#and by the end you can kinda infer that he was actually mad about the sex crimes

[dear-kumari]

The Pale Blue Eye pulls a pretty neat final twist that I've always wanted to see play out in a whodunnit, but unfortunately it also executes that twist in the lamest way possible

[gunilslaugh]

Ex's Best Friend

Goo Gunil

Summary: You run into your ex’s best friend and he tells you that he misses you.

WC:~1.1k

Warning:grammar

This more platonic rather than romantic.

Goo Gunil

Summary: You run into your ex’s best friend and he tells you that he misses you.

WC:~1.1k

Warning:grammar

photo not mine credits to owner.

Today was as normal as any other day. You were out grocery shopping, picking up any necessities that you needed. After paying for your groceries you exited the store and walked towards your car. 

“Y/n!” A voice called out for you. Turning your attention to the direction of the voice to find its owner. The voice belonged to Gunil, he was the best friend of your ex. Your ex and you ended your relationship on horrible terms. You found out that he had been cheating on you for over a month. There was no excuse that he could give that would justify what he did. Naturally you ended things with him. Gunil was actually the one who told you about your ex cheating on you. You and him got along well. It was a joke among your ex’s friend group that you were stealing your ex’s place as Gunil’s best friend. 

“Long time no see,” you say, approaching Gunil. You hadn’t seen him since you broke up with your ex five months ago. 

“Yeah, it’s been awhile. How have you been?” Gunil asks you.

“It was a little rough for a bit, but I’m much better now,” you answered. “How have you been?” You returned the question.

“I’ve missed you,” he responds. It was definitely unexpected you didn’t foresee him saying that at all. You can’t say that you didn’t miss him either. You didn’t just end things with your ex when the breakup happened. You non-directly ended your friendship with Gunil too. It was collateral. “The others miss you too,” Gunil added, coughing awkwardly. 

“Shouldn’t you guys be glad that I’m not there to interrupt boys' night?” You jested. 

“Aye! You were very much one of the bros. We all liked spending time with you,” Gunil defended. 

“I miss you guys too. How are they doing?” You questioned. Gunil went quiet for a moment, looking like he wasn’t quite sure how to answer. 

“They’re good,” he finally says. 

“Are you not telling me something?” You interrogated. Gunil eyes the grocery bags in your hands.

“You should get your groceries home,” he tells you. Now you know there’s something he’s not telling you.

“After you tell me,” you stated. “I’ll go after you tell me,” you reiterated. Gunil sighed, remembering how stubborn that you could be. 

“Can we at least talk in your car and not in the middle of the parking lot?” Gunil asks.

“Yeah, follow me,” you instructed. You lead the way to where your car was parked. Once you reached your car you unlocked it and put your groceries in the back seat. Afterwards you gestured for Gunil to get in as you did yourself. “So what is it?” You questioned after Gunil shut the door.

“Our friend group kinda…split,” Gunil reveals. 

“What? Why?” You were shocked.

“Some of us didn't want to forgive e/n for cheating on you. There was actually a big fight about it. Everyone was mad at him for it, cause we all viewed you as a friend. It bothered some of us more than others. There was a split between those of us who couldn’t forgive him and those who were just mad and needed time to get over it,” Gunil explained. Somehow you felt responsible. “Don’t feel bad y/n. It’s not your fault. It’s e/n being a cheater that we couldn’t accept,” seemingly Gunil could read your thoughts.

“When did this happen?” You wondered.

“About two months ago,” Gunil answered.

“You haven’t talked to e/n in two months then?” You inferred. 

“Guess he’s a common ex between us. Your ex boyfriend, my ex best friend,” Gunil chuckled.

“It sounds funny when you say it like that, a common ex,” you snickered. Gunil’s chuckle turned into laughter. “We should hang out again, I miss it,” you suggested. 

“That would be nice, I could invite the others too,” Gunil recommended. 

“Yes, I can infiltrate boys’ night again,” you said excitedly. “Here let me give you my number,” you took out your phone. Gunil took out his as well and you both put in your contacts. Afterwards you decided that you really should be getting your groceries home, so you bid goodbye to Gunil, with the promise of texting him later. 

Arriving home you put your groceries away. Once you were done you pulled out your phone and sent a text to Gunil. The two of you chatted and set up a date and time for you and the boys to hang out together. You were excited to be able and see them again because you never thought that you would. 

The date came for hanging out with the boys. You had all decided to go bowling. You all met up outside the bowling alley. 

“Y/n, it’s so nice to see you again,” Seungmin said as he pulled you into a hug. 

“Don’t hog them,” Jooyeon smacked Seungmin away, so that he could hug you too. Jiseok joined the hug, squishing you in the middle. Oh how you missed the antics of these two. After they release you Jungsu and Hyeongjun also greet you.

“We won’t squish you to death,” Jungsu jokes.

“Shall we head in,” Gunil says. All of you agreed and headed inside. You all got situated between the two lanes you guys paid for. Jiseok, Jooyeon, Seungmin and Hyeongjun were on one lane, you Gunil and Jungsu on the other. 

“You know I’ve never seen Gunil that mad before,” Jungsu told while Gunil was up to bowl.

“What?” You were confused.

“Over e/n cheating on you. He went into a full overprotective brother mode of some sort. He gave e/n a black eye, busted his lip and nose. Looked like he wanted to kill him,” Jungsu informed. You turned to look at Gunil for a moment.

“I didn’t know that,” you turned back to Jungsu.

“I figured he wouldn’t tell you. I wanted to punch him too honestly, but Gunil beat him enough for all of us,” Jungsu stated. 

“Thank you,” you tell Jungsu. 

“For what?” Jungsu questions, unsure.

“For telling me. For wanting to punch my ex. I’d thank Gunil too, but I have a feeling he doesn’t want me to know that he did that, so I’ll act like I don’t,” you explained. 

“What are you two gossiping about?” Gunil says as he returns from his turn. 

“That’s nice to be one of the bros again,” you declared. 

“Yeah we’re glad to have you back,” Gunil strongly patted you on the back. Maybe a little too strongly as you let out a slightly pained grunt. 

“Oh sorry,” Gunil apologies, rubbing your back in an effort to soothe it.

Perhaps the bros little sister was a better term for what you were, but the specifics didn’t matter. You were glad to have Gunil back and Gunil was just as glad if not more to have you back too.

[nalyra-dreaming]

I've never read any of the Vampire Chronicles. All of my knowledge of these books come from wiki summaries and fan posts on Tumblr. So imagine my surprise when I find out Daniel & Marius were a legit couple! I knew Armand sent Daniel to live with Marius for awhile after he got turned, but I thought he was just helping Daniel because he was half mad. Also, I always assumed ArmanDaniel was endgame because of the way everyone talks about them, but apparently Armand steals Daniel from Marius only to leave him again?! Apparently Daniel Marius & Armand are all apart in the end, but it's implied they all still love each other?

Is this true? And what are your thoughts on Daniel & Marius together? Do you think it's a romance that will or should appear on the show?

Well, Armand and Daniel are endgame. At least the last we hear of them (Daniel and Armand) they are together, which... kinda defines that for me :)

AFAIK it is not canon that Armand leaves Daniel again, I think people infer that from the speech in Blood Communion, but for me the fact that Armand omits Daniel there actually fits, because his relationship with Daniel cannot be quantified like that. (Of course, Anne for whatever reason forgot?/chose not to write Daniel into the last book, but in-universe it makes sense to me.)

And yes, Marius and Daniel were an item, and yes they all are part of the later books and still love each other... :) I mean, if you have eternity... it is probably logical that you drift apart and back again?

As for Marius and Daniel on the show... mhh. I mean, I could see it. Marius for sure would hold a lot of fascination for Daniel, even if he is not half mad after the ordeal of QotD (and the turning after all the shit before) - this Daniel, the old show!Daniel would probably be extremely fascinated, especially if he can remember his past with Armand then. This is independent of whether he might get a new body or not, but of course a real relationship with them leaving would be after his turning.

I'm sure they will make Marius quite appealing... and then dig into the more unsavory aspects... of which we might get hints before we might get to see them.

Marius is also someone - totally apart from any of that - who has been through the millennia... who can take a distraught fledgling from a just as distraught Armand (because he was forced to turn Daniel, which likely weighed quite heavily on him) after Akasha (or whatever) happens and can care for Daniel.

So yes, I could see them go there. Not too.... explicitly relationshippy / romantic maybe, that would probably be too much for the show, which already has a lot of complications and pairing going, even now.

But in general, I think they will introduce that element, too. There's a lot that can be done with it, too, and I bet Daniel could also provide a lot of very sharp commentary. In the later books he is not afraid to contradict Marius right in front of the whole council, and I am quite sure that this fearless and pushy element is something that the show would want to incorporate later on as well (and, arguably, Daniel shows that behavior even now, so.... :)).

[trans-cuchulainn]

your email post reminds me of my coworker and me. he isn't so much using a lot of exclamation marks as just writing a lot -- lots of niceties, lots of details, lots of asides, etc., whereas i'm very minimalist with my emails. (not saying my way is better, it probably would be better to include more details and niceties sometimes, lol. a happy medium) we work on something that requires us to collaborate writing emails together and you can always tell who wrote the initial draft and who went back and "revised" it.

honestly email etiquette is so hard, like, guessing how formal to be and how many inane pleasantries to include and how firmly to word your actual point... hate it tbh i'm always at the wrong end of the spectrum, either unhinged 3am rambles or rigidly formal statements with nothing to soften them. and while sometimes this can reflect my mood / how pissed off i am, often it's actually much more to do with how tired i am that day and what else i've been doing (if i've been writing a lot of very formal things, they'll come out crisper). if i'm in sensory overwhelm they either become distressingly informal or extremely formal. i'm not sure anyone knows me well enough to be able to gauge that though. if it was more consistent it would be easier for them to infer lol

tbh i often send really long emails in a work context! like, essay-length emails! they're just... a lot of details about a specific thing. and while i might throw in a "i hope you're feeling better" if i know someone's been ill or "i hope you had a good [holiday]" if i know they were taking time off for it, i don't put those in every single email in a back and forth chain, especially when it's just like. a regular weekend.

as noted: i tend to work weekends, so they are not really different from any other days to me, and the person sending me this email knows this and knows i don't have a 9-5 so it does strike me as a bit weird to keep acting like i'm working on that schedule but hey, she's being friendly, i'm not, like, mad about it. it just kinda feels a bit redundant, especially when it's just back-and-forth discussion of travel arrangements for an event or whatever

[kakyoinryoko]

im curious what u think jotaros life pre sdc was like

probably not good from what we see but i’m not super into speculation about this sort of thing beyond what can be inferred on a pretty base level... like, i feel no need to have detailed headcanons about everything that happened to him exactly. i have vague ideas but nothing super in depth outside of how him being gay and trans affects things already established or implied. i don’t know what exactly jotaro’s high school fights would revolve around, for example, and i don’t particularly have any desire to come up with any headcanons for this. i say this but i’m about to drop an entire essay here i guess. cool, embarrassing, etc

i’ve talked about it a little before but i think Something happened to him between entering high school and reaching his third year that kinda fucked him up, and whatever it was caused him to start acting more coldly and harshly towards his mother, who he previously was very openly loving towards. i’ve heard people say that the only reason holly sees him that way at the beginning of sdc is because she has illusions about her son being a better and kinder person than he is, but that’s just not true. i don’t think the imagery of him dressing like a proper student and being happy to receive a valentine and smiling at her and openly expressing his love for her cooking were false memories, i think he actually said and did those things, it was just stuff that happened when he was younger, probably a first year. i’ve said it over and over, but as it is, in the present day (as of sdc), she fully understands what her son is like. she’s introduced into the series asking the cops how many people he killed. that was her instinctual guess upon hearing he was arrested—this says to me 1) he’s never been arrested before, but 2) she knows about the fighting he gets up to and has feared that this is where it would end at some point. she also emphasizes the fact that he can’t fool her when it comes to his tough guy act—she realizes that it’s deep beneath his extremely rough exterior, but he IS a good and caring person at heart. she never says anything about him that isn’t true, and anyone brushing her off as a dumb naive woman just isn’t reading between the lines. or maybe isn’t reading at all frankly. it’s all right there in front of you.

as for his past. at a guess. it seems like he doesn’t really have any friends at all, at any point in the manga, outside of the people we see him interacting with in the parts themselves. as of his childhood and teen years, the fact that he’s half american and his father is largely absent is one possible reason i have heard brought up before, but i think it’s also because he comes across as pretty weird and hard to get along with. as an autistic person i see a lot of myself and my own struggles with interpersonal relationships in jotaro, so i think his issues with people are in no small part because he is autistic himself. i’m not going to belabor the explanation here because others have made better posts than i could about why he reads so heavily as autistic, but i think it comes down to him missing social cues, and not coming across the way he intends to, and not being able to read the implications in the things people say to him, and him being trans on top of that would make him feel like even more of an odd one out. i think he would deal with that by being kind of a sukeban type, so at least his ostracization feels like he’s in control of it and he’s being strong, but even so, acting like a scary tough girl isn’t a replacement for transitioning.

i think he would start transitioning (which is to say, changing his name and presentation and starting testosterone, but that’s about all) late in middle school, around 14, so that by the time he’s a first year in high school he’s fully stealth. and it makes him happy at first, because people are talking to him as a boy, and using a boy’s name for him (perhaps part of why he’s so chill about people calling him by first name the second they meet him, since that’s a little odd to do otherwise), so for a time he’s a happy enough kid. i think t hits him pretty hard and fast, and he shoots up almost immediately and gets to be like six feet tall and buff and deep voiced by the time he’s like 15, so suddenly he’s not so much the awkward american girl as he is the super tall strong guy that the guys all fear and respect and the girls all have a crush on, which is maybe nice at first, but i think the allure would wear off pretty fast.

i don’t think he necessarily realizes that it’s because he’s gay, but we see ourselves pretty clearly that he doesn’t enjoy the attention from girls beyond maybe thinking it’s a better alternative to having them mock him like when he was younger. he hates having them crowd around him and fawn over him—he has no interest in any of them in the first place, and none of them ACTUALLY care who he is, just that he’s tall and strong and handsome, and he hates that. and then, of course, guys fearing and respecting him turns into people wanting to fight him, and something terrible happens as a result of that, and he ends up an extremely guarded and hostile person as a result, even to the ones he loves. it gets to the point where he’s a target for actual serious violence, even from grown adult gang members as we see at the start of sdc, so his desire to keep people away from him as a means of keeping them safe kicks in—and this is something that sticks with him for the rest of his life, even into his 40s with his daughter. only tangentially related but i think the true tragedy of part 3 is that he was finally getting over that mindset, he was finally starting to see value in keeping people close to him and trusting in and relying on others. but primarily we see him express this sentiment towards kakyoin. and kakyoin dies. and more specifically dies for jotaro. so that all comes crashing down hard, and he’s right back where he started.

back to the main point i also feel i should mention i’m 100% of the belief he has perfect grades and attendance even when he’s more into the delinquent act. i say act mostly because i don’t think he’s actually hugely into the whole bancho subculture; i don’t think he would actually join any gangs, i think he prefers to keep to himself until other people go looking to start shit with him, which he always finishes handily (allegedly, no one has ever seen him get hurt before). probably including the teacher who he ran off, regardless of whatever happened then—he says himself that injustice and harming the weak makes him extremely mad, so there was definitely more going on there than just “jotaro got mad at a teacher because he’s a violent person and beat the shit out of him for no reason and so the guy got scared and quit,” though i don’t really care to speculate deeper than that. the teacher was not an innocent party is all i’m saying.

i suppose this is all just an unreasonably long winded way of saying “idk but i sure think about it a lot.” basically just extrapolations from the way he interacts with his peers from what little we see, and from the bio about him coming across in a much more cold and aloof way than he thinks he does, and from his relationship with his mom, and from what we see based on her memories of him when he was younger.

[totallynot]

random DSMP observations, inferences, head canons and random thoughts because i can't sleep

except i only really pay attention to tommy, tubbo, techno, hannah, jack and somewhat puffy's storylines.

I also watch just the tale part of tftsmp and watched the first two las nevadas thing but im not super into the plot of them.

implied c! before every name

tw: reference to suicide

sbi family dynamic is canon and you can't change my mind

hc: tommy didn't mean to land in the water after he jumped

we still don't know why tommy is immune to the egg

tommy has a piece of the egg that's not locked away

hc: I hate the weird ass eret god arc and I pretend it's not real bc eret as a villain that really regrets their actions and has even gotten forgiveness to some extent is so interesting on its own

if puffy wasn't already a knight or whatever she should've become a knight once the egg arc is actually done

if puffy isn't the secret syndicate member I'm suing

hannah has so much potential to be a literary foil to sam and I'd like to see their friendship expanded upon

boomer and austin show are both not whitelisted but canonically dead

hc: snowchester is true communism

whenever phil says tommy isn't his son he hc: means it in a disowned kinda way and he's never taken it back despite their healing relationship

hc: techno and phil aren't really that mad at tommy still, they just refuse to give in for the principal of it

wilbur was an extreme gaslighter during pogtopia

connoreatspants knows about karl, is one of the few people tommy trusts, and misses schlatt

kinoko kingdom is like a game you buy but never really end up playing and it looks cool so no one takes it but in reality it just sits there unused

hc: tommy also has a white streak from being brought back but it's small

dreamxd is a dreamon that has nothing to do with dream

drista is tommy's friend who also happens to be a god

quackity is just a walmart version of a jschlatt-wilbur villainous lovechild

revived wilbur does care about tommy but he cares about power and control more

why does niki care so much about wilbur? i don't get it at all

the hotel is gonna be destroyed at some point. there's no doubt in my mind.

hc: the badlands members are all monstrous hybrids that have a very different culture and that's why they can exist without really getting into anyone else's politics

is everyone just gonna ignore that time tubbo went north and turned on a weird texture pack and everything was terrifying and then turned it off as if nothing happened?? I feel like that's definitely important and no one is talking about it??

glatt's gym was only available to ghosts, not people in purgatory. ghostbur was there, not wilbur. therefore the crying boy glatt described was tommy's ghost. ghostbur was always happy but ghostinnit was always sad.

hc technically but it's very heavily implied to be true in canon: when you're asleep in purgatory, your ghost roams amongst the alive

tommy and sapnap have the exact same moral system and they're probably the best moral systems out of everyone on the smp

l'sandberg plot is so good and has petwars energy

ranboo lowkey has a superiority complex

anyways that was fun. please interact if you read all of this cause id love to have a conversation about it. let me know if you agree or disagree with something or if you want something explained :D

[greekbros]

"greek-Bros: When in Rome, wait wut?; The Reboot Nobody Fucking Asked For"

*after two incidences with his sons, Zeus has recruited Hades and Poseidon to investigate why the living hell was so distracting about Rome*

Zeus: *poorly disguised as a shepard* Well, it is a mighty fine city indeed. It's almost comparable to Athens. Don't you think so?

Poseidon: *also poorly disguised as the world's most muscular fisherman* It is dear brother! Why even our statues here are incredibly beautiful!

Hades: *who's cleverly disgusted as an old lady* hmf.

Poseidon: What's the matter Hades? Disgruntled that you don't have a shrine dedicated to you?

Hades: No quite frankly I actually don't care about shrines or temples in my honor. *Looks around and sees the same issues that the Bois saw* .....why do the mortals here call me Pluto?

Zeus and Poseidon: *both laugh at that*

Hades: Hahaha, laugh all you want.

Centurion: YOU TWO! How DARE you laugh at that poor, ugly old crone! You're under arrest for harassing the elderly!

Hades: *grins*

Zeus: *having absolutly none of this BS* .......

Poseidon: Ugh but sir we-

Centurion: *takes out cuffs and chains, FuCkInG puts them on Zeus and Poseidon* You're coming downtown! *Drags the both of them*

Zeus: *glares into space completely understanding why his sons tried to destroy Rome*

Poseidon: But sir! You can't just thrown people in jail for laughing!

Centurion: *in a completely casual tone* I deeply sorry sir but as of late there has been a zero tolerance policy throughout the city, orders say we MUST make an immediate arrest and put you through the identification process.

Hades: *still as an old crone clicks heels and walks away to sight see*

*later*

Mortus: *looming in the dark corner of the interrogation room, walks slowly to the table and slams his fist*.....where were you on the day of the Coliseum's destruction... And if you weren't there where were you on the day of its reopening?

An innocent bean farmer: *shaking in fear* ugh....in my field sir?

Mortus: *glares at the farmer*

A Centurion: *walks in the room* Sir! We have more prisoners! I think you maybe interested in these two.

Mortus: *slowly turns around* ......if this is another dead end.... you're joining the rest of the scum at the crucifixion field.

A Centurion: *gulps* ....y-yes sir.

Mortus: Bring them in...oh and release this one.

Bean Farmer: *just fucking bolts out of the room*

Mortus: .....

Centurion: *brings in Zeus, whom already looks a little claustrophobic in the already small room* There's a second one outside.

*outside*

Poseidon: *apparently has attracted the attention of many young beautiful women* Fear not Roman citizens! For I Po-*thinks of a name*...uhm...Paul.... understands your infatuation, but alas I am happily married, BUT let that not stop you from admiring my very being! *Tries to flex while handcuffed*

The small crowd of women: *swooned*

A Centurion: oh shut up.

*inside*

Mortus: *actually a little intimidated by Zeus and his stone cold resting death face*....Well now....you rather large for a shepard. Retired I suppose?

Zeus: ....no.

Mortus: Than what is your occupation?

Zeus: ......I do not think you have the jurisdiction to ask me.

Mortus: *getting angry* Where were you when the Coliseum was being destroyed!?

Zeus: .... Probably with your mother, who I would be certain would be very ashamed that her son has decided to harass the elderly.

Mortus: *steaming mad* YOU WILL ANSWER THE QUESTION!

Zeus: I want to speak with my lawyer.

Mortus: WHAT?!?

A Centurion: Um sir, we have a Mr-*looks at a crudly written card* Plutonium? He's a law maker and legally represents the detainee.

Mortus: *feeling a cold sweat as if the devil has entered the building, looks at Zeus*

Zeus: *smiling*

Mortus: ....bring him in.

Hades: *now looks more like a mortal version of himself but now carries a satchel* Good evening my name is Cryus Plutonium and I have heard my client and his brother have been unlawfully detained. *Places a scroll on the table* Sir if I may infer, I've been working several weeks in the law office and I have found no evidence of this new "Zero tolerance policy". So I do believe you have no legal right to detain and must release him-

Poseidon: *from outside* AND ME!

Hades: -and his brother.

Mortus: *stares in disbelief* ....what.

Hades: *slowly walks to Zeus and unbinds him*

Zeus: thank you.

Hades: Now. Let us l-*feels a sword near his next* ......

Mortus: *has just about snapped* .....I've been after you and your mutant kin for a whole year and three months.....you owe not just me....but you owe the empire....an explanation.

Hades: ............

Zeus: ...........*lifts a finger, shocks him and tases Mortus, knocking him cold* ................you know something.......I think I finally understand why the children hate this place.

Hades: *shakes his head, as the two leave they see poseidon just flexing for a small crowd while the Centurion who was gaurding him is tied to a support beam*

A Centurion: Please help me.

Zeus: *points and sarcastically smiles* No. *Walks to Poseidon and drags him* It's time to go.

Poseidon: Awww....but I was just getting the crowd warmed up!

Hades: Let's just say they'll be warmed up with a few weeks of heavy thunderstorms.

Poseidon: .....can there be earthqu-

Zeus: You may bury the lot.

Poseidon: *smiles* Huzzah!

Hades: Or....we can be a little less intrusive.

Zeus: Fine, I shall ask Odin if he wants to help.

Hades: Yes my thoughts exactly.

Zeus: *still angry until he sees Octavia and little Caius and suddenly feels a little odd*......Hades.

Hades: yes

Zeus: I understand you don't have children...but what are the chances that one of my sons may have left something behind.

Hades: *trying to understand what Zeus meant until he saw Caius* Hmm....oh come now you're not going to take the child away from. His mother....or..... fornicate with her.....are you?

Zeus: .....oh damn it all....we can't destroy this city........

Poseidon: *in a singsong tone* I can! *Suddenly a little rumble starts until Zeus bonks him on the head* ~°

Zeus: No....the city of Rome...if officially protected.

Hades: ........all this because there's a bastard grandson around here isn't it?

Zeus: Silence Hades. Look at him, not a care in the world. Enjoying his moments with his dear mother talking to Hera a-WHAT THE?!?!

Hades: Wait Hera is here??

Poseidon: *rubbing his head* Hey look! It's Amphitrite too!

Hera: *talking to Octavia* Oh yes, married life is great but have you ever considered divorce?

Octavia: Oh heavens no, even though my husband has been rather distent. I'm positive he isn't in an adulterous relationship. That's punishable but crucifixion here.

Amphitrite: Well yes darling, for the WOMEN, men here get away with it scot-free.

Octavia: Oh heavens no.

Caius: *squirming a little*

Octavia: aww what the matter deary.

Hera: *knotices that Caius has few enough features of Zeus to be related but not directly enough to be his son* Aw what an adorable little baby boy. Who's the father?

Octavia: oh I'm happily married to General Mortus Biccus.

Hera: hmm....

Zeus: Oh there you are my beautiful, wonderful and not here to make sure I'm cheating on her wife! *Grits teeth* what are you doing here?!

Hera: ....I was wondering the same thing. I'm here shopping for some exotic fruits.

Amphitrite: *shows her basket of bananas*

Zeus: Oh.

Poseidon: *enthralled by the bananas* ohhhh.....

Hades: Well....I guess we can all go home then.

Octavia: Oh my! This must be your husband. You must be very lucky to have married such a big strong man.

Hera: *unamused* I am so blessed.

Zeus: *puts his arm around her* not as blessed as I am to be married to her.

Octavia: aww.

Caius: *kinda happy sensing he's found grandma and grandpa* c:

Zeus: *now getting a closer look, the baby literally looks like a spitting image of Hermes* oh my.

Mortus: THERE YOU ARE! *huffing and puffing from running* You are all under arrest!

Octavia: Oh Mortus, don't be so rude to these fine people they have done nothing wrong.

Mortus: This man shot LIGHTNING out of his finger! And that one *points to Hades* is...well he's just scary and THAT one is just annoying! *points to Poseidon*

Poseidon and Amphitrite: *sharing a banana and suddenly stop* hmf?

Mortus: These men are connected to the destruction of the coliseum last year and the disappearance of Gaius!

Zeus: ....Oh! You mean my sons? Oh yes they're actually harmless. You see, they're traveling magicians and they perform fantastic illusions!

Mortus: NO! FUCK YPU OLD MAN! I know what the people saw! Clearly something is going on! ...my suspensions are...that you...and your cohorts.....are demons!

Octavia: Mortus!

Caius: :c

Zeus: ....oh that's rather rude.

Hera: Now hang on a minute. Let's prove our innocence.

Zeus: Hera what are you doing?

Hera: .....you know, the gods are technically innocent....and exempt from being accused of any crime.

Mortus: *tempted to mention Emperor Caligula and his recent campaign against Poseidon but decided not to*

Hera: ...so...if we were gods...we would be innocent.

Octavia: Hmm...she does have a point.

Mortus: What are you getting at?

Zeus: *deep sigh* Fine...I lied.....me...my lovely wife and my brothers....are all gods......I'm actually Zeus, she's Hera and so on and so forth. My sons are were Apollo, Hermes and Dionysus....you see....it's likely their fault for losing their tempers, I apologize for that too. And I apologize for shocking you but you did threaten to crucify me.

Mortus: ..........*starts laughing hysterically and has officially lost his mind*

Octavia: Oh dear. Let's go honey, I must apologize for my husband's behavior. He's been working day and night. Oh sweetheart let's go.

Caius: byebye c: *waves*

Mortus: *while laughing like a mad man* HAHAHAH wait! I HAVE to know this but IS Caius here yours?!? HAHAHAHA I mean, I don't have BALLS! HAHAHAHAHAHA *gets dragged back home*

Zeus: ......you didn't help with that last portion did you?

Hera: No. I figured a man who looked as pathetic and desperate like that probably was already at his wit's end.... Speaking of which is that child yours?

Zeus: hmm....

*back at Olypmus*

Zeus: *pulls the ears of Hermes and Dionysus*

Hera: *helping with the situation and pulls Apollo's and Ares's ear*

Zeus: You boys are forbidden from returning to Rome. And as for you Hermes....it's one thing frolicking with farm maidens with incompetent husbands....but a war general with no testicles?....shame on you.

Hermes: *knows what he's talking about*.....worth it. *Feeling his ear getting pulled* ow~°

[another-dr-another]

feels bad inc,,, advance

Uehara - ...Christ. Inori, I am so sorry, I... Monokuma, what the hell!

Monokuma - I Did Not Create The Videos.

Hatano - But you let something like that get released! How could anyone be so mean-

Hatano - And how could you just show someone what people say behind their back!

Higa - So what?

Uehara - Really dude? So what?

Maki - Mekaru, you got a verdict on this?

Mekaru - Oh my... no, that'd definitely do it. It targets every little niche...

Mekaru - This really isn't a "so what" sort of situation here, that's a horrible video.

Tsurugi - Never in my life have I more wished I was proven wrong.

Inori - Yeah, this is what I meant when I confirmed I got something special.

Otori - So... you already had at least a vague sense of who showed up in everyone's video.

Inori - Mhm. Kinda fucked me up a bit to see... just everyone being happy, yknow?

Inori - I kinda inferred that the kid in Makis video was her brother... you two seem really different though, what's with-

Maki - ...Please drop it.

Inori - Sorry, not my place to ask.

Inori - Speaking of family though, I do wanna explain... what was said in the video.

Inori - My parents died when I was a kid, and I never got adopted, didn't really let any workers take me to an orphanage.

Inori - Whenever they tried, I just threatened to get myself so hurt that they'd need to take me back to the hospital I was treated at.

Tomori - Treated at?

Inori - It was a freak fire that killed my parents, I'm only alive because they left me in the car while they went to a restaurant...

Inori - The firefighters didn't know how long I had been there, and smoke inhalation can especially mess up young lungs.

Inori - Honestly? I knew they were just doing their job, but it was the first time I actually felt acknowledged... I asked everyone about their jobs,

Inori - And ended up deciding that surgery was what I knew the most about, so why not keep learning more?

Inori - Already knew that fucking... Dr. Ando didn't like me, but I didn't realize so many people...

Tsurugi - Then right after you watched that, you'd see Kurokawas reaction to her video, yeah?

Inori - Yeah... and so as I soon as I saw Kurokawa in all that pain because of her video... something inside me snapped.

Inori - I don't know if it was jealousy, or me trying to get rid of an example of how everyone else in the world was more loved... I just latched onto her.

Inori - And so once I knew I had the chance to... you all know what I did.

Inori - You also know that I've just felt... miserable this entire time. I fucking killed someone over Monokuma pointing out fact.

Tsurugi - ...

Higa - And rather than come clean, you tried to get us all killed.

Inori - Fuck off! I should've killed you, Kurokawa deserved to live!

Tsurugi - Inori, repeat the last thing you said, before Higas comment?

Inori - That I shouldn't have killed Kurokawa just because Monokuma upset me pointed out fact.

Tsurugi - ...Did he though?

Inori - ...What?

Tsurugi - I'm sorry if anything I did conveyed me being afraid of, or disliking you...

Tsurugi - And I can't speak for everyone, but I know I'm not alone here: I care about you, Inori.

Tsurugi - Anytime I didn't endorse what you were doing, your behaviors and the like, it's because I was worried about why you were doing them.

Tsurugi - Why study and become a surgeon if you endorse people being hurt? It helped key me in to you needing help financially, being reliant on yourself.

Tsurugi - I've just been worried about you, because I care, I always have, and even now I do.

Tsurugi - What you did to Kurokawa wasn't right, but it wasn't something you did because you're a bad person, you did that because you were being manipulated.

Tsurugi - You both fell victim to this game, I'm not going to judge you for what you thought you had to do.

Tomori - Yeah... same here! Killing Kurokawa wasn't... right, but you did it because your every insecurity and fear was played into.

Uehara - And what the hell's with Monokuma implying you'd die if you didn't kill first? That's extra fucking rough, no one else got that incentive!

Uehara - At least, I don't think so...

Maki - It'd be hypocritical of me to hate you for what you did, especially given your motive... in my book, you're perfectly fine as the rest, Inori.

Kobashikawa - I don't quite have the... experiences of some of the people here, but yeah, you didn't deserve to be put in that position.

Yamaguchi - We're ignoring that she killed someone?!

Iranami - ...We're just acknowledging that she was used and manipulated...

Tsurugi - Kurokawa was really nice... I'm sure she wouldn't want us being mad with Inori, not when this is all Monokuma and the masterminds fault.

Taira - Speaking of Monokuma... isn't there something he's meant to be doing?

Maeda - ...Oh God. I almost forgot.

Tsurugi - Forgot? Forgot wh-

Tsurugi - ...

Tsurugi - Oh no.

Inori - ...Guys?

Monokuma - The Blackeneds Motive Has Been Established. They Were Given Opportunity To Explain Their Crime.

Monokuma - For Disrupting The Peace Of The School, You Will Be Expelled.

Hatano - Expelled? Th-that means she can leave, right?

Monokuma - Commencing With Execution In: One Minute.

Inori - E-execution?!

Inori - Like... executing the act of letting me go?

Hatano - Inoris gonna get guillotined!

Inori - Why the fuck would you say that!

Iranami - ...Is the elevator working?

//Mekaru dashes over to the elevator, followed by Kobashikawa when he sees what she's doing. The two pry at the gate blocking the elevator... with no success.

Inori - No, no, no no no. I- this can't be about to happen!

//Inori begins to shake, pulling up her hood as she looks around to her classmates.

Inori - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I shouldn't have... my motive wasn't even legit! People care about me!

Taira - Lying is not against the school rules.

Tsurugi - T-there's gotta be something we can do! Can we protect her?

Monokuma - Leaving Your Podium Without Permission Violates Trial Rules. Ten Seconds Until Execution.

Inori - I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! S-someone, please!

//Everyone's frozen. Some are fixated on the floor, unable to look at Inori, while others can't tear their eyes from her, shooting a sympathetic (and often guilty) glance at her should their eyes meet. Maeda shifts uneasily on his feet- before jumping back.

Monokuma - Commencing Execution.

//The curtains covering the wall directly behind Inori fly open, with the wall panel itself sliding over- from the pitch black depths, a steel collar attached to a chain shoots out towards the class. 13 students notice, most scrambling back at the object which seems to radiate terror. Only Inori fails to notice, and by the time she processes the others fear, it's too late.

//The collar closes around her neck a millisecond before the chain goes taught, and begins to retreat backward; the curtains and wall are already shifting back to place, just barely missing Inori as she is dragged by the neck to execution.

Monokuma - It’s Punishment Time!

~*~

Maeda, narrating - ...Do I hear... screaming?

Maeda - ...!

Maeda - The screen her video was played on is on again...

[Look to the screen]

[pastamic]

So I’ve seen quite a few posts complaining about the way Entrapta was treated by the Princesses, particularly with a lot of vitriol towards Mermista. I know a lot of us who are neurodivergent are really excited about Entrapta as a character because she’s autistic coded and a lot of us can really relate to her. I think a lot of us are also, and rightfully so, very defensive of the way these types of characters are treated because they get treated honestly so badly by show creators and other characters in their series more often than not, and that’s totally reasonable. If you’re uncomfortable with the way she was treated in regards to what I’m about to talk about I’m in no way saying you can’t still be uncomfortable about this because this is just my opinion and the way I saw it as one touch-averse ND person. To preface this I have not received an autism diagnoses, but I have an ADHD diagnoses and have started to suspect that I might be autistic as well (though it’s hard to tell with the overlapping symptoms.) My fiance is autistic and also has ADHD and has agreed with me on several of these points. 

SO 

[id: Screenshot of Mermista pulling Entrapta’s hair while they approach Horde Prime’s spire in season 5. Caption reads “I’m sorry I’m bad at listening!” end id]

This scene, which a lot of people had an issue with. I had an issue with it at first too bc like pulling peoples hair is generally like not okay! Though the situation was very stressful and dire and Mermista was under a lot of stress. I think this episode was actually particularly important because it showed Entrapta’s issues with feelings and people (like not realizing they were all upset with her) and the stress and residual resentment from fighting on opposite sides and the issues that the other princesses had with understanding Entrapta with a resolution that got talked through. Something that in my personal experience is really important for everyone, but especially ND people and people with mental illnesses. Miscommunications and misunderstandings happen and they all talked it through and I thought it was very sweet. 

But, the hair pulling (and the weird leash thing that Perfuma made with vines but that’s a whole post on it’s own and I’m not gonna get into it) 

Now like I said I thought it was kinda shitty at first, but thanks to quarantine and depression I’ve re-watched spop probably fifteen times now and I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern. 

Most of us have already noticed that Entrapta uses her hair as hands for stuff 

[id: Screenshot of Entrapta leaning over in Hordak’s lab and shaping one of her pigtails into a hand. Caption reads “Failure is a vital part of scientific endeavor.” end id]

Like literal hands

[id: Screenshot of Entrapta standing in Darla’s doorway holding her tools with her hair and making a suggestive face. end id] 

It’s her superpower, and while the other princesses do use their powers as a bit of an extension of themselves, for Entrapta her hair is straight up another body part/limb for her. Tbh if I had hair like that I would use it for literally everything and never touch shit with my hands. 

I think I’ve seen people point this out to an extent before but I noticed that Entrapta never really reaches out to touch anybody with her actual hands with the exception of Hordak.

[id: Screenshot of Entrapta smiling  in the Fright Zone squishing Catra’s cheeks with her hair. Caption reads “Hi, Catra. I saved your life. You’re welcome.” end id]

When she convinces Hordak to send Catra to the Crimson Waste instead of to Beast Island she like grabs her cheeks with her hair, and again in season 5 she pats Catra on the head when she tells her she forgives her. 

[id: Screenshot of Entrapta and Hordak in Hordak’s lab. Entrapta is using her hair to hold out Hordak’s arms in a T-pose. Caption reads “And you’re really way too obsessed with this whole failure thing.” end id] 

And when she’s talking about Hordak’s disability and brainstorming about his suit. I actually chose both of the above screenshots because I thought at first that she only used her hair in place of her hands because her hands always had her tablet in them but both of her hands are free in these scenes, though one could argue that she needs to use her hair to reach Hordak’s hands, she could lift herself up with her hair if she really wanted to reach out with her hands. 

Actually there’s a point in Season 3, episode 4 where she straight up just scratches her hair with the Shera sword so I’m not even sure she has feeling in her hair??? 

[id: Screenshot of Entrapta in Hordak’s lab scratching her head with the Shera sword. Caption reads “I’m not sure if we just need the sword or if we need She-Ra, too.” end id] 

She’s scratching her head with a big fuck off sword so I think that we can infer two things from that: that she can’t really feel much through her hair, and that her hair is like durable as fuck. Considering she lifts herself up by her hair a ton I’d imagine it’s not attached to her scalp in quite the same sensitive way that like non-magic hair would be. 

So I think it makes sense, and might be a respect of her boundaries, to reach for her hair over her hand if they need to keep her from going somewhere. You could argue that grabbing someone in general is a disrespect of boundaries, and in a lot of cases it can be, but in the case of a battle or dangerous mission grabbing someone isn’t really out of the ordinary. We see it with the Best Friends Squad a lot, but also with Scorpia and like literally everyone she’s around. 

When Hordak saves Entrapta from the portal exploding we do see him grab her by the hand, but it’s continuously established that Entrapta exhibits way more intimacy with him than with pretty much anyone else. She allows touch from others and doesn’t seem bothered by it, but Hordak is the person she most consistently reaches out to in regards to touch. 

[id: Screenshot of Bow kissing Entrapta’s pigtail like it’s her hand. end id] 

When Bow first officially meets Entrapta he kisses her pigtail like it’s her hand, which by the way is just super adorable I love fanboy Bow, but it’s not just Bow. Catra and Scorpia also mainly interact with Entrapta through her hair.

Whenever someone needs to interact with Entrapta in a tactile way, it’s pretty much always through her hair. When Entrapta needs to interact with others in a tactile way, it’s pretty much always through her hair. Entrapta’s hair is like another set (sets?? She can split her hair up a lot) of hands. So I don’t think it’s as rough of a treatment as people are making it out to be. It’s not like pulling a non-magic person’s hair. Entrapta’s hair is magic and she uses it in place of her hands near constantly. It’s not like pulling someone else’s hair because Entrapta’s hair is her power, it’s an extension of herself in a way that other’s hair is not. 

It’s okay to feel uncomfortable with Mermista (or others) pulling Entrapta’s hair if that makes you uncomfortable, especially if you’re neurodivergent as many of us have experiences of people completely disregarding our bodily autonomy and infantilizing us in a way that’s frustrating and harmful, but (and I’m not gonna name names bc this isn’t meant to be a discourse post and I’ve seen it a lot) demonizing Mermista for pulling her hair in a high stress situation when she’s struggling with leadership already and Entrapta is seemingly ignoring her orders to do whatever for the sake of science. Though we find out that’s not the case, Mermista doesn’t know that at first and was intending to keep Entrapta from putting herself or the rest of the team in danger which is a foundation of leadership responsibility. 

Should she have tried to be more understanding of Entrapta and actually try to communicate frankly that she was mad instead of assuming that Entrapta would realize it on her own? Absolutely, especially as a leader. But she’s new to leadership and that’s like half of what that episode was about, and people make mistakes, especially with communication. That’s something that I think spop as a show handles really well. People make mistakes, people do things they regret, and people struggle with things like communicating and boundaries even when they have the best of intentions. What matters is that it’s talked out, apologized for, resolved, etc. I’m ND myself, and I’m friends with a lot of neurodivergent people and miscommunications happen A LOT even with like the base knowledge that we need to speak bluntly, clearly, and honestly in order to be understood. Sometimes even when you’re blunt and honest and open things still get miscommunicated. I definitely think the princesses infantilize Entrapta far too much, but I don’t think the hair pulling is as much of an issue as I’ve seen people make it out to be and I definitely don’t think Mermista is some Vile Bitch (tm) for doing what she did. 

(Also I took all these screenshots myself please appreciate that I spent like two hours combing through spop episodes to find them djsfjklds) 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

FTWD 6x11: The Holding

Wow! Where to begin with this episode? We had some super-stellar parallels going here. I don’t think it was any secret that I wasn’t thrilled with last week’s episode. It was fine, but also kind of meh. I LOVED this week’s episode. So much good stuff!

***As always, spoilers for 6x11 abound below. Don't read until you've watched!***

So, we learn about these “end is the beginning” people. They’re staying in a place called The Holding, which is really an underground parking garage. (Um…cars, anyone? Let’s recall that Daryl and Carol walked through at least one parking garage in Consumed while looking for Beth. They also passed lots of above-ground ones, including one that had a red car with its door open in front of it. Also, the fact that it’s underground could make it a symbolic tomb/grave.)

These people are composting walkers to grow food underground. (People do use blood and bone feed to fertilize gardens. Like compost and waste, it really does help them grow. Of course in our society it’s ANIMAL blood and bone. Using walkers/humans is definitely more sinister and cringy. And they have proven that eating various parts of humans leads to things like Mad Cow’s Disease, so I do think Alicia’s question about food being grown that way being healthy is viable.)

But moving on.

It’s important to note that the showrunner called this group a cult, so are not they meant to be “good people.” Most of those that live there aren’t sinister, but they’ve been brainwashed into thinking their leader is a good man and that what he’s trying to accomplish is good. They’ve drunk the koolaid (or eaten the walker food?).

So, we have the ivy walker.

There really couldn’t be a more clear parallel to the blond girl Daryl saw on the tree in 5x15. Plus all the green ivy around her.

I believe we saw a promo of this walker early on. Like maybe nearer the beginning of S6. Which, thanks to Covid, was more than a year ago. I’d pretty much forgotten it, but we actually do see it in this episode.

The dogma of this group (“the end is the beginning”) is that from death springs new life. This walker is meant to represent that. Life growing out of death. And on its own, it doesn’t seem like an overly negative mission statement. After all, this world is full of death and people are trying to survive. But it quickly becomes obvious that there’s more sinister stuff at work here.

So what does this have to do with Beth? I think she’s the ultimate symbol of life springing from death. So, not only does this foreshadow her, but they’re also using her as a symbol here. I don’t know how this group may feed into future story lines, or if they’ll just be a FTWD thing, but it will be interesting to watch.

Some of the major things in this episode: a Sirius reunion, a Daryl/Merle parallel, Grady parallels, at least two major Beth/Bethyl proxies, and some tantalizing hints for what’s to come involving both this group and the CRM. (See why I loved this episode?)

Let’s dive in.

First, let me acknowledge all the background symbols. There are tons of them, and I don’t want to go into tons of detail about them. But we see cheese (think Morgan/Eastman), tomatoes, eggs (lots of food). We also see fire extinguishers, lots of green (especially paint), an elevator. You get the idea.

The first big thing that happens is Wes meets his brother, Derek, whom he thought was dead. 

Welcome to the first Beth proxy.

Okay, I didn’t remember much of this backstory or how much of it was told when we first met Wes. I do remember talking about his brother as a possible Beth proxy, but beyond that, I didn’t remember details. But they rehash it all here. Care to take a guess?

Wes went out for supplies and was overwhelmed by, you guessed it, a walker horde. He ran into a shed but it collapsed (becoming something of tomb) and the walkers were beating on the outside, trying to get in (think Beth and Daryl in the trunk). He passed out and woke up in The Holding.

That’s exactly like what happened with Beth, actually. She told Gorman she was fighting a walker and everything went black. She woke up at Grady.

The difference here is that Beth never bought into what Dawn was peddling, but unfortunately, Wes’s brother did. We eventually learn that he’s a true follower of “Teddy,” the cult leader and condones the murder that’s being done.

And of course that’s also what we think happened during the missing 17 days. Overwhelmed by walkers, left behind. Perhaps she woke up back at Grady, or somewhere else.

But the actual reunion between Wes and Derek is very on-the-nose. Because Wes truly thought this brother dead, he even says things like, “You’re alive?” and “What the hell?” Probably things that will be said about Beth when she finally shows up.

There’s also a serious/Sirius mention when they sit down to talk. And Derek keeps mentioning his bike. Like Daryl, he had a bike that Wes took when he thought his brother dead. But the fact that he mentions “bikes” like five times in this conversation is important.

I wanted to mention coffee. We’ve seen coffee as a symbol before, specifically around Carol. We first noticed it when Paula told her little story about the carrot, the egg and the coffee beans going into the water in 6x13. She said the coffee beans changed the water itself. So, coffee = a catalyst for change. But this episode made me realize it’s a catalyst for a change that’s not necessarily good.

Apparently, the supplies Wes’s brother went out for was coffee creamer. The change that came was not only him being left behind and presumed dead, but changing into a person that no longer empathized with other human beings. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we see Carol making and drinking coffee just before they went to the caverns and Connie disappeared?)

There’s also a huge eye/sight/see theme. They take everyone over to see this green-ivy walker and ask them what they “see”. The idea is that they should see life and possibility springing from death, but it’s just a way to indoctrinate them and check to see if they’re willing to go along with what the cult’s beliefs are. Lots of talk of eyes (opening your eyes), what one can and can’t yet see, etc.

Later, we see walkers with their mouths sewn shut. So we have at least the see no evil, speak no evil themes. There might have been hear no evil that I didn’t catch.

The second major parallel is to Daryl and Merle, since these two are brothers. 

But it’s more than just that. Wes took Derek’s bike after he disappeared (same as Daryl and Merle). When Wes found his brother again, he was with a bad group (with Merle, it was the Governor) or rather a group of decent people led by an evil man. Derek has a skewed mindset, and is working for Teddy. Remember that Merle not only worked for the Gov but even tried to kill Michonne at one point. And how they die is…similar. Merle’s, in the end, was more chivalrous, as he died to help save Daryl and TF. That wasn’t the case with Derek, but his death resulted from him pretending to work against Teddy. Unfortunately it wasn’t real, and he betrayed them, but there are still parallels/anti-parallels between the two stories.

How is this place like Grady?

There’s the underground tomb aspect, the fact that they grow their own food. At the beginning, Alicia’s group keeps asking them questions about the community, which Riley (Nick Stahl) pretty much refuses to answer.

One of them is, “Are we allowed to leave?” or “Is anyone allowed to leave?” That, of course, instantly reminded me of Grady. Now, they never answer it directly, and at one point, Riley says they can decide if they want to stay or not. But by the time we get to the end of the episode, I’m pretty sure that’s BS. So, like Grady, no one’s really given the choice to leave. Even if they tell people they can.

They’re taken into a room with medical equipment at one point. It just looks a lot like Grady, though I could tell it wasn’t the same kind of medical equipment. We’re told that it’s embalming equipment.

In fact, Al says something that should catch your ear. She says, “they must have hit the funeral home.” Naturally all our minds will go to Alone, but she’s talking about the funeral home she and Dwight (I think) were at before. I don’t remember which episode, but we talked about it looking a lot like the funeral home in Alone. So, I think Al is saying these people, The Holding, raided that funeral home and took the equipment. Kinda makes me think the funeral home in Alone will come back into the picture at some point.

And it turns out, The Holding is embalming walkers. Al’s group ends up in a room with dozens of walkers strung up by their wrists (kind of like Daryl and Michonne were in Scars). They’ve been embalmed and their mouths have been sewn shut.

So, here’s where the plot becomes super interesting. I mentioned above that Riley told them they could choose to leave at some point, right? Al was saying that everything they’ve set up is impressive—food, power, water, they’re very self-sustaining—but it felt like they were preparing for something big.

He admits that they are. He says they are planning to soon close the doors permanently. He says they never want to go topside again, and the new way to live will be underground.

Later, when talking to Morgan, Al sort of implies that maybe it’s not so much about them choosing to go underground as that something will drive them underground for a long time. Almost like they’re preparing for a nuclear winter or something. But we don’t know exactly what it is.

I think what we’re supposed to infer is that they’re collecting walkers to use as compost in coming years. (They even call the walkers ‘posters.) They’re embalming the walkers to keep them “fresh.” Riley says the walkers last about 2 months in the composter before they break down entirely, so putting away 20 or 30 walkers really will last them for years.

CRM Ties

Wes and Al snoop through Derek’s room. They find maps of different communities and some of those transparent overlays that have the three rings of the CRM on them. That’s how they know that this group is attacking communities (like Tank Town) and that Derek knows all about it.

The other thing Al figures out from looking at Derek’s maps is that the group seemed to be tracking the CRM’s drop sites. She thinks they want to get their hands on a helicopter. (So, when it comes to Nora’s group, who was in the high rise, this group wasn’t after them. The roof was a helicopter drop site and that’s really who they were after. Though, they might have set the plague on Nora’s people because they are trying to kill humanity.) And given that this cult might be planning the end of the world, clearly them getting a hold of a helicopter would be a bad thing. 

Al tells Dwight she’s going to go look for Isobel and warn her. I think she’s just planning to go to the drop sites and wait for a helicopter to show up.

So, we have more potential interaction with the CRM through Al. And I’m really hoping we get some good Bethyl symbolism and clues through this storyline. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

Morgan and Burning it Down

Wes confronts him and talks him into leaving with them. At one point, Wes mentions Morgan. I think he just does it without thinking, because what would Morgan mean to his brother, right? But Derek instantly gets weird when he hears Morgan’s name, and Wes doesn’t really notice.

When they try to leave, they get caught, and it’s obvious Derek set them up. They’re taken to the embalming room, and Riley asks where Morgan is. They won’t say how they know him or why they want him, but they’re VERY interested in finding Morgan. 

I was thinking it might just be because Morgan killed those two guys in one of the early episodes when they attacked him in his truck, but they both died and wouldn’t have known his name from that encounter anyway. So I’m not sure what this is about. There are the tapes they were leaving at gas stations and such. Maybe that’s it, but it wouldn’t explain why they would want Morgan more than the others.

They’re taken to the embalming room and threatened with death. Derek takes Wes back to the ivy walker to see if he can “see” what Wes does. 

A fight ensues, and Wes throws Derek into the walker where he’s bitten. He shoots his brother so he won’t turn. The thing about this part is that it doesn’t show it. It instead shows the (somewhat yellowish) mural Derek was working on before, and Teddy’s voice is talking about how light comes from darkness. Then, we just hear a single gunshot. 

That gave me *major* Beth vibes.

Wes then goes back to the embalming room to rescue the others.

Wes’s reaction at this part reminded me a bit of Daryl/Merle too. Not so much at Merle’s death, but back in 3x10 when Daryl returned to the prison. It just struck me that, while Wes did cry when his brother died and clearly mourned him, he got over it really fast. He went back to where the group was and no longer seemed terribly broken up about it. I was just thinking he seemed to have figured out who his true family was and where he really belonged, and that that was more important than his brother’s warped mindset. Much like Daryl and Merle.

When he goes back, he takes Riley hostage briefly and they all escape into another room and bar the door. This room is full of the hanging walkers full of embalming fluid. They have to walk between them toward an exit on the far side.

Al Parallels Daryl in 5x15

Here’s another super interesting parallel. Al sees one walker hanging that has the black CRM gear on it, including the helmet, so she can’t see its face. She walks over to it and lifts its helmet, clearly looking to see if it’s Isobel, which it’s not. Such an obvious parallel to Daryl looking into the face of the blond walker on the tree. It even lunges at her and she kills it, like Daryl did with that walker.

What I liked here is that Alicia freaked out about it. She said, “what the hell was that?” Aaron didn’t say that to Daryl, so they weren’t drawing as much attention to it there as they did here. But clearly we are supposed to notice that, without knowing more, that behavior is bizarre. And here, we the audience know that Al was worried it was Isobel. But Alicia doesn’t. Where the blond walker on the tree is concerned, the audience is in Alicia’s place, not being terribly clear about what’s behind Daryl’s behavior. (I mean, TD is, but most of the rest of the fandom isn’t.)

So then Alicia says they should take this place down. When Al stabbed the CRM walker in the neck, embalming fluid poured out. Embalming fluid is highly flammable. So, long story short, Alicia stays behind to “burn it down” and the others escape. (I don’t have to explain that parallel, right? ;D)

It all happens really fast. We see Alicia light the match (which Al had; just reminded me of Daryl having matches in Rick’s hallucination in 7x01, and clearly Al = Daryl in this parallel), and then it skips to Al, Wes, and Luciana back with Morgan telling him what happened. They say the fire was huge and burned hot, and Alicia could have gotten out, but they couldn’t FIND her. They also don’t know if any of the Holding people got out.

So Morgan just says they’re going to go back and start at the Holding location to look for Alicia. I’m assuming that will happen next episode.

So, we aren’t exactly clear on this group’s dogma or what they’re trying to do, but it does seem that they want to kill off everyone who lives up top. Which is, you know, everyone. And once again, that makes them a lot like the Wolves. They believe killing people is saving them. I’m not saying these are Wolves or anything (they might be; after all, both groups tied a blond walker to a tree and believed similar things about killing off the remnants of humanity) but rather that the Wolves were a foreshadow of other groups to come.

And the next question is, are they part of the CRM? Because of the CRM walker, and what they implied about them trying to hijack a helicopter, I’m thinking not. But there’s clearly a lot of entanglement going on.

Alicia = Beth

So, in the final scene, we have some interesting developments. This may be the scene that got my mind spinning the most, just in terms of symbolic Beth potential.

We see Alicia, very much alive, and still in the embalming room, though now all the walls look blackened. So obviously the entire place didn’t burn down. (That doesn’t surprise me. It’s an underground parking garage. It takes a lot to burn down cement.)

She’s being held hostage in there. Riley comes in and says some weird, cryptic things. He says new life springs from death, for MOST people, and that they plan to preserve Alicia exactly as she is. It’s obvious they mean to kill and embalm her.

But I had the thought that maybe they meant her to take the place of the Ivy Walker. We don’t know what happened to that walker. It might have burned in the fire, but they didn’t show us either way. I was thinking that it would make a twisted sense for them to embalm Alicia (who tried to take their community down) and put her in its place. Which would make her a Beth proxy.

Riley leaves her alone with the embalming guy, but she stabs him in the eye (Sirius) and then, after a brutal scuffle, sticks him in the neck with the embalming needle, killing him.

It’s then that we finally meet Teddy, the leader of the cult. We hear about him and hear his voice a lot during the episode (they play tapes of him talking throughout the garage as people work) but this is when we first see him. It’s John Glover. I don’t know if everyone’s familiar with him. He was on Smallville back in the day. I totally forgot he was going to be on the show. He’s usually a villain, but more of a funny villain than a scary villain.

Anyway, he basically tells Alicia he has a special role for her and that he’s been looking for someone like her for a long time. He seems convinced that he can convert her to his philosophy, but he’s also fixated on the fact that she sacrificed herself for her family. So, it doesn’t say what he means by “someone like you” but I’m assuming someone who is brave or else self-sacrificial.

But here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking recently that they haven’t really done much with Alicia lately. She’s one of the few surviving originals for this series, and one of the most well known actors going into it, because she’s been on other highly-watched tv shows, but they’ve kind of been ignoring her.

So, I think this is the beginning of a big arc for her, and I think it will be a major parallel for what happened with Beth after she was left behind.

Alicia becomes a proxy here for Beth, not only because she’s in the Grady-like medical room, and stabs a guy in the eye, but Teddy totally razzes her about being left behind.

He says, “they left you behind.” She says, “I made them.” He says, “Yeah, but they obliged.” And then goes off about how they’re her family and family is sacred and they shouldn’t have done that.

And in my head, I’m screaming, “Beth! Beth! Beth!”

So yeah. Super intrigued by this episode. They’re setting up some really intriguing things and it will be very interesting to see what happens moving forward.

What did everyone else think of the episode?

[hisfasttemper]

Go off, my sunshine! Tell me E V E R Y T H I N G about it.

answered ;; | @hcrctic | ooc ;; |

Pietro's deleted scenes and their significance || {a rant by zen }

hullo! right so I made a little ooc post about how I am absolutely DESPERATE to rant about my muses deleted scenes and how both marvel & j*ss whedon SHIT all over the bby speedster. right, without further adue, settle in and allow your friendly neighbourhood zen rant about the deleted gemstones we were robbed of.

1) "we fight robots today?"

this scene can be described in one word: PRECIOUS. as much as I understand why it wasn't vital for the final cut, since at the end of the day, all it offers is some mild wit and a distraction from the final act, it still remains VITAL to any pietro roleplayers {I feel}. tagging @fasterthanmydemons & @witchoflegends on this one. so, why do I find this scene so crucial? because when you strip away all of the one-liners, it demonstrates a huge arc of character DEVELOPMENT for pietro, as it shows him willingly getting ALONG with the avengers, even mildly bragging that he is doing their job more successfully than they are, shown when he plagiarizes them playfully, "today? you fight robots TODAY? or is next month better for you?". he has spent the majority of the movie as well as his LIFE despising the avengers, actively on their opposing side by assisting ultron. but now, after joining their fight which has also been made his own since it is to save HIS COUNTRY , he accepts that they are on the same side, so he makes a point out of actually INTERACTING with them.

it always made me mad that his three main character interactions that are upheld constantly throughout the movie are with wanda, clint and the VILLAIN. and despite wanda, even those seem quite skimmed over. like, yes, he died for clint & costel. I RESPECT THAT MASSIVELY. but would it have really hurt the precocious runtime for pietro and clint to share a substantial ONE-ON-ONE scene together? he had one with wanda, giving her motivation, so why not have one with the person that was willing to {and did} DIE for him?!?!??!? would have been made the climax much more IMPACTFUL if you ask me.

2) "maybe I'll see you after?"

again, this one was pretty useless when focusing on the big picture of the movie, or whatever, but it reveals just little tidbits about pietro's character that we were robbed of. not only that, but it shows that pietro is actually very much a people person of his home {something we'll expand on shortly}, as one man calls out his name is disbelief, probably at the fact he's now WORKING with the avengers & STARK, someone he's been actively joining riots and protests against throughout his teens. this scene also demonstrates that, as we all kind of already assumed, pietro is a huge FLIRT. which, if you looked like him, you would be, let's be real. but yeah, still deserved to be shown.

3) "the man in the church"

I saved the best and most MEANINGFUL for last. the fact that they wrote, created and FILMED such a detailed scene such as this and DELETED IT!?!?!??! *counts down from ten* right okay, so there's a LOT of baggage here to unfold so lets begin with the fact that pietro was the living embodiment of sokovia's ROBIN HOOD. he steals for the wellbeing of his neighbourhood, since he retrieves medication for an elderly sokovian. not only does he go out if his way for others, he chooses the CORRECT medication and straight out REFUSES to take any payment for his deed. like...can we just say PURE!??!?! which avenger or hero in general goes out of their way in their own time to do such a thing for other civilians??? I'll tell you who: no one.

so, above that, he also retrieves a toy {football } for a child named costel, not that he's named in the scene. but that is CRUCIAL to know, since that is the child he saves along with clint at the end of aou. a child he WILLINGLY brought gifts for, and was suggestively close with his sister, as he bought her a kinda revealing dress. that being said, he's a big ol' flirt. we know this.

moving on to some lovely twin content now, shall we? we shall. so, we see that wanda is ACTIVELY cautious about pietro's daily ventures in thieving for their community, fearing that he will be harmed. "you keep stealing, you're going to get shot. I mean it!" but pietro SCOFFS at that. some may believe that this was an 'ego' thing, or a care-free attitude, but I beg to differ. I actually find this really interesting. I believe it's demonstrating that the twins actually DISAGREE on matters, which given how close they are, is a rarity that should be INCLUDED. the little scoff could mean numerous things, but I think it's kind of pietro feeling a little...isolated? like, in pietro's head, I imagine him to be like "like YOU could ever be shot " , inferring that he KNOWS wanda is far more powerful than himself, so being wounded shouldn't be her fear, let alone a fear she has for him. but, that's just my interpretation. then it goes to show his ACTUAL frustration at the fact they didn't annihilate stark when they had a perfect opportunity to do so, again, proving the twins aren't SYMPATICO on everything. but as important as this is for both twins, it's more so for pietro, I feel, as it gives him more to his OWN character & personality than just 'wanda's bodyguard.'

so, those are my views on each scene individually but in conclusion...

pietro maximoff was extremely uncarefully handled within the mcu. being just 'extra' backstory and character development for wanda, who as we know is THRIVING right now. but, I guarantee, she wouldn't be where she is now WITHOUT her brother's influence. it's just...ugh. I hate it. pietro deserved better. aaron taylor johnson deserved better. I'm just....*lies down* so, yeah, that's my views on his cut scenes, hope you all enjoyed the rant.

[naynay5155]

Rant incoming, wee woo wee woo

Okay so:

I highkey despise the way that mental health and mental health issues are discussed and dealt with in the DreamSMP. And maybe I'm a bit biased and shit, but I've been thinking about it a lot, and come to the conclusion that they really just, do not know how to write mentally ill characters, trauma, or people who are a bit fucked up without in some way sending an ableist or confusing message.

For example:

Tommy Constantly Flip Flops Between Having Trauma From Dream's Gaslighting And Manipulation, And Joking Around Carelessly And Being Generally Non-Effected

That's not to say that someone who is depressed or traumatized has to "act traumatized" or "be depressed" all the time. But there needs to be a certain level of... I suppose consistency when it comes to this stuff, especially when trying to tell a story that deals with mental health. When writing characters who have gone through shit, acting is your best friend, and the little things can really add to and go to elevate a person's character. Instead of having Tommy have moments (that aren't directly related to Dream, and don't necessarily get triggered by an explicit mention of Dream or his past) is important to proving to the audience that he has, in fact, gone through shit. I've seen and spoken with plenty of people who seem to think that Tommy's jovial or out of place behaviour is a Coping Mechanism. Which is totally fine to think. But let me say this:

Not once has it ever been shown, implied, or explicitly stated, that what Tommy does is a coping mechanism.

Other than in joking contexts before stream, moments of debatable canonicity, or when Tommy wants to make an off handed joke to play into his persona for Twitch/Youtube, as far as memory servers, not once has it been properly established within the narrative that what Tommy does is an intentional coping mechanism. As a result, it comes across more as an attempt by Tommy to make content for the server. When he jokes about selling Foot, or makes references to his Snapchat streaks, he's doing that to be funny, to create content, to be entertaining. Not because he put thought into his actual character to do this so that it seemed like an unhealth coping mechanism, it's to be funny. He acts just like he did in the beginning of the server, when he was in L'manburg. And the times where he does show signs of trauma or being effected by past events do exist, but let me say this:

A. Tommy has gone through a lot more than just Dream's manipulation, and despite this he only seems to be effected specifically by the stuff Dream has put him through, rather than literally anything else he has gone through, which is a lot. It paints his trauma as inconsistent, and makes it seem like he only has PTSD and Panic Attacks due to Dream, even though it would make logical sense for him to be upset, or at least effected by Wilbur, explosions, murder, fireworks, crossbows, Technoblade as a whole, Philza etc etc. But up until the Exile Arc, the biggest reference we've gotten to trauma from past events is jokes about Tubbo having PTSD and... vaguely alluded to mixed feelings about Ghostbur.

B. He instantaneously gets over basically all of his trauma and worries in literally a day. Arguably, he does it as a whole, in a combined time of like, fifteen minutes. He goes to his old home, and after literally just standing there, he no longer feels like he's gonna have a panic attack when in this area. There is no visible mental process, there is no showing of actual character development. He doesn't even have much of a realization that what happened to him doesn't have to define him, and he can grow past that. He instead basically just... sets out that day to "Conquer his fears". Trauma is not a fear of spiders, those are not and never have been an equivalent. Treating them like they are, like it's that simple, is insensitive. You don't just go to the place you experienced trauma in and feel better in five minutes, and if you do, usually there is something else going on here. But you need to actually explain that to the audience, because we are not mind readers, and not everyone is gonna over analyze the story just to understand something that barely even matters in the long run. You also are not really able to just... get over trauma. It's not that easy, even if many wish it was. It's not like getting the flu, trauma has ripple effects and will likely linger in a persons life for the entirety of it. Not only is this so remarkably fast passed, and actually a egregious misrepresentation over how trauma is resolved and how people get over it, but it seems more like a way to allow Tommy to stop acting like he's having a panic attack every time he's here than an actual effort to have the character has a positive change.

The other instance of this, is his confrontation with Dream while sneaking out of L'manburg with Techno. He stands up to Dream (and I could go on for hours about why this whole scene is highkey kinda bullshit), backs down a bit when threatened, Technk stands up for him then alludes to betrayal, and then the scene ends and Tommy has somehow come to the conclusion that he has overcome his fear of Dream and is now his own man. Which is... bizarre to say the least. Both because, that is not a good representation of how people get over and recover from their manipulators and gaslighting, along with my previous points about the pacing and how it is never that easy, but also because it just... it kinda also had the potential to be used in a much better way. They could have gone about it any other way, having Tommy recover and grow and be reassured slowly over time, instead of, in an instant making the jump to fully recovered and totally all good. That could actually have been good to see for his character, but... no we don't get that.

C. Nobody in the actual narrative, not Technoblade, not Ph1lza, not even Tommy himself, properly describes or acknowledges that what Tommy has is actual depression, that he was suicidal, that he was gaslit, that what he went through wasn't just "Run of the mill manipulation" that it was a genuine abuse. Tommy never tells anyone what fully went down, he never actually says he's having panic attacks, and nobody bothers to ask, be concerned, or actually explain it to him (if it didn't make sense for Tommy as a character to know what he was going through). Any possible non verbal explanation for what he was doing being coping is never used, and no terminology is ever used to describe his experience other than just "Manipulation". What Tommy went through is more accurate to call Verbal, Emotional, and Mental Abuse, Gaslighting, Suicidal Tendencies and an attempt on his own Life. And they should call it that, for the sake of clarity for the audience. But instead, they keep it very vague, not actually explaining it or implying that this is a coping mechanism. And if they do, oh boy, they kinda fucked it up ngl.

Now you may wonder, why is it important to clarify? To be a bit obvious? To make it known? Well, it's important for the sake of proper representation of mental illness/mental health related topics. It's important to make it known that Tommy has trauma that won't just go away in a day, that what he's going through is hard, to properly called Dream abusive and clarify that Tommy's way of acting is him coping. Because fiction reflects reality, and in order to not risk spreading the wrong message, or doing a lackluster job, you need to be clear. It's important for the people who go through similar stuff to see, in order to feel validated and included. But most of all, it's important for the people who might not know about this specific stuff, so they can be informed and have their mind changed.

Think about it like this. Even if you, as either a Neuro-divergent person, or maybe just someone educated on mental health related topics and symptoms, can see and infer that what Tommy is doing is unhealthy, can other people? If other people who don't have much background knowledge on this stuff, can't tell, then the story has failed fundamentally to actually have a proper conversation about coping mechanisms and how unhealthy they can be. If a dedicated reader or a casual fan can't get the idea or understand that Tommy is being self destructive and is coping in an unhealthy way, have you really informed anyone of the actual problem with his behaviour or character?

This can also be an issue narratively. By having nobody acknowledge what Tommy is going through, it makes those characters seem tactless, careless, like they either have no clue or could care less about what Tommy is going through. It makes Philza's rhetoric and being kind and knowing better seem empty, because who is he to say anything about teaching people a lesson when he can't even recognize when his son is a traumatized abuse victim? It makes Tommy seem completely tone deaf to exactly how impacted he should be, and doesn't make him look good when he tries to act like he's been utterly destroyed by Dream's manipulation, when not five minutes earlier, he was joking about how many wives he has. (It also makes the guilt tripping of other characters seem especially scummy, but that's a whole other rant for another time).

So basically what I'm saying is... shits fucked I guess.

This is a mess lmao, but I'm just kinda mad. And there are probably a lot better examples of the lackluster mental health representation, and I could probably explain my point a lot better some other way, but hopefully this makes sense.

[having-a-hyperfixate]

Week 3, Day 5

Safety cut, line breaks where the original posts ended.

I’m gonna be giddy about Neku for the next long while. I am so happy to see him. And also to have someone who has (basically) the whole story of what went down last time.

Update on where the fuck he’s been and on Shinjuku at the same time ok. 

WELL that is super creepy. And empty city but the people left their thoughts behind. Thanks but no thanks.

When… he says… Reaper friend… He means Coco, doesn’t he. Huh. Ok.

Uzuki has given in to the teamwork yuuuusss. She was worried about Neku, wasn’t she? So tsundere jeez.

I do not like Shiba mentioning ‘guest appearances”. The ‘old flames’ comment is even more concerning. I’ve vibrating back and forth between wild euphoria and massive paranoia it is very disconcerting. If he means Shiki and she gets hurt I will lose my whole ass mind. In a bad way.

Uzuki: I’m gonna go throw up.

^ I love this new fuck the rules Uzuki. Yaaas girl. Also, same.

“Neku must be seriously strong” bro you have no idea. He survived a pact with the Composer, wiped the floor with the Conductor very nearly BY HIMSELF.

*gasp* If we’re going to Cat Street with Neku does that mean we will FINALLY be going to Wildkat???? PLEASE.

Oh god I have 6 buttons now. Rip my hands.

-----------------------

1) Neku learned, at some point, to scan Soul directly. Which is awesome, terrifying, and helpful all at once.

2) Noise is pretending to be Ayano and I hate everything about this. Fuck. This is what ‘old flames’ means?? I didn’t know it was possible for me to hate Shiba more. I need to stop being surprised by that.

I’m going to enjoy ending him.

And if Neku is right, and there is someone behind him, they’re on the list too.

Okay Nagi recommending her favorite game to Shoka to make her feel better is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And Shoka called her sis. Help. I have the feels.

-----------------------

I love how much they’ve become an actual team. Like, they’re all doing their best to take care of each other. Nagi’s even stopped sniping at Fret. She’s very much holding them together right now, through these Noise copies. I’m looking forward to and dreading what will happen when we hit Kanon. I’m on Motoi now, so I assume she’s next.

-----------------------

Okay Nagi’s speech post fight has hit me hard. Damn girl. I knew I liked you, but wow.

I have concluded that you are, in fact, human. Allow me to elaborate. Humanity is the difference between making an effort to understand those around oneself, versus viewing them merely as resources to be consumed. Humanity is the difference between trying to understand opinions and values divergent from one’s own, versus scoffing and dismissing them as meritless. Humanity is the difference between being fraught with fear when facing others, versus being blithely unconcerned with others altogether. And now, having discerned your humanity, I can safely infer that in this moment… you are suffering a great deal of pain.

and yes I did copy that out. I think this is Neo’s version of the ‘the world ends with you’ speech that Mr H gives during week 2 in the first game. This is the thing the game is trying to say. Also copying it out is the only reason I didn’t start crying again.

Onward to Cat Street.

-----------------------

Beat is not happy to see Coco. This is very fair. (Her introduction thing is hilarious omg. The cut-ins with everyone’s faces XD)

Yes, PLEASE, EXPLAIN. Also, Beat, I think Neku gets to have a say in whether or not he’s mad about having been shot.

Coco do not call Beat a festering sack of garbage that is unacceptable. Everyone needs to chill.

Also, stuff is finally starting to make sense so that’s lovely.

Tsugumi probably REALLY needs help so that’s not lovely.

Neku you are maximum oblivious. How did you not notice Shoka’s hoodie. *turbo facepalm*

I’M SORRY HWAHT!? THE DOLL WHAT. HOW. THE FUCK. DID THAT HAPPEN. OKAY??? That’s actually…. kinda good news? We should be able to break Tsugumi loose then. Beat, tell Rhyme to call Shiki. She needs to haul ass.

We are now inside Tsugumi’s mind, inside Mr. Mew. This is wild.

She’s been stuck here, like this for like, three years now…? Fuck.

Oh jeez it’s a Plague Elephant. Why.

-----------------------

*throws hands up in the air* AN EXPLANATION!! (I woke up my cat.)  The Plague Noise going back and forth erodes the barrier until it breaks, and then the two planes do, in fact, annihilate like matter and anti-matter. Well.

What the fuck is Dissonance. I love the music metaphors in this series but plz do me an elaborate. The work of a higher power… means Composers or Angels. Or something else we’ve never heard of before. So… Someone ‘higher up’ in Shinjuku set it in motion there, and is probably the one supplying Shiba with the Noise.

And if Shoka is right about him changing, maybe that someone changed him.

[inventors-fair]

Lessons Unlearned: Short Story Commentary and Reflection

Well. 21 entries isn’t exactly a 50+ commander extravaganza, but that’s where we’re at. This contest made a lot of sense to me, in my own head, and I think I got lost in the concept without considering the full execution, or that Other People Might Not Think Quite Exactly Like Me. 

Still, I would say that almost all the entries created their own unique worlds, some plane-based, some personal, and it made for great and creative reading. I feel that something more concrete would help a contest like this in the future, like... Well, I’ll have to save that for another time.

Onto the commentary!

@abzanhero — Captain Morgan the Vengeful

The Card: It’s interesting design space you’re playing with here, and I’m actually a fan. You could pump him up to a 2/2 for a little battlefield presence, but it’s not out of the question. The fact that there’s not consistent graveyard tutelage means that he’s not as overpowered as he could be, and it’s only one counter, which... Admittedly, it’s powerful, but there are a few moving parts to make this less than incredibly overpowered. I’d rather the trigger happen at the end step for that “final fate” feel, personally. Minor templating: “shuffle it into your library” (only planeswalkers get personal pronouns), and I think contemporary design supports “when you do” as a trigger to respond to instead of “if you do.” 

The Story: Ha, it rhymes! ... And yeah, it doesn’t precisely explain the ins and outs of the curse, but it’s swashbuckling as hell. It’s one degree off-kilter to have a rhyme that isn’t part of a meta-tale, but I like it, so. I can imagine younger players doing their best pirate voice as they shuffle him (the character, not the card, I know, pedantry) into their library. Arr.

@dimestoretajic — Eternal Bond

The Card: I had to go through the Zendikar image gallery to make sure, but yeah, “party members” isn’t a term. I believe this card would read “Exile two target creatures in a party. (reminder text)” And it would be “combined” toughness, right? Either way, this is a hyperspecific and expensive removal spell, at rare, with a modest amount of lifegain. That simply doesn’t feel good, and I’m not getting a feeling of a “bond” out of, well, a removal spell. Let’s move on.

The Story: So, a kind of love story, framed around a removal spell? That already doesn’t make a lot of sense. I don’t have anything positive to say about the writing itself, so for Magic critique, I’ll say that it doesn’t feel like a Magic card or part of a Magic world, absolutely not Zendikar. There’s a time and place for those kinds of cards, such as Cathartic Reunion and Planewide Celebration. But Magic doesn’t need single-card love stories, unless they’re remarkably well-written.

@fractured-infinity — Baddon, Rivstalt’s End

The Card: Okay, that IS a real town in Innistrad. Had to check that. Anyway, man, someone would love to make a commander out of this bad boy. Kinda eh that he doesn’t do anything specific on his own, but the death effect is cool as-is, I suppose. The only issue is that HOO BOY you are going to have a LOT of memory issues with all your Zombie tokens capital Z. It’s flavorful and I think it would be worth doing, but the second part... Nah, keep it simple. 3UB, no protection, just Zombies, and you’re golden.

The Story: I’m having a really hard time parsing your writing. It took a couple reads to understand that he’s talking about... Well, actually, I don’t know. What do emotional bonds have to do with taking the town, or damaging the bodies? How does that work? Do we get that anywhere else in the story? Hate to say it, but this little snippet doesn’t really make much sense in or out of context, without heavy inference about the world that we don’t really get.

@gollumni — Tempest Serpent

The Card: I love the idea of off-color emerge! Emerge was a fantastic mechanic and I feel that it could come back again. It creates some really neat draft ideas that unfortunately may bend a lot of the pie rules. But also. A three mana 3/3 flying hexproof? That’s OP at uncommon, no question, good lord. Small templating note: Flying comes before hexproof, and the second should be lowercase.

The Story: I can just see the art of a guy on a boat cowering as the ship snaps in half and a massive stormy elemental electric snake monster BLOWS UP outta the ocean ready to eat him. It’s cool how it’s not about the serpent itself, but rather the human/NPC interacting with the serpent. It’s not Hemingway, but you conveyed something great! I liked this story.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Gravedigger of the Order

The Card: I don’t get how all these parts come together. Pro zombies, sure, she’s a zombie caller. The blocking/blocked trigger, uh, I don’t see that coming up a lot considering that she’s only a 2/2 with no significant combat-oriented keywords. And the last ability implies a strong return mechanic that I’ll admit makes a lot of cool sense with your flavor but doesn’t translate to perfect gameplay. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t grok this card, but it feels like there was cohesion sacrificed in favor of flavor.

The Story: Well, this sure as heck ain’t Innistrad. I’m curious about where this would take place, and what kind of world you’re going for here. Let’s try looking at it from an isolated perspective. It’s an alright macabre story, so I’ll give you that. But the name. What is the “Order?” Is she part of it? Do all members of the order whisper to bones like her? I don’t understand her goals and motivations, what “kindness” she whispers, why the dead are coming back at all.

@ignorantturtlegaming — Demonic Mentor

The Card: It feels unplayable and yet extremely playable at the same time. It’s expensive and creates some really crazy shenanigans in Commander with surplus life. Oh my goodness, Oloro would LOVE this card, good GOD. It’s unfortunate that it does have to be costed this way and that it makes sense for a tutor. I believe the wording could be adjusted to one chunk of text: (using Covetous Urge and Thief of Sanity as references)

“Search target player’s library for up to X cards and exile them, then that player shuffles their library and you lose X life. You may cast those cards for as long as they remain exiled and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells.”

The Story: I don’t get it. What does having  a demonic mentor have to do with brother rescue? I assume this is part of a larger story, but we don’t have that story for context, and mentorship doesn’t have to do with rescue. This is a card about tutelage and power and losing life, not losing a mind. The library is so often represented as the mind, and you’re not losing that, you’re saving part of it. Really iffy on this one, despite the coolness of the card. Also, watch out - you switched tenses in the second sentence. 

@macaroni-and-squeez — The Iroan Race

The Card: RRR for haste, sure, whatever, that’s fine in this day and age, if a little color-heavy. But this card isn’t meant for limited. This is a build-around-me if I ever saw one. “Four instances of haste”?? I don’t want to call that brilliant because it frustrates my sensibilities, but dammitall, it’s...it works. For those of you doubting me, the Zendikar Rising release notes for Attended Healer states “Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.” So, if that is to be believed, this card is designed for some combo player to go nuts with haste nonsense. Or maybe I’m just reading it wrong. Either way, I like this card. But I would make it win the game for you, not anyone else.

The Story: Sure, I’m into it. A guy running a race for Iroas checks out. I would have condensed it a little, but in general, yeah, it fits the world and makes a neat little story. I’m really hung up on the name “Kris.” That...doesn’t feel like a fantasy name as much. I mean, we have things like Gideon, and Judith, etc. but Kris? I can’t help but feel that it’s a smidge too out of touch with Theros worldbuilding. Yay, nitpicks.

@milkandraspberry — Burn Down the Library

The Card: Conceptually, this card is pretty cool. Very strange. It’s a different take on anti-blueness in red, and I can go for it. Sorry about MSE and fonts. Reinstallation is a pain but it’s possible. Anyway. I wouldn’t call this card a breakout all-star, but it would be...fun, I suppose. A good combat trick enchantment thing. Shame it doesn’t do much if you have an empty hand. With wording: Use “can’t” instead of “cannot cannot.” Use “cast blue spells” instead of “play;” that’s been phased out for a while. You also can’t discard spells, but you can discard blue CARDS. Question: what if you couldn’t cast blue spells from your hand? Eh? Eh? Flashback and madness? Ehhhhhh?

The Story: This time, I’ll give an example of how this could be shortened. “After years of fruitless study, the young scholar found a better use for her teacher’s wisdom.” Maybe “frustrated young scholar,” or something to give her motivation. Why is she burning down the library? That’s the most important question to ask. “Because she felt like it” is the obvious answer, but that’s not motivation, that’s not intrigue. We have to ask “why,” always. Your story makes sense, but it’s just on the brink of great characterization.

@nine-effing-hells — Arch-Evoker’s Capstone

The Card: I want to like it, and I probably do. I don’t know what kind of deck would play it, as it feels like a Commander card for sure, but yeah, I think I do like it. It’s got powerful stuff attached to it with very red sensibilities. The land destruction is pretty wild, but it’s expensive as hell. Or is it? Five mana to destroy two lands... That’s actually, hm. That’s actually really, really, super strong if this were to see any limited play. You may even have to make it XXRR to get around that if you want to keep that effect. Land destruction is unfun. (I <3 Ponza though, so)

The Story: With this specific card, I wouldn’t have recommended also adding three lines of flavor text on top of four paragraphs of rules text. Additionally, um, I don’t get that last line. “It wasn’t every day the horizon was on fire for a week straight”? It’s exerting too much effort without a strong effect on the reader. Edit and save for a card without as much rules text.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff — Spiraling Depression

The Card: Buries? What opponent? Is this targeting? Is this an edict effect? Least power among creature they control, I assume? I legitimately don’t know what you’re trying to do with this card. Wretched Banquet-esque?

The Story: Instead of attempting to give this flavor text legitimate critique, I would instead advise you that referencing real-world conditions such as “spiraling depression” without a critical lens might appear as insensitive to individuals legitimately suffering from those conditions.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Blazing Sacrifice

The Card: I really love this card, actually. The choice to do CMC over power I would argue requires playtesting, and I would prefer power to compare to other cards in the family such as the lovely Fling, but I can see the argument against it. Yeah, not much to critique or add onto that front. You made a really great card mechanically.

The Story: And then the story lost me entirely. “monsters that would surely go on to destroy everything he loved” is clunky to say the least. “Surrounded by monsters” is fine, it’s decent, it gets the job done. Monsters are monsters, that’s that. But that last line. That’s...a D&D reference, right? I can’t take that seriously, I just can’t. It’s verging on cliche, and it makes sense on a rudimentary level but adds nothing to the Magic world. I’ll be the first to say that yes, it’s personal bias and that some players would appreciate the memetic qualities, but it simply doesn’t do it for me.

@scavenger98 — Walking Stick

The Card: It...is a stick. You know, I think I like this one, and frankly I would consider it for constructed play. I’m a Krenko guy, what can I say. But yeah, it’s fun, it’s fragile, it’s got good equip synergy, and I might actually be underestimating its power. I don’t know, is there some crazy combo that you could do with it? This stick is made for walking, not fighting. Heh. Good flavor tie.

The Story: And there it is, right? It’s kinda funny how it’s implied that the whole story about this thing is that this piece of equipment is breaking. And that’s kinda what makes me on the fence about it. Like, if you had a creature, and the text was about the creature dying, that wouldn’t make a lot of sense, right? Maybe if the text was about Bredik fearing the day when he WOULD face a sword? Eh, I’m just being picky here. I think that it’s still pretty good. I like Bredik. He’s not a fighter, but he walks very fast.

@tmstage — Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

The Card: Yeah, once again, looking at Zendy Risey, I think the wording would be different than “full party.” I’ve been sitting here and I can’t come up with a better way to word it, but it still doesn’t mesh well even if it groks. And it’s a situational card that’s either going to do literally nothing or it’s going to destroy four creatures for one mana. That’s...not great. Hey. I understand if you don’t like a specific mechanic, but I’ve seen some really great ideas from your neck of the woods. Let’s keep going.

The Story: Technically, uh, this does not fit the criteria. Who was praying to the vengeful god? Was it the creatures in the other party? Is there a god of making rocks fall down? What’s up with the name, anyway? There’s a strong sense of disconnect and many questions that go unanswered. But considering all the factors that are going into this card, I have a feeling they aren’t really asking to be answered anyway.

@walker-of-the-yellow-path​ — Marathon of Mogis

The Card: Wow, I wasn’t expecting two Theros-themed God-themed enchantments that gave a number of creatures haste. Great minds and all. So, this card. I don’t think you need to reference the active player. The whole thing can be toned down a little. “At the beginning of each player’s combat (or end?) step, that player sacrifices all creatures they control that didn’t deal combat damage to a player this turn.” Keeping it simple. Honestly, though, I...am not sure I like it for four mana. It feels like a game-ender kind of card. Frankly, I would make it six. And I know that’s a lot and I know that it might be too much, but to be honest, this would be an unfun card otherwise, in my opinion. It’s really, REALLY powerful for a clock.

The story: Is that Mogis’ deal? Does he make people run? I checked the wiki and read through it all and I don’t understand why Mogis would get pleasure out of people not dying. The point of the stampedes and the destruction is to invoke slaughter and sacrifice, not to run humans to the bone. The ferocity of minotaurs is not sadistic. This feels like a Rakdos card — the cult, not the color combo. I feel that there was a misunderstanding.

@wolkemesser​ — Otherskin Scarecrow

The Card: I’ll go out on a limb and say that you could make this a little more Horizons-y and give this card Changeling instead of just saying it has all creature types. Could that make it a shapeshifter? Hm, what if, because it wears clothing from characters in the past, it also has the creature types of all creatures in graveyards? But I digress. Anyway, this card. It’s not bad! It’s not making me super excited, but it’s not bad. You meant for this to have a Reaper King vibe, right? Or at least to work well with it? I think you succeeded. 

The Story: Love the first sentence, don’t quite understand the second one. My interpretation is that it’s taking skin from others, right? Well! Um! That’s actually scary and makes me miss the world of Lorwynmoor even moor. Er, more. It’s unfortunate that the mechanics of the card don’t necessarily depict “skinning intruders alive and taking their identity in a grotesque fashion” as much as I’d personally like. Still, that’s a risk, and you know what, the implications aren’t super strong but it’s enough for me to grok.

Once again, thank y’all for your entries. New contest tomorrow. Be prepared. Be scared. Be....ard. 

-@abelzumi

[fantastic-rambles]

I just watched ep. 11 (so SPOILERS) and am now praying that Tadashi isn’t as stupid as he seems and has some super secret plan in the works bc the path he’s going down will clearly do the opposite of help Adam. He literally used the right equation, but got the wrong answer 😑 He said “Oh abandonment + isolation issues?? Lemme just abandon our shared endeavor (again) so that you rely upon only one person who dislikes you and doesn’t give two shits about you beyond your skating skill 😃” Ah yes how lovely that’ll work out. I’d never blame Tadashi for all of Adam’s issues but why does he keep dropping the ball?? Please sir, I beg you to consider showing a crumb of emotion/commitment so that Adam knows you care and will be less of a hilariously terrifying menace. The change in the end credit sequence gives me a little bit of hope that Tadashi will figure out how to be there for Adam the right way (caring about his person more than his image). Honestly surprised how much content we got on Tadashi and Adam. Highlighting their relationship and how much Tadashi wants to help Adam, makes Adam falling so low in this episode much sadder. The parallels between them and Renga hurt so bad. And the way they explicitly explained one of them to us for the ppl who think Tadashi does/should hate Adam 😶. I was honestly hoping for more chronologically clear backstory, but I’m still surprised by how focused this ep was on them and seeing the contrast between them as blushing little kids to now.

And I know you said you see Tadashi as closest to the God figure with the references. But look how the race with Reki (apple) further corrupted Adam, but provided a moment of enlightenment to Tadashi (snake [og Eve? Lilith?]). While the Snake brought the apple to the garden, wasn’t it also Eve who gave into it? Idk I’m starting to feel like Tadashi is misnomered bc of the backstory and how he has no malicious intent in taking him down. And even though Lilith is known for not being subservient to Adam, in a way Tadashi fits by hurting the relationship when making the one big stand siding with Adam’s father (possibly the devil in Adam’s POV) and what Adam would probably consider to be the sin (giving up skateboarding). This is kind of confusing bc I definitely think that Adam sees losing skating as the ‘sin’. But Tadashi views skating as the ‘sin’. So while Tadashi sees himself as the snake (fundamentally lower and a negative influence) Adam could have seen him as a Lilith (With him in the garden first and equal with him until he fell [down into his subservient role]). I think this ep highlights that bc of Tadashi’s contrasting teacher and servant roles, when in childhood they were somewhat equal. I think the only way Tadashi truly falls into the ‘God’ role is if he really does go through with forfeiting and basically offers up Langa (Eve) to Adam. (Btw I have virtually 0 bible knowledge so I am very under qualified to be making these inferences lmao)

I was so worried when it seemed Reki was gonna win bc it would’ve seemed so unrealistic to me. I totally blocked out that outcome until he did the cliff jump and I got nervous lol. I do like that the reason Reki pulled ahead and the reason he lost are the same thing. Reki does have a unique strength of innovation with boards but it doesn’t automatically get him to the levels of those more skilled.

Also very happy about the 🍵🌸 moment of Joe not even arguing about pushing Cherry. Did Cherry purposefully not use his Carla wheelchair just so Joe would have to help him?? I guess we’ll never know. Also Joe’s face watching Cherry laugh at Adam (I think showing Cherry moving on from his admiration of him). Idc what anyone says, Joe is totally pining for Cherry and it’s so sweet.

Oh and!! The investigation is doing a raid?! Jail for Adam ig bc there’s no way they’ll include that as a plot point for everything to come back clean. (And if Tadashi takes the fall not just bc the order but bc he actually thinks that what best, I will never forgive his dumbass 😤 Adam probably wouldn’t even function without Tadashi anyways since he takes care of so much)

I don’t remember if I mentioned it to you or someone else, but I didn’t think Adam would end up ultimately skating against Tadashi because their relationship is irreparably broken (at least right now), so Adam isn’t willing to listen to anything Tadashi has to say and wouldn’t really be able to learn anything if they raced since the only thing he seems to feel towards Tadashi is resentment: long-term resentment from when he was younger, and a stronger sense of it now after Tadashi tried to use it to force him to quit. So Tadashi forfeiting and giving the race to Langa makes sense to me in terms of Tadashi realizing that he really screwed up and that the only person who can really save Adam at this point/revive his “pure” love for skating is Langa, because Langa’s the only person Adam considers an equal. Because if Adam can return to that state of “innocence,” then he could simply enjoy skating for the sake of skating, and he would be able to skate with anyone regardless of their skill level, rather than needing someone at his level. In other words, he would no longer need an Eve, a perfect partner just for him.

And I will never say no to more Adam backstory. Even though it didn’t really show us anything especially novel. xD

Uh. So... I’ve got even less Biblical knowledge than you, lol. I have no idea who Lilith is and what she does. -goes off to do some research-

Okay, so based on The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, I personally don’t think that Tadashi is Lilith, since he clearly is considered inferior to Adam by pretty much everyone, including himself. Between Eve and Lilith, he strikes me as more Eve. The incident with Adam’s father (glad to know that he’s actually dead, lol) was also him taking a passive/subservient role to his “master.” And even as a child, he understood that he wasn’t Adam’s equal, even though he taught Adam how to skate. Again, in terms of skill, yeah, they’re on the same level, but socially, they weren’t/aren’t. So to me, Langa actually fits the idea of Lilith better, because Adam does see him as an equal, and Adam will most likely end up losing to Langa, who would refuse to “lie below” Adam, and who rejects Adam and runs away (with Reki). But yeah, Tadashi literally giving Langa to Adam (whether Langa is “Eve” or “Lilith”) definitely reinforces my Tadashi as God thoughts. (Though again, with a duality of also being Eve, at least originally.) xD

Absolutely agree regarding the really close result of Adam/Reki. Yeah, there’s an explanation for why Reki could get ahead of Adam (and Adam’s got a longboard, which has less maneuverability), but even with those taken into account (and Adam’s really weird/kinda OOC imo moment of self-doubt), I still don’t think it should have ended up as a photo finish given their vast difference in skill level. If Adam can catch up even after giving Reki a half-course head start under normal conditions, there’s no reason for him to not be able to easily beat Reki, even after taking everything into consideration, other than protagonist plot armor/drama. Though my dislike of Reki is also lessening (thankfully) now, regardless. Like, Reki isn’t a bad kid. I get that. I just found him to be super obnoxious and toxic in a typical teen way. ^^;

I was pretty sure Reki wouldn’t win, but I was annoyed that he lost by such a small margin, because yeah, that seems unrealistic.

Cherry absolutely ditched Carla to make Joe push him around. <3

But yeah, Adam is absolutely getting in trouble and more than likely going to jail. I’m still holding out hope that he’ll have an epiphany and turn himself in rather than make Tadashi take the fall, but I’d be equally happy if he just continued spiraling into madness. Either way, his character development would be fantastic. xD

[incarnateirony]

I'm curious, do you think that theory that Lucifer is Jottun makes sense? To me it feels weird, but this is your lane and you have way more knowledge about this.

Okay so first of all, wtf tumblr why is your cut INSIDE THE ASK and fucking up my post

Moving on:

I... is this like, a show theory that someone came up with? Or are you talking like, in general mythology?

(Edit: I realized I postured this from the angle of assuming we’re talking about the widely received idea of Lucifer in modern culture; if I was wrong about that, lemme know -- I do drift into the NONCHRISTIAN Greek Lucifer as well, which you’ve seen me talk about with Phanes before on this blog)

I’ve never heard a serious statement (or at least one that held up if gently poked) about this as much as a general correlation (IE, Promethean deities if you will, which would correspond Lucifer to Loki, though I highly disagree with that assessment for other reasons as well) -- or various theory parallels where the Jotun are parallel to everything from Titans to Nephilim. 

Generally the Luciferian/Satanic iconization of Loki came from later transcriptions of eddas by Christian monks. Then again, the idea of Satan himself came from the jews taking on Zoroastrian beliefs after captivity so fuck all flips table

The last thing I’ve seen that tried to draw any kind of correlation about it had some nonsense trying to equate Azazel to Hermes too and a whole other mess of madness.

Without tracking the anthropology and etymology of a situation though, you end up with a mess, and there’s a lot of those out there. If you google long and hard enough, Lucifer is everyone. He’s Cronus, he’s Hyperion, he’s Prometheus, he’s Loki, he’s like half the native american spirits, he’s also somehow half the angels and demons in the bible and apocryphal scripture, depending on how far down a rabbit hole someone wants to go, he’s Santa or a tempting sandwich on tuesdays.

This got long so I’m putting it behind a cut -- it seems to drift but to truly answer this ask, or more answer why I don’t even have a direct statement to answer it, required some -- explanation and history

Helel is a stronger thing to lean into for example. The anthropology tracks, the mythos tracks, etc. Hell, look up Jewish beliefs on fallen angels, satan, lucifer or whatever and realize Christianity has really taken judaism for a joyride while gluing shit over their homework. Hell like, check out the history of jewish captivity under Nebuchadnezzar II and how Zoroastrianism influenced judaism/the very belief of satan/eventual conflation with Lucifer -- there’s debate on whether the Morning Star, mentioned as the King of Babylon, who made them work and toil, was Nebuchadnezzar himself. Which would make, Lucifer, um. Some king dude that died 2600 years ago, give or take. 

I am-- very slow to draw angelic associations. That’s not to say they don’t happen. You can, say, track the fall of the grigori and follow their mentioned path to egypt where they "became kings”, and follow which ones disseminated into which cultures how by comparing their attributes, sure. But with something like, say, Lucifer, which is a mythological clusterfuck to itself, considering everything in the public mind about Lucifer modernly is an amalgam of everything from multiple names in the same sacred text to adaptations from influencing religions/weird reads on the transcriptions from people that didn’t know their history/etc, I’m not gonna be like LUCIFER IS JOTUN any more than LUCIFER IS A TITAN or LUCIFER IS A NEPHILIM. 

Could there be a correlation for that? Sure I guess. But of the many things I have studied or dealt with, I’ve seen some shit. I’ve seen some SHIT. And never once have I encountered a Lucifer that was legit, if you believe in spoopy shit. Various shit loves using the name as a quick cred card but that’s the equivalent of a nigerian prince facebook scam that’s totes in the US Army Doug David Donnie Darko Davis, very believable.  But you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s Lucifer these days. Whoever was identified as it originally 1. probably put on magical witness protection and changed names by now 2. has been utterly lost by time and has been replaced more with a /concept/ than a /being/. But the modern concepts are so vague it’s like hiding a blue chip in a pool, have fun finding it, and I’ve definitely never been compelled to do so.

I’m sure racially speaking one could say “angels might be aesir” “demons might be jotun” and draw a reasonable argument about it with enough effort, but that’d be more like... systemic translation of thousands-years-old stories traveled over the lands, at which point the question is less “Is Lucifer Jotun?” and more “What would the Aesir and Jotun be in abrahamic text equivalency?”

Curiously I’ve never seen anybody go bananas over this shit to find correlations for anything ~other~ than Christian-outward -- Christian texts always want to make their people everybody else’s people, but nobody is fighting to be referenced by christianity and even less are trying to compare say, Zoroastrianism or Islam or anything else to what gods THEY might be -- even though Zoroastrianism is literally where half this stuff came from, where ideas of archangelic-like creatures and archdemons came from, where the afterlife, where it all came from. So I struggle, deeply, to associate Lucifer with anything specific for a long, long list of reasons but find this a particularly weird thing. Like when’s the last time you heard a muslim or taoist or any other major world religion right now go out and be like “YOU KNOW WHO I THINK (ENTITY) IS, I BET ITS THIS GREEK/NORSE DUDE RIGHT HERE”-- it’s just a Christian culture thing?? IDK???

And again sometimes it’s even /valid/ but I just-- Lucifer is such a Topic(TM) to me. Because to me, he’s a concept, an idea, an archetype, but if there ever was an individual Lucifer that dude got himself a face transplant and fucked off a long time ago IMO so good luck 

cuz like

 Interpretations of a similar term in the Hebrew Bible, translated in the King James Version as "Lucifer" as a proper name, led to a Christian tradition of applying the name Lucifer, and its associated stories of a fall from heaven, to Satan, but modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage, (Isaiah 14:12), as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper name, "Lucifer".

As a name for the Devil, the more common meaning in English, "Lucifer" is the rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל‎ (transliteration: hêylêl; pronunciation: hay-lale) in Isaiah (Isaiah 14:12) given in the King James Version of the Bible. The translators of this version took the word from the Latin Vulgate, which translated הֵילֵל by the Latin word lucifer (uncapitalized) meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing".

As a name for the planet in its morning aspect, "Lucifer" (Light-Bringer) is a proper name and is capitalized in English. In Greco-Roman civilization, it was often personified and considered a god and in some versions considered a son of Aurora (the Dawn). A similar name used by the Roman poet Catullus for the planet in its evening aspect is "Noctifer" (Night-Bringer).

You’d probably have a better chance of coherently inferring that Lucifer is actually Inanna or Ishtar the goddess, as Venus, or that Lucifer is Aphrodite. ORIGINALLY IT WAS FUCKING HELEL. 

A suggested methodology on this: Never ever ever start from Christian texts. Like ever. Much less without at least a single Daf Yomi run to actually understand the jewish texts before it got super renovated and had white-out slapped all over it. Christianity generally perished anything after it, or at best attached like a symbiote until the host entity or belief was gone. Hell, sometimes the greecoroman Lucifer is the son of Eoster. Sound familiar? Hot take: Lucifer is Easter confirmed Easter is Satan worship.

See how that can be kinda... faulty? If you want to understand it though-- figure out where the same concept went? GO BACKWARDS. Never go FORWARDS. Pick up those christian and jewish texts and go. BACKWARDS. Akkadian. Babylonian. Because once you realize what was clipped out of other faiths, you can go back to that core deity and start figuring out where it branched off in other directions than eventually being kidnapped into the messianic cult bag. THEN go forward in time and realize that christianity is just an itty bitty teeny tiny branch of our history, it just swamped us over time via extermination. So you can find Lucifer as just about anyone, because respectively, ask a room full of rabbis and pastors to write down every time Lucifer is mentioned by name in original text form in the bible before translation and rendition. The rabbis are gonna giggle and the pastors are gonna be deadass wrong, sorry.

You wanna play a game? “Is Asmodeus Aesir?”

folds arms I’ma let you sit here scratching your heads about that for a while.

Because it’s gonna take going backwards. Who was the babylonian form of Asmodeus? When did the name ASMODEUS happen? What name did it have even in jewish texts? Or which branch of names? What did that deity evolve into in less calvinistic or messianic circles? Yes, you can track this. Yes, you CAN find how it translated into greece far and away from abrahamic or calvinistic influence, or to the vikings, or anyone else if you chase the crumbs enough, but again, there’s-- entire things to review about systemic beliefs and translations/hot takes. Same shit, different label in most places, sure, but-- eh. 

Ranting a bit at this point but if anyone takes anything out of this:

Pinpoint when/where/why names originated

Go backwards first, not forward

Find the anchor belief/origin/story

Find where it branched

respect the branches and deviations as unique renditions within cultures while equally respecting the fact that there’s some truth in all beliefs and we’re all trying to describe the same shit. So could Lucifer be Jotun, I guess. But we’d have to hold nuanced discussion about the journey of the narrative from A to B and how the Aesir and Jotun correspond at large.

Anthropology and etymology are key. Where did people travel, how did they write, what did it mean. Don’t look only for very specific affiliations.

Hell let me take a quote from-- a place. 

Here is how a pantheon actually comes together.

First deity: “Shit. My people were conquered and my religion just blowed up. I’m out of a job”

Second deity: “Me too.”

Third deity: “Hey, you look like that Lightning God the mortals in that place over there are telling stories about.”

Two deities at the same time: “We’re lightning gods too, though!”

Third deity: “Well, shit. You, on the left, you’re better looking. Best you be in charge.”

First deity: “Screw you! I’m bigger than all of you!”

Second deity: “Whatever. You’re a thug. Go rule the sea.”

First deity: “What? I’m a god of paternity!”

Second deity: “Paternity’s moist. That’s very similar.”

Meanwhile, you guys on Earth are all like, “Oh, Hermes is younger than Apollon.” Like its a fact. Like I wasn’t some Proto-Indo-Eurpean god of Penises and Serpents and outcroppings of stone long before anyone was ever speaking Greek.

And while we’re at the bastardized rerolling of mythologies, most heavily performed by christianity, I point you to that last line, regarding Baal Peor, and raise you:

If people noticed that video was sassier than normal, there’s a reason.

Let’s say you had a super interesting life and people kept telling your story, but over time, as it spread around the world, the telephone game got warped into several very different things. In some you’re even the villain, in some you have a giant dick, and in others you saved the world. All of these were somehow inspired by you and your story, but none of the people at the end of the story are necessarily ~you~. But someone has to figure out where the story started to find who ~you~ are, even if there’s tales of things you did, or supposedly did, all over the place. And sometimes people also take any word that sounds like your name and make it you. So if your name was Ted, you’d also end up with all kinds of shit like Bed Dead Fed Head Jed Lead Ned Red Wed and Zed when they come up suddenly all get replaced by the word/name Ted and that’s it, that’s your mythology.