enough for us." he whispered, careful not to be heard.

"He'd rather have someone murdered than give us a tiny piece of Rhaenyra's billion dollar inheritance? I study in New York. I should kill Aunt Olive, make Mom proud for once." his lips pressed into a thin line, seriously considering that random thought.

The younger brother responds with a chuckle.

"You won't do that Aegon. You're not actually a murderer." he laughed, thinking that it was his older brother's way of making a joke. Aegon licks his lips. Right, not a murderer.

OLIVIA L/N FOUND DEAD IN AN NYC APARTMENT WITH NO CURRENT SUSPECTS, POLICE SOURCES SAY.

NEW YORK -- Police sources are revealing more details about a murder in Manhattan. They say that the New York City Police Department is currently conducting investigations about possible motives for the crime.

It happened in Upper Manhattan, sources say that the first person that found the body was Ms. Olivia L/N's daughter, then a neighbor that chooses to remain anonymous.

Olivia L/N is the co-founder of Dragonpine Brewery, which has now expanded into different industries including real estate, technology, and pharmaceuticals. She currently owns 49% of Dragonpine Brewery, but all shares are expected to return to Viserys Targaryen, who too, owns 49% of the company.

The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide due to the blunt force trauma to the head, and stab wounds on her stomach.

Anyone with any information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-***-***-TIPS. ALL CALLS ARE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL.

(PRESENT)

Daemon couldn't stop pacing and forth. Luckily, the bullet didn't hit anything important. You could still use your ankle normally in the future, but it would take time to heal.

"It's a medical miracle. It's the first time I've seen it happen." he remarks, trying to calm himself down.

The entire thing was difficult to process. He found it hard to believe that Aemond suddenly lost all semblance of normalcy and broke. "The gun wasn't registered. He could face charges, unless Alicent drives by with her golden chariot and bribes the judge again." he rolled his eyes, unwilling to let his nephew live scot-free.

"I told her about Aemond's past, the case with the girl and Nick. She could've confronted him about it, brought memories that he couldn't handle. He could've been guilty." Rhaenyra suggested, shaking her head. "Where is he?" Daemon's eyes narrowed.

He peeked through the halls, searching for his nephew's familiar silver-gold locks. "Down at the police station. Jace tells me that Aemond's shaken. Unable to form any statement." she adds with a deep breath. Aware that the story was reaching its climax.

"Alicent won't let him speak anyways. Where's Helaena?" he paused, reminded of his youngest niece. "She's babysitting the kids. Daemon, role-calling everyone won't be enough to distract you from Y/N. She's a wall away, I can hear her heart monitor from here." she pointed out.

Clearly as nervous as he was.

"I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe that we're given a second chance at everything, but we're still making the same mistakes." he sat down on the bench beside her.

He wanted to be a better person. Make his life worthwhile, but with the people around him repeating the same mistakes over and over. "I feel like I'm trapped inside a paradox. We'll die, then we'll get reborn and repeat everything again. It's like that show we watched. Are we in the Bad Place?" his eyebrows merged together.

"I don't know, Daemon. It feels like hell, but then I see my sons and I wouldn't trade this life for anything else." she had a bitter smile on her face. A nurse steps out of your room.

Daemon rises to his feet.

"Is she awake?" he inquired.

"No. I don't think that I'm at liberty to say this but - being unconscious for this long isn't normal. They'll do some tests, but I'm sure she'll be fine." the nurse felt inclined to speak out, seeing Daemon's worried face.

"Are you her boyfriend?" the nurse asked.

Rhaenyra's face softened. "It's complicated." she bit her lower lip.

(HARRENHAL.)

TW: NON CON SCENE (WILL STATE WHEN IT'S OVER SO YOU CAN SCROLL DOWN TO IT)

You breathe in the smell of smoke. Harrenhal was a curse.

"You will die here." you whispered, the prophetic visions finally finding solace inside of you, like they've found solace in Alys.

"You dampen the mood." Aemond pours himself a goblet of wine. "- it will not stop me from having my way." he reminded.

"I know." you whispered.

"We won't be needing this," he stated, cutting swiftly through your gown. He was staring at your body with the intensity of a thousand stars - you could've sworn that it was love - but it was not. "Why are you doing this?" you whisper, covering your breasts.

He does not acknowledge the use of your tongue. He ignores you. He presses a kiss to your jaw, inhaling the scent of your jasmine perfume. A prisoner has never lived more lavishly than you. "Riñītsos," he answered, hands trailing down to pull yours away.

"You sleep beside my sister knowing such stain is upon your honor." you gritted your teeth.

"Stomach up." he commanded - eyes twinkling with lust. "Legs open," he added - seeing you in the vulnerable position.

You couldn't remember anything that happened afterwards.

(NON-CON SCENE OVER)

"I care not about what he's done to your husband. I care more about what you had to go through." Alys looked at you in a crestfallen way. She vowed to protect you, but her visions clouded her judgement. Made her believe that Aemond was their savior.

"It'll be the same tomorrow, Alys, unless you can remedy this curse then rid yourself. Leave my presence." you pleaded, unable to stare into her eyes. The same eyes that you looked at in the mirror. "You may think me cold, that all I've ever grown to love is him. I thought that I could control him, but he is like the wind." she shook her head.

"You cannot catch the wind, sister." your breath quivered.

"What I've done is payment for my sins," she started.

You snap out of the trance. Eyes finally meeting hers.

"What did you do?" you asked.

"I killed him." Alys admitted, only then did you realize the streak of blood of her cheek. "I'm sorry." she apologized, falling to the floor.

"I forgive you." you bite the insides of your cheeks.

You've watched your sister hold the enemy softer than she's ever held you. You watch her let peace slip through her fingers. You watch her betray you and you forgive her, because this is the role she must play. You cannot resent the dancer for the actions of the song.

"There will be a boat going to an island near the Ghiscari Empire. I hope that you find peace there." she handed you three dragons. "What about you?" you tilted her head, feeling the tears trickle down your cheeks. "I must stay." she reminded.

It was the last winter that you'd spend with this body. You lived sixty more years without your husband. Now, you were old and frail - there were lines on the sides of your eyes. Wrinkles that weren't there when your husband was still alive.

"Have some tea." Serenei's daughter beckoned.

You complied.

Feeling every bit of your consciousness slip away.

You had a vision the night before, that this would be your last life. You already broke the karmic chains and learnt all your lessons. There was no need to restart the pain and suffering.

But you sharply argued with the gods.

Told them that you had to be reborn. You needed to see Daemon. You needed a life where you could be with him longer, and happier.

The gods granted you that gift.

And thus, here you are again.

Your throat felt dry; like you haven't drank water in a thousand years. You hear the machine beeping beside you. A feeling of someone's hand on top of yours.

You opened your eyes.

"Daemon," you whispered.

"I remember."

next chapter>>

OK THIS LINE

You've watched your sister hold the enemy softer than she's ever held you. You watch her let peace slip through her fingers. You watch her betray you and you forgive her, because this is the role she must play. You cannot resent the dancer for the actions of the song.

WAS COPIED FROM @faiIwife on twitter. IT MADE MY LIFE IM SORRY.

[whetstonefires]

So the thing with the Matrix for me, right, was I could never get past the assertion that the motivation for keeping humans alive was as a power source.

That pinged as so so stupid, and was presented so late and half-heartedly, that I could not understand it as a sincere part of the premise. Like. We're told very dramatically and pretty early that the world was mostly destroyed by humans 'scourging the skies' to block off all solar radiation in the effort to shut down the solar powered robots, evidently forgetting that all life on Earth is solar-powered also. Too comedically dumb to be really tragic imo.

So to pivot from the premise 'there is no life on earth, other than human beings, because the sun is gone' to 'the humans were kept alive as batteries' is an impossibility for me. Our ludicrous mammalian bodies, incredibly inefficient engines entirely reliant on continuous indirect consumption of solar energy to even survive, were somehow yielding a net output? Not only that, but one superior to nuclear or geothermal???? Bullshit.

I mean. Bull. Shit. I cannot. We just underlined in the backstory how all life on earth relies on the sun! Because life is expensive just to maintain and requires constant external energy input! We get milk from cows by keeping them alive, but that's because they turn the grass energy into something easier for us to process; no such mechanism is proposed for humans consuming dead humans and somehow producing a form of energy more useful to the Machines than just waiting for the corpses to dry out and then burning them to run a goddamn boiler.

This makes the direct opposite of sense.

It had to be in-universe propaganda, right? Another layer of the deception? It couldn't be the real reason. It was too implausible. Which meant I was still waiting to find out why the machines were really bothering with humanity and the Matrix.

I would have accepted without quibble the revelation that humans have special psychic energy that the machines were harvesting; that's dumb but in a comfortable, comprehensible, and above all internally consistent sci-fi kind of way.

I would have been quite open to the idea that the machines relied on human consciousness for their own development to true sapience, and the Matrix was primarily an AI nursery with the enmeshed human brains providing complex inputs, that one's actually cool.

There are a lot of explanations out there aside from the dumb official one, or the Occam's Razor one where they were just keeping some humans alive out of sentimentality! I'm really not that picky!

So anyway I never managed to emotionally engage with the Matrix films well because I had this unresolved 'motives of primary antagonist??? cause of fundamental scenario??????' thing making most of the actual plot twist and drama feel kind of boring.

My sister maintains that this is something wrong with me, that I'm refusing to suspend my disbelief and engage correctly with the text, and this constitutes a hostile, bad-faith and therefore illegitimate reading.

(She hasn't actually said this last part and I'd respect her position more if she did, but this seems to be the broad thrust of her emotional position when she starts shouting.)

I maintain that if a central plank of your sci-fi premise relies on going 'fuck the basic principles of thermodynamics and biology this is a vibes-based system' you should be very careful to avoid invoking the relationship between basic thermodynamics and biology in your core worldbuilding.

[genderqueerdykes]

https://www.tumblr.com/transmascsmatter/773428386465972224/immediately-coming-at-a-trans-masc-with-hostility?source=share

JFC they say this person didn't care about trans women as if them saying women didn't INCLUDE trans women

goddamn. i normally don't reblog posts of that nature but i actually went ahead and did so because it's a live example of transmasc erasure & transandrophobia. i am just so sick of people jumping to silence a transmasc or trans man the second they talk about their issues. i am so tired of the instant derailing of posts when it comes to transmasc issues. and it happens so often i feel like i need to just start showing people. like a lot of stuff on this site sucks but i feel like people need to SEE how bad this is getting, and not just listen to my words without proof.

it's really telling when people see the word "women" and still somehow go "BUT WHAT ABOUT TRANS WOMEN???" like yeah. we are included in women. we don't have to specify "trans women" Every Single Time we're talking about women. we are included in that. we are women. no shit. i don't know why people think trans women are so self centered that we have to see the phrase "Trans Women" to know you're including US when you mention women, but we're not like that. like we do not need you to bend over backwards to remind us of how much you want to look like you support us. we know we're included in women. we. are. women. you don't have to specify "trans women" if we are talking about all women. we understand we're a part of that group.

i'm sorry if this ask and the post are a little different than what i normally post but i just want people to see this behavior. i don't want anyone to get harassed. do NOT bother anyone involved in this post. i want to make it very clear that i never want anyone to bug someone whom i am providing criticism. people need to learn from their mistakes in order to grow. but people also have to accept that they are MAKING a mistake, and i hope that i can help some people understand that this behavior genuinely hurts people.

we're participating in transmasculine erasure in real time when we shut up trans men and mascs for the sake of going "BUT WHAT ABOUT TRANS WOMEN?????" the funny thing about that, is you can write your own post. it's free and takes the same amount of effort as typing up a comment on a post that isn't about you. we HAVE to learn to understand when things ARE and AREN'T about us. we have to stop inserting our asses into conversations that they simply just do not belong to. people have to learn to actually get along instead of talking over each other. enough of this behavior. enough.

it is transmasculine erasure when you immediately force a transmasc or trans man to talk about trans women instead. i don't care if you don't agree with me. it's just the truth.

[whydoilooklikeawetdog]

Aight , now that my hellish uni exams are over I can actually get some work done for the GF fandom girlies. I have like 12 or so WIPs but struggling to render em so it might take some time plus I also wanna do some shitposting ( that will be like a final test to see which one of u really watched season3 lmao).

And tbh I’d really love to tweak GF canon a bit in general cause as much as I adore the show no one can deny that some characters got royally fucked over by the production and that’s not to mention the abysmal plot holes. I will of course stick to the source material because the general characterization of the cast is on point , just gonna expand on the ideas n stuff.

And on the topic of s3 we all know how that worked out in canon so I’ll mostly focus on that I think. I actually really vibed with the core ideas that s3 tried to execute (well most of em) but necessary changes need to be made ,like ; D’Jok DOES NOT LEAVE FOR TEAM PARADISIA CAUSE WTF , no more try hard love triangle bs, Mei does leave for The Shadows and plays for them for more than half a fucking season because that idea is actually amazing imo, not including the whole Sinedd’s family plotline, and tbh I might just cut the entirety of Team Paradisia or at least try to make it work by them not being androids and just skilled players related to the planet who decided to form a team with Magnus.

This is getting too long so when it comes to the main characters I’ll just say:

- Sinedd will stick more to his season 1-2 self when it comes to personality (although that can be applied to everyone tbh).

- I will add more core motivations to everyone and highlight the significance of the GFC by turning it into a powerful source of well…money (the victorious team won’t just get to have their flux fly across the universe for a while but it provides the winning team’s planet with resources ,support and influence and of course confidence and pride ( I should also mention that I would’ve preferred for the SK to lose the s1 cup but place high and win the the s2 one cause it makes more sense).

- The GFC won’t be held every 4 years because come on , even the show gave up on that idea lmao.

-Mei leaving the team won’t be her just listening to her mother’s bs AGAIN but rather a conscious decision - in my head she adores the SK but wanted to grow more as a player and felt stuck. Maybe even add a cute scene of her and Mice training together , him teaching her shooting stuff and her showing him how to block (just more of these two together pls). She was thinking about leaving the team since s2 but it was just a passing thought. My girl is ambitious as hell however she always was portrayed as one of the more uhhhh “ darker?” Of her team along with Sinedd , you know she has a tendency to foul and her general attitude - that won’t change and all. She will master the smog and I’ll leave it at that.

- In general more focus on the GFC players and the tropical white-collar crime zone that is Paradisia lmao also the villains.

- the unfunny gags in the form of those two fuckass robots , and others will be cut entirely, also no Lun-Zia ,she was fun as hell but god knows we don’t need more cast members do someone is getting forced to play as a defender ( *cough* Mark *cough*).

I have more of these but this post is a goddamn essay already. Those ideas will be how I will be portraying my s3 ( cause I’m not touching the previous seasons, I’d go insane ). And I should mention that I’ll most likely just post fanart and alike as I’m definitely not an experienced writer lmao. I’d love to hear your ideas for s3 , feel free to dm me or share em here. Thanks <3

[velvetvexations]

I've said it once and I'll say it again: a LOT of talk about reading (nebulous) theory by people who have never picked up a history book in their goddamn life. Yeah, I’ll read (nebulous) capital-t Theory — provided that you check out primary sources of trans people’s lives & lived realities — yes, including transmasculine people — & these secondary sources of how they live.

If people are actually interested, I will personally follow up with a list of some of the sources I used in my gender & sexuality classes, as well as the sources I found independently for my history classes.

(also I have read a LOT of political theory & what I find most frustrating about it is that a lot of it is taken as gospel when there are easily disproven points that, if counter-argued, destabilize the pillars it resides on. Like FFS we as a community cannot survive on theory alone)

Reading theory is all these people can do, so they read, and read, and read, and then go online and act like this act alone makes them the equal of activists who actually, like, did things.