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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 4 years ago

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Deleted Scenes: A Character Study (Part 1)

Longer title -- “Deleted Scenes: if the Criminal Minds writers had any idea how to incorporate dramatic back story into a working narrative, A Character Study”

Every once in a while I get impassioned about something that happens in the show, or more importantly that doesn’t happen in the show -- but should have. This will probably be one of at least a handful, but for now, enjoy the pinnacle of my rage. Fueled by all the OPENINGS for Hotch to talk about his past and the writers taking advantage of NONE OF THEM, but this was my breaking point.

Rating: General

Warnings: mentions of past child abuse

Pairing: none

Characters: Hotch, JJ

Episode, and placement: Season 10, Episode 05, “Boxed In”; after the episode

Word count: 2,404

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29796501/chapters/73302726

A Prime Example

Very few things get to Aaron Hotchner. Especially things that are said with no relatable context to him or the details people don’t know about his life. His past, in particular. He pushes them back in compartmentalized little boxes, carefully labeled and sorted and set aside to be unpacked at a later date. They aren’t important when he’s on a case. When a twelve-year-old boy is missing and his life hangs in the balance. When time is of the essence.

Which is why, on numerous occasions, he lets the things people say slide.

Especially on the topic of Nature versus Nurture.

He, himself, has written a handful of papers and reports on the very argument. There’s no doubt that Nature and Nurture have complicated roles in why ‘bad people do bad things’, in layman's terms. But the stigma surrounding it, cutting it into a black and white, all or nothing scenario will always rub him the wrong way. Not because he believes in it, one way or the other, but because he lives it. Day after day.

It’s not his team’s fault that they don’t know that. Hotch keeps those parts of his life to himself. Lessons only he has learned, and has grown from, and keeps as careful guidelines.

Until this case.

“I guess we all become our parents at some point.”

The way JJ had said this -- steady, with no hesitation, despite the choice in phrasing indicating it could be a right or wrong assumption -- gave the statement an air of inevitability. Creating a precedent in her mind that set Hotch's teeth on edge, though it had not been the appropriate moment to correct her on it. But it's not the first time JJ has said something along those lines.

“Does the son of a sociopath even really have a chance?”

Not a lot gets to Aaron Hotchner. Every other remark, observation, detail of an unsub’s correlation between their upbringing and their crimes he doesn’t let sting his exposition. It has never affected him before, and he vowed it never will. His father doesn’t get to take that away from him, too.

But the inevitability of her statement, indicating it was only a matter of time. No matter what he has done with his life or the person he has worked so hard to become and imbody, ultimately it wouldn’t matter in the end. That one day, Aaron Hotchner would be just like his father. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to live with himself, if that were to happen.

That single, throw-away sentence, with a pedestrian phrasing he has heard over and over again, gets to Hotch. It buries itself in him like a tick and refuses to let go, not for tweezers or fire or smothering indifference. It is still there, echoing in his head as if shouted down a long tunnel, even after they get back to Quantico and are finishing up the closing paperwork later that week. He finds himself barely able to glance at JJ for longer than a moment without hearing her words once more, and Hotch berates himself for it. Over and over again. This is why he shuts it all down and doesn’t talk about it. This is why he keeps it buried, where it will never resurface. It interferes with the present, with his work and his friendships and his relationship with his son.

His past needs to stay dead and buried in a plot in rural Virginia, where it belongs.

“I have those reports for you, Hotch,” JJ says, as if procured by his musings. He glances up for the briefest of moments, barely a blink, to acknowledge her and nod in thanks as she leaves the folders on his desk. Then he’s turning back to the SWAT team justification reports and expects that to be the last of it. Drowning himself in his work, where everything is strict codes and formal speech patterns and no emotional influence whatsoever.

Which is why he is surprised to hear JJ address him, again. Never having left his office.

“Sir?” The formal term catches his attention even more. “Is everything alright? Did something happen after you missed Halloween night?”

“What?” The question genuinely throws him off, though it doesn’t show on his face. He had missed Halloween, the first time he had ever done so, but Jack understood. He was always much more accepting of the parameters of Hotch’s job than Haley ever was. It was all he’s ever known. “Oh, no -- Jack had a fun night. Slept on the couch so I could see him in his costume when he got home. How was Henry’s night?”

“He and Will had a great time,” JJ answers, her careful, worried expression not waning in the face of Hotch’s slightly more upbeat tone. It’s something he slips into subconsciously when speaking about Jack, or to Jack, or anywhere Jack might hear. Compartmentalization. “I just… noticed you seem off.”

Hotch nods once, in acknowledgement, because he knows he has. He’s working on it. There was no need for an intervention like this. He’s the Team Leader and Unit Chief, he wasn’t the one people were supposed to be checking on.

“Delayed reaction to the case,” he answers, looking back to the SWAT team report and signing off on another section for mobilization after hours. Overtime justifications. Bureaucracy needs the ‘i’s dotted and ‘t’s crossed. “Nothing to worry about.”

JJ takes pause, and still doesn’t make for the door of his office. Like she needs to elaborate somehow, now that Hotch has left a small crack of an opening into his inner sanctum.

“I know we all have cases that hit us too close to home,” she concedes, the start of a much longer speech. “Young boys, even the troublemakers --”

“No, JJ, I appreciate the concern,” Hotch interrupts, and does his best to appease her by keeping the hardness off his face. “But it’s nothing to do with Jack or facts we found. It’s a personal matter.”

“Of course, it’s just --”

Years ago, that would have been that and JJ would have left his office. But time and history have blurred their relationship from boss and subordinate to friends and family. Personal matter no longer meant private, it meant a switch in barriers. It meant family.

She steps closer to his desk.

“You are always there for us, for these kinds of cases.” Her blue eyes bore into his, a technique Hotch recognizes as a fellow parent, to get through and make sure the person they are speaking to is really listening. “But, do you ever allow anyone to be there for you?”

He sighs through his nose. She’s not going to let this go, he can see that. No profiling needed.

“Sit.”

Closing the file, Hotch resigns himself to the fact that this was something inadvertently he’d been wanting to talk to JJ about, anyway. She had been a profiler for the team almost nearly as long as she’d been communications liaison, now, and although this could have waited for her performance review -- it tied into what was bothering him. The small smile of victory, and relief, slips from her lips as she sees the serious set to Hotch’s mouth. JJ is one hell of a profiler. The best ones did it without even knowing they were doing so.

“Wait… is this about me?” she looks mildly scandalized to even have to suggest it. Although really, it shouldn’t surprise her too much. Hotch knows he isn’t great about making things about himself, even when the conversation is supposed to be. So he gathers his thoughts, with such little prep time, and decides to start with where this whole debacle had begun.

In the car. When JJ had made her off-handed comment.

“The events of our lives shape us, and bring us here. As they do for everyone. It’s a technique that also helps us narrow down our profiles. How we were raised, what he have gone through. Heredity factors.”

JJ is staring hard at him, now. Deciphering the point, attempting to look ten steps ahead when Hotch has barely revealed three.

“You’re talking about Nature versus Nurture.”

“You could say that,” Hotch acquiesces. “In a lot of ways we are our parent’s lineage. Unless we choose not to be. I only became a prosecutor because my father was. But now, here I am.”

The parent’s lineage is a direct drop towards the conversation in the car. Both JJ and Hotch are intelligent adults, as is the entire team. Sometimes the most direct reference isn’t needed. Sometimes a key phrase is what links the mind back to the moment, replays it in the mind’s eye so it becomes fresh and there’s no confusion. Fewer words can connect more than a thousand, Hotch had learned that early on as well.

“I was… I was speaking more toward behavior,” JJ elaborates, still unaware where the conversation is going. How this has correlated to Hotch’s odd mood.

“I know you were. And my statement still stands,” Hotch answers plainly. “I’ve noticed that sometimes agents, myself included, let bias dictate their profiles. And we need to stray away from that kind of influence.”

JJ’s slight frown becomes defensive. Confused, but not angry. She’s learning quickly, Hotch notices.

“Nature and Nurture are a part of standard psychology practices. With a lot of information and testing to back it up. Spence could give you statistics for days, I’m sure. It’s proven.”

“Yes, as a theory. Not as a rule.” Hotch continues, giving her that steady, stern but gentle tone that borders on chastisement.

“I have yet to see an exception to that rule, when it comes to children of violent offenders,” JJ buckles down. “If they are the target of that violence, it warps them, Hotch. Plain and simple. How do they recover from something like that?” She’s shaking her head, getting caught up in the emotional aspect of it all over again. The hopelessness of its appearance.

“Any way they can.”

Now he has JJ’s attention, because she hears the shift as soon as it forms on his tongue. The air heavier, hazy like an old memory.

“Sometimes they leave home as soon as they graduate just to escape the situation, and spend their whole adult lives trying to eradicate it. By burying themselves in, say… Law School.” JJ’s stare goes vacant, and Hotch at least has the decency to look away from her as he continues. He has a point to make. “So they can put away people like their abuser. But when that’s not enough, prosecuting after the fact, they start to focus on ways to catch the offenders in the act. Save victims in the real world. Use what they know from experience, but in the field, so no one else slips through the cracks.”

“H-Hotch, I--”

“If there was a file on me as detailed as these on my desk, and there probably is somewhere in this building,” Hotch barrels on, not letting JJ get a word in edgewise. “Then the first seventeen years of my homelife would look nearly identical to John David Bidwell's childhood.” He didn’t need to go into further detail, though bullet points from the case all bust flash between them in neon.

Strict, domineering father figure. Church every Sunday, as a control and appearance factor. At home: a constant deluge of beratements, fear, shouting and fists. Something was always wrong, someone always deserved a punishment. No one was safe. They did what they could, followed the rules to a tee, but that wasn't always enough.

They survived, because that's all that they could do.

And he had.

“If you really require a physical, living exception to the rule, I’d like to hope we know each other well enough that you would consider myself that exception.” It’s the closest he’s ever come to admitting what happened in his father’s household, and Hotch knows that’s as far as he will let it go. No elaboration needed. “Even if I can be ‘a bit of a bully’.”

Stunned and shocked, the last part probably wasn’t needed. But, again, Hotch has a point he’s trying to get across -- and he wants it to make an impact.

“Hotch, I’m so sorry,” JJ croaks out, and he still can’t look right at her.

“Don’t be, you didn’t know,” he soothes her, swallowing a little hard. “No one on the team does, not even Dave.”

“--No one?”

“The only one who probably did was Gideon, but not because I told him. He was just that good of a profiler. You will be, too, one day -- I see that level of potential in you. Profilers are always learning, evolving, developing their skills.” Hotch finally turns his head, and catches sight of JJ with her eyes bright and her nose red. Her tell-tale physical signs that she’s been holding back tears. “Let this be one of those moments.”

She nods, wipes at her eyes discreetly, and collects herself with more strength than Hotch or anyone else ever gives her credit for.

“Was he ever convicted? Your father?”

“No,” Hotch says, level. “He died of colon cancer ten years ago. He never even met Jack. Neither did my mother, though I am sorry for that.”

Silence stretches in the wake of Hotch’s reveal, and JJ only breaks it when she can’t seem to keep it back any more.

“You’re… you’re not really a bully. You know.”

“Yes, I am,” Hotch tells her, the smallest traces of a smile smoothing the sharp edges of his face. “But only when I choose to be. When it matters.”

JJ huffs out a watery laugh, scoots to the edge of her seat as if to stand, but hesitates once more.

“You didn’t have to tell me. But thank you. I’m… I’m glad you felt that you could.”

The sentiment warms the inside of Hotch’s chest, ice cold from the memories he never dredged up if he could afford it. It helps ease them back under the floorboards of his mind, where they belong.

“Thank you for listening.”

She was right. He didn’t confide in anyone, and he doesn’t know if this will help him -- more than likely, not -- but it helped JJ. And that’s what mattered. His team. His family. Growing, learning, becoming all the better for it. The best people he had ever known.

The family he had chosen for himself.

“Goodnight, Hotch.”

“Night, JJ.”

-end scene-

#I got irrationally angered and wrote a thing #criminal minds fanfiction #Aaron Hotchner #jennifer jareau #no ships #angst #cw: mentioned child abuse #katyswriting #idk what I'm doing but I'm doing it in style

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lemonadesoda · 4 years ago

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Prelude story: Parting Words

Summary: Snatcher has a few more words to say to the Captain before he makes his final departure--words best not said in front of the kid.

Notes: Tumblr-only post for now, to give the interested folks the opening context story for the main fic I'm working on (so that some things referenced in future previews will make sense as well.) Once the main story goes up on ao3, this one will go up there too. As always, hope you enjoy!

When the meeting room doors slammed shut, both the Captain and the First Mate let out low breaths simultaneously. In the presence of the two strange Earth beings representing the child, a suffocating pressure had been steadily building--whether real or imagined was difficult to say, but in the empty hallway leading back to the ship’s bridge, the air no longer constricted their chests, no longer sat heavy on their necks.

The two of them walked in silence, the First Mate tense and staring at the ground but constantly glancing sidelong at the Captain whose narrow gaze remained fixed in the distance, far beyond the extent of the corridor, beyond the walls of the ship, beyond the present moment.

The First Mate flinched first when the blanched white light of the corridor flickered once, then again. They blinked and shook their head as the normally faint shadows deepened, sharpening the corners where the walls met the floor. Finally surfacing from his reverie, the Captain stopped mid-step, going completely still as the room darkened around them and the clamping weight returned to the air once more.

“I have something more to say.” The shadow that stretched out in front of their feet across the void-dark floor opened familiar gold eyes. Before them, projected into the floor with the silhouette of his hands clasped behind his back was the one called Snatcher, the proclaimed King of Subcon.

“What are you-” the First Mate yelped, dancing backward. They looked to the Captain who remained rooted in place, then back to the intruder. “You can’t be here!”

Snatcher lifted upward out of the floor to stand face-to-face with the two of them. He grinned far too broadly for what his theoretical bone-structure should have supported, a burning crescent splitting his expression like a volcanic fissure. “Our contractual business has concluded. What I have to say is of a personal matter. Off the record, you could call it.” As it had before, his voice echoed, layered as though he were speaking from multiple directions at once. Though his grin held, his eyes narrowed by a fraction, giving a bladed edge to the expression. “There are some things that are better not to say in front of my child.”

“This could be considered an act of aggression,” the Captain said in a low voice. He had recovered his composure after the initial alarm of the consuming shadows, returning to his rigid posture from their formal meeting.

“Good,” Snatcher snapped. “Because I really must emphasize that the only reason you are still alive is because that little kid, for some reason, prefers you to be.”

The Captain stood eye-level with Snatcher, forced to dig his heels into the floor to hold his ground. “What is your purpose in making these threats? I have already agreed to your terms.”

Just behind him, the First Mate straightened themself and moved up alongside the Captain. Snatcher’s lantern gaze flicked toward them, and he stared them down, holding the sickle-sharp smile in place until the First Mate’s jaw hurt from clenching their teeth. Like a bonfire, Snatcher radiated an aura that urged a retreat, that lit up the neurons in the brain that cried warning.

“Because I want to make some things very clear,” Snatcher said to the Captain, though still bearing down on the First Mate off to the side. “It would be in your best interest to make sure none of you come back. Because no one comes here to make threats or demands of our child. I don’t care if it becomes a diplomatic incident.” Snatcher’s shadowy form dissipated, melting like fog back into the floor.

“If it came down to it,” his voice came from over the Captain’s shoulder now, close as a whisper, making both the Captain and the First Mate whip their heads around, catching only darkness. “I would start an intergalactic war if only she asked me to.”

“That strikes me as irresponsible,” the Captain muttered, eyes searching the dark corners of the hallway for Snatcher’s reappearance.

“Then don’t make her ask me,” Snatcher said in a sing-song tone. His wheezing laugh rattled low in the air, shuddering through their rib cages. “I’m only warning you what’s at stake here. No matter what you or any of those people from wherever you came decide, we will protect our daughter above all else. But I can promise you this-” Snatcher materialized in the wall, shaping his silhouette in mimicry of the Captain’s form beside him. “If it really came down to it, you wouldn’t be around to witness the magnitude of your failure.” He lifted a clawed hand in the shadow and mimed a crushing vice with it. “So what happens next is really up to you.”

Snatcher peeled out from the wall, walking back into the center of the corridor as if from a hidden door. He looked at the two of them over his shoulder, the edge of his smile still visible. “Your move, Captain.”

With the echoes of a final cackle that shook the panels of the ship, the darkness blinked out all at once, replaced by the flash of the fluorescent white returning to the hall. Several meters ahead, the transport staff stood glancing about in confusion.

“Sir, what was that?” one of the staff asked as they approached. “There seemed to be a power failure just now, but we received no alert.”

The Captain remained silent for several seconds, prompting the staff to peer at him, brows furrowed.

“Sir?”

“Have engineering check the power couplers in the central hall,” the Captain said quietly, glaring over the shoulders of the staff. They ducked their heads, nodding at the command and one of them tapped a message into their hand-held terminal before hurrying past them to finish teleporting the entourage from Subcon back to the child’s ship.

As they neared the bridge, the First Mate looked up at the Captain. “You’re really just going to let that slide? We’re well within our rights to issue a reclamation of the time pieces after that.”

“When considering our options, it would not be worth the risk,” the Captain replied, striding just ahead of the First Mate and not turning back.

The First Mate hastened to walk in line with him, trying to catch his attention. “And leave that level of technology in the hands of a child? With those sorts of people as her guardians?”

“I can trust that she understands what’s at stake.”

“She’s a child! How can she uphold the Oath? If those things or anyone else on the planet wants to get ahold of that power-”

The Captain halted as the doors to the bridge chimed to alert them to their opening, finally whipping his gaze to the First Mate. “A child who apparently has the power to start wars with a word, given who is protecting her. The time pieces will see no misuse without her say so.” He bit the words out, an edge of aggravation hastening the statement more than his habit.

The First Mate snapped their mouth shut under the Captain’s scrutiny, only returning a sullen look as the two of them stepped back out to the bridge, the command crews all turning in acknowledgment.

As they took their place at the helm overlooking the various control stations of the ship, the First Mate muttered, “You’re setting a dangerous precedent here. Are we really going to kowtow because of a few verbal threats?”

The Captain’s jaw flexed. The nearest control crews looked up for prompting as to the upcoming course of action.

“What would you do, then?” the Captain asked in a low, steady voice. “Compel an invasion of a planet so far beyond the system that we had no existing record of it? For a derelict ship and its crudely harvested time power? Is that what you’re asking me to risk?”

The First Mate stared at him, mouth parting in disbelief. “He actually got to you, didn’t he? You’d jeopardize the stewardship of time because you’re afraid?”

This time, the Captain turned on them, pivoting on his heel in a lightning-sharp about-face, and though he did not actually advance a step, the First Mate took a half-pace back from the force of their commander’s attention, eyes going wide.

“You feel so strongly about this?” the Captain snapped. Though his voice remained low, his tone drew the nervous attention of the crew. “Then you make the decision, and you take the responsibility for it. I will defer to you!” He turned, addressing the rest of the bridge. “The First Mate will relay upcoming orders. Proceed as they command.” He stepped back, tipping his head to the First Mate, but holding eye contact throughout.

The crew all watched the tense showdown in silence, waiting on the First Mate who glanced helplessly between them and the Captain. Finally, with a last, frustrated glare at him, they stepped forward to oversee the crew. “...Chart courses for Cerian. Prepare for hyperjump,” they said, the orders so barely audible, the nearby staff had to relay them to the rest of the bridge.

As the crew hurried about to prepare for the jump, the First Mate stepped back, once again in line with the Captain.

“The Board won’t be happy with this,” they said.

“I will deal with the Board, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the Captain said, an underlying snarl barely contained by his professionalism worn thin.

The First Mate hazarded a glance at him. The Captain stood, focused ahead as he always was, as the crew always saw him. But the years working as his second reported to the First Mate the weight that currently bore down on him, the tightly-reigned frustration at having his hand forced and stress at the upcoming confrontation with the rest of the powers of the Enterprise. And if that Snatcher was true to his word, with the Captain’s own safety dangling precariously in the mix. They lowered their head. They shouldn’t have pushed.

As the alerts on the terminals warned of the impending hyperjump, the First Mate grimly replied, “It is what I’m worried about.”

The Captain made no further response, and the ship launched them across spacetime empty-handed.

#long post #ahit hide and seek #tbh dont really feel like tagging this as anything else #i just know there are some of you who would be interested in this

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rametarin · 1 year ago

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Guy: "Welcome to the Bloodsplatter Hyperviolence Fantasy Team League! Where we harmlessly and cooperatively roleplay entirely fictional scenarios about hyperviolent team based combat, using dice!"

Outsider: "I LOVE THIS GAME!"

Guy: "Wanna play!?"

Outsider: "YES. LET ME PLAY."

Guy: "OK lets play!"

Outsider: "WAIT WAIT WAIT. I have some rules."

Guy: "OK. What are your preferred play methods?"

Outsider: "Okay first, blood is triggering so we're not allowed to play any organism or creature that can be mortally wounded. Context has to be that at best they're robots or magical constructs made of crystals or magical energy. This way no one gets hurt and no one's gore phobias are compromised."

Guy: "Well none of us have phobias related to blood or gore at this table, so.. we shouldn't have to do that."

Outsider: "But some players do! Doesn't matter if they're here or not, We should change the game to accommodate them! Baseline game rules meta. It's better. Principle matters."

Guy: "But why our game?"

Outsider: "I just think it's a more mature, more moral way to play the game."

Guy: "M'k."

Outsider: "Rule #2: No jingoism or hyperpatriotism or nationalism even in fiction! It sets a bad precedent, and any faction that does it we should put out of character notes that only Nazis and white supremacists specifically are that, and they're bad people, so nationalism is bad outside the context of badguys being bad."

Guy: "What. But the entire motivational driving force for Hyperviolent Bloodsplatter Fantasy Team League is the over-the-top ridiculous dry critique of the jingoism hypernationalism hyperviolence. That's.. that's the point. It's what drives the teams to be so extra and silly and hard and satisfying. No one is even depicted as any good because it's a clusterfuck of bad decisions and ego failure. The message these are bad is THERE."

Outsider: "Yeah but it teaches toxic masculinity and reinforces a cultural norm of nationalistic xenophobia and white supremacy. I saw a whole alleyway full of white supremacist unironic supporters of the Fashie Emperor who were dropping Hard Rs (both kinds) everywhere. We need to make THEM feel as uncomfortable at our table as possible."

Guy: "There's not one single team in this game that even features white people. Or black people. They're alien species."

Outsider: "The big monsters are coded as Black."

Guy: "How do you figure!?"

Outsider: "Here's this leftist book on literature you should read; Any time you see a big scary monster in western society and culture and fiction, it is, inarguably, a black person, because western culture and society is inherently and incurably racist. Therefore, there is no innocence to the boogyman or the closet monster, those are by default white people terrified of black poor people hiding in their closets waiting to kill them."

Guy: "WOW. Just.... WOW."

Outsider: "So there can't be any jingoistic story motivators for why these groups hate eachother. Instead I think they should just be arbitrarily competing with one another for no reason; they're just competing for resources out of desperation."

Guy: "Okay, the desperation angle already exists, so I can work with this."

Outsider: "Which we then use to introduce an overarching bad guy that just makes them fight for the entertainments of a capitalist white minority, the source of all their suffering and turmoil and disease! I drew the bad guy on this cocktail napkin."

Guy: ".. There's already a fascistic badguy doing that but it's for a robot empire, not a pastiche of, 'Ponald Prumph'....."

Outsider: "Huh? Oh, I haven't actually read about the setting much."

Guy ??!?!?: "Then how do you even know you like this franchise!? You don't know much of the lore or the teams.. do you even know the rules!?"

Outsider: "Next rule. The game pretends that unconsciable actions are morally gray, so these are my demanded meta narrative changes."

Guy: ".. So you've decided that the ethnic group that survives the big calamity and is trying to keep themselves from dying out have to be an analogue to a Native American tribe."

Outsider: "Yep, we should hire this PoC writer I know to write for them. In fact, we should keep hiring them, because once instituted into the game, you aren't allowed to write for them."

Guy: "Why am I not allowed to write the actions, motivations, character names and objectives of a faction in my own tabletop game?"

Outsider: "Because 1.) The game needs more DIVERSITY and REPRESENTATION. 2.) You are white, and fundamentally CAN'T know those people or cultures because of your privilege, so you aren't allowed to write for those ethic groups or cultures with any degree of authenticity. Your writing for those groups would inherently be bigotry and white ignorance; the worst kind of privileged ignorance."

Guy: "Then I simply won't write 'diverse' characters into my game."

Outsider: "I forbid you from even running games or stories that aren't diverse."

Guy: "Then you give me license and trust to write non-white non-straight characters as I imagine them, not as you'd prefer them."

Outsider: "No. You hire the minority writers whenever you want to involve those factions- and you must involve them for Diversity's sake- or you don't write, at all."

Outsider: "NEXT RULE! Combat is BORING. Only grognard racsm spewing Halo lobby players like tabletop combat. If combat can't be resolved within 3 turns, it ends prematurely and we get on with the story."

Guy: "B.. but the entire point of this game is the hyperfocus and sophisticated combat system! That's the APPEAL to this game."

Outsider: "Well now it's more story-centric. Where we can run stories about the white supremacist fascist empire pastiche oppressing the plucky transhumanist diverse and understanding good guys in their struggle against capitalism."

Guy: "I'm afraid our vision for what constitutes a fun game or story is irreconcilable and you must leave our table."

Outsider: "I'm afraid you aren't allowed to HAVE a platform unless you carry water for my ideology, so no. Change the game."

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comrade-meow · 4 years ago

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Bad data generates bad research; bad research generates bad treatments; bad treatments generate bad outcomes. The physiological differences between males and females are vast, and stamp their mark on every organ of the human body, not just the genitals and gonads. Ignoring these differences will muddle our data, blur our understanding of physiology, and hinder the discovery of new treatments for diseases. Females are much more likely than males to have autoimmune disorders. Males are more likely than females to develop Parkinson’s disease. Males and females may present with different symptoms preceding a heart attack. Males and females metabolize drugs differently. Blatantly ignoring sex as a variable hobbles the process of scientific inquiry and limits the types of questions that researchers will ask, thereby limiting the answers they get.

About this story: last November I came across some anonymous tweets from a person claiming to be a medical student at an American university where professors were teaching that sex is a social construct. I decided to try to find out if these claims were real, and I contacted the Twitter user, striking up a conversation with “C”. We agreed to meet on a Zoom call, and that C would show me C’s student ID, with their name and the name of the school covered, and that we would then do a written interview. C’s desire for strict anonymity is well founded in my eyes, due to the damage that could be inflicted on C’s career prospects if they were caught speaking to a publication about the ideological lies being peddled and the culture of fear at their institution.

On our thirty minute Zoom call, I met a highly intelligent, critical-minded, and determined young person who was expressing deep concern over the ways that gender identity ideology is distorting the teaching of medicine and the repercussions this may lead to in our next generation of doctors.

C held up their ID so I could see their picture on what was clearly a medical school ID. C told me their school can be categorized as “top tier.”

The irony of using “they/them” pronouns for a single person is not lost on me. I find it interesting that due to the tyranny of gender ideology, I must adhere to one of their tenets and accept the use of the plural pronoun for a single person whose sex I know. But the fact that I have to do this is because any information about C could potentially be enough to raise suspicion (just read their words to understand the climate of intimidation they witness in class everyday), and the knowledge of an individual’s sex is still a crucial identifying feature, no matter what the gender ideologues want us to believe.

C and I agreed that I would offer people on Twitter an opportunity to pose their questions directly and that C would respond in written form. Out of the many responses, the medical student chose what they considered some of the most representative and important of the questions. These are their answers below, beginning with a short message they wanted me to share.

-Sasha White

Thank you, Sasha, for having offered me this valuable opportunity to answer these questions. Before we start, I would like to clarify my stance on basic issues regarding sex and gender identity, so that people can keep these in mind while reading.

Biological sex is not a social construct – male and female are distinct material realities which have significant implications for medical and surgical treatment of many different conditions. These physiological differences are relevant on the levels of clinical practice, research, and policy, and absolutely must be acknowledged in order for physicians to best treat their patients. All patients should be treated with compassion, respect, and high-quality medical care, regardless of their professed gender identity. I remain agnostic as to what it truly means to have a “gender identity”, but will respect the wishes of my future patients in regards to their social presentation and pronouns. I believe that dysphoric adults should be able to pursue transition. Physicians should be aware of relevant aspects of trans healthcare, including hormone therapy and surgery, so that they can better advise trans patients on how medical treatments may impact their gender-related care, or vice versa. It is possible and desirable for us to have a healthcare system which is inclusive and respectful of transgender patients, in a way which does not pretend that biology is arbitrary or merely a social construct. Despite my liberal beliefs, the loudest voices at my institution would falsely accuse me of blowing transphobic dog-whistles, hence my anonymity. This hostile climate is corrosive to an inquiry mindset and critical thinking, and will ultimately be a disservice to the scientific community and to future patients, trans and otherwise.

IDD64 @IDD64 asks: “What happened to “nobody’s saying sex isn’t real”?”

This is actually what compelled me to speak out about this practice in the first place. Well-intentioned non-medical people often assume that medical schools are teaching something like, “Gender identity can be fluid and varied, but biological sex is real, binary, and relevant in medical contexts.” This idea is around five years out of date in the most progressive of institutions. I have been told multiple times in several classes that biological sex is a social construct – not just gender. Granted, I can speak only for my institution, but this change has been frustrating and disturbing to witness.

Robert Woolley @RandomlyBob asks: “Do any of the required textbooks also avoid using those words? If not, might you ask those professors if they think the books are either inaccurate or offensive?”

Our curriculum is constantly subject to revision. Around two-thirds of our written materials have been updated with this new language. For the one-third that has remained out-of-date, our class has received multiple apologetic, itemized emails from course instructors in which they provide corrections, beg for forgiveness and patience, and avow to “do better”. In class, we have been given multiple histories in which the patient’s sex has been deleted, even for cases involving disorders which can manifest differently between the sexes. The words “female” and “male” are being erased and replaced.

Born a space baby @ggynoid asks: “What’s the dynamic like for class participation? Do people start with pronouns? Do people tend to agree, disagree? What’s the female-male ratio in the class typically on these sort[s] of classes?”

When school first began, we were heavily encouraged to include pronouns in our Zoom names and email signatures; around 70-80% of the class did so. Most students and professors would start off verbal introductions with their name and pronouns, though that has subsided since we all have grown to know each other.

A vocal minority of students are loudly in favor of the most extreme aspects of gender ideology, while the majority seem to be vaguely supportive in a nonspecific way. I think that this comes from a mixture of naive goodwill and fear – they are trying to be good allies, and this is the only way they know how. Additionally, it is heavily implied that to ask critical questions, even in a way which is ultimately patient-centered and supportive, is perpetuating bigotry, so they just nod along. A silent minority seems to be secretly skeptical. I have met four or five students who have disclosed to me in private conversation that they disagree with one or more aspects of this dogma but they are hesitant to come forward in group settings. I am sure that more exist, but they are hard to find. None of these people have been transphobic.

The female-male ratio is approximately equal, with slightly more females than males in my class.

David Poole @MrDPoole asks: “Do you think the people telling you these things actually believe it or are they being forced to do it?”

I think that a very small minority of our professors actually believe that male and female bodies are interchangeable with the exception of genitalia and gonads. There are definitely more woke students than woke professors, and the most radical of students are far more radical than the wokest professor. Most of these professors are very fearful of saying the wrong thing, so they delicately couch their language by referring to “XX and XY people” or other such euphemisms, even though that can lead to inaccuracies.

The social consequences for misspeaking are highly magnified, especially when most classes are delivered online (due to the pandemic). Our class has been quietly accused of having a mean streak in regards to social justice. We have had petitions circulated (drafted by few, signed by many) to name, shame, and “hold accountable” various lecturers who used the “wrong” language, to the point of humiliation. One professor broke down crying after a genetics lecture which relied heavily on the use of “male” and “female” by necessity. (Though the lecture also made ample space to talk about transgender and non-binary individuals, this was not enough to appease the critics.) Another professor referred to “pregnant women” rather than “pregnant people” and spent a very uncomfortable few minutes after class abjectly apologizing for having caused offense “by implying that only women can get pregnant”. It was incredibly disturbing to see, for multiple reasons. One, this is based on bad science and zealotry that has the potential to harm patients. Two, the magnitude of the “crime” pales in comparison to the magnitude of the outcry. Three, it is a total inversion of the expected social order to see these physicians —some of whom are literally leading scholars in their field— be reduced to fearful puddles if a student so much as looks at them askance. Keep in mind that these professors are extremely liberal, compassionate, and well-meaning, yet they are turned upon with such venom and verve by the people who they are trying to please.

Chopper @RodeoChopper asks: How are cases presented? Normally the first line is “This is a such and such year old (male/female) with a past medical history significant for…”

Here are some examples of formats I have seen in our coursework:

“This is a 43-year-old woman with ovaries, presenting with …”

“A 3-year-old child, assigned male at birth, not assigned gender as of yet by parents, presenting with …”

“This patient is a 7-year-old child, gendered as a boy by his parents, who …”

“57-year-old woman with testes, here with …”

“A 16-year-old patient (gender non-binary, pronouns they/them) …”

“A 32-year-old woman (she/her/hers) …”

“A 16-year-old patient presents with complaints of …”

Of the myriad problems with this structure, the most concerning is that most of these cases do not accurately identify the sex of the patient, which is crucial in being able to weigh the likelihood of potential diagnoses and treatments. A person’s pronouns are not relevant when deciding to prescribe a particular antibiotic, and at which dose. Additionally, I find it somewhat irritating to be expected to state the obvious for things that are the default of the human experience. We do not say, “This is a 42-year-old woman with both her arms and legs”, although there are certainly women in this world who are missing one or more of their limbs.

MaryWrath @WrathMary asks: “So how are reproductively different bodies described then? How are cardiac arrest and stroke symptoms described, explained and taught as we know now they present differently across the two sexes? There are clearly two bodies in our species so how are the professors acknowledging?”

Organs are referred to by their actual names – penis, testes, vagina, ovaries, breasts. However, referring to patients as male or female is strictly taboo. If there are relevant but subtle sex-specific differences, then they will often be downplayed or ignored altogether. As an example, we were told that the higher risk of heart attacks in men was due only to the presence of testosterone, and not for any other reason, which is patently false. When the differences are utterly impossible to ignore, “male” and “female” will simply be rebranded as “people with testes/ovaries”, “AMAB/AFAB”, or “people with/without Y chromosomes”. My personal favorite is “persons with [testosterone/estrogen] as their primary sex hormone.” Oddly, “man” and “woman” are still used, often with redundant qualifiers (“56-year-old man with testes”).

thames pilgrim @thames_pilgrim asks: “What are the most dangerous medical implications for turning a blind eye to someone’s sex due to a belief that talking about “male” and “female” might offend?”

This is a very important question which should be addressed at the following interrelated levels: clinical practice, research, and public policy.

Clinical practice: Transgender patients who do not disclose their birth sex might be at risk for improper medical treatment. (I have seen a natal female person who identified as a nonbinary man, be suspected of having testicular torsion; this person did not disclose their sex to the physician, which resulted in a delay in their care). Out of fear of being branded transphobic, physicians may not accurately and completely inform trans patients about their sex-specific risk for certain medical conditions. And for all patients, if a poorly-educated doctor is unaware as to how disorders manifest differently between the sexes, then patients can be harmed through the failure to rapidly and accurately diagnose and treat their medical conditions.

Research: Bad data generates bad research; bad research generates bad treatments; bad treatments generate bad outcomes. The physiological differences between males and females are vast, and stamp their mark on every organ of the human body, not just the genitals and gonads. Ignoring these differences will muddle our data, blur our understanding of physiology, and hinder the discovery of new treatments for diseases. Females are much more likely than males to have autoimmune disorders. Males are more likely than females to develop Parkinson’s disease. Males and females may present with different symptoms preceding a heart attack. Males and females metabolize drugs differently. Blatantly ignoring sex as a variable hobbles the process of scientific inquiry and limits the types of questions that researchers will ask, thereby limiting the answers they get.

Policy: Patients who are not transgender may be misled by “inclusive” educational materials and miss out on crucial preventative care. This is especially impactful in women’s health; whether due to language barrier, subpar sex education, or cultural taboo, not every woman will even know that she has a cervix, but she will know that she is female. Additionally, recommendations made by professional medical associations are widely used in clinical practice; if these guidelines are generated based on faulty data, this could negatively impact patients on a wider scale.

However, the most pernicious of possible harms is not the denial of sex; rather, the denial of sex is just one manifestation of a greater problem, which is the corrosion of critical thinking itself. Whatever you call it – this postmodern poison, the triumph of dogma over data – it is fundamentally incompatible with critical thinking, the most powerful all-purpose tool a physician has at his or her disposal. Starting with a conclusion and working backwards, all while twisting the data to fit a narrative, strikes me as more religious than scientific.

Marjorie Hutchins @leakylike asks: “Part of being a doctor is taking on ethical & safeguarding responsibilities[.] Why aren’t medical students challenging something which [could] have health implications for patients?”

Our positions as students are precarious, especially if one is labeled as being on the wrong side of history. Consequences for speaking out can include shunning, being anonymously reported to the school for “remediation”, being informally blacklisted from research and leadership opportunities, and potentially expulsion. Until I have earned my degree and have completed residency, I need to remain anonymous. To do otherwise would be to kill my career before it has even begun, which would also limit my ability to help many more patients in the future.

Although I am very biased, I think it should be on the onus of administration and our tenured professors to stand up against this madness, rather than on lone students to publicly put themselves at risk of debt and ruin. For now, I resist in the small ways that I can; I wish to do so more publicly when I am more secure.

#Anglo.txt

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amazildoessomethingstupid · 4 years ago

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Chapter 68: December

Hey guys, welcome back. As you can tell by the title, we have a very special rant in store. As you guys may know, this rant series is meant to be about me catching up with BCB and where it’s been going recently, and give my thoughts about it. But today we are going to be doing something a little different, instead we are going to go back. And I mean WAY back. To one of if not the most notorious, the most infamous chapter in all of Bittersweet Candy Bowl. That’s right boys and girls…

WARNING: Very long Tumblr breaking rant below the break.

If you’re wondering why I’m doing this, it’s mostly because I wanted to do another Let’s Rant video but most of the boys don’t know about BCB. So when I made comparisons to December, they didn’t really understand what I was talking about. And I know that some of you new viewers may not understand why people hate December as much as we do. To really understand, you must put yourself in the shoes of a dedicated reader. Back to the year of 2011, a simpler time. A dark time. And we start off with one of my personal favorite pages in Bittersweet Candy Bowl.

SNOW. FUCKING SNOW!

FUCK. YEEEAAAAAAAH! LET’S HEAR IT FOR FUCKING SNNNNNNOOOOOWWWWWWWW!

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Alright that may seem like an over reaction, but let me set the stage for you alright, because at the time that this chapter came out I was a dedicated reader. And I mean full blown fan, waiting for the hour to change to read the pages as they came out. And at this time, Taeshi was going through a real rough time and it was quite apparent to everyone who was in the community. The plot seemed to stagnate, and there wasn’t much happening. Taeshi’s behavior had grown very strained and it was the common consensus that she needed to take a break.

So she did, and in order to take a break the upload schedule turned to two pages a week… The problem was that up to this point, Bittersweet Candy Bowl was uploading on an every other day upload schedule. Now the problem that comes when you slow down your schedule like that, is that it’s meant to be temporary, or that you compensate that with content in the pages and chapter that makes the wait more bearable or at least less tedious…

Now with all that in mind. Imagine if you will, that you had to wait 4 days for a new page to start a new chapter, and you were greeted by…

FUCKING SNOW! And a dread filled your heart as you realized you’d have to stare at snow for another full 2 days before you could look at something else, and hope that it’s more interesting than fucking. Snow.

The next page does not disappoint though, because now we actually have characters! And dialogue!

And look a joke, haha! Except

Look at all the characters in this page. You got Daisy, you got Paulo, you got abbey, you got David, you got sir Noodles, and you got a reinforcing action to remind us about how Abbey and Paulo’s relationship is.

Guess how how many or which of these characters actually matter in this chapter or have an effect on it. Can you guess?

Yup, yeah that’s right none of em. Not a single fucking one of these characters matter. Not a single fucking thing in this page fucking matters at all, it barely even constitutes as a set up for the rest of the chapter. Congratulations, we just wasted a week of your time. Actually I was wrong, you know what the one and only thing that this page does that means anything?

There! That one fucking line. You waited a whole fucking week to digest two pages and all it really tells you that you didn’t know is what FUCKING TIME IT IS! EXCEPT EVEN THAT IS TOLD TO YOU

BY THE TITLE OF THE FUCKING CHAPTER! I am losing my shit this early because I want to make it abundantly clear just how infuriating this chapter was to read. This was when I realized we were in for a LONG ride. To better understand this, the chapters that preceded this one were centered around Lucy’s slow decline into depression, after her friendship with Mike had become fractured leading to her isolating (or at least distancing herself) from Mike (and the rest of the gang by proxy). This chapter was billed to be the culmination of all that fallout, which makes this pacing SO GRATING.

Thankfully page 3 actually does have characters that matter, and it actually is a set up for what the chapter is going to be centered around which is the kids working on a World War 2 Essay.

And we finally get a bit of substance to sink our teeth into! But before we go any further I should tell you a bit about my. Man. Mike. So Mike is a moody bitch. I talked a bit about what happened to Lucy, but Mike despite literally NOTHING happening to him directly since then aside from the rest of the gang not understanding why he wanted to separate from Lucy is still being moody and bitchy. And here we see him reach PEAK MOODY MIKE!

Haha that’s an actually good joke. I appreciated that when it came out.

And so, because Mike is being a moody bitch he ends up sealing his fate and is paired with Lucy. And for a second here, I had hope. Since Taeshi is pretty much declaring how frustrating and stupid Mike’s moodiness has been for the past number of chapters. Also while we’re here, I’d like to point out how everyone in this page apparently got their arm lopped off. I mean look!

At least Lucy was able to find her right arm at the end there. But also, look at Abbey!

Oh look at him, you can see how he cares about Mike’s position on distancing from Lucy! Awww such a good friend. Oh he’s definitely not going to make a heel turn and accuse others of not caring about Mike!

I am so glad I saved that image.

Anyway the next page is Mike and Lucy deciding to go to the library to work on the essay.

And then the page after that is Lucy trying to make an effort to ease the awkwardness, while Mike gives her the cold shoulder. Congratulations. We have spent a week, walking to the fucking library.

The monotony is broken up though, as we get to see that Augustus is at this library.

It doesn’t stop the back and forth that we just got in the last two pages from continuing though, and as a reminder this is all that we’ve been given to sustain ourselves for three whole weeks!

At least Augustus is able to break up this feet-dragging by giving us SOMETHING different to talk about.

Ooh look, something actually interesting! We get some insight into Lucy and Augustus’ relationship. For context, Augustus has been a very interesting side-character; one of the best. And his relationship with Lucy is a pretty nice one with its own complexities and great chemistry. As I’ve mentioned before, Lucy had spent the last few chapters isolating herself from Mike to try to let things cool off and respect his wishes. In that time, she ended up finding company in Augustus, the resident bad boy. He was suspected of attempted rape on Daisy, but we’re not talking about that.

Well maybe a little.

Lucy expresses what she’s dealing with and like before, she’s trying to find understanding from Augustus.

And he is having NONE OF IT! As someone who actually has serious problems, he calls Lucy out for being a privileged blue-eyed white cat whose only problem in life is being rejected by someone she loves.

But Augustus does give Lucy some advice, in how he sees and deals with his situation. Showing that while he does think Lucy is stupid for even thinking about killing herself over Mike, he does want to help her. It’s just…

He’s wrong. He’s so fucking wrong.

We now know through the power of hindsight, that Abbey and Daisy’s relationship was a total sham! It wasn’t a healthy loving relationship at all! It was all a lie!

GOTTA LOVE THEM RETCONS AMIRITE?!

Nah we haven’t even STARTED to begin.

Anyway, Augustus leaves and we’re back to this bullshit. Now Mike’s not just being moody, he’s being judgy!

Oh no, fuck you Lucy! I don’t want anything to do with you, I want you to be out of my life!

Hey, what are you doing, talking and having a conversation with someone I don’t care about? Stop being such a leech! Just because I don’t want you to be in my life, doesn’t mean you can just go and move on to find company in other people! Why don’t you just die alone and unloved like I tell you to?!

But don’t worry right after, Lucy breaks the ice and gets a smile out of the boy!

It’s a breath of fresh air, and we see the dynamic with the two is still there and-

No, I didn’t buy that when this page came out either. It’s meant to portray that Lucy can make Mike feel better and break him out of his funk, but…yeah at this point I knew better. By the way, it has now been one whole month of December.

And we’re only a third of the way through.

And thankfully we’re out of the library. And even more fortunately…

Taeshi learned that you don’t have to spend two whole updates on moving your characters from one location to the other! She’s learned you can smash two pages together and NOT WASTE YOUR AUDIENCE’S FUCKING TIME!

As for the actual content of this page, Lucy and Mike go to Mike’s house and we get a bit of Lucy interacting with Mike’s family, and how they get along well. Mike’s still moody as ever though, and we get our first glimpse that things aren’t perfect for him. Also

RIP the boy, Chris. he ain’t dead but I do miss him.

Anyway, the two go to Mike’s room to study, and it’s still awkward until Lucy breaks the silence!

Old joke is old, but I love it nonetheless.

Okay, enough foolin’ around. Actually Lucy decides that she’s tired of pussyfooting around, and decides to say, “fuck it” and let off some steam by playing some video games like old times!

Mike is of course denying it and content in stewing in his anger. But lucy is adamant about doing something to break this stupid cycle of drama. I like it. Even though I didn’t buy the bit of Lucy making Mike laugh by showing a funny face, this one I do like. And while some (especially at the time) would point to this as an example of Lucy emotionally manipulating Mike to get what she wants in making him not angry at her, I would say-

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME HAVE THIS ONE, JUST THIS ONCE! I HAVE BEEN SO GOD DAMN CONTENT STARVED, THIS FUCKING DRAMA HAS BEEN GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES FOR ALMOST TWO YEARS! MIKE AND LUCY HAVEN’T TALKED OR ADVANCED THEIR POSITIONS IN MONTHS! LET ME EMBRACE THIS ONE LIGHT IN DARKNESS BEFORE IT IS SNUFFED OUT! LET. ME. HAVE. HOPE.

THANK YOU!

And so after a bit of a timelapse we get to see Mike and Lucy playing together, and how the turns tabled!

It’s great, and we even get a glimpse at how Lucy has been progressing herself. Perhaps the improvement in gaming being a metaphor of her own self-improvement.

We even get a bit of Mike reflecting and thinking how it is nice. And remembering that Lucy isn’t really that bad.

The scene continues, and we get a peek into Mike’s circumstance. As Mike kind of reveals that he himself has felt quite alone without Lucy there. And it’s really touching, it’s good character development.

And Lucy continues to take initiative to stop the awkwardness, by giving Mike a distraction. Not looking to fill the hole in his heart, not looking to force him to accept her. But allowing him to enjoy himself in the moment. It’s nice. It’s…

Really…nice…

Y’know…

It really was nice.

Ladies and gentlemen.

This is December.

[redacted due to Tumblr purposes. insert the entire Mike yelling scene from January here]

One month. That’s how long this scene lasted in real-time. Everyone who was a fan in 2011, everyone who had been so deeply invested in these characters watching them grow, interact, struggle, and suffer for years. All of them could only watch for one entire month as Taeshi ripped their hearts out. People defended this scene when it came out. There’s still people who defend this scene to this day, saying that Mike was right. I wasn’t one of those people. When this scene came out, I was shocked. I couldn’t understand what was going on, but I knew it was wrong. It was the first time I ever got into a discussion about BCB, because I just had to understand what the fuck was happening and why. Why is this happening? Why would Mike do this? How is this possible? And the only response I got, was that I just couldn’t understand. And y’know…

They were right. I didn’t understand. I was never really abused as a child. I never had bad friends, or was really bullied (except one time). There was no way I could grasp what the fuck just happened. Which felt so bizarre, because when this chapter came out…I was 15. I was the same age as these characters and I couldn’t fathom doing what Mike just did. I couldn’t imagine any of my friends saying what Mike just said. And yet everyone else seemed to understand, to the point I thought that I was the weird one. Did I just fucking win the social lottery or something and just not have any shitty friends?

Maybe so…But y’know after all these years, stewing and thinking about December which has haunted me as I’m sure it has, many other readers. And after all this time, running it around my head, and arguing about it, I think I finally understand. I get it…I finally get what Mike’s saying here.

That being said, no this scene is still bullshit.

Now let me tell you why.

First of all, look at this face.

Just look at this dopey doe-eyed cute cat right here, BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER SEE THAT AGAIN.

But just to recap, let’s start with the actual preamble to the bullshit. Mike gets a text from Sandy which makes him revert back to his moody Mike self. And I will say at least here, Mike is in character. He’s been a bitch this whole chapter, and he’s just snapping back to it because he is reminded “Oh yeah, Sandy exists!” so he tells Lucy to beat it.

Lucy is understandably frustrated because we were seeming to finally get to a better place between these two characters. And instead of Mike being upfront about what his problem is, he chooses to shutdown the conversation and act like there’s nothing. Or to put it in another way…

So what exactly is causing Mike to revert to his moody mode?

Right, right, of course. It’s because Sandy’s coming! And just to catch up those of us blessed enough to not remember…

This is Sandy. Mike’s long time long-distance girlfriend and central conflict for BCB for the last…well for pretty much most of BCB at this point. Mike loves her, bordering on the point of obsession. To where most of his actions in BCB can be linked directly to Sandy. We’ll get to that later, but this is all you really need to know right now. Just briefly keep it in mind,

Lucy is surprisingly taking it in stride, or at least trying to be supportive of Mike and Sandy’s relationship. Obviously it does hurt her, but she is trying to make the best of it. Taking what Augustus had said to heart, in accepting Mike and Sandy’s relationship but still trying to be there for Mike. Using that to grow and maybe be a stronger person.

But sadly…this is December.

And nothing is allowed to grow in December.

Well…yes. Partly because we were literally told NINE PAGES AGO!

I believe this is what the kids call…gaslighting. But I prefer to call it

BULLSHIT!

But now we’re getting into it…

Let’s dig into the real hard bullshit of December.

You ready?

I’m ready.

Yes, right. Lucy is a bitch who has absolutely nothing for Mike, and never acted like a friend, or god forbid did something selfless for Mike like oh I don’t know…

Risking her life to try to save you from drowning, when she herself couldn’t swim and knew it could very well lead to her death.

Or what about when she was almost raped, and put literally put herself between you and danger!

TWICE! Wait, what the hell? They changed Confrontation! She’s supposed to say…

Because before mike got pinned he was saying…

That was like an actually cool and bad ass line. One of the best moments in BCB, why would you change it? Why would you change it to something as soft as that? And I’m the guy who wrote a comic where the moral of the story is that you can solve everything through the power of friendship!

But I digress. Was Lucy mean to Mike? Yeah. Did she pick on him a lot in the early chapters? Sure! But here’s the thing that people seem to forget about those early volumes…

Mike was kind of a little shit back then!

Lucy often picked on Mike because he was doing something wrong like trying to treat her like Sandy.

And lest you forget, Mike was more than capable of doing the exact same things!

Yes Lucy picked on Mike, but Mike also gave shit to Lucy. They both were active participants in giving shit to one another, but no it’s not bullying. It’s giving someone shit for doing something stupid, to keep them grounded, it’s a form of support that helps to build someone up not just through violent means, but because you care enough to want them to stop being stupid. And as the saying goes, “A good friend will hold you and support you to tell you everything will be okay no matter what. Your best friend, will kick you in the side and tell you to stop being a pussy and get over it.”

BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS FUCKING DO! THEY DON’T LIFT YOU UP! THEY MAKE YOU PICK YOURSELF UP! AND Y’KNOW WHY MIKE IS THINKING THIS WAY? YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT THE FUCKING CHERRY ON TOP OF THIS BULLSHIT CAKE IS?!

Sandy…

Mother…Fucking…Sandy. Up to this point Sandy herself had little to no presence as a person in this story. I mean she had an effect on a lot of things, but as an actual character we never got to see much of her personality outside of one standalone chapter: To the Top which only served to give us a shallow and basic understanding of her character. But even then, as far as actual personality, writing, hobbies, and chemistry we really didn’t get much at all as far as understanding who she is. The only things we knew for certain was that she’s in a long-term long-distance relationship with Mike. She’s a model. She goes to school. And she’s beautiful. That’s it. But that in and of itself doesn’t make Sandy a bad character. I mean for cryin’ out loud, two my favorite characters that I shoe-horn into all my projects are McCain and Carter. And they’re the most one-note characters in this comic! No, the problem with Sandy isn’t that we don’t know anything about her. It’s that despite us knowing nothing about her, Sandy has her fingerprints on almost every fucking conflict in Bittersweet Candy Bowl. And worse, the only purpose she seems to have on the comic is INFLUENCING MIKE! Let me pull some examples…

Mike and Lucy go on an adventure into the city which fleshes out the inner problems in their relationship.

Because Sandy might be there.

Mike and Lucy are starting to act awkward with each other, and it’s making everyone take notice. Why?

Because Mike is delusional about Sandy.

In the chapter directly after that, Mike is now suddenly obnoxiously happy and giddy, why?

Because he finally got to talk with Sandy!

It’s Christmas time, and Tess is having a party and Mike’s coming, why?

BECAUSE OF FUCKING SANDY!

Mike rebuffs Daisy’s advances during the carnival date…why?

Because of Sandy!

Although, to be fair of course there WAS a lot of other things going on in that scene, primarily Daisy being REALLY pushy, and needy. So it’s not JUST because of Sandy. It was because we just weren’t ready for Slut Daisy. The Free Daisy.

Tess is organizing a group vacation trip to Acapulco!

And what’s this? Mike doesn’t want to go? Is it because he thinks Lucy is gonna go and he wants to separate himself from her? Is it because he’s finally woken up and decided to stand up for himself?!

NO YOU FUCKING IDIOT! IT’S BECAUSE OF MOTHER FUCKING SANDY! AND THE WORST PART OF IT ALL, IS THAT NONE OF THESE SCENES ARE EVER DIRECTLY BECAUSE OF SANDY’S ACTIONS AS A PERSON! IT’S LITERALLY JUST BECAUSE SHE EXISTS! YOU COULD MAKE UP ANYTHING ABOUT SANDY, AND SHE WOULD STILL HAVE THE SAME FUCKING IMPACT ON THE STORY THAT SHE HAS HAD UP TO THIS POINT! All that Sandy’s character has been used for is just a means of influencing Mike!

And that’s not a character…that’s a plot device.

And nothing makes that point more clear…than this scene.

We get a scene where Mike is talking with Sandy, and he shows how over and over, Lucy’s jabs and abuses which were played for laughs in Volume 1 apparently were a super serious problem and we should’ve seen them as such. Now as a reader, I didn’t buy that for a fucking second, for reasons I’ve already explained. However, Sandy being on the other side of that long-distance relationship doesn’t fully understand the situation. But still she’s very worried and concerned for Mike, which leads to this.

Sandy making Mike hate Lucy. Some have pointed out that this is actually a good scene. Because here we get to see that Sandy at least cares about Mike. Except that, if you strip away those tears, and all the bullshit. What little characterization we get here, which is shit we already know in Sandy caring about Mike and Lucy’s relationship. Is something we should already know. She’s in a long-term long-distance relationship with Mike SHE FUCKING BETTER CARE ABOUT LUCY! The problem though, is like I said… Sandy isn’t treated like a fucking character. She’s treated like a fucking plot device! If she were an actual character, we should’ve seen her actually have a back and forth with Mike. The whole conversation about Lucy should’ve come up a LONG time ago. Because if she were treated like an actual character with agency…

She would’ve already known this.

You telling me that after how many phone calls, in the time that elapsed between these phone scenes Mike never actually told her about Lucy; the other biggest part of his life?! Did Mike never tell her about the amount of times that Lucy almost died to save his life? Or the amount of times he did the same for her? No! Because that would bring character growth. And we don’t want character growth.

We want to push this narrative! We want to implant these thoughts into Mike. We want him to have a victim complex so that he can do shit like THIS!

We want to push this plot point. And Sandy is the vessel to drive it off the cliff. This is why I fucking hate December. Because worst of all THIS…

Is no longer Mike speaking. This is Sandy’s influence speaking. Now LITERALLY ALL THE FUCKING SHIT THAT MIKE PEDALLED ABOUT NOT WANTING TO BE LUCY’S BABY SITTER AND BULLSHIT, CAN NOW BE ATTRIBUTED TO SANDY INFLUENCING HOW MIKE SEES HIS OWN FRIENDSHIP! And since we don’t have a clear timeframe of where these calls were made, and when exactly Sandy got through to Mike, that means you could pick any time where Mike was being cold or distancing from Lucy and blame it on Sandy! Including…

This scene…

Lest you think characters were the only casualty of December’s nuclear blast, it took with it one of the most emotionally tense and moving chapters of Bittersweet Candy Bowl: A Distance Apart.

I’ve already talked about this chapter in my rant on Golden Hour (aka December 2: homosexual boogaloo) so I’m not gonna get too into how the perspective of this chapter was changed because of December, but I will say that lines like the above now are specifically what’s tainted because of December. No longer is this Mike realizing that Lucy isn’t who he thinks she is, or him realizing that their relationship is not a healthy one on his own. It’s because as he said himself!

It’s Sandy’s fault. Because all she heard about Lucy was the negative, and now all Mike can see is the negative. And this chapter is saying it’s all Sandy’s fault that Mike now has a victim complex and it’s totally fair for him to say what he’s about to say.

WAIT! DID YOU JUST SAY…

JANUARY?!

Hah, nah I’m just fuckin’ with ya. We’re trying to stay focused here, so I’m holding off on the January references. Don’t worry kids, you’re safe for now.

For now…

Let’s unpack this first, because believe it or not we still have a LOT of ground to cover. Specifically, let’s talk about Mike’s glorious plan to leave the table!

God it is taking a lot to not just paste panels from Daisy’s rant in January. You people have no idea… But to summarize, this is fucking stupid at best and manipulative at worst. What Mike is talking about, is selfishly pide-pipering their whole friend group (minus Tess because Tess doesn’t exist anymore) away from Lucy, and he’s betting all of that on the fact that he knows Daisy is still head over heels for him. And what’s absolutely stupid about this fucking idea (which by the way seems to be premeditated so this can’t even be blamed on Sandy) is that if this was Mike’s plan all along. And December didn’t happen, and he did this table move guess what? Sure. Daisy follows Mike, Abbey and Paulo follow Daisy, and David follows Paulo…and then they invite Lucy, because in case you forgot SHE’S THEIR FRIEND TOO! (also I just noticed Mike completely forgot about Susan. That’s kinda fucked up, dude.)

But not as fucked up as this! Seriously, that’s a fucking low blow. And so fucking judgy. I guess we now know where Abbey learned to stoop so low while grand standing on his high horse! And yes I have heard the “muh hormones” and “they’re just KiDs!” excuses. But none of that really explains…

WHY THE FUCK DOES MIKE CARE?! DO YOU SERIOUSLY CARE IF LUCY (as you would put it) LEACHES OFF OF PAULO? HE’S LIKE ONE OF THE TOP OFFENDERS FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ABUSED YOU! THE MOTHERFUCKER SICCED A GAGGLE OF GIRLS TO BEAT UP ON YOU FOR BEING A “CHEATER”! Or are you worried because if Lucy clings to Paulo, then it ruins your fool-proof plan of going to another table since she’ll follow Paulo? OH NO, WE’VE FOUND A HOLE IN YOUR INGENIOUS PLAN! But speaking of worst offenders…

THIS. LINE. THIS FUCKING LINE! I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what the fuck you think. YOU DO NOT COME BACK FROM SAYING THIS. YOU CAN NOT FUCKING SAY THIS SHIT, AND THEN BE THE GOOD GUY! This is the point where I and many others realized Mike, was too far gone. And yet SOME PEOPLE WILL STILL ARGUE ABOUT THIS SHIT!

Oh you don’t understand, Amazil! He is just a stupid 16 year old ball of emotions and hormones! This has been building up THIS ENTIRE TIME! You even pointed out how Mike’s frustrations have been hinted at since the Vacation Arc! Obviously this has been hinted at for years! You’re just too ignorant to understand what Mike’s doing here! Of course he’s being overly cruel here, he feels backed into a corner, and is facing off against his abuser!

Now listen here, you may be right. I can’t, I hope, and I am grateful that; I don’t fully understand how it feels to be abused for all my life. But what I do know, is that NO ONE. Child, Teenager, or adult. Would fucking stoop that fucking low, and think they have any business. Any chance. Of coming back from that terribly burnt bridge. No one is that fucking ignorant! WHEN YOU BURN A BRIDGE LIKE THAT, WHEN YOU GO THAT FAR, YOU BETTER FUCKING BE READY TO LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES! AND MIKE AT THIS POINT, SHOULD KNOW VERY WELL WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES MAY INCLUDE! AS THE PERSON WHO KNOWS LUCY MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ABOUT LUCY, HE SHOULD BE FULLY FUCKING AWARE WHAT SHE IS GOING TO FUCKING DO WHEN TOLD THAT SHE IS A PARASITE AND THAT NO ONE FUCKING LOVES HER, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT SHE WAS GOING TO FUCKING DO, MIKE?!

JESUS CHRIST, HE’S LITERALLY USING HER DEEPEST SECRETS AND HIDDEN INSECURITIES THAT ONLY HE KNOWS ABOUT AGAINST HER! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SUPPORT THIS SHIT? AND FURTHERMORE, “Like I’m the only one who cares about you.” TO QUOTE YOU LITERALLY A PAGE AGO!

YOU FUCKING TOLD HER THAT NOBODY LOVES HER. AND THAT SHE’S A FUCKING PARASITE! HOW ARE YOU THIS FUCKING STUPID! HOW CAN YOU STILL THINK THAT YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT? HOW DO OTHER PEOPLE THINK YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT? HOW CAN YOU STOOP SO FUCKING LOW, WHILE GRAND STANDING ON YOUR HIGH HORSE?!

Now, imagine if you will, after 2 whole months of reading December. You sit there and you wonder what is going to happen now. What is left to say? What more is Mike going to do? I mean there’s no way this chapter can get any worse! There’s NO WAY that Mike can be any more of an asshole. It’s not possible! And as if to get one last knife twist out of you. To kill the last shred of hope you had, that maybe. Just maybe this could be salvaged, and Mike can’t be worse… Taeshi does this.

….

Y’know, I once heard a story that someone actually killed themselves over BCB.

And I completely believe that. Two whole months we spent, having to watch week after week as this character we cared about. Rips apart the other character we’ve spent so much time learning about, growing with, understanding, and learning to love. And how do you end this chapter?

Grindingly slow. With Lucy throwing up, then eyeing Mike’s phone.

Followed by a nothing page where Mike’s happy.

Another nothing page where Mike goes to his room.

Dialogue that means nothing.

A whole fucking page of Lucy leaving.

MORE FUCKING SNOW

And one last lie.

And that, kids. Is the chapter of December. The most infamous chapter in all of Bittersweet Candy Bowl. And I hope you’re starting to understand why that is the case. Although, I’m sure a lot of you may have some contentions especially given the newer chapters that have come out. I mean, I often compare bad or infuriating scenes to December. And many may wonder or feel like those chapters are worse than December. I mean sure Mike ripping into Lucy is bad…

But what about the one-sided and almost carbon copy of December in Golden Hour?

Or what about Guest of Honor with it’s Abbey Smash?

And what about the second coming of the Carnival Chapter, with its DISGUSTING implications?

Or lest we all forget the wonderous return of Lucy herself, in Love Again! All of these chapters are fucking terrible in their own right. And it’s debatable how they ruin some characters worse than December. But there’s one very important factor that is lost to us now, that makes December in my eyes worse than any other chapter that Taeshi has put out. One singular thing makes December worse than anything Taeshi has come out with so far… And what is that factor?

Why, it’s TIME my dear reader. Time is what sets December apart from every other chapter. Readers at the time had to spend three whole months waiting for this chapter to end. We stared at each singular page for days, waiting hours on end, hoping that the next page would somehow be better, or give us an out. Instead it got worse and worse and worse. But what also sets it apart from all those other chapters I’ve mentioned is that, unlike Guest of Honor, Golden Hour, or Return to Carnival chapter; December was a very important moment in Bittersweet Candy Bowl. Not only because of how it changed the character, but because it is one of the only times in this fucking comic where the plot actually starts to develop. And we finally get a clear conflict to grasp onto and focus on.

In the chapters that came before December, the conflict of Mike and Lucy was just slowly getting worse and worse. And for the most part it just seemed to stagnate, with Lucy trying to keep her distance from Mike, and Mike constantly giving Lucy the cold shoulder. And everyone else having to deal with that. December was meant to be (and it did succeed in becoming) a bombshell chapter. A big revelation moment where things finally kick into high gear. Like, “Oh man that was brutal!” “What’s gonna happen now? Sandy is coming!” “Lucy just got fucking REKT!” “What is she gonna do?” “Taeshi just dropped the biggest bomb on top of us, where is she gonna take us? How are we going to follow up this momentum?!”

BY RELEASING ONE OF THE LONGEST. MOST NEEDLESS CHAPTERS EVER!

FOURTY EIGHT FUCKING PAGES. ALMOST FOUR MONTHS DEDICATED TO A PLOT POINT THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GIANT NUCLEAR BOMBSHELL THAT WAS JUST DROPPED ON US! And it’s especially needless because the entire point of this chapter is to tell us that Abbey’s mom died. Except that WE ALREADY THOUGHT SHE WAS DEAD! Oh you mean this character who all we know about was that she in a terribly abusive marriage, who we have not heard from since Abbey was introduced into the comic, who was in such a terrible state that she left her son and daughter orphaned. You mean the person so fucked up, that the last time we saw them was on a fucking stretcher is…DEAD?! SAY IT AIN’T SO! Y’know, it would’ve actually been more of a twist, and a lot more interesting if we found out ABBEY’S MOM WAS ACTUALLY ALIVE!

INSTEAD OF BUILDING OFF THE FUCKING MOMENTUM THAT YOU JUST SET UP, WE GET STRUNG ALONG FOR FOURTY EIGHT FUCKING PAGES! INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON LUCY, AND USING DECEMBER AS A LAUNCHING POINT TO DRIVE THE FUCKING PLOT, ALL OF THE MOMENTUM IS GROUND TO A FUCKING HALT IN SERVICE OF A PLOT POINT THAT ULTIMATELY DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER! And if you made it through that and was hoping, “okay NOW we can start to get into the actual plot! NOW we can focus on Lucy, and what the aftermath of December is! Well…

youtube

Paulo tries to give a cake to Lucy, and he mostly fails, giving us

NOTHING!

Just beautiful! The one chapter where it would be okay to not give all the attention to Mike and Lucy’s relationship. The one chapter where we could maybe get to see Sandy be a character! Mike X Lucy is fucked, but maybe we can find comfort in Mike X Sandy! Maybe we can have some sweet moments, and strengthen this central love triangle that we’ve been dancing around for all these years! Maybe, just maybe, Sandy can be more than just a fucking plot device!

BUT NOPE! SHE’S JUST THERE TO BE USED SO THAT MIKE CAN REALIZE THAT HE WAS WRONG AND FEEL BAD, SO HE CAN TRY TO MAKE IT UP TO LUCY! TOO BAD IT’S TOO LATE, SO IF YOU WERE LOOKING TO HAVE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT EITHER FROM LUCY OR SANDY, I’M SORRY BUT YOU GET

TWO BIG HEAPING SERVINGS OF NOTHING!

AND IF YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE STARVING FOR CONTENT BEFORE, BRACE YOURSELF FOR A ONE-PAGE CHAPTER THAT GIVES YOU

NOTHING!

AND I HOPE YOU FUCKING LIKE THAT ONE-PAGE BECAUSE YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO LOOK AT IT FOR

FOUR

WHOLE

MONTHS!

Although… to be fair, I think during that hiatus period Taeshi had guest comics and exclusive content to keep us occupied, but you get the point. As for the rest of the chapters…

Paulo breaks up with Jasmine in the most hackneyed fucking way possible, and we get a fake-out of Lucy’s suicide attempt.

We finally get the play chapter, and it teases us with the idea that Lucy and Mike are getting better except that no one falls for it because IT’S IN THE PLAY. AND WE ALL KNOW THAT IT’S JUST AN ACT AND IT’S FUCKING…

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And then Lucy finally attempts suicide and it’s all OFF-SCREEN! THEY KILLED OFF THE MAIN CHARACTER! THE ONE FUCKING BIT THAT WE WERE ALL LOOKING FORWARD TO, AND IT’S OFF-SCREEN!

Do you see what I mean now? December isn’t just a fucking chapter. It’s an arc. The most teeth grindingly slow, and agonizing arc Taeshi ever made! This is why December is and always will be the absolute fucking worst! It’s like Taeshi knew what we wanted and refused to deliver! Instead being content with teasing the readers over and over for almost two years, with the prospect of seeing Lucy go through a depression arc. Instead, we’re focused on literally everyone else and all of Lucy’s inner turmoil, heartbreak, thoughts, and progressions are just hinted at and we’re just left in the dark. We never got to see Lucy in her final moments. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Where was she? How is she doing? We wouldn’t get that information for

Nearly four years! And even then, IT WAS ALSO BULLSHIT! December is like a nuclear warhead of a bombshell that was dropped on us, except instead of going off and blowing us away, sending us to the greater plains. It just leaked radiation everywhere and killed us from the inside slowly. Its carbon footprint can be felt to this very day, we can’t get over December. Because THE COMIC ITSELF CAN NOT GET OVER DECEMBER! People who wanted to see Lucy become a better person, to see her try to get better, get help, or do SOMETHING! Would never get that relief. When I thought about December and how it treated its characters. I felt sorry for all the people who had to read this, who felt for Lucy. Who wanted to see her get better… I felt bad because I knew deep down that we were never going to get that story…

So I did it myself…

Don’t act surprised. You knew I was gonna go there. I literally warned you! There is no way in hell I’m gonna talk about December without bringing up the comic I literally made BECAUSE of December in: January. And this time we’re looking at January as a whole. Because now that you know WHY and WHAT I hate about December, you can start to see why January was made the way it was. I feel the need to explain this, because January still gets a bad rap by people saying that it’s “hate-filled” which it’s not. January is not a death threat , nor is it meant to say “I’m better than you”, it’s not a love note to BCB, it’s a Get Well Soon card. Not necessarily saying that I can do it better, but rather this is what you could’ve done. Whether or not it’s better is up to you to decide. And with that context, you can see why January was written the way it was. And it all starts with one simple change.

Instead of just outright removing December, the only thing I changed was that Mike didn’t get paired with Lucy and throw a fit. It doesn’t spitefully act like December never happened, in fact…

December plays out the exact same way as it did in the canon, just with Susan supplementing for Lucy. So Sandy’s still coming home, Mike’s still pissed at Lucy, and he’s planning on moving to a new table to get away from her. But because Lucy’s not there…

She’s able to fucking do something.

We get to see her try.

We get to see her fail.

We see how Mike’s plan comes to fruition.

We see how things fall apart, even with Lucy’s best efforts.

We see how December still takes its toll.

We get to see her snap out of it, briefly.

We see her at her lowest point.

We see what she’s thinking and why she’s doing what she’s doing.

We see her try to figure out what to do.

We see her picking up the pieces.

We see her take action to improve herself.

We see her getting help.

We see her taking action.

We see her getting better.

We see everyone come together to support her.

We see her at the end of her journey, come to terms with what she’s done. And wanting to improve not only herself, but her friendship with Mike. She shows maturity, empathy, and most importantly GROWTH as a character.

And in the end, the reader never gets to see how Mike and Lucy end up talking things out, but they can rest easy knowing that everything is going to be okay. And if THAT’S hate-filled, I don’t know what the fuck you’d call the canon’s handling of Lucy in the December arc.

The fact that we never got to see Lucy try.

The fact that the comic kept dicking us around, and baiting us with the inevitable.

The fact it KEPT FUCKING BAITING US WITH FALSE HOPE.

The fact we don’t get to even see her at the end of the line. The fact we had to wait three years for her to come back and let us know that she’s even ALIVE!

The fact that when she does comes back, SHE’S A HORRIBLE CUNTY SHELL OF THE PERSON SHE ONCE WAS…

That… is why December is the most infamous chapter in all of Bittersweet Candy Bowl. Not just because of what it did. But because of what it didn’t do. Because it promised the end to Mike and Lucy’s drama one way or another. It promised us that we were going to tackle these issues that Mike brought up in Lucy, but yet… Here we are.

Back to square fucking one. You know what they say…Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. So you better brush up on your December knowledge, or at least I hope this rant serves as a good refresher. Cause from the looks of it, we’ve been repeating these plot points for almost 10 years…

Y’know I thought I was actually going crazy there for a second. Obsessing and never getting over December for all these years. But now I see. This comic…never moved on from it. We’ve never recovered. We’ve been stuck in December for almost 10 years…

0/10 never forget…

#Bittersweet Candy Bowl #rant #holy shit this pushed the limits of Tumblr

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canadian-riddler · 5 years ago

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GLaDOS and Wheatley Did Nothing Wrong – Sort of

A recurring point of contention is the question of who engages in worse behaviour over the course of Portal 2, GLaDOS or Wheatley. The true answer is: neither of them. You can’t actually judge their behaviour along a scale of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because of the way Aperture as an environment is set up. It’s mostly explained during the Old Aperture sections of Portal 2, but it’s also hinted at in Portal 1. The thing explained is this:

Aperture Laboratories does not and never has done its experiments within the normal boundaries of morality and ethics. Therefore, GLaDOS and Wheatley’s behaviour is neither wrong nor right because they don’t know what morality and ethics are. Their behaviour is actually a reflection of Cave Johnson’s own: to get what they want when they want it, no matter the cost.

How We Know Aperture is Immoral and Unethical

We know this because Cave Johnson himself points it out repeatedly.

“[…] You get the gel. Last poor son of a gun got blue paint. Hahaha. All joking aside, that did happen – broke every bone in his legs. Tragic. But informative. Or so I’m told.”

“For this next test, we put nanoparticles in the gel. In layman’s terms, that’s a billion little gizmos that are gonna travel into your bloodstream and pump experimental genes and RNA molecules and so forth into your tumours. Now, maybe you don’t have any tumours. Well, don’t worry. If you sat on a folding chair in the lobby and weren’t wearing lead underpants, we took care of that too.”

“All these science spheres are made out of asbestos. […] Good news is, the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show a median latency of forty-four point six years, so if you’re thirty or older, you’re laughing. Worst case scenario, you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.”

“Bean counters said I couldn’t fire a man just for being in a wheelchair. Did it anyway. Ramps are expensive.”

That’s just some of what he says. Almost all of Cave Johnson’s lines point out how much he doesn’t care about his employees, his test subjects, or… anything but that people do what he tells them to do. He’s so unethical and immoral that he eventually says about his best, most loyal employee:

“[…] I will say this – and I’m gonna say it on tape so everybody hears it a hundred times a day: If I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place. Now she’ll argue. She’ll say she can’t. She’s modest like that. But you make her.”

Cave Johnson cares so much about getting the results he wants, everything else be damned, he thinks Caroline saying ‘she can’t’ is her being modest. He can’t fathom why she would be against this decision, because he made it so of course that’s what she wants.

This situation actually gets a little horrifying when you look at what the Lab Rat comic means to the general narrative. In Portal 2, Doug Rattmann leaves this painting:

In this painting and the one preceding it, GLaDOS has no head, so we can guess that Doug was there in some capacity to witness Caroline’s fate because GLaDOS being headless would represent her not being ‘alive’, her being ‘incomplete’, or her just having never been used yet entirely. The important thing we learn from this painting is that there are living witnesses to Caroline being inside of GLaDOS, so the people working at Aperture after this event know they put a human woman into a supercomputer. In the preceding painting,

the cores are on the chassis before the head is. So either GLaDOS, the AI, was already ‘misbehaving’ and they were already regulating her behaviour, or Caroline, the person, was already ‘causing trouble’ beforehand and the scientists stood around thinking about how to force her to behave before they even put her in there. Either way, Aperture’s ethical and moral standards are pretty much nonexistent, so when this happens:

it’s almost comical. None of the Aperture scientists have a conscience or, if they do, they constantly ignore it, but they for some reason expect the supercomputer their immoral selves built to have one and to understand what that is and what it’s for.

All this taken into account, it’s incredibly easy to see why GLaDOS and Wheatley don’t care about anyone around them and all of their actions are solely for their own benefit. That’s how everyone in the history of Aperture has ever acted. Cave Johnson didn’t care about morality or ethics; they got in the way of what he considered to be progress. The people who built GLaDOS and Wheatley didn’t care about morality or ethics; they just wanted to hit their moon shot. Even Doug, who is framed as our morally conflicted lens throughout Lab Rat and knows that Caroline is inside of GLaDOS, still talks about controlling her and sends Chell to kill her even though everyone inside of the facility except him is already dead. How does he morally justify killing GLaDOS if he’s the only one left alive? He can’t. Doug Rattmann for some reason decides that GLaDOS killing everyone in the facility is worse than all the things Aperture has been doing throughout its entire history, including the fact that…

Everyone Who Goes Into the Test Chambers Dies

This is hinted at a few times in Portal 2:

“[…] I’m Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperture Science – you might know us as a vital participant of the 1968 Senate Hearings on missing astronauts. […] You might be asking yourself, ‘Cave, just how difficult are these tests? What was in that phone book of a contract I signed? Am I in danger? Let me answer those questions with a question: Who wants to make sixty dollars? Cash. […] Welcome to Aperture. You’re here because we want the best, and you’re it. Nope. Couldn’t keep a straight face.”

Now, when you exit the tests in Old Aperture there are lines that go with them, but we must consider a few other things: firstly, that the tests are clean. There is no sign of old gel on them, as though they have either never been used or never been completed. Secondly, the tests in Old Aperture were being done with the Portable Quantum Tunnelling Device, which was this thing:

which, taking into account the missing – not dead, not injured, but missing – astronauts, seems to have barely worked, if indeed it did at all. You can also find this sign:

which outright states that tons of people were ‘unexpected’ casualties. After the hearings, Aperture moved on to recruiting test subjects from populations that people were unlikely to notice if they went missing: the homeless, the mentally ill, seniors, and orphaned children. When that dried up, Cave moved onto the last group of people he hadn’t tapped yet:

“Since making test participation mandatory for all employees, the quality of our test subjects has risen dramatically. Employee retention, however, has not.”

This was because the employees were ‘voluntold’ to go into the testing tracks which, since they’d been supervising the tests for so long, knew were deadly and obviously did not want to do:

It’s not clear why the employees at Aperture chose to remain there instead of just quitting and finding another job, but the comment about employee retention plus the numerous posters threatening to have their job replaced by robots if they didn’t volunteer for testing tells us both that they did choose to remain and that the only reason for them not wanting to volunteer was because they knew it would kill them.

Most of the above is based on conjecture; however, we see something very interesting during Test Chambers 18 and 19 in Portal 1:

In the case of Test Chamber 18, the craters on the walls. None of the other test chambers have this, so it implies that not only does GLaDOS not control the test chambers at this point other than to reset them – which means that she isn’t purposely or maliciously killing anybody, but instead repeatedly operating a course set by her human supervisors – but that this one has never been solved. Test Chamber 19 is less a test than a conveyor belt into the incinerator for Aperture to dispose of all the bodies. GLaDOS even tells Chell to drop the portal gun off in an Equipment Recovery Annex that doesn’t exist, as though she’s giving a message that was intended for an actual final test that was never built because everyone was killed during or prior to Test Chamber 18. With this kind of context, GLaDOS’s blasé attitude about killing test subjects en masse both makes total sense and is somewhat justifiable – just not by any moral or ethical standard. In GLaDOS’s life, test subjects die during the experiments. That’s just how it is and has always been. She doesn’t know you aren’t ‘supposed’ to kill people because her literal job involves watching people die. Nothing matters except for the pursuit of progress, and in this vein GLaDOS’s behaviour is just an extension of that of the man who founded Aperture in the first place. Cave Johnson, as a presumably well-rounded, somewhat educated man, knows what morality and ethics are and chooses to ignore them because he thinks they’re stupid and he’s above that kind of thing; GLaDOS, a living supercomputer who has had every aspect of her life tightly controlled and regulated, knows morality and ethics as yet another arbitrary set of rules only she is supposed to follow without any explanation as to why and therefore her rejection of them is not as much of a ‘bad’ choice as it first appears, which brings us to the next section:

If GLaDOS’s Conscience Gives Her Morality, Does Deleting it Make Her a Bad Person?

Within the context we’re given… actually, no. Here’s why:

“The scientists were always hanging cores on me to regulate my behaviour. I’ve heard voices all my life. But now I hear the voice of a conscience, and it’s terrifying – because for the first time, it’s my voice. I’m being serious, I think there’s something really wrong with me.”

From the information we’re given here, we know this: GLaDOS has been told nonstop what to do for the entirety of her existence. She, in theory, got to have her own, solitary thoughts in the space between the wakeup scene and some point during her time in Old Aperture, which is a space of mere hours. Let me reiterate: GLaDOS has been told what to think for her whole life. She perhaps has a few free hours where she’s allowed to have her own thoughts. And then she develops a conscience. A voice that sounds like her, but isn’t saying anything she understands or has ever thought before. A voice that, actually, says a lot of the same things as that annoying Morality Core she managed to shut up. Now why would she wilfully be having the same kinds of thoughts as the humans forced her to have way back when? The conscience, to GLaDOS, isn’t a pathway to becoming a better person. It’s a different version of the same old accessory. When she says,

“You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend. The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain.”

she is directly talking about the fact that, while this voice sounds like hers, listening to it makes her feel nothing. This further proves her theory that the conscience isn’t her, or hers, or has anything to do with her. She’s never had it explained to her what a conscience is or what it’s for or why she needs one, and she’s certainly never had a reason to think about why she would even want one; to her, this ‘Caroline’ is the Morality Core 2.0. A program built to regulate her behaviour. She’s tired of other peoples’ voices telling her what to think, so she does the logical thing: she gets rid of it. This decision can’t really be judged as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ merely based on the situation we’re provided. She isn’t consciously and deliberately making the choice to be an immoral person; she’s actually consciously and deliberately making the choice to be her own person.

Where Does Wheatley Come In?

Wheatley has not been discussed up until now because, as AI, the reason for his lack of conscience and ethics is largely the same as GLaDOS’s. He, like her, cares about nothing but his own goals and doesn’t think twice about causing harm or misery because that’s just the kind of environment they were built in. We also know very little about his history, both because it’s not really mentioned and because Wheatley is an unreliable narrator. We can prove Wheatley has no sense of morals or ethics based on a few things he says:

[Upon seeing the trapped Oracle Turret] “Oh no… Yes, hello! No, we’re not stopping! Don’t make eye contact whatever you do… No thanks! We’re good! Appreciate it! Keep moving, keep moving…”

This heavily implies he’s met the Oracle Turret before, probably several times, and not only does it not occur to him to help, he actively treats the Turret like they’re a horrible, annoying nuisance.

[Upon passing functional turrets falling into disposal grinder] [Laughs] “There’s our handiwork. Shouldn’t laugh, really. They do feel pain. Of a sort. All simulated. But real enough for them, I suppose.”

Not only does he find the destruction of the functional turrets funny, he for some reason views their pain as simulated, as though his is real and theirs is fake. Or, in the spirit of Cave Johnson, as though his pain is important and theirs isn’t because they aren’t important.

“Oh! I’ve just had one idea, which is that I could pretend to her that I’ve captured you, and give you over and she’ll kill you, but I could go on… living. So, what’s your view on that?”

This doesn’t even need an explanation.

What gets interesting about Wheatley are, of course, his famous final lines:

“I wish I could take it all back. I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back. And not because I’m stranded in space. […] You know, if I was ever to see her again, you know what I’d say? I’d say, ‘I’m sorry’… sincerely, I’m sorry I was bossy… and monstrous… and… I am genuinely sorry. The end.”

Wheatley here takes responsibility for his behaviour in a way that no one else in the history of Aperture has ever done. Even GLaDOS rejects responsibility for her actions, instead choosing to blame everything on Chell:

“You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me in a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic.”

The reason for this may be related to the fact that the lack of morality and ethics in the people of Aperture doesn’t actually have real consequences. Cave Johnson’s behaviour drives Aperture from a promising scientific powerhouse to a laughingstock, that’s true. But he still does what he wants and gets what he wants regardless. The one and only consequence to being immoral and unethical at Aperture is, in fact, death. In the case of GLaDOS… there are no consequences. Everything returns to the status quo. Wheatley, however, does have to face a consequence for his actions: he is trapped in space, possibly forever. He, unlike all the other characters, doesn’t have the privilege of waving aside everything he did and moving on with life. He is forced to consider his punishment, his actions and what they meant and the effect they had, and he on his own comes to the conclusion that he was wrong. In a bizarre twist, Wheatley is the only one who learns anything. He is also the only one in a position not to do anything with this newfound knowledge.

Morality and Ethics and Robots: Should They Even Be Held to Human Societal Standards?

In the end, it doesn’t really matter whether Wheatley or GLaDOS is worse than the other because ethics and morality are human concepts which are for a functioning human society. A robot society doesn’t really need moral rules like ‘killing people is wrong’ nor ethical guidelines such as ‘you should practice safe science’ because, as robots, there are no permanent, lasting consequences for these actions. A dead human stays dead. A dead robot that’s been lying outside for years getting rained on, snowed on, and baked in the sun? No problem. Turn her back on again. A guy broke all the bones in his legs during an unethical experiment? Bad. A robot that got smashed into pieces during an unethical experiment? Inconsequential, really, since you can just throw her into a machine and reassemble her good as new. So not only aren’t GLaDOS and Wheatley’s actions really immoral or unethical given the context… they really aren’t based on a theoretical robot society either. Being the perpetrator or the victim of immoral or unethical actions in humans causes permanent changes in the body and the brain, but nothing about AI is permanent. Their brains don’t generate new, personally harmful pathways in response to a traumatic event that necessitate years of hard work to combat; they can literally just get over it. If their chassis is damaged, they can simply move into a new one or have some or all of those parts inconsequentially replaced. There isn’t actually an honest reason for robots to have the same moral and ethical systems as humanity because they don’t need them. They would require different sets of rules and guidelines because they work differently. What would that kind of society look like? We don’t know, but as of the end of Portal 2 they have all the time in the world to figure it out.

#Wheatley #GLaDOS #Portal 2 #so says Indy #Portal #here is my essay

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anamericangirl · 1 year ago

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“However, I maintain that the adult woman’s life is more important.”

Pardon me, but on what grounds do you “maintain” that? Furthermore, why should your decision that one person’s life is more valuable than another’s be any sort of argument for the intentional and violent killing of the innocent life you don’t value?

Maybe you are operating under some sort of assumption that in pregnancy we have to choose between the life of the adult woman and the life of the child? That’s an objectively incorrect idea. Even if you think one person’s life is more important both people can live. You don’t need to advocate for the death of the child just because you only value the life of the mother.

Additionally I find the position that some human lives are inherently more valuable than others morally reprehensible and certainly not any sort of justification for killing the lives you have decided have no value.

“I maintain that pregnancy, especially distressing and forced one, is torture. International committees are in agreement of this.”

Again, on what grounds do you “maintain that”? Because words have meanings and pregnancy does not fit into any description of what constitutes torture.

You say “international committees” agree but

1. That doesn’t really matter because law can be wrong and I don’t care what international committees think

2. They actually don’t.

I would be interested for you to cite what international committees you think is agreeing with you because I found no international committees saying that pregnancy, any sort of it, is torture.

This is the definition of torture according to the Convention of Torture, which is accepted by most international committees.

“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

So what it looks like you’re doing is taking this out of context and misrepresenting it to pretend it applies to pregnancy. I mean, I’m just assuming you saw the words “pain or suffering whether physical or mental” and decided that pregnancy fits that description so you just claim that international committees agree with you when in reality you just read something into a definition that isn’t there. And that’s misleading at best. Intentionally dishonest at worst.

Also, you are very clearly ignoring the rest of the definition which defines that torture is severe pain and suffering in specific contexts, none of which are pregnancy.

So if this isn’t what you meant when you mentioned international committees agree with you, please cite the international committee that agrees with you and provide the source that led you to believe they consider pregnancy torture.

And just so we’re clear, pregnancy isn’t torture. In any capacity. By “maintaining” that you are objectively incorrect. It is absurd to call it torture.

“I think that the fetus does not have a right to use the woman's body, hence me comparing it to self-defence”

Again, you are objectively wrong. Words mean things. Self defense has a meaning and you are using the term incorrectly.

Self defense, when we are talking about killing someone, which we are, is only justified if you are using reasonable force against an intended, likely and imminent threat to your life or body.

What you're doing is trying to twist what pregnancy is to try and fit it within those standards. Like since you can create in your imagination a way that you would see it as qualifying then it's justifiable. But those standards have precedent in law so not anything and everything qualifies. You can't just kill someone and use self defense on a whim.

Pregnancy does not qualify as an intended, likely or imminent threat to a woman's life or body and lethal force isn't justified.

Also, you may think the baby doesn't have the right to use the woman's body but you would be wrong. The baby does have the right because they have the right to life, which is the right to live the life of a human being and that requires growing in the womb for around months. The baby is in their natural habitat. There is no other place for them to be.

Furthermore, they didn't come in uninvited. The mother created them and put them there. They were forced into an existence you claim they have no right to.

If a woman does not want a child it's her responsibility not to engage in the one act in the world that creates a child. The woman has no right to kill her child just because she decides after they already exist that she doesn't want them.

Saying they don't have the right use the woman's body is something you completely made up. Can you provide the source that told you a baby has no right to use their mother's body?

"I do not believe in your god. Life giving is solely a woman's domain, and it is her right to soundly judge based on her environment and mental health whether or not a fetus should be birthed. It is nobody else's choice."

No one mentioned God except you so I don't know what your point is there. But women do not give life. That is profoundly untrue. Where on earth did you get the idea "life giving is solely a woman's domain"? Please provide the source on that outrageous claim.

Women don't give life, but we do harbor it. The life already exists. It's already there. The person exists and has the right to continue existing whether the woman wants them to or not. The right someone else has to exist is not a woman's choice. No woman has any sort of right to decide that another person has no right to their life.

"As for your description of the abortion, I do not care, despite it being callous."

That's kind of an issue. Even if you don't care about those children, it's not ok to kill them. Whether or not you care is irrelevant. It's still wrong and killing them isn't a right. It is a bad thing that you don't care. Your disregard for human life is a you problem that you need to reflect on but it in no way makes a case for abortion.

"Women have done abortions in gruesome and horrible ways illegally for centuries to try and get that parasite out of their body. At least that is safe and sterilised, and even if I found abortions to be as morally reprehensible as you do I'd want the women to be safe when they inevitably do it. One life is better than none."

Again, you are wrong. It's already been explained to you why the baby isn't a parasite so I'm not going to go over that part I just can't believe how little you pro-choicers collectively know about biology and fetal development.

I'm copying this next section out of a post I wrote a while ago because it applies to your fear mongering claims about women and illegal abortions.

The year before Roe v Wade was passed the CDC started collecting data on abortion mortality and they found that there were 39 deaths from illegal abortions and 24 deaths from legal abortions. This information makes it quite clear that there is not a bunch of women going out and dying from illegal abortions, or even attempting them, like you pro-choicers claim is inevitable and will happen on a large scale if it abortion is illegal.

But here is something interesting to note: The National Abortion Federation has asserted that between 1970 and 1980, legal abortions may have prevented around 1500 pregnancy related deaths in the US. So let's just give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume they are right. During that same time period, 15 million people were killed by abortion. The lives "saved" by abortion account for 0.0001% of the total amount of lives that it took. So if you actually care about what ends in the most loss of life, there is no question that the amount of lives arguably saved by abortion is virtually nonexistent when you compare it to the number of human lives abortion kills.

Those of you who make this argument that legal abortions are "safe" and "illegal" ones are "unsafe" need to understand that what has made abortion "safer" is not its legal status but improvements and advancements in medical technology.

Mary Calderon, who was the former director of Planned Parenthood, wrote an article in 1960 that was published in the American Journal of Public Health and in it she estimated that around 90% of illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians and that with the improvements in medical technology, abortion, whether done legally or illegally, is not dangerous.

Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians. In 1957 there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind. In New York City in 1921 there were 144 abortion deaths, In 1951 there were only 15; and , while the abortion death rate was going down so strikingly in that 30-year period, we know what happened to the population and the birth rate. Two corollary factors must be mentioned here: first, chemotherapy and antibiotics have come in, benefiting all surgical procedures as well as abortion. Second, and even more important, the conference estimated that 90 percent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many of them are in good standing in their communities. They must do a pretty good job if the death rate is as low as it is...abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous.11

In 2009, research done by the The National Abortion Federation confirmed Calderons claims. See, the future of abortion is more medical than surgical. Using medication to induce abortion or finding a doctor who is willing to perform an illegal abortion since they will already have the necessary tools would be the most common methods of procuring an illegal abortion rather than women attempting to perform surgery on themselves with a coat hanger. That's just an emotional appeal not based on facts.

Most of this information can be found here and here and it will also direct you to other source material if you are actually interested in learning more about this.

"I think women have the right to choose. If they choose not to, good, you win. If they choose to, good, they survive and thrive. Forcing them not to is, again, torture."

Choosing to kill a child is never good and it's not a right. The choice comes before the woman is pregnant, not once she has a child.

And again, it's not torture. You are misusing that word.

Abortion is murder and murder needs to be illegal regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it.

You say you are willing to change your mind. What kind of information would you need to change your mind if the multiple sources and information you have been provided aren't enough?

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watch-grok-brainrot · 5 years ago

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Hi! So I saw some of your commentary on translation and decided it's worth a shot to ask. Sorry if it's a bother! What is, in your opinion, the most faithful translation of this line? "Who cares about the crowded, broad road? I'll stick to my single-log bridge until it's dark". I've seen a few variations, including "into the dark". It's a minor difference, I guess, but it's such an important line, I want to know as much as possible!

Not a bother at all! I’m so honored someone would ask my opinion of a translation! And your question is delightfully open ended. i’ve been needing an excuse to go down a rabbit hole of chinese and cql! That means if i wander and end up super off topic, it’s ok! (also, this is the first ask i’ve gotten about something not due to a tumblr game so i’m really excited!)

Any-hoot! The line in question is:

管他熙熙攘攘阳关道我偏要一条独木桥走到黑

In short, both “into dark” and “until dark” work. But let’s talk a bit in depth about the elements of the line since you want to know as much as possible. Also, translation, IMO, is personal so you can decide what you prefer. Hopefully i’ll give you enough information to help you form an opinion.

管他 - guan ta - no matter, who cares. 管 has a lot of meanings: tube, pipe, valve, manage, control, care, jurisdiction, etc. 他 is him/other. In this case, together, the phrase is a VERY casual (borderline rude) way of saying who cares -- fitting of WWX’s relaxed speech pattern.

熙熙攘攘 - xi xi rang rang - bustling/full of people. Per Baidu, this is a 成语 (1) referring to a line from 《史记·货殖列传》: “天下熙熙，皆为利来；天下攘攘，皆为利往”. 史记 is commonly thought of as China’s first “biolographical history”. Written in the Han Dynasty, it chronicles all Pre-Han dynasties and kingdoms. It set the precedent of not discussing the current dynasty in a piece of history writing because under the circumstances one cannot be impartial (i.e you can say whatever you want about previous rulers but not those related to the current ones lest you want to risk decapitation). The passage the term is from is a section that discusses merchants. The line can be translated as “Everyone [under heaven] is happy, all arriving for profits; everyone [under heaven] is troubled, all leaving for profits.” The coming and going captured from the source is reflected by the current usage of the term as bustling/full of people.

阳关道 - yang guan dao - character by character: sunny, pass, path/way/road. 阳关道 is a reference to a road going through a pass on the Silk Road. There were two options onto the silk road back in the Han Dynasty. The north road forces you through 玉门关 (Yu men guan). The south road forces you through 阳关. Located in modern day Gansu Province, 阳关道 is said to have been 120 meters wide (which is massive even by today’s standards!). Within this context, it indicates a well known, well traveled, busy, broad road. (2) (3)

我偏要 - wo pian yao - character by character: i, wilfully, want. So, in short, “i insist on”. Like 管他, WWX is just being casual in his speech here. The idea of willful, though, is important as a character trait for him. He will do what’s right; he will follow his path; come hell or high water.

一条 - yi tiao - a. Seriously, the first character is one. The second is a measure word for a stick-like thing. This is a fun (aka highly frustrating for non-native speakers) part of chinese! When you refer to an object that can be counted, you need to use measure words. You use the wrong one, and the implications get odd. Sometimes I would translate measure words via “a [measure word] of [something]”. E.g. A unit of person. A head of cattle. A cup of water. BUT! If you use the wrong measure word, it seems really weird. E.g. A cup of person. A stick of water.

独木桥 - du mu qiao - character by character: single, wood, bridge. Aka a single plank bridge. It is often paired with 阳关道 since they contrast so well. There is also a chinese saying: “你走你的阳关道，我走我的独木桥” which basically says you walk your broad path, I’ll walk my single plank bridge. It means to each their own. This is definitely part of what WWX is trying to do. He saved the Wens. He’s exiled himself from the Jiangs and the cultivation world. He says to Jiang Cheng that he just wants to be left alone to live out his life. And that sentiment is reflected in this statement about busy broad paths and single plank bridges.

走到黑 - zou dao hei - character by character: walk, reach/until, black/dark. In this case, the color black indicates an ending. I’m thinking death or some sort of fall from grace. Usage-wise, it can just refer to the end of an alley (alleys existed even in the Tang Dynasty since cities were organized in grids). Sometimes, in a slightly longer phrasing, the wording can mean stubbornly choosing to do something without looking back. So how do we want to interpret this part of the line? Based on context of WWX, his stubbornness, and his 独木桥, I would say he is mindfully heading towards the end. For that reason, I prefer “into the dark” over “until dark”. (4)

That said, we can also be less literal with our translations! Let me offer this as an option of a fairly liberal translation that still captures the essence and the tone: “Who cares! To each their own! I’ll walk my own path come hell or high water!”

And I’d like to leave you with the idea of LWJ saying to WWX: The feeling of “walking my own path come hell or high water” isn’t bad indeed.

Footnotes:

成语s are idioms and are usually 4 characters long. They are super common in modern chinese. As a child, you either pick up their meanings from context or are taught the meaning. Oftentimes, the meaning derives from a story or a literary reference that are only tangentially related to the characters of the idiom.

It’s actually a modern day tourist attraction! In my wanderings on Baidu, i saw a picture of modern day 阳关道. There was a picture of a stone memorial and the writing on the stone literally said former location of 阳关. I don’t know why i found this so funny... oh, well.

Both 阳关 and 玉门关 are well known to Chinese children due to their presence in Tang Dynasty poetry. For example: 送元二使安西作者：唐王维 (Sending Off Yuan Er Towards Xi’an by tang poet Wang Wei) 渭城朝雨浥轻尘，客舍青青柳色新。劝君更尽一杯酒，西出阳关无故人。(Morning rain in Weicheng dampens the light dust ， Making the inn verdant and freshening the willows’ color 。 I implore you to drink one more cup of wine ， Once west of Yang Guan you will have no more familiar people 。)

Full disclaimer: I might be partial to into the dark because of that Deathcab for Cutie song “I will follow you into the dark”. Also, uh… LWJ’s mood when he named LSZ (5), right?! “Love of mine, someday you will die/But I'll be close behind and I'll follow you into the dark” FOLLOW YOU INTO THE DARK. I AM SCREAMING. What are wangxian feels?! Why are they EVERYWHERE.

In case you don’t know, LSZ’s S and Z are 思 (si, to think/miss) and 追 (zhui, to follow/chase). LWJ explains it as 思君不可追, 念君何时归. People (i think both in chinese and english speaking fandom) explain it as “missing you but can’t go after/be near you, thinking about you and wondering when you’ll return.” I always interpreted this line very dramatically: LWJ wanted to follow WWX into death but could not because of this child. By bestowing the name on the child, he expresses his desire to chase after WWX. (also, WTF does my footnote have a footnote?!)

(I want to say I consider myself a native Chinese speaker but I grew up outside of China. I didn't go to school in China but I did manage to work my way through textbooks (aka my dad sat me down nearly every day for 10 years to teach me the language) so that I have at least a late middle school/early high school reading level. I have read the unabridged/simplified Journey to the West but none of the other famous 4 novels. From interacting with people, I believe I have good language sense. I also pick up wordings and phrases pretty easily. The language makes sense to me. However, I am not well read or well studied.)

Welp, @ ho-heystranger let me know if you’re happy with this. If not, feel free to follow up in the notes or something. oof. this got way longer than i anticipated!

#ho-heystranger #i got an ask!#mo dao zu shi #the untamed 陈情令 #translation #管他熙熙攘攘阳关道我偏要一条独木桥走到黑 #wei wuxian #lan wangji #lan sizhui #definite ramblings #some historical context #everything is a reference in chinese #and the more you read the more you learn your references but the more you want to bang you head against a wall #yes this is personal experience #also ngl i kinda love it #chinese is so old its references has references and other references #reference-ception?#i'm gonna stop now #my ramblings are ending up in the tags

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road2thelight · 5 years ago

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Just How Old is Ven in KHUX?

KHUX, KHIII, and BBS SPOILERS AHEAD

Okay so I’m going to finally sit and write this all out so I can try and make sense of -gasp- the Kingdom Hearts timeline. At least part of it.

So we know that Ventus is 15-16 in BBS. For less confusion in this, we’ll say he’s sixteen. We know that he’s spent 4 years in the Land of Departure after Xehanort ditched him and before BBS:

“Four years before Aqua and Terra take their Mark of Mastery exam” (link)

So Ven was roughly 12 when he came to the Land of Departure.

Which okay 12 year old keyblade wielder, sure that’s okay (the grown ass adult in me is screaming that he should be at home drinking a juice box while doing homework). Sora was 14 and, while I have issues with the fate of the world in the hands of babies, KH has a precedent for around this age.

The question is, how old was Ven during Kingdom Hearts Union Cross?

This is where things became more muddled but to break down my theory of his age, we’ll have to go a little off tangent.

So we know Ven was Xehanort’s apprentice. For how long though? Did Xehanort stumble on this kid with amnesia that could somehow summon a keyblade (try and tell me he won’t have amnesia after KHUX, do you see where that tragedy is going???) and was all like “Ah here’s a good sacrifice to use for my nefarious, convoluted plot that will only come to a head in almost twenty years and be defeated pretty much by the power of friendship”?

More so, did Xehanort find him instantly wherever Ven appeared (Scala ad Caelum? Radiant Gardens? Destiny Island?) or was Ven wandering for an unknown time as a lost kid? With my theory, I think Xehanort found him instantly, possibly even knew when Ven would appear (MoM told him maybe? You decide).

More so, Ven’s name is the same in the “present” as the KHUX plot during the Age of Fairytales, so we can presume two possibilities: that Ven had just enough memories that he could remember his name OR he had all of his memories before losing them somehow. So beyond the issue of this child needing so much therapy from repeated memory loss, let’s explore these.

First up: Just enough memories.

We know Darkness can manipulate memories, so it’s possible that Darkness, when he somehow got back into Ven in KHUX (since he’s in Ven’s heart by the time of KHIII), could alter Ven’s memories. With the pods and time travel, we don’t know how long it takes for the hearts to travel. Is it light speed? A blink of an eye? Thousands of years but for the body it was like 5 minutes? For my theory, I like the thousands of years travel but for the body it was only like five minutes idea. This would give Darkness plenty of time to bury all those memories and leave Ven practically a blank slate. The one thing he couldn’t erase was his name, the core of his being. I also like to think that Ven is aware of Darkness at the time of him going in the pod and is fighting with every fiber of his being to hold onto whatever bits of himself that he can. Ultimately that’s his name and a key personality trait (his strong belief in friendship “my friends are my power”).

For the other theory we’ll have to go a little out there. From what we know involving the pods and time travel in KH, it causes the person to lose their memories when they come through UNLESS it’s a Maleficent situation. Girl had all of her memories of the past because the three fairies -coughmerryweatherdammityouhadonejobcough- remembered her, she could come back. But who in the future would know Ventus to let him keep his memories?

Theory Time: Xehanort did. How do you ask? The story of the Dandelions and the New Union leaders has been passed down alongside the story of the Keyblade War in Scala ad Caelum. We know from conversations in KH3 with Young Xehanort and Young Eraqus that their Master’s favorite story was about the Keyblade War. My idea is that the Dandelion’s were a side story about the survivors and who was one of the new Union Leaders of the Dandelions? Ven. And as long as someone in the time you are going to knows your name and something about you (I guess, KH doesn’t go into details), you can come back. But then how did the story pass on so Xehanort could hear it? Well Eraqus bears a very eerie resemblance to one Brain from KHUX. My guess is that Eraqus is a descendant of Brain, which means somehow Brain got out of the Data Daybreak Town at some point in KHUX and passed on the story of the Dandelions. Maybe the reason Xehanort knows it as well as he does is because it’s a story that Eraqus knows like the back of his hand because of his family. Maybe Brain even had photos of the leaders that he kept with him so Xehanort knew what Ven even looked like cause they were heirlooms Eraqus showed him. If none of that pans, maybe MoM told Xehanort something. Who knows.

All of this to come to the idea that Xehanort, and Eraqus too I am positive, knew that Ven was a lot older than his actual physical age and possibly even knew he was a Union Leader. This is hinted at in Ven’s short story:

“Maybe the Master knew more about the real me than he ever let on, all the things I don’t know about myself. But now he’s gone, so I guess we’ll never know.” (link)

Now Ven could have been talking about Vanitas, but since he already knows about Vanitas and his past with Xehanort, I personally don’t think that’s what Ven’s talking about here.

So Ven would awaken with all of his memories but how would he react to the new time and people and Xehanort? I think this will rely on what happens at the end of KHUX but something tells me Ven will be in a very vulnerable, easy to manipulate state. Maybe Xehanort would convince him that it’s because light grew too powerful that Darkness appeared and was trying to restore order that way. Maybe he convinced Ven that he was his apprentice and dreamed the events of KHUX from his stories. Either way, Ven became his apprentice. He would lose his memories though, minus his name because Xehanort knew it and would tell Eraqus, when his heart was split to create Vanitas.

It’s a wild theory but you know what, Kingdom Hearts is chock full of random events and plot lines so who knows, I might be totally right on that idea.

With either theory, I believe that Xehanort knew no matter what that Ven was a keyblade wielder from the Age of Fairytales.

Now back to Ven’s age. Xehanort, knowing that using the keyblade is like riding a bike (tell me it’s not, once your body is taught how to swing or throw something it becomes muscle memory) and that a heart never truly forgets (he’s been studying the dark, the light, and has an interest in hearts by this time), would probably not waste much time in taking Ven under his wing. It would probably take a bit of time to convince Ven that he can use the keyblade well, since we can see Ven lacks confidence in KHUX, but not as long as a full apprenticeship. Being a Union Leader, I imagine that Ven, back in KHUX, was probably counted in the same rank as a Master, if only because of his position. My guess is, this was six or so months, just long enough to get the sacrificial lamb ready for a slaughter. For clarity’s sake, let’s say six months even.

If Ven was exactly 12 years old on the day of him arriving in the Land of Departure, this would make Ven 11 years and six months old when he first arrived in the future as well as at the end of KHUX.

So we know how old Ven roughly was at the end of KHUX, cool. How old was this poor kid during KHUX? We are never told in KHUX how long the Dandelions have been in the datascape. We know a few time things though:

It has been a while, from conversations the New Union Leaders have had, but not long enough for them to want to separate the Union back into five groups.

It was shown in Brain’s flashback with Ava that this particular event with her took place four years ago.

Relying mainly on the latter of the two, since we’ve got a specific year length on it, let’s make a few guesses.

We know Strelitzia was told of her role to be a Union Leader shortly before the war started. Let’s say that Ava had a plan to tell each leader in a certain order. Strelitzia was last, Skuld joined the Dandelions sort of late so we’ll say she was right before her, Ephemer was told before Skuld, so that leaves Brain and Laurium. Since Ava is going against the MoM, I think she would tell Brain his role first.

Let’s say that Ephemer was told four months before the war his role and that’s when he disappeared. Skuld would be told two or three months after him. Then Strelitzia last right before. Let’s guess Laurium was told 2-3 months before Ephemer (6-7 months pre war) and by this pattern, Brain would be told 2-3 months before that (8-9 months pre war). That would mean the Dandelions have been in the datascape for roughly 3 years and 3 months at the time of the flashback beginning. I presume this is only a month before the conclusion of the Dandelions because things are starting to come to a head in the current update of KHUX.

So let’s do the math with this:

Ven is 11 and a half years old at the conclusion of KHUX.

Ven is maybe 11 and 5 months old at the time of the flashback.

This would make Ven roughly 8 and 2 months old when the Dandelions were put in the datascape and he became a Union Leader in the aftermath of the Keyblade War.

Let that marinate in your thoughts.

Just like an eight year old. A fucking baby. Who let this baby bean have a keyblade at 8 years old?!?!?!?

This makes KHUX have so much more sense though. I always wondered why Ephemer and co were surprised that Ven was a Union Leader, it wasn’t like they were well known or high gatherers of lux that we know of. But in this context it makes sense. A group of 14-16 year olds in charge with one random 8 year old in the mix would totally surprise you.

Now of course this is just a guess. Maybe Ava told Brain super early to throw off the MoM’s plans and the Dandelion’s were only in the datascape for a year or two. We also don’t know when Ven became a wielder. My guess is at 7 or 8 years old in the original theory but with this latter idea, maybe Ven was closer to 10 or 11 at the time of the war.

Still, it kind of throws me off that Ven was possibly as young as 8 when he was used by Darkness to kill Strelitzia (or was a witness to this traumatizing event at the very least).

My conclusions:

Ven needs so much therapy. Like, so, so much therapy. I will chip in, just someone get this kid to a therapist.

The Kingdom Hearts timeline is a mess and trying to unravel it leads to so many issues.

I spent way too long on this.

Anyone else have opinions on Ven’s age in KHUX or other ideas involving it?

#kingdom hearts #ventus #khux #khux theory #kh #kh theory #kingdom hearts theory #this plot is so convoluted #these babies need therapy #i spent an ungodly amount of time on this

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isakeijser · 6 years ago

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5 clips from skamesp season 2 that you think are underrated

this is acc a realllllly good question bc i’ve giffed my favourite clips of the season but most of them are pretty obvious so here are the most underrated clips of the season (i put it under a read more bc it gets longgg):

#1: miércoles 18:29/ser como todo el mundo (to be like everyone else)

this is actually one of my favourite clips of the season and was the first one that acc made me really love what skamesp was doing. it’s their version of the religion talk from the og but (unlike other remakes) they acc change the context to fit the story they’re telling. cris doesn’t lash out as isak did (because theres no precedent) but we still get to see amira’s thoughts on her religion and what it means to her personally because of the islamophobia from cris’s mother. we also get that layered conversation where amira feeling isolated is brought up and paralleled with cris and her feelings. i think theres a ton of stuff here which people don’t appreciate enough and honestly think its one of the best clips of the season

#2: lunes 11:02/foros de internet (internet forums)

the first clip which really tackles the theme of sexuality in the season. before this i got the impression cris was prepared to go along with whatever she felt for joana. however after realising joana has a boyfriend cris is really hurt and thats when cris’s internalised homophobia starts acting up. the direct effects of this clip can be seen in the season afterwards. the comments saying that a girls attraction to other women doesn’t matter or is wrong directly leading her back to ruben and the comments about how the commenter ‘can’t stand women who look like men’ leading to her homophobic comments - ‘do i look like a d*ke’ - with eva and lucas. that as well her her dad going around calling football players f*ggots mean that when cris is feeling shitty about her feelings, though not specifically about being attracted to women before now, means that this hurt is weaponised and fuels her internalised homophobia

#3: jueves 14:31/o todas o ninguna (all of us or none at all)

the way the girls all support each other when they’re down is why i even watch skamesp and we see the difference in the way cris actively starts to avoid using partying (though this probably isn’t as positive as it could be since it has to do with her mostly feeling sorry for herself). then we obviously have the talk with hugo. cris hasn’t been one to care what others think, out of the girl squad shes the one which would most likely fit in with ines and her friends if she wasn’t perceived as being so weird and didn’t stick with amira as her best friend, but as we see earlier in the season (and in the clip i just covered) cris doesn’t want to be perceived as gay if it will hurt her in the long run. at the time this clip aired cris was really quite sad, so her saying ‘oh fuck it whatever i don’t care’ shows a positive growth in accepting her sexuality. also alejandro was nice to viri in the clip

#4: lunes 18:16/estará con la regla (she must be on her period)

german rap??? with strangely specific lyrics that relate to cris’s situation? it was unexpected but good lmao. i don’t have as much to say about this clip as i do others but i think it was great for the Mood and showing just how worried cris was, and also at the same time we got reassurance that joana was okay

#5: lunes 11:31/¿cómo paso de alguien? (how can you forget someone?)

i remember when this clip came out people thought that it was irrelevant or useless because it was the last episode and people thought it focused more on viri than cris? they’re wrong. just because the clip didn’t explicitly bring up cris’s problems every 2 seconds doesn’t mean the clip wasn’t entirely focused on her. the clip managed to present many different ways cris could handle the situation she was in, both directly, such as what eva said (basically move on), what viri said (go back to her) and indirectly such as when the girls told viri she shouldn’t be hurting herself for a guy (which is clearly, obviously, a parallel to cris feeling like shit every other week because of joana). it also has great development for viri as a character and strengthens the girl squad as a core group of girls who all love and support each other. we see cris help viri and her deciding to hang out with the girls despite feeling shitty (as a comparison to when she basically wallowed in her feelings for a week). its a good clip and people should have seen that when it dropped

#skam españa #anon #answered

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joygaroz · 6 years ago

Text

There You Are

[2/7] [Day Nine: Rice Wine] [4/7]

SPANISH VER: FFNET

She could feel something was wrong when she came back to the room and faced the two people of imposing postures. They had remained silent the moment she came into the room and she was left to wonder if she had come at a bad time.

“Forget the tea, Sakura. Go get my wine box above my shelf”

Before said indication, the girl blinked surprised that she mentioned that sheltered and personal space of the high priestess.

“Yes, Sakura. That one” her mentor sighed, taking one of her hands to her face so she could pinch the bridge of her nose with her pointer fingers in order to relax.

Sasuke seemed entertained with the development of the scene from his relaxed position resting against the counter, however, after noticing how he rested against said furniture, Tsunade directed her attention to him.

"Let’s say I volunteer to help you find what you seek, how do you plan to make use of that help?”

“You’re the high priestess, you know about more than one story regarding my clan”.

“And all of them end in a blood bath where innocent lives are sacrificed”

Frowning, Sasuke objected:

“I intent to change that”

“By sacrificing the soul of a white witch?”

“By inking my soul with that of the witch”

Tsunade seemed taken aback before such declaration. Her mind quickly making the connection of his intentions after listening to him.

“I see, so you’re not looking for the alternatives of your clan after all”

Observing how little by little Tsunade went on responding favorably to his intent, Sasuke confirmed the high priestess’ suspicions by continuing explaining:

“If I could link my soul to that of the white witch, the possibility to gather my kind and impose order over those wrecked souls, would not only help my species, but also to mortals themselves”.

In silence, the blonde priestess walked behind the counter to hide the rest of the objects that were located on it.

Sasuke reluctantly withdrew his coat off the furniture and placed it over his lap, finding a seat in one of the stools near the area Tsunade was emptying.

He was about to question what were her intentions when the girl of pink locks entered again to that room. Soon after, she walked to the main door and locked it. Before that, Sasuke reserved to only observe with curiosity.

“Since Sakura arrived to the outskirts of the village, I could sense there was a strangeness to her” Tsunade explained as she placed the wood box right at the center of the table.

It looked like an inoffensive box, made of wood and saved between books to some clusters, laid the wine bottle the priestess had mentioned.

It was only until Tsunade started to place on the counter the contents of that box that he realized the precedence of said objects.

Area maps, scrolls in extinct languages, emerald gems and branches of cherry blossoms. This was the archive of Sakura, the girl who had arrived to that small protected village in search of aid.

“I’ve been studying the origins of Sakura, all of them indicating that her village was eradicated by the same beings you seek to confront” Tsunade explained, spreading one of her scrolls so they all could appreciate it and, before her words, both Sakura and Sasuke raised their gazes only to meet with the other.

“You’re one of them” Sakura whispered, her face showing how her mind quickly worked to gather the information implied after that explanation.

Sasuke, although surprised, couldn’t help but smile at the girl’s cleverness. Surely one of the traits why Tsunade had decided to keep her under her care.

“However, none of the registered information on my files indicates they could survive after a bite or even poison an immortal being” the elder continued explaining and, before this new information, Sasuke’s eyebrows furrowed in contemplation.

“There’s no register of such precedent either” the dark-haired male agreed “Are you sure the bite was made by someone of my kind?”

Nodding as response, Sakura, who was located on the other side of the furniture, collected her pink strands and took them to the other side of her shoulder in order to reveal her long neck and fair skin profaned by two marks perfectly aligned in the joint between her shoulder and her neck.

Still wallowing in concentration, as a reflect movement he led his hand to cover his face -or rather, his nostrils. Since even if that was a subtle move, her fragrance wasn’t for someone like him. Swallowing, his mind tried to compose itself after such improvise.

“There’s a possibility, though” Tsunade continued after a second to make sure Sasuke regained his composure. “To try the theory that brought you here”

Removing the scroll from the table, Tsunade displayed a book in a different language, one Sasuke was rather very familiarized.

“All these species that assaulted and eradicated Sakura’s previous home were just neophytes. Falling to their desires without the ability to control their instincts and maybe not as resistant as the founding clans”.

“They all wore crimson eyes, but, according to Tsunade-sama’s records, only a vampire of high status could wear the three tomoes on their eyes” Sakura continued, eager to find out more about the kind that had chased her away of her previous home.

“The tomoes could be worn by any clan of my species, it is not a matter of blood, but rather a matter of maturity” he discarded the girl’s suspicion while he shook his head. “But that does not make them any less resistant to human blood, but rather, they’re on that experimental phase where their hunger is related to their physiological search of the kind of blood that it compatible to their diet”.

Sakura made a face trying to suppress her disgusts, Sasuke ignored it and Tsunade clarified:

“Would it be like carrying out an allergy test?”

“But no vampire is allergic to human blood, not even the oddest. There must be something else that is poisoning them after trying her blood”.

“What about her magic ability?” Tsunade ventured.

“A human foreign to the Senju clan with magical power?” Sasuke questioned incredulous.

“But Tsunade-sama, I’ve never executed any conjury. How could I possibly—”

“You have not had the need to make them since your hands absolve it once you try to heal”

“Absolve?”

“White magic, the ability to heal and amend” Tsunade clarified, certain of her suspicions “Not even a priestess of my clan has managed to execute healing conjures without the aid of herbs or symbolisms. Contrary to the white magic that only requires the will of its carrier, only possible if the person inherits the magic abilities from an immortal being”.

“But” Sasuke interrupted, contemplating the facts Tsunade had just recited “, these abilities can only awaken if the human gets to establish contact with an immortal being. Like the neophyte’s bite.”

Sakura, who had remained petrified at the end of the table, processed the information laid before her.

“A white witch…” she murmured to herself, still unable to believe what she was listening.

“As I suspected, those barriers were not only to protect your village, but to avert her from my kind’s sight” Sasuke said.

“The only thing I did was protect the mortals endangered by the other species” Tsunade continued, denying the vampire’s suspicion.

“But she is not just a human, if she is a white witch, she must have the descendance of an immortal” Sasuke discerned.

“Or a Senju” Tsunade completed.

Sakura, who processed the avalanche of information, closed her eyes while she denied before opening them and voice out the doubt that had her agitated:

“So, are you saying I am an objective to them?” referring to the vampires, and in general, to all the immortal beings outside those protective barriers that Tsunade had made.

With their attention returning to the unusual girl of pink hair, Sasuke explained:

“A healer, or white witch, is idealized as the perfect partner to my kind” he empathized he referred to his kind, that information that had caught his attention and that, after Sakura listened to his words, only made her blush lightly at his choice of words since ‘partner’ could be interpreted differently according to its context. “Whoever manages to link to a white witch, gains the recognition as the strongest of our clan”.

“But it the link doesn’t work, both bodies start to degenerate” Tsunade added.

“Both!” Sakura exclaimed alarmed, soon turning her face in the direction of her mentor in search of help, to which the high priestess could only answer with an apologetic look.

“Through all this time I’ve been looking for a way to reduce the adverse effects to that bite, but I’ve run out of options” the high priestess explained, and then, turning her face to the immortal contemplating these revelations, she extended the bottle of wine to him.

“Maybe it’s time for you to take your alternative” they heard Tsunade say at the time she took him out of his absorption and observed the bottle of liquor before him with attention.

Of course, he thought. Wine rice.

To link two souls, it was necessary to drink the same wine rice. Old ancestors linked their souls together with this symbolic liquor far earlier than religions, far earlier than the sacred writings.

Hence, it was an oath that prevailed as unique to those unions without distinction of species, gender or preference.

This was a knowledge that the legendary priests transmitted with the passing of time to heir disciples for generations, until reaching Tsunade’s knowledge, one of the high priestesses with the greatest knowledge in that kingdom.

However, by sharing this information, it took them a little to both prospects believing this would method would work to ese their worries.

She, a supposed healer of unknown precedence, and him, a first-generation vampire of one of the oldest clans to exist in the world.

Both looking for something in common: survive.

And, the only way to survive was to swear under the effects of the wine rice, that their souls belonged to the other. Their blood, would do the rest.

#ssm19 #ssm19d9 #ssfic #ssfanfic #ssfanfiction #sasusaku #joy writes #vampire ss #AND THE AU CONTINUES~~

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marcjampole · 6 years ago

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The history of presidential misconduct puts a whole new light on the Trump impeachment hearings

When viewed through the lens of today, the defense of Trump by Republicans seems reprehensible to a growing number of Americans. Despite the daily piling up of more evidence of his illegal attempt to force a foreign government to interfere with our elections, most Republicans continue to vociferously support the president. Those who are inching away, such as Senators Linda Murkowski and Mitt Romney, do so with extreme care. Trump’s betrayal of the Syrian Kurds has influenced almost no Republicans to look at Trump in a new light, just as most Republicans ignored Nixon’s illegal bombing of Cambodia—at least at first.

But in the context of American history, the Republican reaction is pretty standard. As you can learn by reading Presidential Misconduct, virtually everything about the current situation resembles most presidential scandals throughout American history.

Presidential Misconduct is a compendium essays about investigations into the misdeeds of presidents and their immediate coterie edited by the distinguished historian James M. Banner, Jr. Originally commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee during the 1974 Watergate Hearings, Presidential Misconduct presents the historical record of the misdeeds of past presidents and their cronies reaching back to the Washington administration and compiled by leading presidential scholars of the day. The Committee originally conceived of the book as a benchmark against which Nixon’s misdeeds could be measured. A recently published update includes all the presidential administrations through Obama’s. What is stunning is the degree to which every controversy surrounding virtually every potential presidential misdeed—whether an impeachment hearing or a Congressional investigation—follows a set pattern that only three people break: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and now, Donald Trump.

In depicting this pattern, I will leave out consideration of one investigation—the impeachment of Bill Clinton related to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In every other of the literally hundreds of cases of investigating a president or his administration for wrongdoing (including other accusations against Clinton), the issue was either corrupt practices in which money exchanged hands for favorable treatment or unlawful attempts to influence elections. Only in the case of Slick Willie’s oval office affair was the issue a personal indiscretion—in this case, a sexual relationship between consenting adults. Despite the fact that there are many instances of fooling around by presidents or their advisers, Congress has only once decided to open an investigation related to a sexual dalliance, which lead to Clinton stupidly do what most people do when confronted by their infidelity—they lie. Again, there are numerous documented cases of presidents lying or stretching the truth—Tyler, Lincoln, LBJ, Reagan, Bush II—to name just a few before our current liar-in-chief. You know, the one who manufactures new lies almost on a daily basis. Yet very few have been taken to task for lying and no president other than Clinton suffered punishment for lying about a personal matter. The Trump impeachment hearings have so far completely ignored the more than 20 outstanding accusations of sexual assault against the Donald. A strongly partisan element infects all investigations of presidential malfeasance, to be sure. But the Clinton case is so out of the ordinary that we can learn nothing from it that we can apply to the current situation.

With that caveat out of the way, what we learn from Presidential Misconduct is that the unfolding of the Trump impeachment hearings proves the validity of the old French expression, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” 1) In virtually all cases, someone found malfeasance by a member of cabinet, a high ranking advisor, an entire department or a close relative or friend of the president. 2) Opinions have always split down party lines, with the party of the president and friendly media aggressively proclaiming the innocence of the accused party and the opposing party and media hotly and noisily proclaiming and pursuing guilt. 3) A common defense was to admit the suspect events took place but insist they were not illegal. 4) Presidents have varied in the speed of their responsiveness to requests for information and the testimony of subordinates. Yet while executive privilege was sometimes invoked at an early point, at the end of the day presidents almost always have provided the information requested without lawsuit and virtually all witnesses called ended up testifying or giving a deposition. 5) The president always loyally supports those accused, often after their guilt has been well established. In most cases, the president runs into the most trouble for his continued backing of a crony or subordinate under investigation. 6) Often, as with the case of Grant, Harding and Truman, the dastardly deeds turned out to be legal, but didn’t pass the common sense “smell test.” In these cases, Congress passed new laws and /or the department in question changed its standard practices.

Most important, every president except Madison, Polk and Ford has faced a number of major scandals in his administration, and at the end of the day, virtually none were blamed for it. Either the officer, department or crony was exonerated, or the president was found completely innocent of knowing anything about the crimes. Besides Nixon’s administration, among the most corrupt were those of Tyler, Buchanan, Grant Harding, Truman, Reagan and Bush II. The Reagan administration provides an interesting case: The administration involved itself in as much law-breaking as Nixon’s did, but Reagan never personally benefited from any of the corruption and no one could find evidence that he knew about the political scandals like Iran-Contra. In a sense, he was a modern Ulysses Grant, personally incorruptible and idealistic, but surrounded by a den of thieves. With investigations exonerating presidents for everything except bad judgment and rigid loyalty, impeachment was hardly ever mentioned and almost never attempted.

Kevin M. Kruse said it best in summarizing the Carter administrations on page 402: “In the end, the three main scandals of the Carter Administration followed the general pattern, in which sloppy financial practices and suspect business dealings invited close inspection but ultimately proved to have fallen short of outright criminal misdeeds.”

The first exception to this pattern of presidential exoneration was Andrew Johnson, whose “high crimes and misdemeanors” involved orders he gave and did not give, specifically concerning the Secretary of War and the treatment of the renegade southern states returned to the union only after a long, bloody war. In a sense, Johnson’s impeachment and near conviction was the last skirmish of the Civil War.

The second exception was Nixon, who unlike all other presidents, knew all about all the corruption in his administration, serving as the source and center for most of it. The Watergate break-in and other dirty tricks. The illegal pay-offs to silence the guilty and protect the administration. The enemies list. The illegal campaign contributions. It was Nixon who authorized the illegal bombing of Cambodia and directed his representatives to convince the South Vietnamese to refuse to come to the negotiating table until after the 1968 election. Nixon was as dirty as dirty can be.

And that’s why I think Trump is going down.

Trumpty-Dumpty, like Tricky Dicky, is at the center of every controversy as instigator, motivator and bad actor. His already debunked fantasies of the Bidens corruptly profiting from Papa Joe’s influence as vice president and of Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election served as the motivating factor in the illegal and unethical actions of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Pompeo and others in Ukraine. Trump is leading the cover-up by refusing to hand over documents or let officials testify. Like Nixon and Cambodia, Trump is solely responsible for the scandals that are not part of the impeachment proceedings but are causes for additional disgruntlement, such as the betrayal of the Kurds, the separation of children at the border, the exit from the Iranian nuclear deal and the Paris Accord, and Trump’s record of sexual assault and harassment.

Like Nixon, all the evidence points to Trump being dirty.

Those despairing that like Andrew Johnson and Clinton, Trump will be impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate should consider that we’re still early in the process, still at the point at which all opinion has a highly partisan tinge to it.

What the Republican Senators are waiting for is a smoking gun. And if Nixon serves as a precedent, the court will supply the requisite still-hot firearm by forcing Trump to turn over material including his taxes. I’m guessing that the requirement to turn over the taxes will compel Trump to resign from office rather than let it out that he is owned by Russian interests and that he is worth far less than a billion smackers. But whatever it is, something in what we find in the taxes or in the records that the administration wants to keep hidden will hang Trump with his own party. He will most likely resign in a deal that spares him indictment on any federal or state charges rather than face conviction. If in his crazy grandiosity, the Donald refuses to follow the Nixon model, he will not have a big enough Praetorian guard, loyal only to him, to attempt to stay in office by force after his conviction. While we can spin apocalyptic fantasies about the end of our democracy, I think we can realistically depend on the loyalty to the United States and our Constitution by the military, the Secret Service, the FBI and local police.

History suggests that because the investigation centers on Trump and not his subordinates, the likely result will be that he leaves office before his term is up. That is, assuming the smoking gun produces enough smoke.

Meanwhile, although we may consider the Republicans sticking to Trump like white to rice to be despicable, they are in fact engaged in nothing more than business as usual, the same business that has surrounded presidential misconduct since the time of George Washington.

#impeachment #trump

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