#alien-ally

[stormyoceans]

i've abandoned anonymity

but this scene is also gonna happen right. HOW DO WE PLAN TO RECOVER?

HI FRIEND HELLO SORRY FOR THE LATE REPLY BUT I NEEDED AT LEAST 3 DAYS TO RECOVER FROM EPISODE 5 BEFORE EVEN STARTING TO CONTEMPLATE WHAT AWAITS US IN EPISODE 6 BECAUSE BOY OH BOY WE’RE GONNA BE IN FOR A RIDE SO WE ALL BETTER BUCKLE UP

the way they’re gonna go from outright flirting with each other and being absolutely fond smitten delighted idiot fools in love ready to finally go on an actual dinner date to pain suffering torment agony anguish sadness despair?????

AND I HAVE A HUNCH ON WHO’S TO BLAME FOR THIS [GETS SLIPPER READY] (i don’t wanna reveal too much because while it’s not exactly a spoiler, since it’s a hint from the bts pictures that were shared during filming, i still don’t wanna ruin anyone’s fun)

but then again i’ve been moving like a clown all this time thinking this was gonna be episode 11 WHEN IT’S ACTUALLY EPISODE 6 (INSANITY) so. i could definitely be reading this wrong ;;;;;;;; that picture does seems to be pretty heavy and gloomy and sad BUT WHAT IF IT'S JUST VERY DECEPTIVE AND WE'RE GETTING A CONFESSION INSTEAD

THE POINT IS. IM AFRAID NO AMOUNT OF THERAPY IS GONNA HELP US RECOVER FROM THIS EPISODE OR THIS SHOW IN GENERAL WE SIMPLY HAVE TO ACCEPT OUR FATE

[randomstar202]

[daftpatience]

previews of what's to come next week :)

[dvdkisser]

Going insane. Going ham. Going wild. Bizarre yaoi

[assassin-artist]

Just found your blog today and really enjoyed reading about your OC. I'm curious about how some of the early fights would go with them working together.

Would Mercy also freeze up during the first Flaxan invasion? Would Allen keep fighting or is 2v1 against the Coalition's evaluation rules? Battle Beast... well she's probably going to need a new jacket.

Ellie visiting the hospital after the Battle Beast fight:

maybe that was her last jacket. maybe she finally had to phase the jacket out of her hero suit bc she didn't have any more... anyway, some rambling under the cut (:

During the Flaxan fight: She was there, of course - it was her and Mark's first real fight against the bad guys, and both of their first experiences with seeing civilians get hurt and die. I think she was just as terrified and overwhelmed as Mark had been during the fight, but instead of freezing up because he didn't know where to begin, she would have just gone for the closest/the first problem she saw that needed fixing. So she wouldn't have frozen up like her brother, but she was definitely making mistakes and not being where she needed to be. Mercy would have been pretty disturbed by seeing the aliens die, though, something that we didn't really see much of from Invincible or the Teen Team... Maybe because it's easy to differentiate between human = protect, alien = destroy for them.

During the Allen fight: I don't think Ellie would have been there for that one. She wanted to be there - when they got the news that an old enemy of their dad was approaching Earth, Mark and Ellie both volunteered to go in his stead because he was still healing. But I think Nolan would have said that he's not tough enough to need both of them - so Mark went alone simply because he volunteered first. I think the first time Ellie meets Allen in person is when Mark brings him to the dorm room to sift through Nolan's books for information - she gets a call from a very freaked out William that there was an alien in the room with her brother, and she hurries over. And the first thing she does is scold her brother for not locking the door and closing the windows when he had a whole ass alien in the room with him, and then Allen would say something like 'oh! you must be mercy! invincible has told me about you (:' just trying to break the tension but oops! Now Ellie turns to Mark and goes "you told someone my identity?!" and scolds him for that, too. No it doesn't matter if he's an alien and he's not gonna tattle to anyone, you still shouldn't have told anyone, Mark! And then only after all of that is done and Mark is hanging his head in shame, she finally stops to say hi to Allen lol.

During the Battle Beast fight: I was a little torn on this one because I was struggling to find a reason for Mercy to have been with Invincible on this day to be part of this fight, but I realized that at this point in time, they were still 'marketing' themselves as the twin heroes. So they likely would be going on jobs together still, so there we go, that's the reason she was with him (: Also I mentioned before that if Mercy was there with Invincible during the conversation with Titan, she would have agreed to help him right away. If Invincible said something like 'this is beneath us' she'd get mad at him and say 'you're gonna see people suffering and just ignore it? because it's 'beneath you'? it's not beneath me.' and of course, Invincible would follow after his sister instead of letting her go alone. I want her to be there during the fight both because I want her to have a brush with organized super-crime early on(so she can get a glimpse of there being 'players behind the scene' for her to think about), but also I am just a personal fan of Battle Beast so if I can have Mercy get into a scrape with him I would like to do so lol. "A scrape" as if she's not gonna get her ass handed to her... yeah, you're definitely right on the idea that she's gonna need a new jacket after that. The fight against the smaller guys would go better with her there than it did in the show, of course - two viltrumites is a significantly different fight than one viltrumite for a handful of people, powers or otherwise. But, um, the fight with Battle Beast? Yeah, that's largely staying the same. We've seen BB handle multiple fully grown, possibly hundreds to thousands of years old Viltrumites without breaking much of a sweat at all. He's going to thrash these two teenagers who are way in over their heads, and then still frown down at them and go 'you guys are pathetic, there's nothing for me here' and peace out. Get humbled by a space cat, kids.

[jesncin]

I think people like the "people know Superman's real identity but don't say it" because they want to think they'd keep such a huge secret and not sell someone out to the feds or some asshole. That it'd be cool to be part of a big not-quite-conspiracy to keep a Huge Secret from other people, to protect the protector in a seemingly easy manner. Bet your ass some nosy bastard would be calling ICE if he didn't pass for a conventionally attractive white man.

The flavor of "Superman sucks at it but everyone doesn't say it" feels... weirdly mocking? Like Emperor's New Clothes but more dickish. Also he really was that bad then how the hell hasn't Lex Luthor figured it out or at least not seen someone talk offhanded about Clark=Supes either in line of a camera or online/in texts?

In my experience, a lot of people are shit at secrets because they want to be the one who gleefully spills the tea. Maybe that's my luck being shit with sharing secrets to people but the more who know, the more likely the odds that someone eventually will blab or outright be a dick.

Context here! Oh I think you're onto something there (and on point that if Clark didn't pass as white, there would be a ton of less empathy for his situation). Not only does the "everyone knows Clark's secret because he's bad at acting, so we all protect him uwu" doesn't work because then I guess Lex would figure it out too (and we know he's not going to play along)- but it's the optics behind why that's an apparently desirable hc for non-immigrant people.

Clark being a good actor who can codeswitch to acting "human" implies that he doesn't trust people with his secret. And why would he trust them? Considering The State of Things, it's better to be safe than sorry. It's probably some level of humiliating to not be trusted by an undocumented alien immigrant and let alone be "tricked" and lied to. No it's much better for the ally's ego that They Actually Knew All Along and they're protecting this foolish immigrant who can't pass for a proper american because they're such a cool ally. Never mind how much invasive "background checking" they had to do to come to this conclusion.

It's a similar mindset behind disrespecting closeted people. "Why didn't you trust me? Things are fine! What's there to worry about?" Instead of asking why someone wouldn't trust you with those things. Sometimes it's not even trust but whatever personal reason. It's all nuanced. But nah, instead it's much easier to fantasize being ahead of a marginalized person's means of survival. Let's not ask why he decided to put up an act to begin with. We can't de-center the ally's feelings after all.

[contemplatingoutlander]

“This is an awesome decision by Trump!... We couldn’t shut them down, unfortunately, but America did so itself."*

—Margarita Simonya, "editor of Russia’s RT network," on the U.S. defunding "Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)," as reported by France 24

If this article doesn't prove that Trump is a (witting or unwitting) Russian asset, I don't know what will.

This is a gift 🎁 link, so there is no paywall. Below are some excerpts from this excellent news analysis by the NY Times' Peter Baker.

If President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia drafted a shopping list of what he wanted from Washington, it would be hard to beat what he was offered in the first 100 days of President Trump’s new term. Pressure on Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia? Check. The promise of sanctions relief? Check. Absolution from invading Ukraine? Check. Indeed, as Mr. Trump met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, the president’s vision for peace appeared notably one-sided, letting Russia keep the regions it had taken by force in violation of international law while forbidding Ukraine from ever joining NATO. But that is not all that Mr. Putin has gotten out of Mr. Trump’s return to power. Intentionally or not, many of the president’s actions on other fronts also suit Moscow’s interests, including the rifts he has opened with America’s traditional allies and the changes he has made to the U.S. government itself. Mr. Trump has been tearing down American institutions that have long aggravated Moscow, such as Voice of America and the National Endowment for Democracy. He has been disarming the nation in its netherworld battle against Russia by temporarily halting cyberoffensive operations and curbing programs to combat Russian disinformation, election interference, sanctions violations and war crimes. He spared Russia from the tariffs that he is imposing on imports from nearly every other nation, arguing that it was already under sanctions. Yet he still applied the tariff on Ukraine, the other party he is negotiating with. And in a reversal from his first term, Politico reported that Mr. Trump’s team is reportedly discussing whether to lift sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe, a project he has repeatedly condemned.

Despite his protests, Trump will always be: "The MOSCOVIAN Candidate."

______________________ * Although most of the Margarita Simonyan quote was in the NY Times article, I used the quote from a French 24 article instead. The information replaced by the ellipsis in the above quote was moved to the designated attribution area.

"The Moscovian Candidate" meme manipulated image sources: 01 (photo collage by Javier Zarracina/ Vox) +  02 + 03 + 04

[edited]

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Sasha using the title "Lord" in RiAAU after taking over Toad Tower and presumably killing Grime and stealing Barrel's Warhammer from him, and other political and military leaders assuming she's a man because, well, Sasha is a gender neutral name, so they hear Lord Sasha and assume they're talking about an adult male toad warrior. The second most powerful person in the known world and only real threat to the Leviathan reign!

Cue princess Marcy fleeing Newtopia and her father seeking refuge with his worst enemy hoping to offer information and political levarage in exchange for protection, perhaps even offering herself in marriage to transfer eventual inheritances and whatnot, and she finds out that Lord Sasha is not, indeed, a dark and domineering toad warlord, but a beautiful, terrifying girl her age that looks like her and oh god her poor little lesbian heart can barely take it.

[adwdragons]

to be honest if i was daenerys during season eight episode one & sansa bitterly snipped "and may i ask how are we meant to feed the greatest army the world has ever seen? while i ensured our stores lasted through winter, i did not account for dothraki, unsullied and two full grown dragons. what do dragons eat anyway?" i would have said "lol nothing i guess," given the order for my troops to turn around & march back to dragonstone & let the north deal with whatever they had coming.

[bumblingbabooshka]

I have an idea for making Seska and the Kazon more interesting (less Klingon-lite) and it's by making it kinda Seska v Chakotay (based on the episode where Chakotay helps that Kazon kid) Basically, the Kazon are this severely fractured group of historically disenfranchised and preyed upon people (they were literally enslaved by the Trabe who took their homeworld, kept them living in squalor while the Trabe lived in luxury, and are still trying to kill them. This is canon and it's insane that the Kazon are still the bad guys overall. Like, they're painted as this incorrigibly innately violent mass of idiots it's SO bad.) Basically my idea is that Seska, as a Cardassian and a spy, is someone who's used to infiltrating and subjugating groups. So I was picturing Voyager being attacked by the Kazon and accused of helping the Trabe again. Voyager says they absolutely would never help the Trabe or anyone else kill people and learn that swaths of Kazon have been being killed and captured and that all the evidence leads to Voyager. The Kazon Voyager interacts with from here on are acting notably different. Far more paranoid, cagey, and gruesome in their violence. B'Elanna remarks that it feels almost Cardassian. This (Voyager's involvement) is eventually revealed to be a Trabe plot (they're pissed Voyager backed out of helping them assassinate the Kazon's leaders) but what the audience knows and Voyager doesn't yet is that Seska is working WITH the Trabe. Playing both sides. As a spy within the Kazon she can make them more vulnerable to the Trabe and the Trabe have WAY more power and resources so of course Seska's gonna be on their side. Chakotay is the first one to figure this all out and he can't believe that Seska would do something like that. Not Seska specifically, anyone. Here we get more into the Maquis and Chakotay's thoughts and feelings on why he initially joined and how he feels about the movement now (still very passionately positive I refuse to believe otherwise). I hate the idea media LOOOVES to push that people who use violence in pursuit of noble goals 'pollute' that 'pure' goal or are 'just like their oppressors'. Shut uuup kill Cardassians kill the Trabe.

So Janeway's like this is incredibly unfortunate but now that we've cleared Voyager's name we really can't interfere with whatever's going on. Chakotay thinks Seska's doing something but we don't know for SURE and I don't wanna involve us unnecessarily let's just go. Chakotay argues against this and there's a tense moment during the meeting where it seems like there's gonna be a fight but Chakotay momentarily lets it be and instead speaks to Janeway one-on-one where we get much the same result. Ends on a sour note where Chakotay says he respects Janeway but their 'blended' crew is looking a lot like a Starfleet one. (He means this sort of behavior is exactly what he left Starfleet over: Inability to do enough good in his eyes due to a desire to remain more Neutrally Benevolent.) Later we get a scene of Chakotay talking in private to Neelix. They're using vague, mysterious language bc it's tv. After this we get hints that Chakotay's been talking to people in secret but we aren't told who or why. Eventually, several episodes later, Voyager is in a pinch and at the climax of the conflict someone helps them out of an impossible situation. The Kazon! Two different sects in fact which is highly unusual. It's revealed that Chakotay has been communicating with the Kazon behind everyone's back. He obviously hasn't told them anything about Voyager or given them anything which Neelix (who's been helping him) found hard to believe. He, along with all others in the delta quadrant, didn't think much of the Kazon but with one stone we've showcased both that the Kazon are like, people. Who want to live peacefully and are capable of working together which canon and the Trabe say is impossible. AND that Chakotay is excellent at convincing and uniting people. Honestly, Janeway and Tuvok conspired behind Chakotay's back enough that he deserves to do it at LEAST once and it's for an excellent cause. The Kazon show Voyager proof that Seska's been playing both sides using Cardassian tactics the Maquis recognize. She has the ear of the strongest sects as well as the Trabe. If Voyager doesn't help the Kazon, they're all going to be wiped out or enslaved again, the Trabe taking their homeworld. Someone points out that the Kazon just saved their lives. Chakotay points out that since Seska's behind this and he brought Seska here- Janeway interrupts. We brought Seska here, commander. If she started this, we'll be sure to finish it. [to the table] Together. The crew, united, (along with the Kazon!) all agree enthusiastically. Ideally, you know, there wouldn't be these third parties coming in to help the Kazon as if they Kazon are incapable of helping themselves but I'm formatting this as a Voyager plotline so that can't happen entirely - the main characters have to be involved BUT leaving off with them having two sects as allies gives us room to have Kazon characters interacting positively with the crew and each other. Maybe there could be two reoccurring characters from different sects and them slowly getting along in a genuine way acts as like a microcosm of what the Kazon can do (and parallels Starfleet v Maquis). I want it to be made clear through this plotline that the image of the Kazon as violent thugs is largely manufactured by the Trabe and their guarding of and constant quest for more resources is due to their background of having nothing. I hope connecting them to the Maquis in how they're painted and the Bajorans in how the Trabe and Cardassians exploit them also makes it seem less like the Kazon are idiots with no culture besides violence and more like this could happen to any marginalized group. Also Seska seems like such a villain to Chakotay specifically that I think they should get to fully duke it out. Ideologically.

[crossdressingdeath]

I've been thinking about Fade jail today, and an interesting thought has occurred to me: people in the fandom always talk about it like you escape just by working through your regrets, but that's not actually what happens with any of the people who get out of it. Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain get out because Solas cocks up his ritual, Solas gets out by getting the prison to take Rook in his place, and Rook—who's usually the one who people point to as getting out by getting over their regrets—gets out when the Veilguard opens a path through the Fade for them (Fade echo Varric leads them to the right spot, but it's the team that actually opens up the way out; as far as we see without them Rook would've remained trapped). Is it ever actually confirmed that working through your regrets is a way out? I don't actually remember that being mentioned off the top of my head, thinking about it (I remember something about it being sealed with regret, but that doesn't necessarily mean that working through your regrets will open it), and looking at how the people we see escape get out it doesn't actually seem to be a route anyone tries for.

[wewontbesleeping]

so weird to see women try to find loopholes for 4B instead of supporting the women who are interested in it or even just ignoring it. but what if i date THIS man?? like girl no one is forcing you to join. you can fuck/marry/kill all the men you want, no one cares. seriously. no one cares. it's your life, do what you want.

[natjennie]

would anyone who doesn't watch fantasy high care to explain what's going on here.

[vaguely-concerned]

felassan really showed up in the solas memories like 'can't haunt the narrative if you ain't cute and intensely loveable' didn't he

[assassin-artist]

Hiiiiii I saw ur post about Sindra and I'm curious about why she starts working for the GDA 👀👀

funny answer is because they gave her a specialized suit and she was like "omg ur so cool of course ill help u" and had nothing better to do. But the longer answer is more along the lines of her people's culture is very neutral about what others are doing. It's not her place to judge whether someone deserves her healing or not, if there's someone injured and she can heal them, it's her duty to do so. So really it's not that she's working for the GDA exactly, but more like she goes where there are injured people that need help. GDA agents and soldiers are often injured, and Cecil can tell her where to go for more injured people, so it's a good place to be as a healer. and also she had nothing better to do

[rawliverandcigarettes]

honestly, re: my last reblog, but it's so funny to me how unbearably annoying humans in mass effect are, like you guys!!!!! calm down!!! you JUST arrived!!! maybe take in your surroundings for 5 seconds before declaring you should be treated like the most special princesses of all and have all the advantages ever without any drawback and be recognized as the supreme leaders who have all the clarity and drive and righteousness to solve everything and be the victims of everyone's envy and meanness and the ultimate heroes who will save everyone in spite of themselves...... 😔😔😔