#and a terrible approach for creating any significant change in the world

[anghraine]

The meeting is over! It actually went really well—it turns out that the most intimidating person on my committee not only did not consider failing my exam on sixteenth-century British literature, but thought it was exceptionally strong :)

I did re-read the whole thing after that, lol, and there is another part I’m still fine with, probably because I’d been trying to figure out what I think about the issue (in relation to various figures) for years:

Context is important here. Montaigne alone should not and does not bear the entire weight of early modern misogyny. At the same time, I think that recourse to “well, of course he thought that way; everyone did” is somewhat lazy and does not really give Montaigne credit for his individuality and intelligence. He was not an automaton of the normative. That much is clear in “On cannibals”; it is certainly clear by the end of “On some lines of Virgil.”

[tossawary]

Hi! Just wondering, for you what is the difference between transmigrating in as an infant and regaining memories of your past life later, and transmigrating in as a character who a bit older but remembering the past of the character you’re in? I guess it’s kind of moot considering he still feels the weight of both those lives either way, but I was curious about your thoughts on it.

Hey! I think this is a pretty complicated and broad question. Overall, as with any story, there are different ways to write both of those things, different directions to explore, which could make them feel very different or functionally identical. My personal feelings on this can change wildly from story to story, and character to character. SPOILERS for SVSSS.

Let's say that Airplane Bro is the first case (reincarnated as an infant and gained his memories of his past life on the way) and Shen Yuan is the second case (transmigrated into an older character's life and later unlocked some of Shen Jiu's memories). Just to use their particular situations to look at some of the practical realities. I know that it doesn't fit precisely, but it's useful to have examples.

I think that a big element here is personal life choices and personal relationships. Airplane never has to feel like he replaced someone else. He's Shang Qinghua now, sure, but there was never an Original Shang Qinghua in this world. Being there from the beginning, he's been able to control his actions and responses, and build his own personal relationships. His relationship with Mobei-Jun, for example, is entirely his own.

(We don't actually know how much the System interfered in his life, but he does seem to have a degree of freedom that's much more significant compared to his fellow transmigrator. The vibe I got by the end of the Airplane Extras was that the System probably would have let him do whatever he'd wanted if he'd really gone for it, honestly.)

Shen Yuan, on the other hand, knows that he replaced someone else, and Shen Jiu had a miserable life and then made some cruel choices. Shen Yuan has to bear the burden of things he didn't do, even if other characters are willing to sweep it under the rug of amnesia, which has permanently colored his relationships with Luo Binghe, Yue Qingyuan, and Liu Qingge. (The System then forced him to do something terrible to Luo Binghe, whom he loved very much. At the very beginning, it temporarily controlled his every single interaction with any other human being during the OOC restriction period. That's just fucked up.) By the end of SVSSS, Shen Yuan fully inhabits the new Shen Qingqiu he's created and has made peace out of the story he's been given and the relationships he's inherited and made his own, even though he owns a life that partially belonged to someone else (Shen Jiu and the System). He has to live with that history.

Rambling on about Airplane Bro for a little bit to take a look at these two different approaches from another angle...

I typically imagine Airplane Bro slowly regaining his memories over the course of his childhood, because I personally can't fully suspend my disbelief over a fully conscious adult in the body of an infant. I mean, I've read that kind of thing before, and some of the stories have been good. But brains just don't work like that. Newborn babies are such little fragile aliens, barely able to see the faces less than a foot from their face. It's important to me to physically ground fantasy (and sci-fi) somewhat to make magic (and tech) feel both believable and compelling. This is a personal nitpick.

(You could have the reincarnated/transmigrated mind/soul being held mostly separate, slowly integrating, and essentially controlling the body remotely, I guess? But yeah, the "adult stuck in a child body" thing inherently has powerful horror elements (and political elements in regards to children's rights) that a lot of reincarnated stories seem to take on unintentionally and don't always handle well. When I'm writing reincarnation stuff, I usually skip over that backstory stuff in part because it's just so complicated, and also because there are other plots I'd rather explore that I find more interesting. Getting bogged down in early childhood stuff generally isn't really my thing, reading or writing it.)

If Airplane is essentially haunted by the memories of his past life for his entire childhood, I think it would make him strange, unnerving, and generally unpalatable to other people. I think it would be confusing and scary to know things without being sure how you know them. To remember things that seem to belong not only to another life, but another world. It would contribute to his isolation, his emotional detachment, and his choice to identify strongly with his previous life in terms of personality.

And if it's a more gradual process, then he doesn't have to feel like he replaced someone else. He knows (as much as anyone can know anything) that this body has always belonged to him.

If he suddenly remembered a past life, then that would also lead to his detached Airplane Bro personality. But if he suddenly remembered a past life, depending on how you write it, it might feel functionally identical to transmigrating in in that moment but still retaining the body's memories.

Of course, even if it was a gradual process, depending on how you write it, it could seem to him that it was a gradual transmigration and that he replaced someone else. Both approaches are cool.

Transmigration and reincarnation must be such a disorienting experience, liable to make a character doubt reality or their "sanity". When a character transmigrates in but has access to the body's memories, there's often some plot device dream sequence (the transmigrator briefly gets to meet the ghost of the person they're replacement) or System interference to let both the character and the readers know that there's been a switch. What if there's no System popping up to explain exactly what happened? What if the character just has to guess based on these vague memories that they may or may not be able to tell came from another person?

Either way, transmigrators are usually dealing with feeling like an imposter. But I think the transmigrator generally might feel guiltier over taking up or ruining any pre-existing relationships if they know for a fact that they replaced a separate person.

Back to some physical practicalities between our two transmigrators in SVSSS... Airplane Bro has just had... more time to get used to his life here. Coming in as an infant, presuming a gradual adjustment of awareness, he's used to his own body. He's at home in it.

SVSSS isn't fully interested in exploring this topic, so we don't really see Shen Yuan dealing with it, but... suddenly being in a different body would be a WEIRD experience. I can handwave away a lot of brain stuff on "magical System weirdness", so sure, Shen Yuan's mind is somehow his own while retaining some Shen Jiu memories, and he has special muscle memory and spiritual memory that allows him to continue being a powerful cultivation with only minor adjustment.

But... what about things like taste buds? The physical human experience is so wildly varied. Humans are incredibly adaptable, but surely it would be weird at first to potentially have different favorite foods. To like different drinks. To maybe enjoy different smells. To dislike things you used to love. To be a different height. A different weight. To be far more physically fit. To have different teeth. Personally, I move slightly differently and have slightly different mannerisms depending on the length of my hair, having to keep longer hair out of the way. Shen Yuan would adjust in time, sure, but that dysphoria must've been something else at first.

As someone interested in these physical realities of magic, I was a little disappointed when none of these came up more extensively when Shen Yuan switched into a body made out of a plant. I think that even little things like breathing and sunlight would feel intensely different. I'm now tempted to write something exploring Shen Yuan enjoying the sensations of his super magical plant body now.

Okay, I don't know where I'm going with my rambling now, so I'm signing off. I think the weight of different transmigration experiences can feel very, VERY different depending on what you're personally interested in exploring when you write.

[thefanficmonster]

Let Them Talk

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female) ft. Sykkuno

Warnings: Swearing, Jealousy

Genre: Fluff, a bit of Angst

Summary: We can all agree Among Us is a fun game on its own but what makes it ten times better is playing it with the right company. Y/N could agree 100% Being a streamer herself, she loves playing with the streamer gang that includes her boyfriend and best friend. But, what happens when her boyfriend starts doubting her feelings for him due to her close relationship with her best friend.

Requested by @cheetoscat . Thank you so much for your request! Sorry it took so long to write, I hope the final product is worth the wait. Enjoy! Love, Vy ❤

Y/AU/N - Your Among Us Name

I settle in my gaming chair, adjusting my webcam one last time before joining the Among Us lobby with my friends. 

“Hi everyone!“ I say into the mic, a smile plastering itself on my face. Discord is a magical thing, man. It’s so easy to forget that the people you are talking to aren’t around you or within arm’s reach. You could be separated by miles and miles of land or - in our case - oceans as well. Distance becomes negligible when you hear your friends’ voices, their laughter; when you have a good time together despite being each behind a screen, often times alone.

Well, I’m one of those lucky ones that isn’t alone. No one knows that, though. Everyone thinks I’m a single, self-employed girl that’s straight out of college. And they are 90% right. Only thing is - I’m not single. That would be a shocker in and of itself, but revealing who’s changed my relationship status would be a bomb with a whole new intensity.

Speaking of my significant other who shall remain unnamed - just kidding, it’s Corpse - his form materializes in the doorway of my recording room. I give him a hand signal the camera isn’t able to capture, alerting him of the fact that my mic is on. He replies by blowing me a kiss and walking off down the hall to his recording room where he’ll be stationed for the next three or so hours.

I owe this relationship to my best friend Sykkuno. I’m a pretty new and not very well known on the platform, however, thanks to him I haven’t only obtained a boyfriend, but a following of a little over million subscribers as well. 

It all started with an invitation to fill a spot in the Among Us lobby him and his friends had created. It took him quite a bit to convince me to join, but I eventually caved and agreed. Suddenly, there I was. In a Discord call, in an Among Us lobby with some of the most well-known names on this platform. I’m talking YouTube legends. I was that puppy playing with the big dogs. The newbie tagging along with the big leagues. Or at least that’s how I felt until we all started vibing - talking and teasing each other as though we’ve known each other for years and not minutes.

When I joined the call, Corpse wasn’t present. After everyone else introduced themselves, Sykkuno informed me that we were waiting for Corpse to return. The name sounded really cool to me and I was genuinely very excited to meet this Corpse guy.

And then, out of the blue - no prep, no warning...

“Did you get someone to fill the spot? Oh- Hello, Y/AU/N.“ 

…he started talking and he had me star-struck. Apparently, he also had me a blabbering mess cause I remember blurting out: “Whoa, who’s this guy speaking in bold and underlined at the same time?”

The entire lobby, including Corpse, laughed. Sean, or Jack like they called him most often, answered my question, “That is the voice of God, Y/N. Its source is named Corpse, though.”

Heat spread from the bottom of my neck to the tips of my ears. I was mortified by my own stupidity. I was well aware they couldn’t see me and I was incredibly thankful for that, but I simply could not get myself to open my eyes. “I’m so sorry.” I said through nervous laughter.

“No, no, I like that description. Bold and underlined at the same time, huh?“ His voice sounded even more pleasant when it had that teasing, mischievous note to it. That thought popping up in my head only made things worse for my self-esteem and only made me more embarrassed, causing me to hide my face in my hands. “You sure it’s not in Italics as well?“ 

His question got a weak laugh out of me. “Nope, definitely not. Nothing Italic about it.“

Yes, I don’t even know how some terrible jokes about MS Word fonts got me as far as a romantic relationship, but they did! We’ve been living together for quite some time now, dating for even longer - hiding it just as long. It’s not that we have been actively trying to hide it or something, we just wanted to see how long it would take someone to become sus of us. When we realized no one would notice, we decided that if any rumors about us started, or even fans shipping us, we’d come clean. That hasn’t happened either, so we haven’t had the proper chance to address our relationship and neither of us minds.

At this point, I’m honestly afraid of revealing it to the gaming squad. Sykkuno especially. He’s my best friend, after all. I can see him being hurt by the fact that I kept a secret so big even from him. The last thing I wanna do is hurt my best friend but it’s already too late for that, it’s inevitable.

“Y/N have you looked at Twitter today?“ Rae, another streamer I’ve become close with over the months, says urgently.

Overlooking the tension in her words, I answer: “Nope, haven’t had the time. Why? What’s up?“

Before Rae can say anything else, Sykkuno joins the conversation, his voice somehow even more urgent than Rae’s. “It’s nothing, Y/N. If you see it, just don’t let it bother you, ok?”

Hearing such a tone from Rae isn’t unusual, but hearing it from Sykkuno is completely different and a lot more worrisome. “Well if it has the potential of bothering me it can’t be nothing. What’s going on?”

Just then, my phone dings with two notifications. I check to see they are messages from Rae.

“I sent you screenshots. Sorry, Sykkuno. She has to know in order to address it and defuse it as well. I know better than anyone how fast these rumors can spread, especially if no one reacts to them.“ She says, her tone barely apologetic at all.

I open the screenshots she has sent me and I find myself frozen in shock. Some old pictures of Sykkuno and I have been posted on Twitter by some random user. These pictures have started an entire thread of suspicions surrounding our relationship.

The pictures in question are from a New Year’s Eve party a mutual friend of ours held two years ago. Sure, in the pictures we are a lot closer than what would be considered a platonic proximity. And yes one of the pictures is of me kissing his cheek. Yes we were both a bit tipsy. I acknowledge all those things and yet none of them are concrete reasons for these rumors to have started piling. 

“This is silly.“ I finally say after maybe five minutes of silence on my end. ”This is absolutely ridiculous! And why are people so serious about it as well? Actual, important matters get discussed more nonchalantly than the potential relationship between two online personalities! What is this world we live in?“ I know I shouldn’t let these rumors get to me like this, especially not on camera. Still, I can’t help it. I feel it’s so unfair to Corpse. He has to put up with this as well and it’s by no means easy for him. I’ve been shipped with people from our group in the past and he always took those rumors to heart despite acting like he didn’t care. Neither of us should get worked up, but him getting upset about them creates a domino effect with my emotions - causing me to be hit just as hard as him, in some cases harder.

Rumors of the past aside, this one is the worst by far. Mostly cause even Corpse himself suspected something between Sykkuno and I at the very beginning, when we were still acquaintances, barely crossing into the realm of friends.

I pull up Twitter to look for the whole thread, barely sparing my stream chat a glance in the process. It seems pretty split - those who agree with me and those who think Sykkuno and I make ‘such an adorable couple’. The thread is ridiculously long, and if we take into account that it was only started approximately five hours ago, you can either view it as impressive, amusing or sad. Why sad? Because someone has dedicated so much time and effort into fueling the fire of a weakly supported theory.

I love Sykkuno with all my heart. Everyone knows that - fandom, streamer squad, Corpse and Sykkuno included. I love too much and too platonically to ever even dream of having a romantic connection with him. I thought that was more than obvious, but people are either blind here, or just grasping at straws. One thing’s for certain - they’re stepping on a nerve.

“Hey where’s Corpse? Did he disconnect?” Felix asks, gaining my full attention. My eyes dart to the monitor, searching through the little avatars in a desperate search for the one of my boyfriend. It’s nowhere to be found.

“He just messaged me saying his connection is unstable but he might join us later.“ Rae says, “You guys can invite someone to fill...“

“Bathroom break.“ I interrupt, not waiting for a response before shutting my mic off, putting the ‘BRB‘ graphic on my stream and yanking the headset off. I basically run down the hall to Corpse’s recording room, my heart pounding like a bass drum.

“Corpse?!“ I call out to him, one hand already on the doorknob. When five seconds pass by without a response, I barge in. 

Inside, I find his usual spot on the gaming chair empty and his slumped figure seated on his bed.

“Corpse?“ I try again, watching for even the tiniest change of body language. He remains still as a statue, not bothering to look up at me either. 

His hands are gripping the edge of the mattress, his head hanging low. His eyes are covered by the short curtain of his dark messy curls. I can’t gauge much. Is he angry? Is he sad? Both? How should I approach the situation?

Before I find the answer to any of those questions, I am kneeling in front of him, our height difference eliminated. I gently pry his hands off the mattress and take them in mine, holding them firmly but tenderly. With one hand I reach up to tilt his head so his eyes can meet mine. He complies, his tear-filled brown orbs meeting mine. Those tears have the same effect on me as fifty sharp knives stabbing into my chest. These tears focus their attack straight on my heart, tearing it to pieces.

“Baby....“

He cuts me off, “Why is it always someone else, huh? Do they deem me not worthy of being with you? Do they think you deserve better?” His voice wavers, “Well, they might be right. They are correct and there’s little I can do to prove them wrong. They mean you well, Y/N - pairing you with guys better than me. Those are some loyal fans you’ve got. They only want what’s best for you. And so do I. If ‘best’ is being with someone else then...”

It’s my turn to cut him off. I put an end to his nonsense ramble that’s slowly killing me by pressing my finger against his lips. The sternness of my gaze is beyond me as I get up and walk over to his computer setup. I put on his headset and hop into the call as well as the lobby with his avatar.

“Hey Corpse’s back!” Toast says, “Good to have you back buddy.”

“No, not Corpse.” I say in a casual, nonchalant voice.

“Wait, wha-“ Sean’s voice shows just how confused he is, representing the confusion of the entire lobby actually.

“I know all of you are streaming so this message will be heard by several different audiences so I’m gonna make myself perfectly clear.“ I take a deep breath, “Sykkuno and I aren’t dating. He’s a lovely guy and he deserves to find a girl who will treat him right. That girl isn’t and won’t be me though. I am already treating someone right. Someone who treats me more than right as well. An amazing person. A man-child with a heart of gold. You know him, to a certain extent. He goes by the name of Corpse Husband, but I prefer to call him ‘Love of my life’. Thank you for your time and attention, goodbye.“

I exit the call and turn around to find a stunned Copse looking at me.

“That was meant for you just as much.“ I say with a fake strict attitude, one hand on my hip the other rested on his desk behind me, “Were you listening?“

Within milliseconds, he’s on his feet standing directly in front of me, his lips inches away from mine. “I heard and memorized every word. But...” he pauses for a moment, “I think you have no idea how big of a chaos you just created.”

I smile mischievously, “We’ll worry about that later. For now...” I close the gap between us, connecting our lips in a sweet and passionate kiss. 

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze  @divine-artemis  @waterlilypat  @idontknowwhatthisisfam  @evi-ka  @classyandfabulous00  @redperson58  @lilysdaydreams  @the-fuck-up-of-today  @slashersdream  @chiefwombathoagiepizza  @solowheein @mythicalamphitrite  @axen-gers  @luckygirl144  @nj01

[kobakova]

Dragon Age and how it addresses oppression

ok so disclaimer this is not the rewrite of the Elven pantheon (the thing I keep promising I know I’m terrible) however it is an introduction to it and basically the reason why I feel the need to rewrite it in the first place! It’s a bit wordy, but I hope you take the time to read through it, as it took a lot of time and effort and I would super appreciate it! Today I stumbled upon a tik tok that was discussing how DA handles oppression and it motivated me to create a post about how I believe the way DA handles it is problematic at its core. I am not going to link the tik tok, as the creator has asked not to be put on blast, though I am including a word for word transcription of what the creator has said to avoid altering or skewing their message. I want to add that this is not an attack on the creator and what they said, more importantly it is an analysis of how other players perceive the oppression addressed within the game and how that proves that there is a serious problem with how DA handles it.

It is evident to me the message Dragon Age is trying to express is that oppression HAS to happen and that there is a reason to oppress. There are many examples within the game that prove this statement, though I want to focus mainly on how oppression impacts the mages and the Dalish, and how you as the main character can choose to perpetuate that oppression. To begin, here is the transcription of the tik tok below, which addresses oppression through the treatment of the mages.

“When it comes to mages, dragon age gives us a very clear picture that yes, these are people, they have hopes they have dreams they want to do better for themselves, they want to help others, we see this very clearly especially in DA2 where the whole plot revolves around mages rebelling. However, we also see very clearly in DA2 what can happen when a mage is left unchecked. Abominations, blood magic, the ability to force ones will onto somebody is a real threat with mages. Whether they succumbed to blood magic, whether they succumbed to the temptations of demons. These are unique challenges that face mages. And whether or not they should have freedom is true. And the game even gives us an amazing depiction of what could happen through Tevinter mages. What happens if mages are truly released, they have freedom. They might turn out like the Tevinters. Mages can become the ones solely on top oppressing other groups. A situation of the minority suppressing the majority. Whereas all the other lands of Thedas it’s the majority oppressing the minority. We have to grapple with these choices, whether not you kill a blood mage or you let them live. Or whether not you side with the mage rebellion or you side with the templars in DA2. It doesn’t pretend like it’s easy, and it doesn’t pretend to be something that it’s not. It doesn’t pretend to be real life. It gives unique challenges and unique decisions.”

My problem with DA is that you make choices through the role of an oppressor, which is very clear within Dragon Age: Inquisition as your rise to power then gives you the choice to oppress. The transcription above proves that a player has to make their decisions through the lens of an oppressor because you can determine the freedom or oppression of other people, in this case, the mages. Oppression cannot be a tool used for good because it is inherently bad, it only belittles others and is used to gain power. This could be a valuable lesson on how once power is gained so then is the ability to oppress, and how with the responsibility of power you should make choices based on what is best for the people who are oppressed. However, Bioware fails to follow through with this message for the sake of keeping their game morally grey. Instead, Bioware creates reasons and excuses for certain groups to be oppressed, thus making it okay for the player to make a decision that oppresses because either within their history something bad happened or there are certain people within the group that have done bad things. For example, all blood mages are considered evil due to some mages using blood magic in order to oppress and harm. However, we see in the game that not all blood mages are evil, and use blood magic to help. Despite this, all who use blood magic are deemed evil and if used, even if it means they are trying to escape an oppressive system, they will become Tranquil. When addressing Tevinter mages it’s evident that they have gained power, however they have chosen to oppress with this power. Being born with the ability to use magic is having the ability to gain power over another, but it is up to the individual to use that power to oppress or to use it to assist others. The ability to use magic itself is not an oppressive tool, because it has the ability to do good, it is the decisions of the individual that make it oppressive if the person decides to be an oppressor. If Bioware wasn’t so adamant about keeping the game morally grey, then they would’ve had an opportunity to create really interesting and important lessons on power and oppression that would better reflect our political landscape.

Now I want to move onto the Dalish, because I have a serious issue with how Bioware addresses the oppression they face and I believe it is important to mention. As stated above, Bioware chooses to ignore the dismantling of oppression, and instead creates reasons in order  to excuse the oppression of a group simply due to the fact that no group is perfect and they all have their issues. This is evident within the Trespasser DLC when discovering the true nature of the elven gods, which I will paste below:

!! Warning: spoilers ahead !!

“Following the initial events of the Exalted Council, the Inquisitor uncovers the reality that the Elven Gods were in fact phenomenally powerful mages who rose in prominence after the end of an unknown war. Solas implies that the Evanuris started out as generals during the war, then respected elders, and finally were revered as gods. They started out as heroes of the famed war eventually becoming corrupt tyrants in order to hoard and maintain their own power. The Evanuris institutionalized a system of slavery using Vallaslin as a brand, with only Fen'Harel (and more subtly, Mythal) challenging their tyranny. Most of the gods were arrogant in their ways, their power and attitudes more akin to the Tevinter Magisters. Eventually, the other Evanuris plotted against Mythal and killed her, prompting Fen'Harel to lead a rebellion against them and later creating the Veil to banish them into the Beyond,”

(https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Elven_pantheon).

From what I’ve seen, little is known about the Elven Pantheon before Dragon Age: Inquisition and the discovery that the elven gods are actually powerful mages is only represented within the Trespasser DLC. Though I have learned later that this was always the plan for the Elven Pantheon, which was to expose the gods for being tyrants who enslaved their own kind. It is clear that Bioware took inspiration from Native tribes to then create the Dalish elves (even within the name, since there is the Salish Kootenai tribe and Bioware literally just switched the first letter) and this is why I have a major issue with how they chose to handle the oppression that the Dalish are impacted by. Throughout the Dragon Age games, we see the torment that the Dalish suffer through from name calling to the complete erasure of the elven race; Bioware even goes as far as to take significant historical events like the Trail of Tears and write them into the elven history. This is why the Trespasser DLC angers me, because after all you learn about the Dalish and what is done to oppress them, it almost seems brushed off after it is exposed that the elven gods were similar to Tevinter mages. This type of message has real world implications, and can impact how people perceive Native people. Within my own experience as a Native person, I’ve had people argue to me that the oppression Native people face has reason because we have also owned slaves which is COMPLETELY untrue. I was shocked to see this exact reason be integrated into the Trespasser DLC, and it worries me because some players will see that and find it perfectly rational to think that because of the Dalish’s history it is then okay that they were oppressed. Throughout history, America and other countries that have oppressed Native and Indigeous people have created excuses and reasons to oppress them (from excuses like we are s*vages that need to be educated, to reasons like the Manifest Destiny). Therefore, it is incredibly harmful that Bioware would use the same type of reasoning not only for the Dalish but for the mages and the Qunari as well. Finding a reason to oppress a group does not create progressive change, it only divides us and keeps the oppressed groups oppressed and keeps the oppressors in power. Bioware needs to change how they approach oppression, and instead actually teach players the tools needed in order to dismantle oppression. 

I hope to be able to change how the Dalish are perceived, and show through my rewrite of the elven pantheon and also rewrites of missions involving the Dalish how to dismantle oppression through the choices and involvement of the inquisitor. I thank you all for taking the time to read and if there are any questions please don’t be afraid to ask!

[mypoisonedvine]

Ties That Bind, Debts That Burden | Curtis Everett x reader

for @stargazingfangirl18​ and @navybrat817​‘s august challenge!  my prompt was the gif!

summary: you didn’t expect the man who bought you to be so kind.  you didn’t expect to fall for him, either.

warnings: death of a parent character, kidnapping, implied noncon/mentions of noncon, sexism, sexual slavery (mentioned), dub con (but not in the way you’re expecting), implied age gap (everyone is over 18!! as always!!), semi-public sex, breeding kink, loss of virginity, pain kink (slightly)

word count: a bit over 4k (and I wrote it all in one day... hey that rhymes!)

[this is another one of those things where the fic itself is dark due to the subject matter, but the character in question is not ‘dark’ in the traditional sense.  so, curtis is a good dude, it’s everyone else that sucks; this is a dark fic tonally, but not sexually per se]

Life in the tail section was ruthless.  It was all about survival, and survival was about being stronger than others.  You weren’t strong.  What you did have was your father, and he had kept you safe all your life, even before the two of you had lived in this terrible place.  He was a sort of leader; people looked up to him, and as a result, they obeyed his wishes to stay away from you.  Even so, you could sense that a lot of the men in the train were just waiting for their chance to take you.  Women who didn’t have significant skills to offer, women like you, were seen as a commodity with only one purpose.  Less like wives and more like slaves, they were traded, sold, and bartered for like clothes or rations.  It made you feel sick, but most of all it made you terrified for what would happen when your father couldn’t protect you anymore.  He was strong, but old, and so tired.  You hated to see how hard he had to work so late into his life, just so that you wouldn’t have to suffer.  

When he died, it almost didn’t feel real.  Even though it was sort of expected with the way his health had been declining for months, it was nothing you ever could’ve imagined.  A world without your father meant a world you were truly alone in… and only now did you confront the real cruelty of life in the tail section.

You woke up to being dragged by your hair; you screamed and kicked, but there was little you could do as you were thrown down onto the floor.  Your worthless fighting was muted as rags were used to bind your wrists and ankles, and a gag silenced you.  You looked up to see you were surrounded by men, with one-- you were pretty sure his name was Jamie, you’d seen him around before-- standing up and hovering over you.

“Her father is finally dead!” he announced to the crowd with a dirty smile that was missing a few teeth.  “I got my hands on her first, but I’m willing to sell her to any reasonable bidders.”

“Five rations,” one voice quickly jutted in.

“Five-- what the fuck are you talking about, man?  Everyone’s been drooling over this little tart for years and you offer me five rations?!  Get a grip,” Jamie spat.  

“Twenty,” another called out.

“Getting warmer,” Jamie laughed.  “Come on, boys, she’s never known a man before.  This is truly a priceless opportunity.”

“Thirty!”

“Thirty-three!”

“Best I can do is thirty-five.”

“This is preposterous,” Jamie scoffed.  “She’s a virgin, and look how cute she is when she cries!  If nobody’s gonna make me a suitable offer,” he growled, suddenly grabbing you by your neck and putting his face right against yours, “maybe I’ll keep you for myself, hm?”

You sobbed and tried to squirm away but it was beyond useless, your bound limbs overpowered easily as he held you down and licked a stripe up the side of your face, just to hear you scream behind your gag.

“I’ll take her,” a deep voice boomed suddenly.  “A hundred rations.”

“A-- what?” Jamie stammered. 

You tried to look around at who it was but you couldn’t see very well in the dark.

“It’s more than enough,” the man continued.  “Hand her over.”

“Curtis,” Jamie greeted awkwardly, and your eyes went wide with recognition, “I… didn’t take you for the bartering type.”

That was an understatement.  You knew Curtis, like some of the more chivalrous men of the back car, was a long-standing boycotter of this sort of activity.  He didn’t even seem interested in the women who wanted to sleep with him, let alone those who were being sold against their will.  Seemed like his patience had worn out, and he was finally giving in to his biological needs, no matter who would suffer cruelty along the way.  Just your luck that it would be you for sale when he gave up on his morals.

“I didn’t take you for the type to stall when he’s offered a great deal,” Curtis replied coldly.  “Now give me the girl and take your payment.”

Something must have changed hands, but you were too busy staring at the corrugated steel floor and hoping it was all a dream that would end any moment.  

You lurched back as Jamie picked you up again, tossing you to Curtis who caught you awkwardly.

“Have fun with her,” Jamie encouraged, “make sure it’s loud enough so we can all hear; a little consolation prize for the rest of us.”

Curtis said nothing as he turned and dragged you to his bunk, ignoring your muffled pleas.  When he set you down, he kneeled beside you and put a hand on each shoulder to brace you.

“I’m going to take off this gag, and your ties,” he offered, “but you need to stop crying, okay?  Everything will be alright.  I won’t hurt you.”

You weren’t sure you believed that, but you tried to steady your breathing.  Maybe if you did what he said, he would be gentle with you…

You nodded slowly, and he untied the gag.  Your sore mouth appreciated the reprieve as you wiggled your mouth around to stretch your lips.  You had sort of assumed that whoever bought you would leave the restraints on, so that you wouldn’t fight back.  But Curtis was so strong and healthy, he didn’t even need to bind you: your body tensed up again at that realization.

“Shh, shh, calm down,” he requested as he worked on the knot around your feet, “you don’t need to be afraid of me.”

Finally your limbs were freed, though that freedom was wasted on exhaustedly falling to the cold steel floor.

“Use this rag to clean off a little,” he instructed, handing you a cloth that had been soaked in water, “and go back to sleep for the night.”

“You… you’re not going to…?” you murmured, confused.

“I don’t believe in enslavement,” he shook his head.  “Your father was a good man; he did a lot for me, even when I had nothing to offer him in return.  He told me to pay him back by keeping you safe after he was gone.”

You hadn’t realized your father knew Curtis so well.  You’d seen him around, sure, but he was more a stranger than anything.

“Thank you…” you whispered, your voice hoarse and ragged.

“You need to rest,” he whispered back.  “You can sleep in my bed-- someone’s already claimed yours, I’m sure.  I’ll be on the floor beside you if you need me.”

Your cheeks burned with guilt.  “Curtis, don’t do that.  You spent so much on me... I don’t want to be any more of a burden.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” he soothed, “we can talk in the morning.  Get your sleep.”

After washing yourself hastily with the rag (focusing most on wherever Jamie had touched you), you slipped into the sheets on his mattress, finding him different from the ones you were used to, but comfortable in spite of the unfamiliarity.  

Curtis settled in on the floor, and in the near-darkness you could just make out the silhouette of his face as he closed his eyes and relaxed against a roll of tattered clothes as an improvised pillow.  You’d always thought he was handsome, and the impression you’d gotten was that he was patient, and honorable, but kept to himself.  You could remember just a few nights ago when you never could’ve imagined this being your new life.  Although you did wonder if Curtis was simply waiting for the morning to claim you, in the meantime you decided to take him at his word and just be thankful that someone seemingly kind had bought you instead of Jamie or his fellow bidders.

Two weeks later...

If anything, it was odd how little Curtis had asked of you.  He didn’t even really talk to you.  Even your father expected you to help him with anything you could; sometimes it was just keeping him company, listening to him.  But Curtis all but avoided you.  All that said, his presence was rarely needed to keep you safe.  People respected your father, but they feared Curtis.  He wasn’t violent-- well, he wasn’t violent typically.  Nearly a week ago he had gone to fisticuffs for you after a man had tried to grope you.  The weird thing was that you hadn’t even realized Curtis was nearby: one moment you were alone and being pulled into a stranger’s oppressive form as he purred in your ear, the next Curtis had appeared and shoved him off of you.  That seemed to get the point across that Curtis’ things were not to be touched.

Feeling guilty, you decided to do whatever chores you could think of while he was away from his ‘room’ (which was, of course, not a room at all but a bed draped with a canopy of tattered fabric in order to create some privacy).  You waited for his return with a little smile on your face, sure he would be grateful for your service and maybe would start to warm up to you more.

“Hi, Curtis,” you greeted with a peppy grin when you saw him approaching, jumping up from where you had been sitting.

“You washed my clothes,” he noticed instantly.

Your smile fell when you realized that he wasn’t happy.  “Did I do something wrong?” you asked sheepishly.

“You are not my slave; I cannot make that more clear,” he frowned.  “Never do a chore on my behalf again.”

“Please, Curtis.  You’ve done so much for me, just let me prove my usefulness.”

“You want to be useful?  Stay out of harm’s way.”

“Oh, I see,” you sneered, “you don’t want me to do your chores because I am your chore.  Is that all you see me as?  A debt you are repaying to my father?”

He seemed confused by that question.  “What else could I see you as?”

“A partner!” you protested.  “A woman!”

He grabbed you suddenly, pulling you into him by your wrists.  “Stop talking like that.  I won’t hear any more of it.  Just stay quiet and take care of yourself.”

He dropped you as you began to cry, crumpling into a ball on the floor.

“Don’t cry,” he frowned.  “Why could you be crying, when all I told you was that you don’t have to do anything?”

“I suppose I should be thankful that you’re not sadistic,” you explained with a shaky, weak voice, “but you’re still plenty cruel to me, I hope you know that.  You ignore me completely-- and no one else will talk to me, because they’re afraid to upset you.  I’ve never been so alone.”

He sighed and sat down beside you on the floor.  “I never meant to…” he trailed off.  “I bought you to save you from them.  Not because I had any purpose for you.”

“I have no purpose,” you stated plainly, moving from sad to stoic.  “Don’t you hear how sad that sounds?  Can you blame me for being upset when you’re telling me straight to my face that I’m useless?”

He seemed to at least see where you were coming from with that, looking to the side with an oddly guilty look in his eyes.

Suddenly, he reached to pull up his shirt and you gasped when you saw a cut along his side.

“I fell,” he explained, “and scraped against something.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” you comforted to the best of your ability, “I hope it’s not giving you too much trouble.”

“It’s not, but I’m worried it’ll get infected.”

You thought for a moment.  “I could… help you clean it?”

“Sure,” he nodded, “that would be nice.  Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” you shrugged as you grabbed a rag to dampen.  “I’ll be right back.”

You cleaned his wound in silence, carefully washing away the dried blood, even when he sucked in breaths through his teeth as you touched the sensitive places.  The task at hand distracted you from your previous outburst; this was exactly proof of why you needed things to do, you’d go crazy otherwise.  

“I don’t think it’ll need stitches,” you informed him as you put the rag away and rolled his shirt back down.  “We’ll just clean it again tomorrow and I bet that’ll be enough.”

“Good,” he nodded.

The day was winding down to a close already, and you looked around to see a lot of the people nearby starting to prepare for bed, if they weren’t already on their mattresses with their eyes and ears covered to block out the distractions of those still awake.

“I think you should take the bed tonight, since you’re injured,” you offered.  Up until now, you’d been alternating nights on the floor; it was the only compromise you two could come to.

“I couldn’t ask you to sleep on the ground two nights in a row,” he shook his head.

“You’re not asking me to.  I’m telling you that I will.”

“I won’t take the bed.”

You crossed your arms and grinned stubbornly.  “Then we’ll both be on the floor.”

“Fine,” he sighed with defeat, “I’ll take the bed, but only if you share it with me.  I can never sleep well when all I can think about is how cold and uncomfortable you must be.”

You were surprised to hear that, because you had always felt the same way on the nights you were in the bed.  Seemed both of you were getting worse sleep than you let on.

“F-fine,” you stammered, realizing how little space the two of you would have to work with on the mattress, “we’ll share it then.”

“Might help with the cold anyway,” he shrugged as he stood up, removing his outermost layer of clothes before slipping behind the curtain that surrounded the bed.  You swallowed, as if you hadn’t realized until now that you were going to be in bed with him so soon.  

You removed your jacket as well; even though you normally liked to sleep in something less bulky than the dress you were wearing now, you figured he would protest if you were in any state of undress while sharing a bed with him.

As you pulled the curtain aside, you found him already on the farther side of the bed, facing away from you.  He was so far off the edge that he surely would’ve fallen if there wasn’t a wall on the other side.  

“Curtis, you’re twice my size and you’ve left nearly two-thirds of the bed for me,” you chuckled, slipping into the covers with him and noticing how much space was still left between you.  “Relax, won’t you?”

“Alright,” he relented, laying back a little as his shoulder brushed against yours.  

“Goodnight, Curtis,” you mumbled as you settled in and got as comfortable as could be reasonably expected, letting your eyes fall shut.  Sure, it took awhile, but with a forced relaxation you were able to drift to sleep and stay that way for quite some time.

At some point, you awoke to the softest noise beside you.  At first you thought it was just your dream, but then you heard it again-- Curtis was breathing strangely, and you jumped up when you heard a strained noise of pain.

“Curtis!” you hissed into the dark.  “Are you hurt?  Is everything alright?”

“What?” he stammered, jolting away from you.  

“You were--” you started to explain, but then you realized he was palming at his trousers; specifically, he was stuffing his cock back into them.  “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I didn’t-- sometimes you just-- I never meant to--”

“Are you feeling… frustrated?” you asked him softly, moving a little closer to where he was pressing himself back against the wall.

“It’s fine,” he assured you, “I’m fine.”

“Let me help you,” you pleaded.  “I wanted to help you so much, but there was nothing I could do.  Let me do this, please.  I want you to feel good…”

“Your father, I promised him--” he began, but you interrupted.

“Don’t talk about my father,” you requested.  “You kept your promise.  I’m safe.  Let me thank you for all you’ve done.”

Your hand reached out and made contact with his heaving chest through the thin layer of his shirt, beginning to trail down over his stomach and finally to the hard outline inside his trousers.

“W-wait,” he stuttered quietly, even though you felt him quietly sigh with relief as you palmed at his erection.

“I don’t want to wait anymore,” you whispered-- so quiet even you could barely hear it-- as you leaned in and your nose brushed against his cheek.  “I wanted you for so long, Curtis, did you not know?  Wanted to touch you… wanted to make love with you…”

He let out a long-held breath as you reached into his trousers and wrapped your arm around his length.  It was so hot in your palm; it warmed you in the most intoxicating way.

“R-really?” he murmured.

“Of course I did,” you answered, moving your hand and slowly stroking him.  God, the poor man must’ve been so pent-up: he was bucking into your touch already, his cock so hard that you wondered if it was hurting him.  “Every woman on the train lusts for you.  To have you so close and not be able to do anything about it, it was torture.”

“Nothing compared to what it was like,” he groaned softly, “to want to have you for so long and feel horrible for it.”

You began to pump his cock faster, seeking more of those beautiful noises he was making.  The way his length flexed against your palm made arousal tingle all throughout your body.

His hand slipped to the back of your neck, his fingertips brushing up against your hairline and making you shiver.  He whispered your name and you felt like putty in his hands, so distracted by your own need that the pace of your strokes faltered briefly.

The two of you stayed like that for a few moments longer-- foreheads pressed together, shivering and shaking and panting in each other’s arms-- before a rush of adrenaline gave you the confidence to speak.

“I want it inside me,” you whispered against his ear.  “Please, Curtis, I want you inside me.”

You swung your leg over to straddle him, pushing yourself up off of his chest.  He whispered your name with shock as you lifted your tattered dress and pulled it over your shoulders.

“Touch me,” you begged.  “Didn’t you want to?  I wondered if you did.  I wondered how your hands would feel…” you trailed off as you grabbed his wrists and guided his hands to your waist.  They were strong and rough, and so hot against your skin that you thought you might just burn up right there.  He moved them on his own then, sliding them up to your breasts which he gently grasped.  You sighed a little and melted into his touch.

His thumbs teased your nipples, which were already hard and alert.  You tried your best to suppress your moans, aware that many other passengers were sleeping nearby.  Secretly, the idea that they would hear Curtis pleasuring you was almost titillating.  You hoped it would make them all jealous.

“You’re so soft,” he whispered, “and… smooth…”

“Did you long for me?” you asked, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“Yes,” he finally admitted, “yes, I wanted you.  I want you now.”

You reached down and grasped his cock again, guiding it to your wet, swollen opening.  He made a noise that sounded something like a whimper and a groan as the head of his cock moved through your folds.

As you sunk down, you tried to ignore the burn of his cock stretching you open, though a pained whimper escaped your lips.  

Curtis’ hands gripped your hips tight enough to bruise as you slowly took more and more of him into you.  His head fell back with a groan, lost in the way your walls gripped him tighter than he thought possible.  In that moment, he wanted more than anything to hold you close and never let go.

You shivered as your hips met his, feeling full in a way you could’ve never imagined.  It still stung as he forged a new path inside you, moulded you to his shape, but you didn’t mind because it was him.  

You were so weak that you struggled to lift yourself on top of him, but he gently guided you to lessen your load.  Your body adjusted to him rather slowly, and every time you rocked your hips made you hiss with discomfort along with the sparks of pleasure burning through your gut.  Even when it hurt, you wanted more; if nothing else, the noises of his restrained ecstasy spurred you on.

Leaning down, you laid yourself on his chest so that you could hear him better, and him you.  His arms wrapped around you and you felt small; normally, feeling small meant feeling weak, vulnerable, scared… but in his arms, it was wonderful.  You felt vulnerable, yes, but protected.

Your name tumbled from his lips like a whispered chant as you moved on top of him, and you whispered his name back.  The way his cock rubbed against your insides felt so good that you couldn’t even remember that it hurt before, but then again, you couldn’t remember anything from before right now and you didn’t want to.

Your moans got louder and louder, though they were still relatively quiet, but either way they were like music to his ears, sweet and soft and all for him-- just like you.

“S-stop,” he groaned, “you have to stop.”

“Why?” you gasped, feeling a little guilty for not instantly obeying, and yet too lost in pleasure to stop moving your hips.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll come,” he explained breathlessly, “and you could get pregnant.”

You bit your lip, feeling your face warm with an emotion you were sure you hadn’t experienced before.  “What if that’s what I want?” 

“Fuck,” he sighed.

“What if I want you to come inside me?  What if I want to have your baby?” you continued.

You managed to suppress your yelp as he grabbed you and flipped you both over until you were on your back and he was hovering over you.

“Is that what you want?” he asked with a low growl. 

“Yes,” you gasped, “Curtis, it’s all I ever wanted.”

“Fuck,” he moaned, pulling back and thrusting into you again.  He lifted your legs to rest on his shoulders, nearly folding you in half as he fucked into you so deep that you could scream.  You didn’t, but you wanted to.  “Gonna fill you up so good… you’re gonna be so full,” he promised, “you’re gonna be mine.”

“I already am,” you promised, “I always was.”

He leaned down to dominate your lips with a searing kiss, fucking you deep and slow but with an increasing ferocity.  Each thrust was harder than the last until the most prominent sound was the slapping of skin, your arousal so prominent that it was beginning to leak and drip down your thighs and ass.

“Tell me who you belong to,” he growled, right against your ear.

“You,” you moaned, “I belong to you, Curtis.”

“Fuck yeah you do.”

You gripped his arms tight as you felt your walls spasming with your orgasm-- it was unlike anything you’d felt before, even though you’d touched yourself plenty of times up until now.  Already you knew you were going to be addicted to this feeling.  Poor Curtis; you were going to be begging him to fuck you day and night if this was how good it felt.

The tightening of your body around him, and the way you bit down on your lip to keep from screaming with pleasure… it was all too much for him to hold back any more, and with a stuttered groan he spilled himself into you.  

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him into another kiss.  He relaxed on top of you as he reciprocated, both of you basking in the glow of the moment.

“Don’t pull out yet,” you pleaded as the kiss ended, “just hold me a little longer, won’t you?”

“Of course,” he smiled softly, placing one small, delicate kiss to the tip of your nose.

“Did you really want me for so long, like you said?” you pressed, remembering what he’d said and fearing it was just a sweet nothing in the heat of the moment.

“You have no idea how long,” he sighed.  “I dreamed of this; of you being mine.”

“Was it everything you imagined?”

“And more,” he assured with a soft laugh.  “Best hundred rations I ever spent.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiracy fantasy

When we talk about conspiratorialism, we tend to focus (naturally) on the content of the conspiracy. Not only are those stories entertainingly outlandish — they’re also the point of contact between conspiracists and the world.

If your mom is shouting about “Hollywood pedos,” it’s natural that you’ll end up discussing the relationship of this belief to observable reality. But while the content of conspiratorial beliefs gets lots of attention, we tend to neglect the significance of those beliefs.

To the extent that we consider why the beliefs exist and proliferate, the discussion rarely gets further than “irrational people have irrational beliefs.” This is a mistake. The stories we tell one another are a kind of Ouija board, with all our fingertips on the planchette.

The messages it spells out don’t describe external reality but they do reveal our internal, unspoken anxieties and aspirations.This is why we should read science fiction: not because it predicts the future, but because it diagnoses the present.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/26/meaningful-zombies/#oracles

Sf is an ever-mutating ecosystem of fears and hopes, and readers apply selective pressure to those organisms, extinguishing the ones that don’t capture the zeitgeist and elevating the ones that do, a co-evolution of our fantasies and our narratives.

http://locusmag.com/Features/2007/07/cory-doctorow-progressive-apocalypse.html

This is why Alternate Reality Games are so central to their players’ lives. They’re a form of narrative co-creation, with the players throwing out theories and the game-masters actually changing the story to incorporate the best of them.

ARGs are an environment where your coolest and most deliciously scary ideas become reality. It’s a powerful way to galvanize collective action.

As anthropologist Biella Coleman writes in Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy, it’s the organizing principal behind Anonymous.

Anon Ops begin life as victory announcement videos. If the vision of success captures enough Anons, they execute the op.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-anonymous-ghost-in-the-machine

In other words, the degree to which a shared fantasy of victory compels its audience predicts whether the audience realizes its fantasy. Long before the alt-right, Anons were memeing ideas into existence (no coincidence, as both were incubated on 4chan).

On the Conspiracy Games and Counter-Games podcast, three left academics — Max Haiven, AT Kingsmith, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou — analyze “conspiracy fantasies” (as opposed to conspiracies, e.g. the Big Lie behind the Iraq War) for what they reveal about late capitalism’s anxieties.

As leftists, they naturally focus on the relationship between material conditions and people’s behaviors and beliefs. This is an important part of the discourse on conspiratorialism that’s often missing from liberal and right-wing analysis.

Conspiracists aren’t just “irrational” nor are they just “racist.” They may be both of those things, but unless you look at material conditions, then the surges and retreats of conspiracism are mysterious phenomena, strange tides raised by unseen forces.

A decade ago, then-PM David Cameron — the architect of a brutal, authoritarian austerity — dismissed the Hackney Riots as “criminality pure and simple,” and demanded a ban on discussion of the relationship between austerity and unrest.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2011/aug/09/david-cameron-riots-criminality-video

But without that discussion, there’s no explanation. Even if you believe that “criminality” is a thing that is latent within some or all of us, what explains a rise or fall in that criminality? Is it like pollen that alights upon some of us, turning us bad? Or the full moon?

Likewise the “conspiracists are just racists” or “they’re just deranged.” Without looking at the material world, there’s no explanation for why that racism suddenly became more (or less) important to how conspiracists live their lives.

We can’t talk about conspiratorialism without talking about material considerations, and we have to talk about the form and substance of the conspiratorial belief. The ARG-like structure of Qanon is a hugely important part of its popularity:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#adrian-hon

Memeing things into existence in a game-like way is hugely compelling. You can tell when a D&D game is hopping when the players and the DM start co-creating the story, with the DM slyly altering the dungeon and the NPCs to match the players’ super-cool theories.

A recent episode of the CGACG podcast present a mind-blowing analysis of the interplay of the material conditions, mythology and structure of Qanon. It’s a two-part interview with Wu Ming 1:

https://soundcloud.com/reimaginevalue/wuming-one-1?in=reimaginevalue/sets/unmanageablerisks

https://soundcloud.com/reimaginevalue/wuming-one-2?in=reimaginevalue/sets/unmanageablerisks

Wu Ming 1 is part of Bologna’s Wu Ming Collective, the successor to the 1990s Luther Bissett net-art collective. Bissett did many wild, weird things,including publishing “Q,” an internationally bestselling conspiratorial novel in 1999 (!!)

https://www.wumingfoundation.com/giap/what-is-the-wu-ming-foundation/

The plot of “Q” involves a high-level government official, privy to top-secret info about a state conspiracy. It closely mirrors Qanon beliefs, right down to a call for a Jan 6 uprising (!!!!). The major difference is that “Q” is set during the Protestant Reformation.

In the interview, Wu Ming 1 talks about the proliferation of conspiratorial, ARG-like 4chan hoaxes that predated Qanon, and hypothesizes that the original Q posts were plagiarized from the novel.

The strange experience of seeing a novel turn into a cult prompted Ming 1 to write “La Q di Qomplotto” (“The Q in Qonspiracy”), a book that defines and analyzes “conspiracy fantasies.”

https://edizionialegre.it/product/la-q-di-qomplotto/

Ming 1’s interview digs into this in some depth, including setting out criterial for distinguishing conspiracies from fantasies (for example, a conspiracy doesn’t go on forever, while a fantasy can imagine the Knights Templar running the world for centuries).

I was taken by Ming 1’s discussion of the role that “enchantment” plays in conspiratorialism — the feeling of being in a magical and wondrous (if also anxious and terrible) place. He says this is why “debunkers” fail — they’re like people who spoil a magic trick.

Ming 1 and the hosts talk about replacing the enchantment of conspiratorialism with a counter-enchantment, grounded not in the conspiratorialist’s oversimplification and essentialism, but in the wonder of reality.

Ming 1 analogizes his “counter-enchantment” to the “double-wow” method of Penn and Teller: first they blow you away with a trick, and then they blow you away with the cleverness by which it was accomplished.

He describes how the Luther Bissett collective performed a double-wow during Italy’s Satanic Panic, creating a hoax satanic heavy metal cult and a counter-cult, promulgating stories of their pitched battles, then revealing how they’d faked the whole thing.

The action was taken in solidarity with actual Bolognese heavy metal fans who’d been framed for imaginary Satanic “crimes.” Luther Bissett wanted to demonstrate how a panic could be created from nothing, to reveal the method behind the real hoax with a fake hoax.

The double-wow method reminds me of Richard Dawkins’ manuever in “The Magic of Reality,” his excellent children’s book about the virtues of the scientific world, revealing how the numinous wonder of faith is nothing compared to the wonder of science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_of_Reality

The idea that conspiratorialism is a leading indicator of capitalism’s anxieties is a powerful one, and it ties into other compelling accounts of conspiracy, like Anna Merlan’s REPUBLIC OF LIES, which discusses the importance of trauma to conspiratorial belief.

Like Ming 1, Merlan stresses the kernel of truth underpinning conspiracy fantasies — the real aerospace coverups that make UFO conspiracies plausible, the real pharmaceutical conspiracies to cover up harms from drugs that underpin anti-vax.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

In the podcast, Ming 1 and the hosts stress the importance of identifying and addressing the kernel of truth and the trauma it produces in any counter-conspiratorial work — that is, a successful counter-enchantment must address the material conditions behind the fantasy.

I really like this approach because of its empathy — its attempt to connect with the conditions that produce behaviors and beliefs, not to be confused with sympathy, which might excuse their toxic and hateful nature.

It reminds me a lot of Oh No Ross and Carrie, whose hosts have spent years joining cults and religions and digging into fringe practices and beliefs in an effort to understand them; they laugh a lot, but never AT their subjects.

https://ohnopodcast.com/

But Ming 1 brings something new to this discussion: an analysis of the role that novels have played in conspiracy fantasy formation: not just the plagiarizing of “Q” to make Qanon, but things like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion plagiarizing Dumas.

The interview also brought to mind Edward Snowden’s recent inaugural blog-post, “Conspiracy: Theory and Practice,” which seeks to separate conspiracy practice (e.g. the NSA spying on everyone) from theories (what Ming 1 calls “fantasies”).

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt1

Snowden connects the feeling of powerlessness to the urge to explain the world through conspiracies, relating this to his experience of revealing one of the world’s most far-reaching real conspiracies, and then becoming the subject of innumerable conspiracy fantasies.

Snowden’s perspective is one that has heretofore been missing from conspiracy discourse — the perspective of someone who has been part of a real conspiracy and then the central subject of a constellation of bizarre and widespread conspiratorial beliefs.

These different works, focusing as they do on the character of conspiratorial beliefs, the nature of conspiratorial practice, and material conditions of conspiracists, comprise a richer analysis of our screwed-up discourse than, say, theories about “online radicalization.”

As I wrote in my 2020 book “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism,” the “online radicalization” narrative requires that you accept Big Tech’s unsupported marketing claims about its power to bypass our critical thoughts at face value.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

Claims to be able to control our minds — whether made by Rasputin, Mesmer, pick-up artists, MK-ULTRA or NLP enthusiasts — always turn out to be cons (though sometimes the con artists are also conning themselves).

But there’s a much more plausible, less controversial set of powers that Big Tech possesses. By spying on us all the time, it can help scammers target people who are ready to hear conspiratorial explanations.

By monopolizing our discourse, it allows SEO scammers to create default answers to our questions. By locking us in, it can keep us using a platform even if the discourse there makes us angry and anxious.

And by corrupting our political process, it creates “kernels of truth” for conspiratorial beliefs.

As with Scooby Doo, the monster turns out to be a familiar villain in a fright mask: a monopolist whose abuses and impunity create the anxiety that make conspiracy plausible.

[pitiless-achilles-wept]

Not dead yet!: Marking my 2-year anniversaries

On Sunday I marked my two-year “cancerversary” of my diagnosis and on Tuesday a member of the support group I co-founded (for young women who are stage 4) died. Like me, she had triple-negative breast cancer. Like me, she was diagnosed stage 4 two years ago. Like me, she had exhausted several types of treatment (because triple-negative is a beast) and was looking for the one that would work. She asked me about Saci (Sassy!) and proposed trying it to her doctor less than a week before she died. Nine days before she passed she joined our Sunday cancer yoga group from bed at the hospital to join our meditation exercises. Like me, she remained confident and positive and absolutely refused to give up hope. (Like me, she also wore her hair purple sometimes.)

There were many things that are unlike about us too. She had two teenage children who now don’t have their mother. She was twelve years older than me and had had Hodgkin’s before she had breast cancer--even worse luck than mine, to triumph over one cancer only to get this diagnosis. Unlike me, she wasn’t strong enough for Saci, the only targeted triple-negative line of treatment, because her body had reacted badly to immunotherapy. She was in the hospital for two weeks with somewhat mysterious symptoms all of which added up to her body shutting down. On Saturday she went home with her family in hospice care. 2 days later she was gone.

It’s not usual for things to go so fast. Typically, doctors, patients, and family members all have some advance warning and patients spend a solid amount of time in hospice care. I am sure that people will ask me why it went that way for her. I’m asking myself why too, since it is so shocking and so entirely unfair. The fact that it can happen that way at all is frightening to me as a fellow patient since it’s the scenario of nightmares. That really could someday be me. No one ever wants to think that--and I cannot live my life focused on it either--but it has to be acknowledged as a possibility.

[More below the cut about memories from 2 years ago today and hopes for the future. Also, an invitation to contribute to some writing if you want.]

Today, January 28th, is the 2-year anniversary of my stage 4 diagnosis. In a way, it feels more significant than my initial cancer news. I had four days being horrified, but thinking that I would get through this as a phase in my life. It would be terrible--I’d have a double mastectomy, scorched-earth chemo, radiation, anything to get rid of the cancer--but then it would be done. On the Monday following my first set of CT scans I learned that that was not true. My lungs were full of tumors. (Later, after lots of waiting, MRIs and biopsies, I'd find that my lymph nodes, spine, and liver were affected too. I still have tumors in all those locations, but no new ones.) I wrote a description of getting that news in an email to a friend over the summer, after I had read Anne Boyer’s "The Undying”:

“The worst part about the lung tumors for me was that my dad had gotten a very early flight and I learned the news while he was in the air. My mom told me we could not text or tell him on the phone, that he would need to be with us both. So I drove to Newark straight from the doctor's office. It was in the teens outside and windy as we slogged to the baggage area where we were to meet. I saw my dad in his warmest and ugliest puffy orange down jacket, looking small in it, forlorn and horribly vulnerable. I fell into his arms, thinking at least that airports were such horrible places, so impersonal and banal, that no one would look twice. 'It's in my lungs,' I said into his shoulder so that I would not have to see his face. I was crying into the jacket that somehow smelled of winter cold even though he had been inside for hours. 'Please, Daddy. Fix it, please.' I spoke like a child because, on some very deep level, I think I really did still believe that my father could fix anything. I was embarrassed, though, and so I tried to stem my tears as he put his big hand on the back of my head and said, 'Oh sweetie, we'll get through this. We will.' I knew that really he could do nothing--and that this was his nightmare of powerlessness--and so I sniffed and blinked and I did not let myself cry again until June.”

Two years later this moment seems as if it just happened. The impact of my diagnosis on everyone dear to me, and especially my parents, is one of the worst things about it for me. We all know that there’s only so much “better” I can get, with the current science, and we’re all playing for time while the research moves forward towards something better, something that would make this a treatable chronic condition. I go back and forth, emotionally, on how likely I think that is and how good my position is for the future. Right now, comparing myself to the group member who died, I feel relatively fortunate, even as chemo exhausts me, I lose every scrap of hair that was ever on my body, and I spend half of my days being almost unable to eat from nausea and loss of taste. I feel glad that I was able to get Saci, that my body has so far stood up to the ceaseless trials I have put it through, with four treatments and surgery (and full-time work and living alone etc. etc.). I feel strong, not scared, even as I feel the emotional toll of terrible loneliness from covid isolation, winter, and carrying a sick body through my days alone.

I do not love the “fight” metaphor because so much of having an illness is completely out of your control and I never want to take myself (or anyone else) to task for “losing.” And so instead I will praise my body for enduring. I will praise myself for my enduring also, in both an emotional and physical way. I checked back in on how I was feeling as this anniversary approached last year and was pleased to see how much better I feel about it now, partly as a function of being in a treatment that is (likely) keeping me stable rather than in the midst of choosing another new one. Here is what I wrote back to my group of friends in November 2019, the run up to the one-year mark:

“I’m feeling like I can’t plan and don’t want to celebrate, like I can’t perform “fine” for the people in my life to spare them from the pain I’m causing by not doing better and feeling horrible about it. Perhaps it would help if I let them know that they didn’t need to perform “fine” for me? I understand the desire to protect me from the obligation to take care of them and appreciate it. But sometimes it can feel like I’m the only one experiencing anger or grief or pain, though I know I’m not. Feeling so isolated in my emotional response provides no catharsis for it. Compassion and sympathy function on the notion of “fellow feeling.” If you’re just out here, feeling by yourself, you can’t expect any comfort. As always, I think of the moment in the Iliad when Priam and Achilles cry together over dead Hector. Grief (and you can grieve for many things aside from a death) is something explicitly to be shared.” So I guess I’ve shared it here. I can do that. And I can do another thing, which is to tell you I love you. People don’t really say it enough and reserve it too entirely for romantic contexts. It’s weird--it’s not like we are wartime rationing love! And every time anyone says it to me it helps. It’s an affirmation that I am integral in some way to people’s lives which, in a society that so greatly valorizes marriage/partnership and children, is something I can be in doubt about.”

There are some things I like here, though, and that I would now like to reiterate and invite you, my far-flung friends, to do for my 2-year milestone. Never has the notion of “fellow feeling” in times of grief and depression hit harder or been more important than during covid. In a way, the nation (or even world) was forced into much the same position, emotionally and practically, that my cancer put me in. People are isolated, unable to perform “fine” and wondering if other people feel the same way, or even if any of us can take care of each other at all. I am here to tell you that you can. Maybe not immediately but--sooner than you think--you can. Emotional reserves may be low but reaching out to support someone else can actually replenish them. You do not have to feel alone, or to feel, alone.

And for me, for this milestone and for the cancer-related depression that I certainly do have, I’d like to invite you to help me, so that I can do the same for you. I invite you to write something about how this milestone feels for you (either about me or not), how it relates to all the other insane things going on in the world or with you (not about me at all), how you felt on the original day when I shared my stage 4 diagnosis (definitely about me)--really anything that is on your mind or in your heart.

“Oh great,” you may think, “the English PhD has asked us to do homework!”. But no! It's up to you what you do. Write in whatever form you want, however long, even anonymously. And if you do I will write you back! Not with grades or comments, but with something to connect to what you shared. It is a way to create fellow-feeling; to open up, connect, heal. With me, yes, but also as the group of extraordinary people who have gone with me so far on this hard road. It’s a very different proposition to support someone through time-limited treatment with a good outcome than it is to sign on for whatever comes next. You are all, truly, pretty extraordinary.

Anyone who wants to send a note or reflection can email me or drop a file or post in this Google drive folder. Like I said, feel free to share whatever and do it anonymously if you’d rather. You can also askbox me here (better than DMS) or submit a post to this blog. (I'm taking a chance with open DMs for now...we'll see if that needs to change.)

I am grateful for all of you every day, but especially today.

Love, Bex

p.s. The title of this post refers to the cinematic classic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," a film my high school self and friends loved. They, along with other wonderful folks. gave me a "cancerversary" cake with "Not dead yet, motherfucker!" on it this Sunday. p.p.s. The average life expectancy for people who get this diagnosis is 18 months to 3 years. Hitting 5 years would be extraordinary. Starting Year 3 is a huge deal and I have every intention of being extraordinary. (Never been average at anything in my life...I either succeed spectacularly or fail epically!)

[baoshan-sanren]

Chapter 43

Emperor Wei WuXian And His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Birthday

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 Part 1 | Chapter 8 Part 2 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 Part 1 | Chapter 15 Part 2 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 Part 1 | Chapter 22 Part 2 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33 | Chapter 34 | Chapter 35 | Chapter 36 | Chapter 37 | Chapter 38 | Chapter 39 | Chapter 40 | Chapter 41 | Chapter 42 

The Gifting Ceremony used to be the highlight of Wei Ying’s birthday celebration. Not so much for the gifts themselves, but for the fact that it signaled the end of the formalities, and the quickly approaching departure of all the sects.

Instead of feeling relieved, Wei Ying is tense and irritable, the upcoming banquet looming larger by the moment.

After seven long days of constantly being accosted by each and every sect leader, even those Wei Ying can ordinarily tolerate with equanimity are beginning to test his patience. 

Jin GuangShan looks far too unhappy for someone whose son had been released from the dungeon that very morning, when the brat should have rightfully remained locked up until his first gray hair appeared. Nie MingJue has been grim and distracted all day, hardly a fit company for anyone. The HeJian Fan Sect Leader is not yet well enough to participate in any ceremonies, not if he means to save his strength for the next day’s travel, and the MeiShan Yu Sect Leader has been been firmly planted by Madam Yu’s side for nearly an hour. Since they both cannot seem to help glancing at Wei Ying every few moments, he is sure that whatever they are discussing will not bode well for him in the end.  

In addition, the Council, showing themselves to be no better than a brood of gossiping hens, had not held to their promise to keep Wei Ying’s betrothal plans a secret. No one has dared speak of these things in his presence, but it is obvious that majority of the sect leaders are now aware that the Emperor had chosen his future Emperor Consort. Wei Ying supposes it was illogical to think that someone like Sect Leader OuYang could actually keep a secret. Still, he hates that Lan Zhan is now a subject of gossip and wild speculation, before he has even had a chance to accept the proposal. Worse, he is beginning to feel as if every bit of slander, every string of nonsense whispered in the corners of the palace, must be magnified by the time it reaches Lan Zhan’s awareness.    

Lan Zhan had said that he will not change his mind. He had said that he wants to marry Wei Ying. But how much drivel can one person be subjected to before deciding that the benefit is not worth the cost? How many underhanded comments from the Qin Sect Leader about his daughter’s sweet nature and refined manners will turn out to be too many? How many thinly veiled jabs about the importance of succession from the Chang Sect Leader? How many hushed whispers of the imminent anniversary of the Empress’ death, each one carrying a stark reminder of the man who had killed her?

Wei Ying thinks he has become accustomed to some of Lan Zhan’s minuscule expressions, at least well enough to know if the man is angry or distressed. But Lan Zhan is at the very end of the hall, still and silent, his uncle and brother by his side. Lan XiChen looks as tired as Wei Ying feels, and Lan QiRen looks as coldly disapproving as he always does. It is Lan Zhan whose thoughts are impossible to read from this distance, his face calm and composed, his eyes expressionless. If he is hearing the gossip, if he finds it ridiculous, or maddening, or unbearable, Wei Ying can read nothing of the sort from his countenance.  

He understands why Lan Zhan had declined his invitation to be seated by the throne during the Gifting Ceremony. The rumors are vicious enough without such an obvious display of favor. But it is unbearable, the distance between them, as if he cannot still feel Lan Zhan’s thumb pressing into his cheek, the scrape of Lan Zhan’s teeth against his bottom lip. As if they are suddenly little more than strangers.

The banquet being only hours away is even more unbearable. Lan Zhan will meet with Song Lan and uncle XingChen after the Gifting Ceremony, but Wei Ying must deal with other matters, and may not have a chance to speak to him again before the celebration starts. Before Lan Zhan willingly places himself in harm’s way.  Before Wei Ying has a chance to remind him to not take any unnecessary risks.  

HuaiSang’s fan lightly taps his knee in reprimand, and Wei Ying resists the urge to snap at him.

He may be distracted, but he is still perfectly aware of his surroundings.

The chest in front of the throne, filled to the brim with delicate spheres of imperial jade, is a gift from the LanLing Jin. Jin GuangShan has spared no expense. The man looks as if he had aged significantly in the last few days, a curse, Wei Ying supposes, of having to deal with brainless offspring. Of course, the blame for this rests entirely on Jin GuangShan, as he has had more brainless offspring, both hidden and acknowledged, than any man Wei Ying has ever met. Still, he feels a thin thread of pity for the man.

Wei Ying would wager that the seven day celebration had not come close to meeting Jin GuangShan’s expectations.

He taps his fingers against the arm of the throne, deliberating.

No matter what Wei Ying does, the next few assassination attempts are certain to be funded from the Jin Sect coffers. It does not seem to matter, whether he treats Jin GuangShan with politeness or cold indifference; the man simply believes that a world without an Emperor would be a world in which he, himself, would have a greater chance of seizing wealth and power. Still, Wei Ying would very much like to have a decreased flow of assassins while he attempts to make arrangements for his wedding.  

It is tempting to go back on his word sooner than he had planned, and permit the reinstatement of the engagement. Everyone present is very well aware that the Emperor has a soft spot for his shijie. They will easily believe that she has managed to influence him, even in such a short period of time. But he cannot reward Jin ZiXuan’s ridiculous behavior in this way, not while the other sect leaders are present.

“Sect Leader Jin,” he says instead, regretting the words even as they are leaving his mouth, “Madam Yu has expressed regret that her time with a dear friend has been cut short. You will remain at the Immortal Mountain an additional ten days, so that she may properly renew her acquaintance with Madam Jin.”

Wei Ying does not dare look over at Madam Yu. She absolutely abhors being used in such a way, but since her daughter is to become the next High Councilor, Wei Ying believes she owes him a significant favor. Jin GuangShan looks properly grateful, and perhaps a little apprehensive as well, which is a satisfying combination.

The gift from the Yu Sect is presented next, then the gift from the Nie Sect, then the Fan and Chen Sects. Wei Ying cannot begin to guess what sort of a gift the Lan Sect will present this year, but he has always felt that their gifts were selected to carry a vague message of admonishment, much like Lan QiRen’s perpetually cold expression.

One year, the Emperor had received a copy of the three thousand Lan Sect rules. They were exquisitely bound and written in a beautiful hand, but no amount of tight binding or lovely calligraphy can make three thousand rules anything but tedious. He had read them, mostly out of curiosity, but the exercise had been as monotonous as listening to Jin GuangShan’s compliments.  

Still, he has never quite anticipated the Lan Sect gifts with this much curiosity or impatience. Their gift is traditionally presented last, but Wei Ying thinks that this will be the last year the Lan Sect is forced to the bottom of the court hierarchy. By his next birthday, he should be married to Lan Zhan, and the Lan Sect will be expected to take their rightful place above all the others.

The gift from the Wen Sect is next, and Wei Ying perks up slightly at the sight of a black chest being carried forward. Wen RuoHan might be a terrible human being on his best day, and a conniving, ruthless tyrant on his worst, but the man has an eye for striking oddities. The gifts that had come from the Wen Sect over the years have been more bizarre than explicitly valuable, never failing to entertain the entire court. One such gift, an enormous, thin slate of cloudy water jade, had found its permanent residence in Wei Ying’s chambers. Depending on the angle of the sun rays reflected off its surface, the slate would depict shadows of birds in flight, folding ocean waves, and on one memorable occasion, two small rabbits chasing each other across the white expanse.

Wei Ying is on his feet before the chest is even opened for his inspection, fully expecting to be enthralled with its contents. Still, despite being surprised each year, the gift takes him off guard.

It is a sword.

Heavy and long, its pommel vaguely constructed in the shape of a leaping tiger, it holds a greater resemblance to the sabers more often used by the Nie Sect, than the cultivator swords Wei Ying is accustomed to handling. Its surface is inky black from its tip to the hilt, a black so deep that it seems to feed on the light around it, creating shadows where none should exist. It is both beautiful and ghastly at once, and Wei Ying cannot seem to look away.

Never before has the Wen Sect sent him a weapon, and his mind is already full of possible implications. He believes that he has reached a favorable agreement with Wen RuoHan, and that the man would find no benefit in going back on his word. The gift was sent before the agreement had been made. Therefore, it could signify the beginning of the rebellion that Wei Ying has managed to avoid, or it could signify Wen RuoHan’s intention to remain a sword in the hand of the Emperor, as long as it suits his purpose.

It is odd, but he cannot escape the impression that the sword should be hot to the touch. Steel is always cold, except in the midst of a battle, but the black inky surface seems to radiate warmth, and he is reaching for the handle before realizing that he means to do so, his fingers wrapping around the ridges of the hilt.

It is cold.

So cold that it burns, his hand submerged in flames. It spreads, the ice traveling through his wrist and elbow, nestling easily in the bones of his shoulder. It is a ruthless, frigid wave, but the way it envelops his chest is deceivingly gentle, the breath in his lugs growing sluggish and slow. A faint sense of disbelief and panic has not yet fully formed when he tries to release the hilt, but he is no longer in command of his arm, the limb paralyzed and unfeeling.

A series of disconnected thoughts dart across his consciousness. 

An awareness that this may be death, a type of death no one could have predicted. 

Lan Zhan at the end of the hall. 

Nie HuaiSang behind him, still sprawled leisurely next to the throne, hopefully too far to be affected. 

A-Yuan. 

He tries to speak, to issue a warning, but his throat is ice, both unyielding and fragile. He thinks, if he could open his mouth, the winter would emerge from his breath, freezing the world to its core.

Just before the world goes black, he hears a familiar voice, faded and distant, already a long gone memory.

“Wei Ying.”

[aelaer]

Inspired by the X men ask: instead of Donna, what if Stephen's mutant powers manifest after she drowns? It's definitely writable with movie-only knowledge! (I think Stephen would have some scary strong powers).

This prompt is nearing a year and a half old and is my second to last prompt from 2019 so I wanted to try to get it out of the way as I attempt to do at least one prompt fic a month to clear my inbox of those remaining.

After being stuck on trying to figure this out for so long, I decided to approach it quite differently than I thought I would, and this is my first fic writing from this character’s POV. I made Stephen's age the same as Ben's for ease. I also prove, yet again, that my ability to write short things is very much lacking.

My interest in geography 100% leaks through, and I'm not sorry.

My thanks to nemmy for helping me decide the direction of this story.

Fate Won’t Compromise Fandom: Doctor Strange, MCU Genre: Gen, canon divergence Chars: The Ancient One, Stephen Strange, Donna Strange Word count: 5k Warnings: Minor canonical character death, near drowning

In the summer of 1995, The Ancient One felt a ripple in the fabric of reality.

Such ripples, while uncommon, were not unknown to her in her many centuries serving as Sorcerer Supreme. They happened as major events within their reality shifted from the threads found in similar realities across the multiverse. While change was inevitable between realities, commonalities often brought them back to follow the same paths, to hit the same major events, to survive the same catastrophes. Reality and time were excellent in creating situations that balanced the flow again and brought them back to their natural parallels across the majority of universes.

But sometimes, sometimes the fabric of reality and time was disturbed. It happened with a change, unexpected in its improbability and big enough that it diverted the parallel lines the majority of the multiverse followed to create a timeline that diverged, crooked and uncertain. If the ripple was small enough, the powers surrounding reality often fixed itself with countermeasures—new actors, new probabilities that helped bring time back to its parallel path. But some ripples, some ripples required intervention.

And this one? Well, this one absolutely shattered reality with its ripple effect.

Hmm. It was time to consult the Eye of Agamotto and see what changed.

— — — — —

Her time with the Eye was long in her search. With such a significant ripple, The Ancient One first looked at the immediate months coming, searching for change in the most important of events for the remainder of the year.

There was nothing different. Interesting. Then this was likely an event that changed the course of the life of an individual, an individual who was very important sometime in the future. She scanned the years following more broadly after that, coming upon the events of the new millennium, both mundane and arcane, that would change the course of Earth's future forever. They all came as expected, one after the other.

It wasn't until her search took her to 2016, the year before her own inevitable passing, that she finally came across the anomaly: Stephen Strange never made it to Kamar-Taj.

The Ancient One pursed her lips; this was not meant to happen. While her sight beyond 2017 remained veiled, her experience and intuition as well as glimpses across the multiverse gave her an insight into the likely path of Stephen Strange. And from what she had seen, he was meant to be the best of them all.

So what had diverted him from the path that was written in the course of time, so much so that its lack of manifestation caused such a ripple in reality? Surely it didn't change her death; she had accepted the inevitably of that decades ago.

(She first discovered her death after the chaos of WWII, where the Masters of the Mystic Arts fought their own war against demonic invasions looking to take advantage of the chaotic time. She looked to prevent such a thing ever occurring again, then found her death. At first she wasn't concerned, and made plans to avoid it, just as she had several times before.

But it was different this time. With the Eye of Agamotto in the past, she was always able to find a route that allowed her to survive and the world to remain intact within a dozen attempts of altering her actions. It took her over a thousand attempts over the next year to realize that, no, no matter what, she was going to die before the fourth month of 2017. She never lived further than that.

And in the course that seemed most sound to her, the most consistent, she was always by the side of the unsure, amateur, but potentially great Stephen Strange.)

The Eye confirmed for her that, yes, she still died in early 2017. However, the manner of death was completely unacceptable, as it led to Dormammu eating their reality. She had not seen that possibility since she stopped trying to find a solution to her death several decades ago.

(She wondered how Stephen Strange managed to defeat him. She did not sense the end of reality after her death, so it was with confidence that she knew he found a solution. What the solution was, however, remained unknown to her. It was most intriguing. He had such potential.)

The Ancient One finally withdrew from the encompassing powers of the Eye and allowed herself a frown. She hoped Stephen Strange was not dead. It would mean finding another like him, and quite soon so she may prevent the terrible future she just saw.

Still, the ripple she felt did but not necessarily mean death; it meant change, for good or ill.

The first thing to do was to check on what was, and what would hopefully remain, her future pupil. She directed the Eye to review the timeline of Stephen Strange, going to the moment just before the ripple in reality occurred.

As she searched for that moment, flashes of memories not belonging to her flipped through her mind's eye: the first was a pair of hands on the wheel of a car, left side, as it turned off the paved road to a bumpy gravel-filled spot of driving, then quickly smoothed out to a road less rough. A large brown sign with yellow, capital letters read "Lewis and Clark State Recreation Area", with a smaller "Nebraska State and Park Commission" underneath. "Weigand - Burbach" was spelt on a separate plank just below the main sign with the same dark brown backdrop and bright yellow lettering. In the backseats was excited chatter from two others, women. Surrounding the road were tall trees of various species, all different colors of green.

Another flash, and she was now watching a small motorboat being backed up into the water from its trailer by a young man—barely a man—into a wide lake. Beyond the water the distant shore was all but flat, with only a small ridge of hills giving the horizon any distinct shape. A shrill voice shouted behind her, "Don't crash it!" and the man in the boat shouted back, "Shut up, Melissa!" Giggles followed, and then a voice came from the soul she watched, a deep baritone that said, "But seriously, if you crash it, my dad will kill you." The young man in the boat retorted, "Fuck you, Stephen!" in return, and Stephen's body shook with soft laughter. The man successfully maneuvered the boat into the water, and a short cheer sounded behind her.

Then another memory, and she was now on the motorboat, far out on the water which shone as bright a blue as the sky above. A young woman—a teenager, as they said in English in the 20th century, now—was doing some sort of sport she was unfamiliar with, letting the motorboat drag her along as she hung on by a rope with a handle at the end. Perhaps this was surfing. The teenager completed a short jump on the waves, and from her point of view, the memory's host shouted, "Nice, Donna!"

Another flash, and she was the one at the end of the rope. She quickly passed through it to the next memory. 

Time had passed; it was late afternoon, perhaps an hour or so before sunset. Her host was looking at the boat's controls. A female voice—Melissa—behind them said, "Okay, Aaron's ready to go. Start it up." As the boat motor roared to life, another voice—Donna—said over the noise, "We should get out of the water after this. It'll be dark soon." The soul behind the memories, Stephen, shouted back, "That's why we have navigation lights on this thing!"

The memory shifted again, and all four were on the boat now. The sun was set behind the horizon and the sky was painted a soft yellow before it melted into blue, then black. Stars were already appearing in the sky. Surrounding her were the other three, Aaron and Melissa and Donna, and there was a strong feeling of content within the memory. "We should get back to camp," Donna said, and she heard Stephen sigh and say, "Yeah," in reply. "Your turn, Aaron," he added. Aaron said, "Dude, I'm wiped out. You do it." Stephen retorted in return, "No, you."

Then it shifted again, and she was looking up at the darkening sky when Melissa said, "That boat's going fast." Her point of view changed as Stephen straightened himself, and she saw another motorboat running straight towards them. "Stop!" Stephen shouted as he got to his feet, and a second later, Aaron called out, "Jump!" and Stephen did, hitting the water and diving just as their motorboat was hit and destroyed. He was facing down into the murky, black depths of the lake as suddenly something hit his back, and at that moment some sort of rope or netting caught his leg and its weight started dragging him down. She could feel the alarm running through the young man's head and the Ancient One wondered if she was going to be seeing his death, now. A strange pang of regret went through her at the thought.

But then a sudden glow encompassed Stephen's body, subtle but in the blackness of the water, quite, quite clear. Confusion joined his panic but before any other thoughts came to his head, he was suddenly out of the water and on the shore of the lake. He collapsed the moment he went from liquid to air, falling on his back before turning to his side to cough up water from the lake.

The Ancient One stepped back from Stephen Strange's memories and blinked again back in the normal passage of time. As the green glow of the Time Stone's powers faded from her body, she considered the last memory.

She knew, from all her viewings of the future, that it was about this time that the mutation that came to be known as the X-Gene started popping up in the population. It would eventually have an impact on the future of Earth. But Stephen Strange was not meant to have it—or perhaps, rather, it was never meant to activate. Not if the flow of reality and time considered this an anomaly in the general course of the multiverse.

His appearance within the order of the Masters of the Mystic Arts seemed to lead to the event that prevented Dormammu's entrance into their reality, so he—or someone of his caliber—was necessary to have under her tutelage. And as he was not dead, she needed to see what had to happen to work him again onto a path that was the best for the universe's survival, regardless of this unexpected development in his life.

It was time to consult the Eye once more to determine the right path.

—————

Using the Eye worked outside the flow of time, and so all the Ancient One's endeavours, though seeming to her to take several hours, in reality only took her about twenty minutes since she first felt the ripple. She had passed through various scenarios and glimpsed at various extensions of those scenarios as needed until she had an outcome that had her satisfied with her decisions and, more importantly, made it very, very unlikely that the universe would end to Dormammu in 2017.

(Her own future, strangely enough, grew blurry and uncertain the closer she got to that year, which she found quite intriguing. She would pursue the matter at a later date.)

For now, though, she had a job to do. And so she created a portal that led her to the north shore of the lake, at the beach where the small hills lay. At this point of time it was nearly dark, and so she conjured a lantern—one of the elegant ones that they used to craft in Japan, the ones she preferred—and placed a small, magical light within the illusion. It would reveal its true nature soon enough. Despite the rockiness of this part of the shoreline, her footing was sure as she made her way along the edge of the lake.

In a couple minutes, a voice, expected and now familiar, called out to her. "Hello? Is someone there? I need help!"

In all her experience of using the Eye of Agamotto, the Ancient One had gotten very good at differentiating all the viewed possibilities to the experienced reality. Reality was sharper in every way, and the auras of people's spirits shone brighter without the power of the Time Stone to stifle them. And in the night surrounding them, Stephen Strange's aura shone very, very bright.

Interesting.

When she came close enough for him to see her clearly, his eyes widened as he took her in. She knew her resemblance was considered odd by late twentieth-century standards, but the memory of centuries of lice infestations made hair still undesirable and robes were infinitely more comfortable than jeans. But she was aware of its oddness, and as he stared, the Ancient One took the time to also observe him beyond the fuzziness of the Eye of Agamotto.

The gangly boy sitting in the sand in front of her hardly resembled the arrogant, talented man she had come to know through her past use of the Eye. Just breaking the cusp of manhood, his hair was still fully dark brown, and he wore a sleeveless blue shirt with long swim shorts, all still wet despite the time out of the water. His cheeks were fuller with the last remnant of youth still remaining, and the look in his eyes was wild and unguarded. Filled with fear.

Quite different from what she was used to.

"Who are you?" Stephen Strange whispered.

"A friend," she answered. She placed the lantern on a rock before settling down in the dark sand near him, about five feet away. "I mean you no harm."

He continued to stare at her, then looked at his leg. It was bleeding sluggishly and would need stitches. "Can you please help me? I—I'm not sure how I got here, but there was a boating accident and I—I need to find my friends and my sister. It's on the lake, I swear, I don't know why we can't see it from here but the accident just happened and it can't be that far."

She let him finish before she broke the news. "You are about seven kilometers west from the site of your accident, on the north shore of the lake. I believe you call this part of your country 'South Dakota'."

Stephen's eyes somehow widened even further, then he quickly shook his head. "No, that—that's impossible. That's completely impossible."

"Just as impossible as finding yourself drowning at the bottom of a lake one moment and being on dry land in the next," she said agreeably.

The wide-eyed look seemed it would remain a permanent fixture on his face. "Wha—how—how do you know about that?"

"It is my job to know of such things," said the Ancient One. "It is also how I know that, if you are found so far from the site of the accident, you will draw unwanted attention upon yourself."

Stephen visibly swallowed and looked around them, as if the unwanted attention was already watching. "What—what do you mean?"

The Ancient One offered him a benign smile. "You are not the first to perform the impossible. When figures of authority learn such things exist, they pursue them. And your story would draw their attention. Historically, your country has been known to use extraordinary people as assets when needed. Many kingdoms and governments throughout time have."

A soft wind blew in from the south, causing Stephen to shiver in the oncoming chill of the night. Regardless of his discomfort, his wide eyes narrowed into something more calculating and thoughtful. "Why are you telling me this? What do you get out of it?"

"A future ally, hopefully," she answered truthfully. "I have no interest in taking you from your studies, Stephen Strange—yes, I know who you are," she said, the benign smile coming again as he startled. "Your name is the least I know about you."

He stared at her once more, mouth hanging partially open. As the wind blew through again, he snapped his mouth shut and rubbed his shivering arms. "And why—why should I believe you aren't part of these secret government groups, or part of something that wants to use me? Why should I trust you?"

She kept that slight smile on her face as she answered, "Because I offer my assistance and ask nothing in return. I will guide you to the shoreline just north of the accident, and show you where you may find help. I recommend a forgetful memory between the crash and you reaching shore, which is quite common in times of traumatic events. No one will suspect anything different about you, Mr Strange."

The boy fidgeted at the name, as if not used to it. He really was a young thing, wasn't he? "You can get me there? Do you have a car nearby?"

The Ancient One smiled and lifted her lantern. "Remember what I said, Mr Strange." She let the lantern disintegrate, leaving only the glowing ball of light. Stephen's mouth dropped. "You are not the only person who can do the supposedly impossible. Can you walk unaided?"

Stephen snapped his jaw shut at the question and looked down at his leg. He pressed his lips together, and then with a grunt, he slowly shifted his weight under his legs, most of it on his good leg, before he pushed himself up into a standing position.

She offered another slight smile and held her hand forward to create a portal further east along the lake. "Follow me." The Ancient One did not bother to look at his reaction to the gateway, but had the ball of light follow her through. When she turned, Stephen was limping just through the portal, and after he got through she allowed it to close.

They were on the shore again; to the south in the water, a mile or so away, she could see the distant pinpricks of shiplights at the scene of the accident. Stephen, too, stared in that direction. But she forced his focus elsewhere when she pointed to the northeast, to the pinpricks of light beyond the trees. "Do you believe you can make it to those lit buildings? It is perhaps two hundred meters away. They should have a phone."

He offered a nod. "Yeah. My leg's not so bad."

"Good," she said. "Then I recommend you go that way; it may be some hours before authorities search the shore for you." She looked back at him. "I would not tell anyone of what truly occurred to you; such tales have an unfortunate habit of getting out, no matter how private the story is meant to be."

Stephen frowned at her, and she offered him another one of her benign smiles. "I will come to see you again, after you have had some time to recover. Good luck, Mr Strange." With that, she let the glowing ball beside her fade out, and created a portal into one of the darker rooms of Kamar-Taj and left the young Stephen Strange on the shore of the lake.

—————— 

Two weeks later, the Ancient One created another portal to the midwestern United States, landing underneath a narrow strip of trees that bordered a small creek that made its way through wide fields of agriculture. The nearest field beside her was corn, and just beyond it was a half-harvested wheat field. The trees bordering the water were a mix of oak and pine, specific species she was not familiar with but that she could broadly identify due to the commonalities found within their relatives in the Eastern Hemisphere. It was just after midday in this place known as Nebraska, and the summer sun was pleasant in this corner of the world, with a soft breeze taking off the edge of the dry heat.

She saw no one at first, but if the sling ring brought her here, that meant Stephen Strange was also nearby. A faint trail followed the bend of the creek and she paused in consideration before her instincts led her to go southwest.

In a few minutes, she came upon him. While her step was soft, the silence of the trail around them should have alerted Stephen to her arrival. But his back remained turned to her as he sat beyond the narrow trail and on the slope that led into the creek bed. His chin was propped on his knees and, since he had not heard her approaching, the Ancient One knew his mind was quite far away.

"Mr Strange," she said in greeting.

The young man violently started out of his daze and nearly lost his seating as he twisted around to stare at her. It seemed to her that he had aged some years in the last two weeks; his eyes were dark and sunken with lack of sleep, and his entire expression appeared drawn and pinched. His lips tightened for a moment, then he said, "It's you again."

"I did say I was going to return," she reminded him. She approached the sloping hill beside the creek and sat down beside him.

From the corner of her eye, she saw his expression tighten again. She remained quiet as he gathered his words. "Did you know?" Stephen asked after several passing seconds of heavy silence.

The Ancient One kept her gaze on the small creek. She knew what he was asking, and she would not play any games pretending otherwise; it wouldn't serve her purpose. "I knew that, by the time I came to you, your sister had died."

The tenseness beside her did not lift; if anything, it grew heavier. "Did you know Donna was going to die?"

An interesting question. She considered her answer; a multitude of answers would lead to an acceptable outcome, but this was reality. "We don't get to choose our time," she started. "In some probabilities, the question of death is split between a thin line that sways from one option to the other depending on the reality. In other instances, death is all but certain." She spared a glance at him; Stephen's grief was now layered with confusion. "I am sorry to say that, in the wide expansion of possibilities, your sister's death was largely unavoidable. All points led to it."

The young man's face contorted in anger. "I don't believe in fate or whatever the hell you're talking about."

"Some may call it fate," she answered, and looked back to the creek. "I call it probability. You may have been told, at some point in your life, that there are random events in life that are unpredictable. This is untrue, at least on a larger scale. Each event of consequence has a set probability in occurring, with the powers balancing reality and time ever trying to keep them as consistent as possible in the grand scheme of the multiverse. Certain people are always born. Certain events always occur. Certain items are always invented. Around people of consequence, events play out so that they may help play the part that they are meant to play."

In the corner of her eye, she saw Stephen run a hand over his face. "Look, lady, like I told you: I don't believe in that bullshit. And if you're trying to tell me that my sister was meant to—" He cut himself off and turned his head away. She saw his knuckles tighten to the point of turning white with the strain.

She slowly exhaled and closed her eyes. She had not spoken with youth who did not know her for who she was in some many years; she could not remember the last time a young person had spoken to her with such disrespect. But she had to keep in mind that Stephen was grieving, and that he was absolutely clueless.

Perhaps if he saw a small glimpse of what she saw, he would understand.

"I would like to show you something, if you would allow it," said the Ancient One as she opened her eyes and looked at Stephen.

His eyes darted to look at her with a side glance, though he did not look at her fully. "Show me what?"

"What my powers allow me to see," she said. His eyes narrowed. "It won't hurt or leave any lasting effects."

She saw the internal struggle, but one thing she knew well of Stephen Strange: his curiosity always got the better of him. And as she expected, he relented and said, "Okay, fine. How do you do that?"

A slight smile appeared on her lips. "Like this," said the Ancient One, and she placed her thumb upon his forehead and connected her third eye to his unused, undeveloped one. She picked from her memory a set of images gained by using the Eye of Agamotto in conjunction with the Cauldron of the Cosmos to explore the realities across the multiverse, the images she picked up some years ago as she looked into the man known as Stephen Strange and what he became in other realities.

And the images she chose were specifically referring to his sister's death. As she let him see various versions of himself (some with slightly different physical features, and a couple further in the past, but so very much Stephen Strange), she said, "The multiverse is a strange thing in its consistency. Donna Strange was not born only to perish at such a young age in every reality, but the probability was stacked against her. And many named Stephen Strange have experienced the grief you feel now. It is not your fault that the universe stacked probability against her survival."

She removed her thumb from his forehead and Stephen collapsed, rolling down a couple feet down the slope before catching himself. Laying on the ground now he panted heavily, trying to gain his breath.

When he finally raised his head, tears were streaming down his face. "It should've been me," he choked out. "She didn't deserve to die! None of those—" He cut himself off and shook his head, then angrily wiped at his face. "I—I don't know what the fuck you were doing—"

"I was using my powers to show you what I have seen," she interrupted, cutting him off for the first time. "After what you managed to achieve at the lake, are my abilities really so hard to come to terms with?"

Stephen shook his head again and pushed himself off the ground so he was standing. The Ancient One remained sitting and kept her expression neutral. "Okay, fine, so you have some crazy-ass powers that—that make no sense. I get it, you did physics-breaking things at the lake, too. What the hell does that have to do with me?"

She offered a benign smile. "Surely you haven't forgotten your unusual journey from the lake to the shore. Or have you been telling yourself that it was all a hallucination?"

By the look on his face, it appeared that that was exactly what he was trying to do. That would do no good.

"Unfortunately for you, your powers aren't just going to go away," the Ancient One said. "Whether they will manifest under physical or emotional stress I do not yet know, but they will return if you do not know how to control them."

"And what, you can teach me how to control them?" Stephen asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Yes," was her simple answer.

Stephen's eyes remained narrow, then he cut off his stare to run a hand through his hair and shake his head. "And what would you want out of me in return?"

"Nothing you are unwilling to give," said the Ancient One. "You can continue your studies as you wish. Go on to become a doctor."

"How did you know—" He paused, cutting himself off, then shook his head. "You know what, never mind. Go on." 

She offered her smile again. "All it would require is some of your time to discover the extent of your powers and to learn ways in which you can best control them. Consider it an extracurricular activity, if you would like."

"And what do you get out of it?" he asked.

"The knowledge that those with unusual powers remain hidden from those who would exploit them," is what she answers, but in truth, it was so much more. Still, it was not yet time to tell him that; he was too young. Too green.

Stephen looked down and crossed his arms as he considered her words. His expression was stone, but she knew what he was going to answer. If there was one thing predictable about Stephen Strange, it was his curiosity and his hunger for knowledge. It was his ambition to be the best at whatever he set his mind to, and a new ability suddenly within his hands was one meant to be conquered for him.

He then nodded jerkily, just once. "Okay. Sure. When do we start?"

The Ancient One smiled and stood. "How about now?" She opened a portal to one of her private rooms in Kamar-Taj, where she was rarely disturbed. It would not do to show him everything of the compound immediately, but it would come in due time.

He hesitated. "I need to be home for dinner at six."

"That is quite doable," she answered, and waited.

A couple seconds of hesitation passed, and then Stephen Strange lifted his chin and walked directly into the portal to Kamar-Taj, over two decades earlier than expected. The Ancient One followed him and closed the gateway behind her, leaving behind the quiet creek to flow under the bright green leaves on a sunny Nebraskan summer day.

— — — — — 

The big happy moment for me in writing this fic was that the town I chose for Stephen to grow up in and alluded to in another story is pretty close to this lake, so that worked out great. The most disappointing discovery, on the other hand, was that the Google Maps car only got like, the major roads in Nebraska. That does not include annnyyyyy of the roads near the Lewis and Clark State Recreation Area. And their promotional video didn't help in determining the details I wanted.

But then *the best thing* happened and on the camp's location on Google Maps, some beautiful, beautiful person took a photo of the entrance of the campgrounds, which was the exact detail I needed. So I dedicate this fic to Denis F. and their photo. (We're gonna pretend that the road and sign's 100% been like that since at least 1995). As much as I'd like to make an excuse to go to a lakeside attraction for boating fun, I'm sadly not a millionaire and cannot throw away thousands for the sake of fic accuracy. Alas. Once I win the lottery, though, 100% will commit to this. (Also, it's January and freaking freezing in Nebraska right now.)

FYI, Donna was not surfing, but wakeboarding. I just doubt that the Ancient One has bothered to learn all the new sports that popped up in the latter half of the 20th century - especially as one as young as wakeboarding was in 1995.

Hopefully the emotional roller coaster in the last bit worked. I've had conversations that just went all over the place like that before—crazy emotional subject to another crazy subject that just shook you to the point that the emotional subject was put on the back burner for processing—so hopefully people can relate.

[hilltopsunset]

I Regret Buying Pokémon Shield

I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I’ve seen time and again the lack of innovation from main-series Pokémon games, and I insisted nothing would convince me to buy this latest atrocity. Yet here I am, reviewing the game I said I’d never purchase. I should have listened to myself. I KNEW BETTER! Strap in, ‘cause this one’s pretty long.

Pokémon has been around for a long time—like, a long, long time—and I’ve been around for every single new main-series game that’s been released since the franchise’s first arrival in North America back in 1996 with Red/Blue. I was not yet 10 years old, and I still remember the childlike excitement of finding rare, never-before seen creatures, the stress of trying to catch a wily Abra or elusive Pinsir, and the challenging first encounter with the Elite Four and the Champion, a 5-man gauntlet of trainers with powerful Pokémon rarely (if ever) seen in the game prior to that moment. It was exhilarating in a way that keeps me coming back for more, hoping to rekindle those same flames of wonder. 

While the main gist of the games hasn’t changed much over the years, one of my favorite parts of playing a new Pokémon game is seeing the improvements each game brings to the series. Many of the initial sequels made huge leaps in progress: Gold/Silver introduced a plethora of new mechanics like held items and breeding; Ruby/Sapphire introduced passive abilities and was the first to include multi-battles in the form of double-battles; Diamond/Pearl was the first generation capable of trading and battling online and brought us the revolutionary physical/special split so elements were no longer locked into one or the other. These changes all had significant impacts on how players approached battles, formed their teams, and used each Pokémon.

Those changes, combined with the addition of new Pokémon to catch, regions to explore, and enemies to fight, were enough to keep me interested. But I know I wasn’t alone in imagining all the possibilities of taking the franchise off the handheld platforms and moving the main series games over to a more powerful home console. In the meantime, each generation that followed Gen IV highlighted a new, troubling pattern that became more and more prevalent with each addition to the series.

1.       Gen V: Lack of meaningful gameplay innovation

By Generation V with Black/White, not only was Game Freak quickly running out of colors, they were quite obviously running out of ideas for significant gameplay innovation. The bulk of Black/White’s biggest changes were improvements on or adaptations to existing staples to the franchise: many new Pokémon, moves, and abilities were added, and the DS platform allowed for greater graphical quality where Pokémon could move around a bit more on-screen during battles, the camera wasn’t as rigid as it had to be in previous games due to machine limitations; perhaps most importantly, they FINALLY decided to make TMs infinite. Thank goodness. While the updates were nice, they were nowhere near as impactful on the game as previous generations’ changes were and served more as needed quality of life adjustments.

I would also argue Gen V also had the least inspired Pokémon designs (like Vanillux and Klinklang) with the worst starter choices of any Pokémon game, but that’s a discussion for another time. Excadrill and Volcarona were pretty cool, though.

 2.       Gen VI: Gimmicks as the main draw

Pokémon X/Y (See? They ran out of colors) continued this new downward trend in innovation. Mega-evolution—while admittedly pretty cool—wasn’t enough to carry the new generation into an era of meaningful improvement because it was equivalent to adding new Pokémon rather than developing innovative gameplay, ushering in a new era of gimmicks in lieu of substantial updates.

Though the gameplay innovation for X/Y was minimal, the graphic updates were substantial: Pokémon X/Y was the first generation to introduce the main series to a fully 3-dimensional world populated by 3D characters. However, since X/Y was on the 3DS, it was a ripe target for the 3D gimmick seen in almost all games on the console, which I personally used for all of 5 minutes before feeling nauseous and never using the function again.

Despite the fresh look of the new 3D models, the battle animations were, to be frank, incredibly disappointing. Pokémon still barely moved and never physically interacted with opponents, nor did they use moves in uniquely appropriate ways. To my point, for years now there’s been a meme about Blastoise opting to shoot water out of his face rather than his cannons. I was sad to see that they didn’t take the time to give each Pokémon’s animations a little more love. But I figured, in time, when or if the franchise ever moved to a more powerful machine, they would be better equipped to make it happen, right? I also convinced myself that the lack of refined animations were kind of charming, harkening back to the games’ original (terrible) animations.

 3.       Gen VII: Focus on Minigames

The main innovation (gimmick) that came with Generation VII, Sun/Moon, was the lack of HMs in lieu of riding certain Pokémon. Sun/Moon also added Ultra Beasts (essentially just new Pokémon) and Z-moves (just new moves) which only added to the number of gimmicks present in the games. These changes, which provide some mild adaptations to gameplay from previous generations, don’t fundamentally change the way players go through each game, the way that updates in the earlier generations did. I personally played through the entirety of Sun/Moon without using a single Z-move or seeing a single Ultra Beast outside the one you’re required to fight to progress the main story. Ultimately, these changes were not a significant enough experience to warrant an entirely new game that is otherwise full of more of the same stuff with slightly different creatures who have slightly different stats and occupy a slightly different world.

Though Sun/Moon was comfortably embracing the franchise’s affinity for gimmicks, it brought to the forefront yet another troubling trend: mini games. Between photography, the Festival Plaza, and Poké Pelago, the focus on and attention to detail toward mini games had grown considerably over the years. Pokémon games have always had minigames and other time-sinks—which is great! Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having more to do than trudge through the main story. But it is apparent that, with each new generation, more time seems dedicated to development of these extras. Pokémon Contests, Secret Bases, Super Training, feeding/grooming; a lot of their larger innovations after Gen IV were centered on non-essential parts of the game, which results in diminished game and story quality overall.

Admittedly, Sun/Moon did have some of the best exploration moments of any of the Pokémon games, which I did very much appreciate. More on that later as it relates to Sword/Shield…

 4.       Generation VIII: You Can’t Be Serious

When Game Freak finally announced they were launching Generation VIII, Sword and Shield, on the Switch rather than a dedicated handheld console, I was beside myself with excitement.

And then I saw gameplay footage like this, and my heart sank.

What is the purpose of launching the game on a stronger console if they are going to continue copy/pasting their sprites and their animations? If they aren’t going to provide the Pokémon any unique flair or create more appropriate animations? It was disappointing enough seeing the same animations/models from X/Y for Sun/Moon, but that was sort of expected since the games were on the same console. But now that the game has moved to the Switch, this is unacceptable.

When I learned that they were significantly cutting the number of Pokémon available in the game, I thought for certain that would translate to more time dedicated to the ones that made the cut, to focus on adding animations and character to the critters to make them feel like real parts of the world, rather than avatars of a child’s imagination, unable to fully process how the world functions. Alas, what was I thinking?

I thought the Dynamax gimmick would be one of my biggest gripes because it’s so pointless, or maybe the Wild Area’s severe lack of organic belonging (all Pokémon are just wandering aimlessly, weather can change drastically after crossing an invisible line, trees look like they were cut and pasted out of Mario 64, you can’t even catch Pokémon if they’re too high a level) but honestly the most disappointing part of the game for me was the pitiful routes between towns/gyms. Previous installments of the game included routes full of trainers and puzzles you needed to defeat or solve before you could progress—in Sword/Shield, the only thing that ever prevents you from progressing are some Team Yell grunts barricading paths the game doesn’t want you to take yet, for literally no reason. It completely removes player autonomy and a sense of accomplishment earned through overcoming challenges—now instead of learning that you need to find an item that allows you to cut through certain trees to gain access to new areas, you simply follow the story beats and then, upon returning, the path will be open. It’s inorganic, it’s clunky, and it’s extremely lazy.

Speaking of lazy, the story itself was another massive disappointment for me. Pokémon games are not particularly known for having deep stories, but Sword/Shield takes it to a new low. Every NPC simply pushes you to battle in gyms, and every interesting story beat that occurs happens just outside the player-character’s reach. Any time something interesting happens, you are shooed away and told to let the grown-ups handle it while you just get your gym badges. There COULD have been some interesting story moments where your character gets more involved with helping fix the havoc occurring around the Galar Region, but instead we as the player are simply TOLD what happened, why it happened, and who fixed it (usually the champion, Leon).

I honestly think having the game focus on the story of Sonia, Bede, Marnie, or even Hop (was not a fan of this kid) would have been a much more interesting game, because those characters actually had some depth to them, some bigger reason for taking on the gym challenges than simply “I want to be the very best.” Albeit those stories would have required a tremendous amount of work to add depth and details, the potential for a better story is in those characters. There is just no story at all to the main character, who is ushered from gym to gym because…because? Because that’s what kids do? I’m not even really sure what the motivation is.

There are SO MANY exciting, interesting, innovative ways Game Freak could drive Pokémon into a new and exciting direction while still maintaining its charm and building on existing mechanics, but they instead choose to demonstrate their lack of interest in significant graphical and gameplay innovation. I imagine this is largely because the masses will eat up just about any Pokémon product produced so long as there’s a new bunny to catch, and Pikachu is still involved. I’m disappointed, and I wish the Galar region could meet the expectations of my 10-year old mind’s imagination.

When abilities were added, we suddenly had to consider whether our Earthquake could even hit the enemy Weezing and adapt to the tremendous changes the passive skills added, reconsidering how we faced each battle. When the physical/special split occurred, entirely new opportunities opened up and certain Pokémon who were banished to obscurity due to their poor typing and stat distribution, like Weavile, were suddenly viable. Some even became incredibly powerful, like Gyarados, who had been hit pretty hard by the Special attack/defense split. There were also already-powerful Pokémon (Gengar, Dragon-types) who became even more so through access to STAB moves that benefited off their strongest stats.

I want new games to include updates that feel as impactful as these changes. If you’re interested in how Game Freak can improve on the main gameplay, I have some fun ideas that will be fleshed out in another article: How to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise. That article will be dedicated to explaining what those changes are, why I want them, and how they can improve future games.

[simple-heroics]

Momo Yaoyorozu Fluff Alphabet | Part 1 | Letters A-L

Yes, yes, I know. My bias is showing. But Momo just radiates Distinguished Lesbian and my messy queer self gravitates to her for that. Please help me pull my life together, Yaomomo! 

Also, props to @sparkncharge​ for inspiring me to go Plus Ultra on a fluff alphabet. If you’re a Hawks stan, please check out her Fluff Alphabet for him. It’s amazing; I still reread it. Also, while you’re at it, read the rest of Lily’s work. Her blog is partially what inspired me to start Simple Heroics. 

credit to creator of the fluff alphabet prompt list here

Activities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

Momo is pretty sheltered due to her upbringing and there is so much of the commoner’s world for her to discover outside of the little bubble she grew up in. She gets so giddy when you take her out exploring. With this, though, there is a strong, unspoken level of trust as well because it can take her out of comfort zone and even be a little intimidating. 

One of her favorite activities is thrift shopping! She loves going store to store, seeing all the random things being sold and wondering at the stories behind them. While she can create anything in the world, she can’t replicate the history behind a given object. Some of her favorite finds include: a pretty landscape painting by an unknown artist, secondhand novels with annotations inked in, even someone’s diploma from graduate school!

Just as you give her a taste of your world, Momo wants to share as much as hers as possible. So expect the occasional night out at an elegant restaurant, concert halls, tea ceremonies, you name it. Momo takes great delight in introducing you to new experiences.

Her ultimate favorite, though, is when both your worlds come together in the privacy of your shared home. Just you two and a pot of tea shared between you. And she can be herself. Not the class vice president, the Yaoyorozu heiress, or even the Everything Hero: Creati.

 Just Momo - your Momo.

Beauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

More than anything, Momo would admire a s/o with a strong sense of self - someone who knows who they are, where they come from, and what they want in life. Someone who is secure in themselves. Someone who not only accepts themselves but loves themselves, mistakes and all.

It’s the sort of confidence that doesn’t come from skill or achievements or any outside sources. It’s a strong, inherent sense of self-worth that’s unshakable, and it leaves Momo starstruck.

Momo isn’t one to place much value on things like physical appearance but in your case, the deeper she fell, the more beauty she found. There’s this natural allure about you that keeps drawing her in. 

You’re simply…you. Just you. And Momo can’t think of anything more beautiful.

Comfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

For better or for worse, Momo is very much a problem solver. Like, “What do you need? Do you want some mint tea? A hug? Want me to hold your hand? How can I help? Please let me help you.” 

Yeah, um, Mo? That works great for evacuation and rescue missions. Not so great when someone is having a panic attack. And sometimes, if they’re just feeling down, it’s less about what a person needs and more about just being there for them. It takes some talking for Momo to learn this but when she does, our girl adapts her approach accordingly. 

That said, Momo figures out one surefire way to comfort you on particularly gloomy days: Blanket forts. 

Yes, Momo is miss prim and proper and tends towards going for a more “practical” approach to most things. But blanket forts are fun. They’re also cozy and warm and make you feel safe. And it’s prime location for cuddling and sweet affection when you most need it.

Plus, she can make all the pillows you could ever want in there. Your blanket fort is magnificent, complete with only the softest of blankets and strung up fairy lights and Momo’s loving arms.

Dreams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

For years, Momo’s greatest focus was her hero career – countless hours of study, training, and internships. Her brain was so crammed with the physical composition of everything to really think about a future.

Then you came along. 

Momo doesn’t have any grand fantasies; her reality is already adventurous enough. Her dreams for your future together are simple, humble imaginings not much different from your current life together except for you’re both older. Some silver threading into her dark hair, crow’s feet around your eyes.

Momo wants to continue this life with you for as long as possible. Her dream is to grow old together. Given her profession, she knows all too well not to take any single day for granted.

Simple or no, just thinking about living her entire life with you makes her giddy enough to call in 30 minutes early so she can get home to you faster.

Equal - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

Neither. You’re partners, equals in this relationship. 

She trusts your judgement implicitly. Part of the reason Momo is in a relationship with you is because she respects you and holds you in a high regard. Likewise (and especially knowing her history with second guessing herself), you always ask for Momo’s input on things. 

H o w e v e r, that said, I do believe the roles can fluctuate in this relationship quite a bit. Momo can sometimes be strict with you in the sense that because she thinks so well of you, she knows you can do better and she pushes you. On other days, she herself can be rather passive. The key is communication.

The one thing Momo will never, ever waver on, though, is your safety. She isn’t overly protective by any means but is realistic and practical. And being the s/o of a high-ranking Pro-Hero comes with its own risks. Momo needs to where you’re at and that you’re safe. She personally ensures that you always, always have a way of getting in contact with her. If she herself cannot be reached, she makes sure you have pretty much all top 10 heroes on speed dial.

Seriously. Click any number on your cell. Any one of them is likely to be the personal phone number of Earphone Jack or Shoto or freaking Number One Hero Deku. (Creati is number 1, though. That’s your baby right there.)

Fight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

Thankfully, fights are rare. But when they happen, they’re serious. Extremely so. And honestly? I don’t want to see an angry Momo. 

She doesn’t yell or angry cry or insult you. Her expression is hard, resolute, as she makes her points in the argument while simultaneously cutting through every one of yours. 

Two things make arguments with Momo terrible: One, she’s too damn smart and makes some very good points that are hard to argue with. Two, because she’s smart and makes good points, it can feel like you’re being condescended to you like a child. 

And that never ends well.

Thankfully, Momo has a good outlook when it comes to arguments. She has a “us vs. the problem” mindset rather than a “me vs you” which in itself helps a great deal. Additionally, if she’s in a relationship with you, she knows you very well and can understand where you’re coming from.

That said, Momo is a patient, mature person who prefers prioritizes resolving problems and is quick to put things behind her. She is also very good at apologizing when she’s in the wrong but would expect the same in turn. 

Gratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

So, so grateful.

If anything, Momo is hyper aware of the things you do for her and this in turn motivates her to return the favor a hundred fold. This includes: extravagant dates at fancy restaurants, sending you to a spa when she herself can’t see you, making you tea almost every night, complimenting you when you’re just in sweats and a stained shirt, bringing you shopping for a new shirt and some Gucci sweatpants, taking you to see that movie you looked for to…at its actual screening event!

Momo is pulling out all the stops for you. Is she your girlfriend or your Sugar Mama? Perhaps both.

Every time you do anything for her, even something as small as grabbing something from a high shelf, she thanks you with a dazzling smile. You just make her feel so happy and so loved. Momo can’t thank you enough.

Honesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

Momo doesn’t get into the habit of hiding anything from you. However, that doesn’t mean she shares everything. There are some things she prefers to keep to herself and others she has to due to confidentiality in certain cases. 

She does, however, try to hide her insecurities from you. Momo wants you to see her as strong and capable, an intelligent leader who can be relied on. She’s learned to keep up a strong front, as any weakness a hero displays can easily be taken advantage of by a villain or torn apart by the press. The public needs a strong face. 

But you aren’t the public. Neither are you a villain out to exploit her weaknesses nor journalist looking for more fodder for tabloids. You’re her significant other, her life partner. 

You tell her as many times as she needs to hear this. It takes time and a lot of late night conversations and built up trust but eventually, you two get there.

Inspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

Yes, absolutely yes. Momo learned that her self-worth shouldn’t be assigned to things like being the smartest student or the strongest hero or even as the best version of herself. She alone is more than adequate. 

As was mentioned in Activities, you also split her world wide open and made her realize the bubble she grew up in. It’s made her acknowledge her own privilege in a lot of ways which in turn made her more understanding of society is set up, especially in regards to her hero work. Momo becomes a far more compassionate hero when it comes time to suppress villains, understanding how life circumstances push some to make unfortunate choices. This realization in turn made Momo start finding other ways to help people outside of hero work, such as donating money to rehabilitation programs and advocating for changes in laws that reinforce the status quo.

As for you, Momo taught you how to let yourself be more sensitive and perhaps gentler. You learn to see people beyond the front they put up, how to recognize their insecurities. Your relationship with her has made you more compassionate as well, so that when you see anyone struggling with what your love sometimes does, you’re quicker to offer a comforting word or validation.

Jealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

Momo gets more insecure than jealous. Whenever she sees you spending a great deal of time with another person, she questions herself as a partner to you and consequently beats herself over it.

She remembers every canceled date, every missed phone call, every time she’s had to put you - the love of her life - second to her career. Then she berates herself for feeling guilty about prioritizing being a hero, someone who - you know - saves people. Why would she put a relationship before something so important?

But you weren’t just a mere “relationship”; you’re her world. But was she enough for you? How could she be when she was so busy all the time?

God forbid she starts comparing herself to the person you’re spending so much time with, especially if they’re funnier than her or more reliable or stronger or just more available than she is.

It’s an ongoing cycle and is honestly the saddest things in the world to watch, seeing this strong and capable woman destroy herself from the inside out. Unless she catches herself, Momo could potentially start self-sabotaging.

Please sit down with your girlfriend and talk to her. Please hold her hand as you reassure her that she is more than enough. Please have a long, serious talk about this before Momo breaks down.

After a series of conversations and perhaps some compromises in busy schedules, Momo doesn’t feel insecure very often. When she does, she learns to catch it and talk herself through it.

She reminds herself: You knew what being with a hero meant before you agreed to this relationship, and you’re proud of her. Your relationship is strong. You love her. 

And she loves you, too. So much. :’)

Also…lowkey, when she gets jealous, Momo probs spoils the hell out of you. I’m talking date night at a rented out restaurant, private gardens, expensive wine, the works. The most important part being that she’s taken this time for you and only you. 

Kiss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

Momo dreamed about your first kiss long before you two started dating, though she tries to deny it with a precious blush across her cheeks. She pictured it after a romantic evening, perhaps at her doorstep, with the moon and the stars and she would hold your hand before gently leaning closer and — 

Yeah, no. Your first kiss was nothing like that. 

It was after a long, hard day of training. Momo was sweaty and gross, covered in dirt, and her body was sore from the extensive use of her Quirk. She was so worn out that she barely even noticed you staring.

And boy, when she did, was she flustered. That is until at her you leaned closer to give her a soft peck on the lips.

“You worked hard out there. I’m really proud of you,” you told her simply.

Momo wouldn’t trade that first kiss for any fantasy in the world. 

Your future kisses, however, are certainly more…ahem. Involved than the first. All this to say…YES, Momo Yaoyorozu is absolutely a good kisser. I refuse to accept anything less and frankly, neither would she. She was shy and demure about it at first but when Momo does something, she does it well. 

Momo masters the art of sweet, lingering kisses that leave you breathless in their intensity. They usually start with a look, her eyes gently darkening as she takes you in. Her hands delicately touch the sides of your face, smoothing your hair behind your ears to allow her a better look. You can feel the flutter of her eyelashes as she leans in, her breath warm on her lips, before she meets them with her own. 

Her kisses are soft and gentle but no less intense. 

When she pulls back with a quiet hum, Momo rests her forehead against yours and smiles lovingly at your (understandably) dazed expression.

Love Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

Momo is so cute when she confesses. I know I’ve gushed about her time and again, and I definitely won’t stop anytime soon. 

Since her feelings for you first began, Momo held them close to her heart even when her mind is in a thousand other places with hero duties. It’s only later when she’s alone and quiet does she allow herself to focus on you – your smile, your sense of adventure, your honesty, the way your eyes light up, how you challenge her to go beyond plus ultra her comfort zone and grow as a person. 

How could someone like you be interested in someone like her? 

These feelings grew and grew, combating with Momo’s private insecurities. The more time she spends with you, though, the less they matter. You give her butterflies, yes, but you make her braver, too.

And brave is what she needs when she confesses.

Momo’s confession isn’t a spur of the moment thing. It’s planned - from the when to the how and even the where. She invites you somewhere private, somewhere she feels comfortable and is also meaningful to you both. Perhaps a garden or in the hidden corner of a tea shop you two frequent.

Momo has an entire speech planned. It’s formal and put together and she has it completely memorized but then –

She meets your eyes and suddenly, despite her ability to memorize the atomic structure of everything, that speech evaporates in her mind. She stutters, trying to grasp at the least beginning, and decides to - for once - let go of what’s “proper”. 

And like Todoroki said…Momo’s speciality is thinking under pressure.

Momo tells you everything: her first impression of when she met you, the first time you made her laugh, the way her eyes teared up during your first argument, her gratitude for that one time you stood up for her against Mineta, all the ways you inspire her, the way your voice is her favorite sound, and how you make her feel. 

You make her so happy and grateful and amused and dizzy and frustrated and emotional. You make her feel confident and so much braver than she actually is.

She takes your hands in hers, holding them like they are the most precious things in the world, and looks at you with shining grey eyes. In those eyes, you see someone so sure and certain of her feelings - her feelings for you.

“I love you, y/n. I love you dearly.”

[illumynare]

How the Enneagram explains all of Ford and Stan’s problems

….well, most of them, anyway.

So in my ongoing quest to learn all personality typing systems ever, I’ve recently started reading about the Enneagram, and it struck me that Ford and Stan both fit extremely neatly into the system, and it provides a great framework for analyzing why these two idiots can love each other so much and yet continually hurt/trigger/drive each other crazy.

(descriptions taken from the Enneagram Institute website, not linked because apparently that means this post won’t show up in the tags??)

Stan: Type 2, “The Helper”

The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Generous, Demonstrative, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

Twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. They typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs. At their Best: unselfish and altruistic, they have unconditional love for others.

Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved Basic Desire: To feel loved

This is Stan in a nutshell: somebody who loves deeply and unconditionally, sacrifices himself without a second thought, but also easily becomes possessive, and whose “helper” actions are often in some way an attempt to earn people’s love. He rescues Waddles from the pterodactyl so that Mabel will stop being mad at him, and he rescues Ford from the portal hoping that will restore the relationship they had as children. It’s not that Stan doesn’t genuinely care about Mabel or Ford’s suffering, it’s just that, on some level, he’s always trying to earn the love of the people he cares about.

Ford: Type 4, “The Individualist”

The Sensitive, Introspective Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.

Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity)

Feeling vulnerable and defective, yet disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living: if you looked up “Stanford Filbrick Pines” in the dictionary, that’s the first thing you’d see. People have argued a lot about whether Ford is arrogant and how much, but I don’t think that’s actually the most helpful way to analyze his character. Ford has, at different times, considered himself a genius, a fool, a hero, a puppet; but what never changes is that he’s obsessed with the question of his own identity, and driven by the fear he’s either a freak or a non-entity. Even at the end of Journal 3, when he finally starts to chillax, he doesn’t abandon the question of his identity and say, “Who cares if I’m a hero or not.” Instead he chooses a new identity: “I’m a hero’s brother, and I’m okay with that.”

So how does this explain their problems?

Because, as much as these two dumb idiots love each other, they have primal fears that are often at cross-purposes, and that make them hypersensitive to each other’s worst tendencies. Stan fears being unloved and alone, and at his most desperate he is willing to do anything—including literally immolate his identity—to keep his loved ones around him, or bring them back. Ford fears having no separate identity or personal significance, and at his most desperate he is willing to do anything—including cut his twin out of his life, and summon unknown spirits of insane power—to grasp that identity.

This is why I think that, even if the whole science fair debacle had never happened, they would have still had some kind of major rift. They both grew up bullied by other children, emotionally abused by their father, and without any kind of support network or healthy relationship models; I don’t think either of them had the resources, at that point, to deal with their issues in a healthy way. Stan would have tried to cling to Ford no matter what, without realizing Ford experienced it as suffocation; Ford would have tried to strike out on his own no matter what, without realizing that Stan experienced it as complete rejection.

And this dynamic is also what drives their conflict after Ford comes back through the portal. I’m thinking, particularly, of their scene at the end of “Tale of Two Stans”:

Ford: Okay, Stanley, here’s the deal. You can stay here the rest of the summer to watch the kids. I’ll stay down in the basement and try to contain any remaining damage. But when the summer’s over, you give me my house back, you give me my name back, and this Mystery Shack junk is over forever. You got it?

Stan: You really aren’t gonna thank me, are you? Fine. On one condition: you stay away from the kids; I don’t want them in danger. Cause as far as I’m concerned, they’re the only family I have left.

A lot of people have interpreted this scene as Ford planning to kick Stan out of his life and onto the streets (and written angsty fanfics accordingly). This may indeed be how Stan saw it, but I don’t think that’s a fully accurate perception. A moment before this, they’re laughing about being old men. Ford’s voice in delivering his ultimatum doesn’t read as angry or cold so much as somebody trying to put his foot down.

I think the key to Ford’s speech is the implicit link between “you can stay here the rest of the summer” and “I’ll stay down in the basement.” Ford is primarily thinking about the issue of his stolen identity: there can only be one Stanford Pines, so while he’s willing hide himself away and let Stan keep playing the role for the rest of the summer, he wants to be Stanford Pines again. He wants his own identity, and to have a say in what goes on in his house. Which is completely reasonable!

But of course, Stan is approaching this conversation from a completely different direction. He’s spent thirty years trying to save Ford, not just because of his own guilt but also because he wants their relationship back: think of how he throws his arms wide and shouts “Brother!” when Ford steps through the portal. From Stan’s point of view, Ford is saying that everything Stan suffered and accomplished is still not enough to earn his love. Which is why Stan lashes out, having finally reached the limits of his willingness to martyr himself. Objectively, it’s kind of terrible to disown your brother for not saying “thank you,” but in context it completely makes sense for Stan to react this way. (And honestly, it’s really good that he has managed to discover ONE boundary, even if he’s being petty about it.)

….but of course, Ford still doesn’t understand what’s going on in his brother’s head, so he interprets Stan’s anger as something along the lines of “how dare you want to make decisions, you should just live in my basement for the rest your life to make me happy.” Which in turn drives his hostility and posturing in later episodes (like the DD&MD game—yes, Ford was swept away by enthusiasm, but I think he was also very much trying to mark his territory when he covered the TV room in graphs.) And that just escalates Stan’s hurt and anger, creating his determination Not To Care even when the world is ending and Ford is a prisoner, and culminating in the Zodiac Fight which is hands-down the pettiest thing either of them has ever done.

What saves them is Dipper and Mabel, who remind them it’s possible for two radically different siblings to work together—and who give them something to care about outside their own tumultuous dyad. Threatened by the loss of Dipper and Mabel, they find they can still trust and understand each other well enough to pull off a desperate, last-minute con. In one way, their final gambit seems to echo their earlier patterns: Stan burns up his identity to save his family, Ford grimly makes a choice that will cut him off from his brother. But there’s an important difference: Stan doesn’t expect to get anything back from this, not admiration from the kids or love from his brother, because he doesn’t expect to be himself after. He burns the dream of the Stan-o-War along with all the rest of his memories. Ford, on the other hand, gives up all claim to being the hero, The Man Who Killed Bill Cipher; more than that, he trusts Stan to carry out that role for him.

And that’s how, after everything, they’re able to reconcile and be at peace with each other.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Epigraphs - Rhythm of War (all 5 parts)

My notes are in square brackets.

Part 1 - Fabrial Mechanics

Lecture on fabrial mechanics presented by Navani Kholin to the coalition of monarchs, Urithiru, Jesevan, 1175

First, you must get a spren to approach.

The type of gemstone is relevant; some spren are naturally more intrigued by certain gemstones. In addition, it is essential to calm the spren with something it knows and loves. A good fire for a flamespren, for example, is a must.

Next, let the spren inspect your trap. The gemstone must not be fully infused, but also cannot be fully dun. Experiments have concluded that seventy percent of maximum Stormlight capacity works best.

If you have done your work correctly, the spren will become fascinated by its soon-to-be prison. It will dance around the stone, peek at it, float around it.

The final step in capturing spren is the most tricky, as you must remove the Stormlight from the gemstone. The specific techniques employed by each artifabrian guild are closely guarded secrets, entrusted only to their most senior members.

The easiest method would be to use a larkin - a type of cremling that feasts on Stormlight. That would be wonderful and convenient if the creatures weren’t now almost entirely extinct. The wars in Aimia were in part over these seemingly innocent little creatures.

To draw Stormlight out of a gemstone, I use the Arnist Method. Several large empty gemstones are brought close to the infused one while the spren is inspecting it. Stormlight is slowly absorbed from a small gemstone by a very large gemstone of the same type - and several together can draw the Light out quickly. The method’s limitation is, of course, the fact that you need not merely acquire one gemstone for your fabrial, but several larger ones to withdraw the Stormlight.

Other methods must exist, as proven by the extremely large gemstone fabrials created by the Vriztl Guild out of Thaylenah. If Her Majesty would please repeat my request to the guild, this secret is of vital importance to the war effort.

If the Stormlight in a gemstone is withdrawn quickly enough, a nearby spren can be sucked into the gemstone. This is caused by a similar effect to a pressure differential, created by the sudden withdrawal of Stormlight, though the science of the two phenomena are not identical.

You will be left with a captured spren, to be manipulated as you see fit.

With a captured spren, you may begin designing a proper fabrial. It is a closely guarded secret of artifabrians that spren, when trapped, respond to different types of metals in different ways. A wire housing for the fabrial, called a “cage,” is essential to controlling the device.

The two metals of primary significance are zinc and brass, which allow you to control expression strength. Zinc wires touching the gemstone will cause the spren inside to more strongly manifest, while brass will cause the spren to withdraw and its power to dim.

Remember that a gemstone must be properly infused following the spren’s capture. Drilled holes in the gemstone are ideal for proper use of the cage wires, so long as you don’t crack the structure and risk releasing the spren.

A bronze cage can create a warning fabrial, alerting one to objects or entities nearby. Heliodors are being used for this currently, and there is some good reasoning for this - but other gemstones should be viable.

A pewter cage will cause the spren of your fabrial to express its attribute in force - a flamespren, for example, will create heat. We call these augmenters. They tend to use Stormlight more quickly than other fabrials.

A tin cage will cause the fabrial to diminish nearby attributes. A painrial, for example, can numb pain. [Hey, if they captured a gloomspren - granted, tricky because they’re rare - could this be used to make a antidepressant fabrial for Kaladin?] Note that advanced designs of cages can use both steel and iron as well, changing the fabrial’s polarity depending on which metals are pushed to touch the gemstone.

An iron cage will create an attractor - a fabrial that draws specific elements to itself. A properly create smoke fabrial, for example, can gather the smoke of a fire and hold it close.

New discoveries lead us to believe it is possible to create a repeller fabrial, but we don’t yet know the metal to use to achieve this feat.

One of my pleas is for artifabrians to stop shrouding fabrial techniques with so much mystery. Many decoy metals are used in cages, and wires are often plated to look like a different metal, with the express intent of confusing those who might try to learn the process through personal study. This might enrich the artifabrian, but it impoverishes us all.

Advanced fabrials are created using several different techniques. Conjoined fabrials require a careful division of the gemstone - and the spren inside. If performed correctly, the two halves will continue to behave as a single gemstone. Note that rubies and flamespren are traditional for thus purpose - as they have proven the easiest to divide, and the quickest in response times. Other types of spren do not split as easily, or at all.

All gemstones leak Stormlight at a slow rate - but so long as the crystal structure remains mostly intact, the spren cannot escape. Managing this leakage is important, as many fabrials also lose Stormlight through operation. All of this is tied up in the intricacies of the art. As is understanding one last vital kind of spren: logicspren.

Logicspren react curiously to imprisonment. Unlike other spren, they do not manifest some attribute - you cannot use them to make heat, or warn of nearby danger., or conjoin gemstones. For years, artifabrians considered them useless - indeed, experimenting eith them was uncommon, since logicspren are rare and difficult to capture.

A breakthrough has come in discovering that logicspren will vary the light they radiate based on certain stimuli. For example, if you make the Light leak from the gemstone at a controlled rate, the spren will alternate dimming and brightening in a regular pattern. This has led to fabrial clocks. When the gemstone is tapped with certainmetals, the light will also change state from bright to dim. This is leading to some very interesting and complex mechanisms.

My final point this evening is a discussion of Fused weapons. The Fused use a variety of fabrial devices to fight Radiants. It is obvious from how quickly they’ve fabricated and employed these countermeasures that they have used in the past.

The simplest Fused weapon against us isn’t truly a fabrial, but instead a metal that is extremely light and can withstand the blows of a Shardblade. This metal resists being Soulcast as well; it interferes with a great number of Radian powers. Fortunately, the Fused seem unable to create in in great quantities - for they equip only themselves, and not their average so,diers, with these wonders. [Aluminum]

The Fused have a second metal I find fascinating - a metal that conducts Stormlight. The implications for this in the creation of fabrials are astounding. The Fused use this metal in conjunction with a rudimentary fabrial - a simole gemstone, but without a spren trapped inside. How they pull Stormlight out of a Radiant and into this sphere remains baffling. My scholars think they must be employing an Investiture differential. If a gemstone is full of Stormlight - or, I assume, Voidlight - and that Light is removed quickly, it creates a pressure differential (or a kind of vacuum) in the gemstone. This remains merely a theory.

The world becomes as increasingly dangerous place, and so I come to the crux of my argument. We cannot afford to keep secrets from one another any longer. The Thaylen artifabrians have private techniques relating to how they remove Stormlight from gems and create fabrials around extremely large stones. I beg the coalition and the good people of Thaylenah to acknowledge our collective need. I have taken the first step by opening my research to all scholars. I pray you will see the wisdom in doing the same.

[My Notes:

Zinc: manifest more strongly

Brass: withdraw (manifest less strongly)

Bronze: warning fabrial

Pewter: attribute expressed in force (e.g. flamespren —> heat; fabrial called augmenter)

Tin: diminish attribute nearby (e.g. painrial reduces pain). Use of steel and iron as well can allow fabrial’s polarity to be changed (e.g. make painrial cause pain)

Iron: draws element to itself (e.g. smoke fabrial gathers smoke)]

Part 2 - Harmony’s Letter

Dear Wanderer,

I did recieve your latest communication. Please forgive formality on my part, as we have not met in person. I feel new to this role, despite my years holding it. You will admit to my relative youth, I think.

I have been fascinated to discover how much you’ve accomplished on Scadrial without me noticing your presence. How is it that you hide from Shards so well?

I have reached put to the others as you requested, and have recieved a variety of responses. Muas you indicate, there is a division among the other Shards I would not have anticipated. Endowment at least responded to my overtures, though I have not been able to locate Invention again following our initial contact. Whimsy was not terribly useful, and Mercy worries me. I do think that Valor is reasonable, and suggest you approach her again. It has been too long, in her estimation, since your last conversation.

The deaths of both Devotion and Dominion trouble me greatly, as I had not realized this immense power we held was something that could be broken in such a way. On my world, the power was always gathered and sought a new Vessel.

That said, the most worrying thing I discovered in this was the wound upon the Spiritual Realm where Ambition, Mercy, and Odium clashed - and Ambition was destroyed. The effects on the planet Threnody have been...disturbing.

Other Shards I cannot identify, and are hidden to me. I fear that their influence encroaches upon my world, yet I am locked i to a strange inability because of the opposed powers I hold. I have begun searching for a pathway out of this conundrum by seeking the ideal person to act on my behalf. Someone who embodies both Preservation and Ruin. A...sword, you might say, who can both protect and kill.

But this does not get to the core of your letter. I have encouraged those who would speak to me to heed your warnings, but all seem content to ignore Odium for the time being. In their opinion, he is no threat as long as he remains confined in the Rosharan system. I do not share their attitude. If you can, as you suppose, maintain Odium’s prison for now, it would give us the necessary time to plan. This is a threat beyond the capacity of one Shard to face.

Unfortunately, as proven by my own situation, the combination of Shards is not always a path to greater power. We must assume that Odium has realized this, and is seeking a singular, terrible goal: the destruction - and somehow Splintering or otherwise making impotent - of all Shards other than him. To combine powers would change and distort who Odium is. So instead of absorbing others, he destroys them. Since we are all essentially infinite, he needs no more power. Destroying and Splintering the other Shards would leave Odium as the sole god, unchanged and uncorrupted by other influences.

You say that the power itself must be treated as separate in our minds from the Vessel who controls it. I find this difficult to do on an intrinsic level, as although I am neither Ruin nor Preservation, they make up me. Regardless, I will try to do as you suggest. However, you seem more afraid of the Vessel. I warn you that this is a flaw in your understanding. You have not felt what I have. You have not known what I have. You rejected that chance - and wisely, I think. However, though you think not as a mortal, you are their kin. The power of Odium’s Shard is more dangerous than the mind behind it. Particularly since any Investiture seems to gain a will of its own when not controlled. My instincts say that the power of Odium is not being controlled well. The Vessel will be adapted to the power’s will. And after this long, if Odium is still seeking to destroy, then it is because of the power.

Of course, I admit this is a small quibble. A difference of semantics more than anything. In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most. [This is terrifying, given the ending of ROW.]

Regardless, please make yourself known to me when you travel my lands. It is distressing that you think you need to move in the shadows.

Part 3 - Excerpts from Rhythm of War

[By Navani and Raboniel. The entries vary in terms of which of them writes the main text and which writes the undertext.]

Page 1: I find this format most comfortable, as it is how I’ve collaborated in the past. I have never done it this way, and with this kind of partner. I approach this project with an equal mixture of trepidation and hope. And I know not which should rule. Undertext: I approach this project with inspiration renewed; the answers are all that should matter.

Page 3: In my fevered state, I worry I’m unable to focus on what is important. Undertext: When in such a state, detachment is enviable. I have learned that my greatest discoveries come when I abandon lesser connections.

Page 5: This song - this tone, this rhythm - sounds so familiar, in ways I cannot explain or express. Undertext: I am led to wonder, from experiences such as this, if we have been wrong. We call humans alien to Roshar, yet they have lived here for thousands of years now. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that there are no aliens or interlopers. Only cousins.

Page 6: It would have been so easy if Voidlight and Stormlight destroyed one another. Such a simple answer. Undertext: We must not let our desires for a specific result cloud our perceptions. But how can we not, in searching, wish for a specific result? What scientist goes into a project without a hope for what they will find? I find this experience so odd. I work with a scholar from the abcient days, before modern scientific was theory was developed. I keep forgetting all the thousands of years of tradition you completely missed.

Page 10: This point regarding the Rhythm of War’s emotional influence will be of particular interest to El. Undertext: Who is this person? You used no title, so I assume they are not a Fused. Who, then, is El?

Page 13: In other circumstances, I would be fascinated by this sand to the point of abandoning all other rational pursuits. What is it? Where did it come from? Undertext: I am told that it is not the sand itself, but so ething that grows upon it, that exhibits strange properties. One can make more, with proper materials and a seed of the original. The sand originated offworld. It is only one of such amazing wonders that come from other lands - I have recently obtained a chain from the lands of the dead, said to be able to anchor a person through Cognitive anomalies. I fail to see what use it could be to me, as I am unable to leave the Rosharan system. But it is a priceless object nonetheless.

Page 21: As we dig further into this project, I am left questioning the very nature of God. How can a God exist in all things, yet have a substance that can be destroyed? Undertext: I am not convinced any of the gods can be destroyed, so perhaps I misspoke. They can change state however, like a spren - or like the various Lights. That is what we seek.

Page 27: Do not mourn for what has happened. This notebook was a dream we shared, which is itself a beautiful thing. Proof of the truth of my intent, even if the project was ultimately doomed. I leave you now to your own company.

Final page: Opposites. Opposites of sounds. Sound has no opposite. It’s merely overlapped vobration, the same sound, but sound has meaning. This sound does, at least. These sounds. The voices of gods. Voice of Lights. Voice of Lights. If I speak for the Lights, then I must express their desires. If Light is Investiture, and all Investiture is deity, and deity has Intent, then light must have Intent.

Endnotes: Intent matters. Intent is king. You cannot do what I attempt by accident. You must mean it. This seems a much greater law than we’ve ever before understood.

Part 4 - Kelek

Words. I used to be good with words, I used to be good at a lot of things. There was a time when others would approach me for help with a problem. A time when I was decisive. Capable. Even authoritative. Such skills, like my honor itself, are now lost to time. Weathered away, crushed to dust, and scattered to the ends of the cosmere. I am a barren tree of a human being. I am the hollow that was once a mighty peak. So, words. Why words, now? Why do I write?

Jezrien is gone. Despite being all the way out here in Lasting Integrity, I felt him being ripped away. The Oathpact was broken already, but the Connection remained. Each of us can sense the others, to an extent. And with further investigation, I know the truth of what happened to him. It felt like death at first, and I think that is what it ultimately became. The singers first put Jezrien in a gemstone. They think they are clever, discovering they can trap us in those. It only took seven thousand years.

Oh...Father...Seven thousand years. I remember so few of those centuries. I am a blur. A smear on the page. A gaunt stretch of ink, made all the more insubstantial with each passing day. Midius once told me...told me we could use Investiture...to enhance ourbminds, our memories, so we wouldn’t forget so much. Why would I want to remember?

Maybe if I remembered my life, I’d be capable of being confident like I once was. Maybe I’d stop vacillating when even the most simple of decisions is presented to me. Instead I think, if I were to remember my life in detail, I would become even worse. Paralyzed by my terrible actions. I should not like to remember all those I have failed.

Regardless, I write now. Because I know they are coming for me. They got Jezrien. They’ll inevitably claim me, even here in the honorspren stronghold. And so, I’ll die.

Yes, die. If you’re reading this and wondering what went wrong - why my soul evaporated soon after being claimed by the gemstone in your knife - then I name you idiot for playing with powers you only presume to understand. The bond is what keeps us alive. You sever that, and we will slowly decompose into ordinary souls - with no valid Connection to the Physical or Spiritual Realms. Capture one of us with your knives, and you won’t be left with a spren in a jar, follish ones. You’ll be left with a being that eventually fades away into the Beyond. I felt it happen to Jezrien. You think you captured him, but our god is Splintered, our Oathpact severed. He faded over the weeks, and is gone now. Beyond your touch at long last.

I should welcome the same. I do not. I fear you. Nevertheless, I’m writing answers for you here, because something glimmers deep within me. A fragment of a memory of what I once was.

I was there when Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured. I know the truth of the Radiants, the Recreance, and the Nahel spren. I tell you; I write it. You must release the captive Unmade. She will not fade as I will. If you leave her as she is, she will remain imprisoned for eternity. As one who has suffered for so many centuries...as one whom it broke...please find Mishram and release her. Not just for her own good. For the good of all spren.

For I believe that in confining her, we have caused a greater wound to Roshar than any ever realized.

Part 5 - Musings of El

Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days:

I look forward to ruling the humans. I had my title and my rhythms stripped from me for daring insist they should not be killed, but should instead be reconditioned. Repurposed.

Humans are weapons. We singers revere Passion, do we not? How can we throw away such an excellent channeling of it?

I love their art. The way they depict us is divine, all red shades and black lines. We appear demonic and fearsome; they project all fear and terror upon us. To humans, our very visages become symbols. You can find echoes of it even in the art from centuries before this Return.

Watch them struggle. Witness their writhing, their refusal to surrender. Humans cling to the rocks with the vigor of any Rosharan vine. Humans are a poem. A song. For ones so soft, they are somehow strong. For ones so varied, they are somehow intense. For ones so lost, they are somehow determined. For ones so confused, they are somehow brilliant. For ones so tarnished, they are somehow bright. Radiant.

And so I am not at all dissatisfied with recent events. Roshar will be united in its service of the greater war. And I will march proudly at the head of a human legion. They should not be discarded, but helped to their potential. Their final Passions.

Yes, I look forward to ruling the humans. Nearly as much as I look forward to serving you, newest Odium. Who was so recently one of them. You understand. And you are the one I’ve been waiting to worship.

[featherburnt]

skdjbfsikfd Y’all, okay, so back before I knew what I was even doing with Saryn’s character, I was super torn between making him a villain or a hero, completely forgetting that vigilante was an option and also that you can still be a hero with a complicated opinion/thought process/history, etc etc. This rant is MONTHS old, but it really helped me decide where to take his character - which is...well, not to make him a villain. Just a super angsty hero. 

    So, there are two potential outcomes that could result from all that’s happened in Saryn’s life and what arises from the ashes of his shattered resolve: Will he become a hero, like he always wanted to be, or will he shift the blame from himself onto pro heroes and become a villain? Will he hold fast to his desire to protect other people, be they civilians, friends, even lovers? Or, will he seek refuge among those who, in some ways, understand him, stoke the flames of his rage, corrupt him? Both are possible and equally as likely, and here’s why.

    It begins and ends with his trauma - just like everyone else.

    ————-

    His younger years (up to age 8) were spent in the care of his birth parents, Shiroma Hisato (a mid-level hero; Firebrand) and Juno Miris (an American low-level hero; Dogstar). The first five years of his childhood were altogether very normal. He was free to watch tv, play, be a kid, and get excited about heroes such as All Might, and both Hisato and Juno encouraged him to become a hero some day - just like them. They started training him early on, before his quirk ever began to reveal itself, pushing him through certain forms of endurance training and mixed martial arts in an effort to both prime him for his quirk and his future as a hero. He had to be ready for anything that came his way; The world was far more dangerous than it’d ever been and he was their only child. He had to be the best, no matter the cost, and, so, they were incredibly strict about his training. But, when he began to display aspects of his quirk, a touch later than most (age 6), their views on the matter turned on a dime. It stopped being about providing him with the tools necessary to survive, to become a hero, and entirely about controlling him. See, his quirk was an unexpected marriage of their own and instead of being proud of what they created, instead of finding an upside, all they could see was a blackmark, a wild and vicious mistake. The love they had for him had been quickly replaced by regret and disgust, seeing his aggression, making note of how easily he could be set off when he was overwhelmed. The dog in him came first, and it became a point of contention between him and the other children his age - and the worst part was, he didn’t understand why.

    He wasn’t aggressive at first, still figuring things out about his quirk, excited to even have one. He wanted to share it, show everyone, boast about it, and play with all the others, but some found him a little scary despite having only seen one aspect of his quirk and it was entirely because of his increased aggression. Any hands that came near him were instinctively bitten by jaws transformed by exposed muscle and twisted fangs (beginnings of Devil Dog), and while this began as an instinctual defense mechanism, it became much more severe, often resulting in terrible injuries. Things only compounded when the other aspect of his quirk (flame) came into the mix. In the end, he was ostracized, alienated, and left to flounder on his own - Ironic, considering there are other students with aggression issues and interesting enough quirks to match that weren’t given the same treatment. His teachers chalked it up to him simply acting out and this was true, for the most part, but he had no idea how to control his instinctive impulses, let alone his quirk, on the whole.

    Regardless, something had to be done about his behavior. He needed to be corrected lest he bring shame upon the family name - or kill someone. Hisato and Juno’s fears were warranted in some ways, but proved to be terribly irrational the moment they took to…disciplining him. Any outbursts, back-talk, use of his quirk for anything but his training, childishness, etc. was met with over-reaction and violence. They did not level with him. They hardly spoke to him outside of training. Every bit of love was gone, replaced only by steadily building hatred of him. Hisato took on the bulk of his punishments and often had he dragged him along for training sessions, hands overheated by agitation, and every single time did he leave a burn. Saryn was not allowed to protest, but throughout the duration of these sessions, he was terrified of his father. Again, he had no understanding as to why he was being treated this way, not by his peers at school and certainly not by his parents. So much of his time was spent crying, and even that was met with harsher treatment.

    In sparring with Hisato, it was common for him to make use of his Devil Dog ability, in which his body would shift and change to allow for flexible ‘plates’ made from raw, exposed muscle to form over vital parts of his body, the most notable being his face (shite reference here). He was, of course, instructed to use it and, despite his fear, he would inevitably wind up biting the ever-loving shit out of his father. Sometimes, a chunk or two would be taken. This is what made way for the use of a muzzle, and focus was then turned onto other aspects of his quirk. It was humiliating, painful, and crushing for Saryn - because even after each training session, the muzzle would stay on. Demoralized, depressed, alienated, afraid, and gradually becoming more and more bitter, his parents would begin to see the changes they wanted; He was so lethargic and low-energy that his teachers reported no further incidents. He rarely spoke, and he wouldn’t even when he was called on to answer questions or read passages from school books. His grades slipped, too, and some of his peers started thinking he was stupid. He was teased and bullied accordingly.

    The only good thing to come out of any of this was the steady gain of control over both his emotions and certain aspects of his quirk, and he’d progressed to a point Hisato and Juno deemed it necessary to soften a little, throw him a bone. He was their son, after all. Their only son. During one particularly messy training session in late autumn, Saryn asked his father to make things harder for him. He wanted to know that everything he’d suffered up to this point meant something. He wanted to know that he’d made progress. Hisato relented, and everything went about as well as you’d expect. Saryn used his anger, his pain, his sadness as fuel, pushing himself to keep going even when he didn’t have the energy, and, for a brief moment, both of his parents were proud of him. For a long time, they’d been pushing him to and beyond his limits, leading to the discovery of a handful of abilities in relation to his quirk, and he was using them intelligently for his age. Of course, this momentary sense of pride was terribly short-lived, as when Juno went to remove his muzzle, he reacted like an animal, caught by surprise and trapped in the throes of his quirk; He snapped his jaws around her hand so fast, it was ripped clean off. Hisato burned him for this, grabbing him by the arm and damn near lighting him on fire - and he couldn’t even scream.

    Life after that was very different for him. While his mother was in the hospital, his father sought out the necessary avenues for putting him up for adoption. Saryn was entirely on his own from then on. Hisato never spoke to him again and Juno swore she’d never return home so long as he was there. A few short months later, he was dropped off at some adoption agency and he never saw his parents again. By this point, he is only 8-years-old.

    Truthfully, he didn’t rightly know how to feel, let alone how to express his feelings. He started life well-loved, his dreams encouraged, but the moment his quirk developed, everything was turned on its head and he was punished for it. He didn’t know how to control it at first and wound up harming the people around him, be they fellow students or his parents, and it frightened him. Worse, still, were the punishments themselves. Being muzzled for hours at a time, burned or beaten into silence, pushing and pushing and pushing to be what his parents wanted him to be– It took its toll, and Saryn could not trust himself, couldn’t trust anyone else. He missed his parents, but he hated them, too. He wanted to be a hero, to use his quirk to protect others, but how could he when all he seemed capable of doing was hurting people? He felt guilt, shame, disgust in himself, and he was bitter about his life, hateful, angry– And he’d no outlet, no one to turn to at all.

    A few months later, a woman by the name of Yana Ivaniuk (a Ukrainian scientist specializing in quirks and DNA, working with the Japanese government), came into the agency. She was a kindhearted woman, and she’d chosen him. The paperwork had already gone through when she visited and he was taken away with her that very same day. It was a confusing time for him, to say the least. He didn’t understand why she’d wanted him, what she hoped to achieve, and he didn’t trust her by any stretch, but some parts of him wanted to. Over the next several years (ages 9-16), his training continued and he was given a surprising amount of support and encouragement from Yana, who had come to genuinely love him as though she were of his own flesh and blood. Great effort on her part was put into repairing the damage caused by his birth parents. She included him on the not-so secret aspects of her research, teaching him all about how quirks work and more. She gave him the space he needed to train on his own and would check on him to see how he was doing. Her gentle, supportive approach had a significant impact on him, enough for him to eventually let his guard down completely. He grew to trust her and, eventually, love her. She was his mother, in his eyes. The next several years would pass without incident. Their little family unit was stable, tight-knit, and he even started to come out of his shell in other social situations.

    He loved Yana. He looked up to her, valued her advice, valued their little family with all his heart. He learned so much more from her than he ever did Hisato and Juno. And he was loved in turn.

    Unfortunately, however, during his first year at U.A. High, just two weeks before the sports festival, Yana would tragically lose her life to an unknown villain. Heroes did nothing. The police did nothing. And he could do nothing. There were no updates. As far as he knew, there was no further investigation. All he knew was all that would consume him: Grief. He saw the blood, her lifeless body, the state of their home. He saw the lights, all those horrible faces looking at him, camera flashes, officers collecting evidence, shattered windows, decimated floorboards. She put up a fight, at least, and he wasn’t sure if that’d made everything worse. He felt nothing but shame, guilt, like it was his fault she’d been killed. If he’d only come home sooner, he could’ve done something. He could’ve protected her. If he hadn’t gone to school at all that day, she’d still be alive. If only, if only, if only, if only– Old habits beaten into him as a child resurfaced and he withdrew once more, socially isolating himself from his classmates. He put himself on auto-pilot, focusing his energies into his studies and preparations for the festival, cutting off any who tried to converse with him. He moved into a small apartment relatively close to U.A. with his inheritence, but even that was put off and procrastinated on in favor of burying himself in busywork. He had to keep going. He had to keep pushing himself forward or he’d fall apart.

    But he did anyway, when the festival came.

    After the festival, he begins to really question his role as a fledgling hero, kept alone with his thoughts in hospital. He questions the lines drawn between heroes and villains, what makes someone a hero, what makes someone a villain. He questions everything he’s seen on tv, everything he’s been led to believe. He questions whether or not the ends justify the means, if becoming a hero is worth all his own suffering and loss. His resolve has all but tanked and he has next to no morale, struggling with his own preconceptions of what it means to be a hero, all the while still very much dealing with the loss of his adoptive mother. What point is there to any of this when he’s lost everything? Why should he keep pushing himself to move forward when there’s nothing left? What difference would it make if he became a hero or villain, if he lived or died? What good could he possibly do? And why should he continue looking up to any of the pro heroes when they did nothing about the villain who slaughtered his mother? How can they be role models if they don’t follow through on the promises they swore to fulfill, if they don’t catch the bad guy?

    And the rest is ultimately history.

    ————–

    So, we see his trauma here. Abuse from his birth parents and the death of his adoptive mother. We see this profound lack of support early on in his life, suddenly gaining it, and eventually losing it completely. We see him beaten, burned, muzzled, and abandoned. We see him supported and loved, only to lose that when his adoptive mother is murdered. We see him beginning to question every aspect of his life, his motivations, how things really work between heroes and villains. We see him lose his resolve. And we see him push through every bit of it anyway.

    The way the rest of his life plays out is entirely dependent on his upbringing and certain events and trials faced during his time at U.A. As I said before, there are two possible directions he can go: Hero, or Villain. What it will come down to is whether or not he can hold true to what motivated him to become a hero in the first place. He hates unnecessary suffering, hates seeing people suffer, and it was his goal to protect people, keep their families together, prevent tragedy where possible, put villains behind bars. This was such a strong motivator for him even when he was facing his abuse that no matter how bad things got for him, he was still so focused on becoming a hero so he could make up for everything he’d done and protect everyone he’d ever hurt. Even Hisato and Juno. Having his resolve shaken and ideals challenged by his circumstances pushes him to a certain point where he could either rediscover his core desire to protect or head down a dark and terrible path.

    Does he put his nose to the grindstone to achieve his original goals, or does he allow his anger, hatred, sadness, and grief to consume him? Does he make his concerns known to the pro heroes he’s learning from, or does he bottle them and let them fester? What would serve as the catalyst to solidify his position as a hero or villain? Would his classmates try to level with him, befriend him, and support him in what ways they could? Would he even accept it? Would some horrible person try to convince him that he is justified in his thoughts and feelings, that it’s okay to be angry and let loose, punish those who have harmed him or stood by and done nothing all the while? Would it be a mixture of both? Would he continue to be confused and torn on what he’s supposed to do with himself well into adulthood? Would he consider hunting down the villain responsible for his mother’s death, and would he attempt to kill them? Would he succeed? Would he die himself?

    I’d like to say it’s clear cut for him, but it isn’t. Saryn’s always been on his own mentally and emotionally, and the resounding lack of support from people who are supposed to support him is more demoralizing than you’d think. The weekly chats with the guidance counsilor do absolutely nothing for him. Passing comments from his teachers do nothing for him. Even if there are people who understand his plight, he has been lost in the shuffle, no focus put on him for anymore than half an hour once a week. He’s already feeling like he’s been hung out to dry, forgotten, like everything that’s happened in his life is just meaningless suffering on top of more meaningless suffering, that he has no place among heroes, and he’s so angry, hurt, still grieving his loss. Will no one look at him, talk to him, anything? Is he not worth the effort?

    I think, ultimately, the answer to the question of whether or not he’d become a hero or a villain is muddied and unclear. At the very least, he’d have a complicated relationship with the idea of heroism and would be the sort of hero to make the hard decisions no one else wants to make or are bound not to by law. He’d make reactive decisions, sacrifice one to save many, and I think this, too, would take a huge toll him. His career as a hero would be dramatically cut short by his decisions and he’d either be imprisoned or killed in action, which is already an occupational hazard and statistical probability. In the end, though, it’s somewhat more likely that he would give up on becoming a hero entirely. He might not side with other villains or any one organization, but he would become one if only by virtue of his desire to hunt down those responsible for his mother’s death and the resulting cover up (her research was vitally important and if word got out that it was stolen by villains, there’d be hell to pay, so all but her murder was kept from the public, and he only knew this because he had some knowledge of her research to start with). If he had any influences during this time, it’s possible he could be swayed to kill others, including heroes and other villains. His birth parents would also be victims of his wrath and for good reason.

    He’s just this kid who gets lost in the shuffle and has to navigate everything on his own. No one gives a shit. No one cares. So, why fight for them at all? He’d end up parroting the same bullshit as some people in the LoV, so consumed by the pains of his life and his rage. At best, he’d be disgruntled hero with no faith in the system, and at worst, he’d become what he once aimed to protect people from, the monster he never wanted to be.

    He’d just end up a killer.

[lady--lioness]

Where did you get ideas and inspiration for characters from? Is there any significance to Pallas and Bernhard looking similar?

Do you mean aesthetically or would you include their personalities? Pallas has suffered a great transformation along the years. She started basically as a self-inserted character in a kind of role-playing story I had with another person. In fact, that person is still using the character -without my permission, but whatever, I don’t care anymore- but I don’t know to which extent is still the same. My Pallas is not the same, that’s for sure. She has evolved from being a self-inserted fantasy to someone with a lot of layers that are complicated to describe in a few words, and I don’t want to turn this into an essay. Pallas is now more someone I would want to protect than someone I want to be. It’s true we still share some traits, since after all, when you are making a protagonist, you usually write about what you know, and the person you usually know the best is yourself, so if you want to make a realistic character is not unusual to use oneself’s experiences as model. But even like this, even if we share ideals and a similar way of approaching certain things, Pallas is not anymore the character she used to be, and she has grown into someone different. She also shares traits with some of my favorite historical figures and favorite fictional characters.

As for the other characters, do you know that meme around here which shows a Conan-like guy with a caption saying “your OC when you first created it” and then there is the same guy with a tray full of cupcakes saying “your OC now”? Well, that meme is the personification of Kurt. Kurt in his first incarnation was a villain. And a bad one, like, a terrible, terrible guy, someone you can easily despise. It was made for that. He was also in that role-playing story, and he was involved with Pallas but in a kind of horrific toxic relationship, with a lot of concepts that were thought and created but I had no time to develop then. When I moved him to Lady Lioness he was still a terrible guy, but now he is just a guy with a lot of inner demons he wants to fight against, as a result of all that development I couldn't give to his previous self. His design is pretty simple and overused, I know, but I guess I just wanted him to be easy to interpret. Along the story he evolves a lot and it shows in his final appearance. Opposite to Pallas, who has evolved from a princessy fantasy to a realistic woman, he is an authentic fantasy: a man who can change for the better.

Bernhardt and Pallas look similar? Maybe because I wanted to show they belong to similar worlds? I don’t know. Bernhardt has this kind of angelic, pure appearance to be in high contrast to Kurt. Kurt dresses in dark, has dark hair, scars in his hands, smokes and drinks, he is cynical and cheeky, honest but sometimes too honest for normal tastes. Bernhardt is soft, courteous, dresses in light colors, has pale skin and flawless manners, is nice and kind. Pallas feels close to him because he is the closest thing she has there to her old world. I wanted him to look like a prince, a knight of shining armor, because that is what he is to Pallas. He clearly started as a rival to Kurt for Pallas’ love, but he has evolved as well to something more complex. I guess they look alike because they are supposed to be shown as made for each other, a perfect couple. I chose the regency style for him because that fashion shows a feel of stiffness and immobility, as Bernhardt can be.

Rosaespina is also made to be a contrast with Pallas. She is skinny and has short hair because she is energetic and likes to move freely. My inspiration for her are the erotic models from 1910-1920, with their playful smiles and attitude. In fact, she wears in a 1920s fashion because I wanted her to convey this positive vibe from the Roaring Twenties. She is so different to Pallas, and yet they are best friends, because I wanted to show a story in which different people can get along, and also because one of the strongest themes in Lady Lioness is fellowship between women. Pallas and Rosaespina’s platonic relationship is something I love to write about, because it also explores my own feelings and hopes.

About Giustizia I could write lines and lines and lines... and talking about her can be too spoilery, and it’s getting late so I guess I’ll talk about her another day. Thank you for your question, hope this helped.

[natrashafierce]

The author of that terrible Your Fave is Problematic Tumblr has grown up and written a great piece for The New York Times expressing regret about picking people apart and talking about how (surprise, surprise) it was really just that she was young and poorly adjusted and had gone through some stuff.

I hope more people can be honest with themselves that most of us are susceptible to weird, spurious extremist stuff online if we’re in a bad enough mood, and you can always just, like, stop and change course and be someone who tries to spread forgiveness and humility instead of accruing points for tiresome, punitive, identity-obsessed nitpicking. I completely forgive the author of the blog and applaud her for this extra step that will surely expose her to the same sort of poorly adjusted person she used to be.

I also hope more people come to understand that they shouldn’t signal boost people articulating extremist things, because all it does it create a contagion of poor mental health and social behaviors that are counterproductive to achieving anything positive. It’s normal for people to get angry, and everyone has every right to rant in their own online space, and you don’t have to invalidate anyone’s moment of anger. But you can comfort them without reblogging or retweeting them. You don’t have to enable their descent into binary thinking by rewarding them with a ton of attention and influence.

It may be “tone policing” to try to tell any one individual how to express themselves, but it is not “tone policing” to suggest that society should not take our cues and policy ideas from people who are hysterical. Almost no one is good at formulating solutions to social problems, and angry people least of all. Every marginalized group has at least SOME people who are capable of remaining fair, nuanced, and rational despite what they’ve gone through, and those are the people to signal boost if you take societal problems seriously. They tend to have a much more complete perspective on an issue than someone who has barely read or experienced anything outside themselves except for the dozens of aggro internet posts that end up in their bubble.

Chronically angry people see everything through the lens of their anger and their ego, do not seek perspectives or explanations that would defuse them, and their ideas for solutions will tend to be unfair and dehumanzing. Now the internet pays people for that, and people psychologically stagnate because their newfound career depends on it and their reputation seems locked in by the long memory of the internet. Grounded people have learned to control their egos, seek genuine understanding of those who disagree with them, and are capable of finding uplifting solutions, but those people are getting drowned out and harassed offline nowadays.

It used to be that people would have their big moments of anger and, lacking any audience except for a few people they knew, had to learn to introspect, calm themselves down, and approach problems effectively. They would often get gently challenged by the people around them and pulled back into a healthy mindset. They would confront interpersonal problems privately instead of trying to tear people down publicly, and extremism only arose in bad social circles or with especially recalcitrant people. But now that everyone gets their basest impulses rewarded by strangers as poorly adjusted as they are, there is little incentive for introspection or growth. This got worse for a lot of us during the Trump years, I think, because the shock of his incivility made it seem like civility had been a losing tactic. I know I felt like that for a few years until I realized how easily I could be manipulated into believing the worst about someone if it played to my biases. Unfettered mass venting just contributed to a bad cycle.

One of the worst things is how the crazed brigades accrue well-intentioned allies who enforce their insane, unpopular ideas and, together, tank public support for what were once important political objectives. SO MANY people were into the Your Fave is Problematic blog and would troll tags for the celebrities mentioned just to harass and intimidate people who were fans, and they were all indoctrinated into a disordered, shallow worldview were they derived their worth from tearing people down instead of cultivating their own talents. Your Fave is Problematic was by no means the first or only vector for leftist identitarian brain worms, but it was an influential one. There’s a whole lot of obnoxious Tumblr stuff that leaks out into the larger world now.

Back then I thought people would grow out of it, but either a ton of them didn’t, or else those who did just got replaced by new people. I thought right-wingers were catastrophizing and exaggerating when they fixated on it because a lot of the time they were, and too many of them couldn’t criticize it without being dehumanizing themselves. But sure enough, it got worse. I realize now that regardless of ideology, extremism always gets worse if there are incentives for it to grow, and the internet supplies those incentives in spades. This stuff didn’t stay on Tumblr; it didn’t stay on some stray college campuses. They said it wouldn’t, and they were right.

And now it has infected more mainstream, influential spheres of life with infantilizing and dehumanizing ideas that train people to perceive everyone as an aggressor or a pinata they can beat up for clout. It’s increasingly ruined more innocent lives, all while people who are ideologically captured keep insisting it’s no big deal because that’s the line in their social circle. The goalposts move every week to provide more targets, and even left-leaning media has quit thoroughly investigating a lot of things in its rush to cash in on whatever social media controvery has been ginned up by unwell people. The corrections, when they come out, are almost never widely circulated.

It’s been surreal and disheartening to watch. People I used to consider reasonable and compassionate just gradually morphed into aggrieved, insecure pod people who can’t handle the slightest challenges of evidence against their worldview. They can’t accept that their insecurities and peeves are frivolous distractions that actually do materially harm efforts to fix serious problems, whether by beclowning entire political parties or candidates, or diverting resources to organizations that aren’t changing anything significant or are making things worse. They all even say the same tired phrases. It’s such a shitshow, but public opinion polling on this stuff has remained mostly sane. A lot of people are snapping out of it like the author of YFIP, so I can only hope that more people feel comfortable to finally push back against it.