#and made of logical connections between 2 points. but so much of it is interpretation as well

[aesudan-kholin]

i think i legitimately have written more words about elhokar than sanderson has

[spiritualitygeek]

PAC | Your 2024 In A Nutshell

Disclaimer:

This pac is for entertainment purpose only. I am not liable for any actions or decisions taken or made based on the information presented in the reading. The interpretations and insights are subjective and open to individual perception. Please use your own judgment and intuition when applying the messages to your life or situation. Thank you!

Pile 1

Cards: 6oP rx, QoW, 2oC

With the Six of Pentacles in reverse here, I'm seeing your financial situation hitting rocky roads in 2024. You need to reassess your generosity or be cautious with resources. Refrain from spending or investing thoughtlessly. And most importantly, do not lend money. To anyone be it family or close friends.

Moreover, with the Queen of Wands I see you embodying a strong, charismatic energy, hinting at your ability to take charge and make bold decisions. This is particularly great if you're looking to move out or start a new venture. Or maybe start a new course? Degree? College?

I'm seeing you getting out of your comfort zone and taking charge for doing things that you've been scared till now. Most of y'all might be introvert or would turn 18 this year?

The Two of Cups here indicate deep connection, possibly in relationships or partnerships. Again, I'm seeing you start something new where you'd meet new people and collaborate with them. If you're a student, you'd enrol in college or if you're looking to start new business or anything for that matter. But in my humble opinion, you're gonna find your soulmate this year. It can be a best friend or lover? But you'd surely click with this person like nobody else.

To sum up, in 2024, you may encounter financial fluctuations, urging you to find a balance between giving and receiving. And so, it's highly advisable to approach any challenges with confidence and passion, embracing your leadership qualities. You may as well end up making meaningful connections which are going to last a lifetime. Be it professional or personal.

Stay attuned to your financial choices, ensuring fairness and caution. Embrace the Queen of Wands' boldness to overcome obstacles. Nurture connections, fostering collaborations that bring joy and fulfillment. Remember, balance and confident decisions will be your allies in shaping a rewarding 2024.

Pile 2

Cards: KoW, 6oS, 7oS

In 2024, you're likely to embrace the leadership qualities of the King of Wands, making your way through any situation with confidence. The Six of Swords points to a journey, both physical and metaphorical, indicating positive movement and growth.

However, be cautious of potential challenges or deceptive elements as the Seven of Swords are telling me there are people who are going to backstab you or feel jealous of your growth. When you're growing, and acing it all with confidence and grace, it's natural to attract envy of anyone. Be extra wise and careful with people you keep close. Not everyone has your best interest at heart.

In a nutshell, your year is likely to be a balance of bold decision-making, adaptability during transitions, and a discerning eye to avoid pitfalls. I must say, 2024 is gonna be your year pile 2. Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the ride. You're gonna enjoy this one.

Although, it's advisable to trust your instincts always, in the face of your problems and in your connections. Sometimes it's important to keep your guards up against certain people. Regardless, you indeed have what it takes to overcome obstacles and lead yourself towards positive change.

Pile 3

Cards: KoS, 5oP, QoS

In 2024, you're advised by the King of Swords to approach challenges with logic and clear thinking. The year ahead requires you to use reasoning over emotions. Because situations would require it with the five of pentacles here. There may be temporary setbacks, a lot of rocky roads throughout the year, but nothing that can't be managed. You may feel often than once that it's too much. You can't bear it. Or that things never go as you wish. Well, they won't. If I'd be honest. This is why you need to stick to reasoning over emotions, to address financial or emotional concerns better. Just because things aren't going the way you want them, doesn't mean they're going to hit a dead end. There's always a door that leads to a better outcome than what you imagined or wished for. Just stop resisting the best by insisting for good. Because that'd lead you to settle for worse.

The Queen of Swords is here for you to guide you with her decisive and perceptive qualities to cut through any confusion and make informed choices. Take this message to your heart and make your mind right now. You won't give up. You won't complain. You will keep pushing! Because things will get better. And you will get the best if you stop resisting what universe has in bags for you.

Overall, be patient and practical in 2024. The year may not be your best year, but it'll indeed be a stepping stone to the best years ahead. Have faith! Don't be a quitter. Be a fighter.

You can overcome any obstacles with a combination of intellectual clarity and emotional resilience. Utilize your analytical skills, address challenges systematically, and make decisions with a discerning mind. Maintaining a sharp focus and clear communication with yourself will be essential in navigating the year successfully.

Thank you all for taking the time to read my pac. I hope the insights resonated with you and provided some guidance. If you found this helpful, I'd be grateful if you consider following me for more spiritual content and future tarot readings. Wishing you all love, light, and positivity on your journey! ✨

- With love, Snow ❄️

Enjoyed the reading? Tip me here~

[douglysium]

Episode 2 TMP Quick Thoughts

Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(​What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 2. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (Episode 1 TMP Quick Thoughts).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don't really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you're getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

Episode 2: “Making Adjustments”

Okay, let’s dive right in. It’s pretty clear that at this point, just like how the story of TMA is told through the tapes, the story of TMP is being told through computers at the O.I.A.R. and seemingly various other devices too. We once again tune into Sam trying to understand the obtuse categorization system with help from Gwen. While Sam struggles, Gwen seems to be quite in her element. Despite this Gwen refers to the index as arbitrary even though Sam argues that there must have been a logic or pattern it was based on at some point. I don’t really have much to say that hasn’t been said in my last quick thoughts but I have to wonder if there is actually a logic to it? Maybe it’s sorted by Entity or some other system but like I said in the previous review maybe the point is simply that it’s going to be vague and obtuse sometimes. Either way, Gwen basically tells Sam to just do his job and not worry about that kind of stuff which ties into what I’ve said earlier about Sam’s curious nature and how that often relates to The Eye as well as the idea of blissful ignorance.

After Sam questions what’s happening Gwen says “(coldly) Then quit. No-one’s making you work here.” Even if this is just a coincidence it is giving me a flashback to the moment when Tim realized he couldn’t quit the Institute.

We finally got a statement in the form of a video call pulled from the internet. The account given by Daria screams of The Flesh or some similar Entity. While I am currently in the camp that the Smirkean categorizations probably still do have some merit in TMP, if the Entities happen to have changed or been rewritten then they at least seem to still really parallel a lot of the themes the Powers had in the TMA. So even if I end up being wrong about the idea that the Powers haven’t really changed that much, if at all, I don’t care all that much because this is still a fun and interesting lens to view them through I think. If this is another set of Entities or the Entities swapped places it will at least be interesting pointing out the parallels or maybe even what categories they would have fallen into in TMA. 

Case in point, what we see in this statement contains a heaping helping of bodily dysphoria, as Daria starts feeling self-conscious about her body due to social media. As she puts it “Like, we all know it's fake, it's all filters and Photoshop and everyone pretending that they're the “real deal” #makeupfree! But just because you know that doesn't mean you’re immune and yeah, I’d ended up in a pretty dark place. And when I turned 30, I decided to do something about it.” As it keeps going we hear “I started with my hair, grew it out to make my face look longer. It sort of worked. Then I chucked out all my older sister’s clothes and dipped into my savings to get myself a couple of pairs of my own jeans that didn't make me look quite so much like an overloaded ice cream cone. I even shelled out for a cute LBD for when I did lose a bit of weight. Mum said I was being overambitious, but it hangs off me now of course. Most clothes do…” So there’s a pretty big emphasis on dissatisfaction with one’s body and physical appearance. Something we often see with the Flesh, especially with the likes of places like Jared Hopworth’s gym in MAG 90 (Body Builder) and how it was built on the idea of giving everyone the perfect body.

Daria then resolves to get a tattoo and find a tattoo artist that went by Ink5oul (InkSoul). They got an appointment and when Daria arrived they noted that Ink5 had “an absolutely gorgeous floral serpent design running up their arm and into their neck that was so vivid it looked ready to slither off their skin and onto the chair.” When the time came to get the tattoo Ink5 doesn’t actually ask Daria what she wants but instead asks her about her life and upon Daria revealing she is an artist Ink5 grins and cries out “The artist becomes the canvas!” and they begin to stream the affair before dragging Daria to a chair and starting on the tattoo. Daria mentions the pain and panic of course but surprisingly when Daria looks down at the tattoo, expecting a bloody mess or wound, she sees “Instead, a pristine paintbrush design spanned from the interior of my elbow to the inside of my palm, a flurry of colourful floral patterns entwined with symbols I didn't recognise. Despite the pain I twisted my arm back and forth to admire the work and those symbols almost seemed to glitter in the light. It was... It was beautiful.” Then they suddenly turned off the lights and kicked Daria out with no debrief or after care.

When Daria gets home she says “I stood before the bathroom mirror and looked myself over and for the first time I saw someone interesting. Someone I wanted to know more about.” and “I went a bit manic at that point. For the first time ever I wanted to attempt a self-portrait. Something real and physical, I wanted to feel the brushes in my hands and the oil on my fingertips.” She works all night before falling asleep and then waking up and seeing herself in the self-portrait. But now… she notices an imperfection.. “As I stared at it though, I noticed that 

whilst it was accurate it wasn't perfect. The eyes were still slightly wrong, the angle of the smile was off and obviously the nose still wasn’t quite right.” After looking at the tattoo on her arm she takes a palette to the left eye and despite there barely being any change she knows she’s making progress because she begins to feel bone. She goes to the bathroom to check her face and “...I was still pleased with the result. There was no discolouration, no bleeding, no damage at all but the face around my eyes was definitely more symmetrical. It looked so much better. But not quite perfect.”

So she keeps editing her face in an attempt to make herself perfect and well… it goes about as well as you would think in a horror podcast. She keeps altering herself and altering herself, admitting that she should have stopped, before her tattoo begins running along her upper arm and she resolves to work around it. She tries harder and harder to perfect her body but she has to keep making more and more compromises around the ever-spreading tattoo. Eventually Daria’s roommate Sarah returns home to see what I imagine is a very horrifying sight given her reaction. Even more unfortunately, apparently Daria was still finalizing her mouth so she couldn’t speak either so Sarah started screaming and even punched Daria when Daria tried to grab an reassure her. The punch from Sarah apparently messed up her cheek and undid days of work. Sarah would go on to claim Daria tried to kill herself with acid, probably trying to rationalize what would look like extreme melting mutilations, and Daria hasn’t edited herself since then.

The therapist asks if Daria wanted to hurt herself and Daria says she “just wanted to be better.”

As I mentioned earlier I think this statement at least parallels The Flesh. “Flesh sculpting” is something we see quite a lot with the Flesh and people like Jared Hopworth, and leitner’s like The Boneturner’s Tale give people the ability to warp and bend bone. They can even reach into people’s bodies and seemingly pull out bones without creating a massive bloody wound that one would expect. Additionally, the desire for perfection is something we have also seen with The Flesh and things like Jared Hopworth’s gym in MAG 90: “Body Builder.”

There is an argument to be made for parallels with The Eye in how apparently Ink5oul streams the tattooing session and maybe The Spiral with Daria pushing back against others calling her crazy or delusional and expressing fear about it. The Spiral can always be a bit trippy and I could see see the idea of it “distorting” something in a similar manner to distorting the truth. I mean it did literally have a monster known as “The Distortion.” There’s also the idea of realizing something is wrong with Daria continuously realizing her edits are imperfect every time she thinks she is done. But, as I’ve mentioned before the Entities have always just been general categories that overlap all the time, so if I had to put my money on an Entity I would say it’s The Flesh unless someone wants to argue that multiple Entities are at play or it’s an Entity like Eye overlapping with the fear of judgment, The Spiral with the fear of being wrong or realizing you are wrong about something, etc..

Sam asks Alice how she can put up with all the horrifying statements and she just says she ignores them. Which is something I mentioned a bit in my last talk with the relationship between The Eye and the idea of “ignorance being bliss” or the fear of seeing / witnessing too much. It’s also something I talked about a lot in my article dedicated to the Eye. The transcript of this episode (https://rustyquillcom.sharepoint.com/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?ga=1&id=%2FShared%20Documents%2FRusty%20Quill%20Public%20Access%2FTranscripts%2FThe%20Magnus%20Protocol%2FPublic%2FMAGP%2002%20%2D%20Making%20Adjustments%5FTranscript%202%2E0%2Epdf&parent=%2FShared%20Documents%2FRusty%20Quill%20Public%20Access%2FTranscripts%2FThe%20Magnus%20Protocol%2FPublic) mentions a cut to a CCTV before we hear what Alice and Gwen are talking about. Pointing to the idea that just like in TMA we are witnessing the story play out via something that is listening through a device. However, this time whatever Entity is present seems capable of listening through almost any device with a speaker and not just tapes.

Alice gets a call and after it's over Sam asks how Luke is and if he is still “playing with Bullets for Saint Sebastian?” This could just be a random name and this is one of the times where I might just be reaching and sound totally crazy but I wonder if we will get a statement from Luke or something relating to the “Bullets of Saint Sebastian” in the future? The reason I wonder is because The Slaughter has been an Entity that manifests as music quite a lot and Grifters Bone from TMA seems to have been aligned with the Slaughter. With a name like BULLETS for Saint Sebastian I wonder if such an encounter led to Luke leaving or if it’s even possible that Grifters Bone themselves got dragged into this universe and formed another band. But once again, this could just be a throw away name and it really depends on how closely they were tied to The Slaughter if we are to believe Annabelle’s hypothesis, but I also know that Johnny can be really cheeky at times. 

It’s also possible it IS a Slaughter aligned band but has nothing to do with Grifters Bone. Just to be clear I’m not saying that The Slaughter is the only Entity to ever manifest as music or that it’s the only one that could. But rather that there’s a precedent for Slaughter bands and the name “Bullets for Saint Sebastian” rings rather violent to me. I actually cheated a bit and did a quick Google search about Saint Sebastian and apparently he is a saint that is “a patron saint of archers and athletes and of those who desire a saintly death.” I think the idea is linking both bows / arrows and guns / bullets as projectile weapons, so you could read a Saint Sebastian being riddled with bullets instead of arrows as a more modern take on the story of Saint Sebestian. He apparently died from being clubbed or beaten to death too which would tie into The Slaughter and themes of violence. I should make it clear that this hypothesis is making the assumption that Bullets of Saint Sebestian are tied to The Slaughter specifically, which is something we have no evidence for outside the name, which isn’t exactly the strongest evidence. I’m just considering a fun possibility.

This is where we learn Sam is looking for information about the Magnus Institute for a seemingly unknown reason at this point. As I’ve mentioned Sam’s extreme curiosity can be compared to some other Eye related folk like Jon and in TMA it seemed like the Institute also acted as bait to drag people searching for answers or closure towards The Eye. But this could be unrelated to what Sam is doing since the Institute is nothing but ruins in this universe at this point. So I don’t know what information could be at the site at this moment if anything. Alice also warns Sam against thinking about this stuff while he is off the clock which ties into the whole “ignorance is bliss” theme I think The Eye sometimes has.

Conclusion

That’s really all the thoughts I have for now and it’s important to stress that this is off the top of my head so if you think I missed a character parallel or possibility feel free to point them out and I might give my thoughts or interpretations on them.

I’ve seen people mention the possibility of this universe having its own set of Entities and someone even asked me what I think about the possibility. The answer is… I can’t even begin to guess… I have no idea. I’m not trying to claim that I’ve solved all of TMP, just that I think some theories hold more water than others based on the precedent TMA set. Some theories are completely up in the air and could go one way or the other. If this universe does have its own set of Entities I think the most likely possibilities as it stands right now are 1. The Entities in question are at least somewhat similar to the ones from TMA (so much so that they share a lot of themes and imagery) or 2. Such Entities haven’t shown up during this episode or the last yet. But who’s to say for sure until we get more information. Right now I’m leaning a bit towards the idea that at the very least the statements up until this episode the Entities are pretty close if not the same as the ones we know and fear. 

But I’ll see if the next episode changes my mind considering how intriguing the statement is.

[audaciousamadeus]

So it begins

Many times in my life I tried to keep a diary. It's such a fad when you're a child, it's just what people do (usually, what girls do). It was an attempt to recognise my own emotions as a young adult of 23 years of age. Now, nearing my 30s, it is a gift to my future self.

Possibly, this is the right reasoning to make the habit stick and to shut down the overthinking that usually stops me from posting things. Let's try to be positive this time. And on Tumblr because that's how we roll.

This didn't come out of nowhere, of course.

One month ago I was at a traditional Bosnian wedding. After the bride and the groom had their first dance, the best man dragged me to the dance floor. Throughout my life, I've been known to not be the dancing or partying type. There's an aspect to identity which is reinforced by the context, be that people or places, in which we are immersed in. I've found that one of the wonders of changing surroundings and peers so often is that one can more easily let go of such constraints. At that moment, the once so self-conscious me was nowhere to be found. No one pointed out her absence. Not the audience nor the dancing partner, for no one there knew her. Amen.

The dancing continued for hours and I felt myself improve. Could it be due to alcohol? Most likely, yes. It did seem extremely logical to my inebriated mind, however, that I and the best man had compatible ways of responding to each other's feedback in ways that helped us improve, and that this would translate well in a relationship. Absolutely moronic and just enough to generate interest.

Coming back, we decided to meet and he showed me his private blog. Smooth. He cooked for me, we drank, we danced, we sang, we connected. Coming from a different field and social bubble, his views challenged me but in a non-aggravating, refreshing way.

The lack of empathy that tinged his comments at times scared me, as did the gap between our financial situations. I hate imbalances, they pave the way for unhealthy dynamics. These stopped me from going all in but seemed resolvable with good communication and organisation. With continued communication over the next days, came the sinking realisation that:

Either he was used to putting in less effort into relationships than me, or

He had lost interest within 1 or 2 weeks but continued talking to me

And with either case, I have decided, after almost 30 years on this Earth one of my requirements is for someone to actually love me back. Earlier this year I decided I needed to be attracted to someone to start a relationship. We're really going places in 2024.

He revealed that he truly wasn't interested in a romantic relationship, which wasn't much of a surprise. Still, it made me feel a hollow type of pain which was unnexpectedly overshadowed by a sense of inner warmth and peace throughout that weekend. On the afternoon of that Sunday however, I realised that I saw the moments in which we danced and sang together with immense fondness and would miss them dearly. Two activities that I have not been comfortable doing around anyone else.

Something in me told me that our interactions would survive and there was hope for us to do that again, platonically. Therefore... I asked him if we ever could repeat that in a non-romantic way. Maybe he interpreted that as me having a hidden agenda to seduce him but I cannot be damned and don't think this is a good time to explain why I also wouldn't pursue that further. That would seem very salty and this is far from what I feel. I suppose people are not used to direct expressions of "pure" intentions.

His reply gave me hope that we could enjoy each other as friends in the future and I'm glad I asked. I also need to take my time to recover until that can happen.

In the meanwhile a friend has given his opinion on the whole ordeal and has said that the guy was most likely intimidated by me intellectually (*laughing track in the back*), and that I sabotage intimacy with nervousness by acting cynically - making the other person feel insecure. Shots fucking fired!

Things learned:

Dancing is actually nice.

Blogging seems to have its benefits.

Seeing potential is not enough, the other person needs to see it too.

I will only pursue someone who I am attracted to and that is head over heels, insanely in love with me, is caring, passionate about their interests, open-minded, witty and is into mutual support and growth. Is that too much to ask for? Apparenly, yes.

I thought I was being annoyingly vulnerable and found out I have to be yet more vulnerable. This is horrible news!

My blogging endeavours are, therefore, an STD from a situationship. Alas, that situationship is no more but the damage is done.

Contagious, nasty stuff that stays after the heartbreak.

I want to use this to process my feelings and thoughts and to entertain and shape my future self. I want to remind her what it's like to be a bit of a fool and to remember the mundane but magical moments of my present.

Days of morning exercise before work. Indulging in treats from the local café. Laidback interactions with colleagues. Intellectual stimulation from podcasts, audiobooks, scientific papers and discussions. Watching the night fall on the London skyline in my flat while debating whimsical and grotesque would-you-rathers with my lovely and deranged flatmate, sitting next to a needy Bengal cat. We're watching some Western with Javier Bardem. God, I hate cowboys.

I'll cherish these moments forever.

XOXO,

Ms (not-so-audacious) Amadeus

[theepisceswriter]

Jjk dudes promising just the tip but breaking it like 2 seconds later please!

Bestie I know you wanted multiple JJK characters, and I’ll probably still give it you, but I had something similar to this in my notes with Toji, so I decided to make a little ficlet with him instead surrounding this idea....kinda.

Synopsis: Your toxic baby daddy Toji hits you up after not being heard from for months with that smirk on his face that you just can’t resist.

TW: Dub con might apply here but I did my best to make reader aware that Toji was 99.99% lying abt just the tip and knew abt his intentions from the start, but I guess you can interpret it how you want, fembodied!reader, Toji is a trigger warning on his own, manipulation, implied that you have a child together, pregnancy mention briefly, breeding kink, toxic relationship, 18+, MINORS DNI

Word Count: 1.7k

Your heart dropped to your stomach when you flipped your phone over to see ‘TOJI WOJI 🥺🧸🥰....is FaceTiming you.’ Whatever he was calling for couldn’t have been important or even worth your time listening to at all. It was edging on 12 am in the morning, the ungodly hours of the night where sin ran rampant and thoughts became loud as the world around you silenced, a concoction of emotions that meant nothing good. Especially when the last time you received a phone call from him this late it resulted in a booty call that led to you pregnant with a child that Toji barely came to see. Still, you found your thumb lingering over the green answer button and faintly tapping on it, hoping that it wouldn’t go through, but instead, you were met with the sight of Toji. The raven locks on his hair poking out like always, the same old scar over his lip, and the same basic black tee decorating his body. He looked exactly the same as you had last seen him except the outside lights of the world illuminated his face as he appeared to be in what you assumed was the driver’s seat of his car. You felt your heart clench in your chest, memories of your relationship before he up and dipped on you clouding your mind to the point where you were damn near in tears wondering why it had to end so abruptly; why he left you the way he did. But those tears were soon pushed back by with an anger that had you ready to hang up in his face. You were so conflicted when it came to him, always had been.

“What do you want Toji?”

“You. I miss you, y/n. I’ve been thinking a lot about you and our family.” God, here he went with this bullshit again. Just when you thought the cycle was over he always popped up again, little white lies about missing you and his child so he could find solace in your bed for a week or two before dipping like he always did. Apparently, he wanted to come in and talk things out, just talk and try to redeem your relationship. You knew he was just telling you everything you wanted to hear with an ulterior motive behind his words, but you couldn’t resist that grin on his lips and the compliments of how nice you looked even in your nightclothes.

He was too good at this because the next thing you knew he was sitting on the couch in your living room with his legs manspreading out and trying to inch his way closer to where you sat on the opposite end. Your arms crossed and staring daggers into him while all he did was look at you as fondly as he could, as if he were genuinely envisioning a future with you and the child he left you within this moment.

“What the fuck do you really want Toji?” Your voice had a bite to it that left him smirking at your attitude and digging deeper into his mind to pull out lines he knew you wanted to hear, lines he knew would get him that satisfactory ending of you giving into his sweet talk and bold advances as he scooted a couple of inches closer to you. So close that his hand was able to rest on the part of your left thigh that the shorts you were wearing left exposed, gently kneading the area with his palm.

“You know you look good right?” You scoffed and rolled your eyes ready to push his hand off of you but his other hand blocked you from doing so, bringing both of your arms over your head and adjusting the two of you so that you were now smushed between him and the cushioning of the couch. As mad as you wanted to be at him you just couldn’t. He had indestructible shackles placed over your heart that tugged with each time he forced himself back into your life just like how they were now.

Flashbacks of the night you got pregnant suddenly came flashing before your eyes. The vivid imagery of the way he had your legs folded to the point where your ankles were by your ears as he pounded into you ruthlessly from above, hand around your neck tightening your airways and making tears form in your eyes. Blissed dazed out in a space that was too similar to subspace, too out of it to even respond to the “I’m going to fuck a baby into you and how ever many I want after that. Use you like the slut you are and breed you so good.” That had left his lips at that moment. 

Which is exactly what he did and here he was again, the two of you in the very same spot shimmied out of your clothes, and him ready to fuck a baby into you again once more.

“I just want you.” When he says it like that, voice soft and laced with what you hope to be some form of honesty, it’s easy to pretend like this is okay in a relationship—if that’s what you could even call this. That if you squinted your eyes hard enough and looked past Toji’s flaws that all this pain and suffering he put you through in the end would be worth it. Your feelings changing for him with each entrance and exit he made in your life. Always wondering what the two of you could’ve been if he was a better man. You had to be soulmates, there was no other explanation for why you kept coming back to each other. At least not any logical one that you could think of.

All the logical thinking left your mind the moment he pressed his lips to yours, those oh so soft lips that you missed and craved badly on nights when other men’s lips couldn’t contort to yours the way that he did.

This is exactly what he wanted—his gentle caresses and touch to distract you from the real reason why he was here. Which was only to use your body how he wanted before he went on with his life, not thinking about you again until he got horny once more. And it was the touch of his cold hands against your skin, working its way up to grope at your enlarged breast, that brought you back to this realization. Lips moving off of his immediately and backing up against the arm of the couch. Your lips opened in protest, only to be cut off by him speaking up first.

“You don’t understand how much I’ve missed your touch—your body. Do you know how much gorgeous you’ve become with a post-pregnancy body? Just looking at you is driving me crazy.” He continues on with his compliments. Each one hitting you straight into your heart and going up to your head to shush those thoughts that scream at you to not fall for his trap, but instead, you fell right into it. Allowing his to resume his position on top of you.

“We don’t even have to do much. Just the tip, I promise. I just miss the feeling of you around me so much.” It’s the first time this whole night that you were able to recognize one of his lies as just that, a bold-faced lie. You knew how he got when he was in the mood, how dark and clouded his mind got with lust to the point where he was a whole different Toji. But you let him believe that you believed that, a small okay leaving your lips along with a nod as you accepted his lips on yours once more; his tongue slipping past your lips to find yours, gently sucking on it and letting out a light moan at the familiarity of it. He didn’t even have to use his hands to guide his cock to your entrance because he was just that big, breaking away from the kiss to look at where the two of you connected and using his hips to guide his erect tip inside of the warmth of your cunt. For a minute, maybe even less, he kept his “promise” of inserting only his tip, but the feeling of your walls gripping on only the tip of his cock was enough for him to go crazy. Something on the verge of a whimper and a moan leaving his lips. He needed more of you and he was going to have more of you. Disregarding his promise like you predicted, he ruthlessly bucked his hips up against yours, his whole length entering you with ease from the build-up of your arousal that had taken the physical form of wetness.

“Pussy so wet just for me that you swallowed me whole.” He tried to pin it on you and if you weren’t stuffed to the brim with him right now maybe you would’ve rolled your eyes and told him how dumb he sounded, but you went along with it. He didn’t even give you time to adjust to him because even after months without touching each other he knew the pussy that he trained with constant fucking every week would remember his shape and form, adjusting your legs so they were folded up against your stomach and immediately getting to work.

“I might have to put another baby in you if this is what post-pregnancy pussy feels like. You feel so good and right around my cock, baby.”

Each thrust was like heaven on earth, his cock curved in just the right spots to his every sensitive area inside of you that left your toes curling and a faint white creamy line begin to form at the base of his cock. It had been so long since you’ve had a nice good fucking. You couldn’t remember the last time you felt so full, so good to the point where tears formed around the edges of your eyes. No one, not even the toys you had spent $100’s on tucked away in your closet, came close to the affect that he had on your body.

He always knew just what to do and just what to say to have you crumbling underneath him. One of your favorite but also most disliked quality that he possessed.

[familyagrestefanblog]

Analysis of the Family Agreste Portrait

Quarantine strikes again and since the Agreste family portrait has fascinated me for a loooong while now I decided to put my thoughts into words and write another essay x3

The amount of informations we get out if it is amazing and its not only highlighting the absolute TRAGEDY it is that this family is about to face such a horrible fall out, it also hints at the former family dynamic before everything went to hell.

So make yourself comfortable and get something to drink, because we will be here for a while.

Here we go: My analysis of this beauty of a fictional portrait

Let's start with the most obvious one: Hawkmoth.

Its commen knowledge by now that the background makes it seem like Hawkmoth is standing behind the Agreste family like a bad omen waiting for fate to take its course and cause their doom. The portrait is brilliantly designed so the illusion is created that Gabriels body (here in a blue suit closer to Hawkmoths normals dark purple one) overlaps with Hawkmoths and a darker line is connecting the two faces as well, which rest on the same height right beside each other. The very same line grows bigger as it goes further behind Emilie - coloring her entire background - showing us that EMILIE is all Gabriel sees when he becomes Hawkmoth. But notice that Adrien on the other hand can hardly be concidered part of Gabriels “sight” at all.

Its forshadowing 101 and damn beautiful if I may say so. But this isnt what I want to focus on in this post.

I want to elaborate on two other key factors that tell us about the former dynamic of the Agrestes instead and what they tell us about the present and future.

The heart:

This is hitting me on another level because look at the heart these three form with Adrien right in the middle! He was so LOVED. This family may have never been anywhere close to ideal but still, there was LOVE and now he's gonna loose it all.

Adrien already lost his mother which led to his father getting even more distant and cold and now his father is becoming increasingly more abusive as he falls deeper and deeper into villainy. Gabriel was never a good father, the show has already made this clear with episodes like "the bubbler", “the collector” or "Gigantitan" for example but gosh there was hope for their little family! The end scene in "Jackady" portrayed it perfectly and I wrote a whole other post just covering the sigificants of Adriens and Gabriels hug in that episode. Check it out here if you want, it goes hand in hand with this one.

Miraculous is all about love and the completely different ways it can affect us, our behavior and actions. Because love isnt just wonderful, pure and empowering, it also can be twisted, destructive and cause the darkst nightmares. And with this family the writers know how to portray the complex love in an abusive houshold thats destined to go up in flames and they also know how to hint at their troubled past with the family portrait.

But this heart visual tells us even more in connection with the positions of their hands. And with these two key factors, lets start with Gabriel:

His hands convey it so strongly. He loves/d Emilie and Adrien so much and no doubt this love for them was certainly the reason why he started his quest as Hawkmoth. But he is now losing himself more and more in the pleasure of his villainy to the point where he forgets why he's doing it in the first place and becomes a complete monster (of a father). But this turn and spiraling into villainy didn't came out of nowhere - this root already had to be in him to grow like that. And this is also something the portrait indeed hints at as well.

Because Gabriel is the only one of the three who:

1. We see so completely open and without hesitation reach out and hold BOTH his family members.

2. Is visually “cut off” from them as well.

But this doesn't mean he was excluded and the only one who truly cared and loved, it just shows that things were more... complicated...as usual.

This is best explained with Adriens hand placements:

One hand is holding his mothers but the other one is visibly not reaching out for his father. But as we all know, that's not because Adrien doesn't love him. In season 1-3 it is made more than clear that Adrien does not hate his father - he loves him alot and tries to be there for him and be patient because he knows that the loss of his mother brought his father terribly down.

Sure, Adrien gets frustrated and angry with him, literally how could he not?? But Adrien tries his best to reach out to Gabriel so they can bond and come out of this tragedy stronger.

But this loving willingness to forgive his father for the chance of growing a father-son bond with him doesn't change the fact that these two didn't had a bond prior to this. And let's be honest here, does anybody actually think this distance between them was caused by Adrien? I don't think so.

So notice how Adriens hand - not reaching out for his fathers - is the only one in the portrait NOT inside or forming the heart.

When the connection of the hands between the family members symbolise their connection to another, then Adrien keeping the hand for his father away from the display of love is VERY telling. It tells us very directly what this distance did to Adriens side of the relationship. Despite Gabriels hand being right there, Adrien does not meet the gesture. And I cannot believe that he did it out of resentment, nothing in the show indicated such strong negative emotions from past Adrien.

It's much more likely that Adrien not reaching for his fathers hand is meant to show us that Adrien felt that he either CAN'T return the gesture because he fears that it'll end in an unpleasant reaction from Gabriel - that it isn't Adriens "place" to reach out to his busy and distant father like that, like it's demanding something - or Adrien simply didn't took Gabriel laying his hand on his shoulder, in the context of posing for a portrait, as a gesture of love and affection.

The way I interpret the portrait is that prior to Emilies dissappearence Adrien did not exactly try to reach out to his father the same way he did from s1-s3, which, I mean, of course wasn't the case. Not only is it NOT the 13 years olds (or younger) job to form an emotional connection to their absent parent - when that’s the PARENTS job - it also wouldn't be necessarily "needed" for Adrien to do so.

Because Emilie at this point was still in the picture so and she was the complete opposite. She was a (or maybe the ONLY) safe, reliable and loving constant of parental attention, affection and care in his life and because of these two HARSH contrasts Adrien learned from very early on to focus mostly completely on her in that regard while kinda blocking his father out.

That most likely wasn't even an active choice whatsoever - Gabriel proofed to be an unreliable resource so Adrien learned to subconciously treat him that way out of self protection. That doesn't mean he had any kind of dislike or malice against his father it just means that he wasn't able or allowed to connect with Gabriel the way he needed. Several episodes show that Gabriel deadass only parented like 15 minutes tops in his life with one of the worst offenders kinda being “Gigantitan” ngl.

So yeah, when I see that the portrait wants to tell me that prior to Emilies loss, Adrien - a 12-13 year old at most - is THIS used to rely solely on the strong bond he has with his mother and not even really reaching out for his fathers love, then I can't help but interpret it in the way that... Well... Gabriel was so distant and emotionally unreliable to Adrien for all his life, that Gabriel simply... wasn't needed by his son. Not at that point of time at least.

And while this may seem weird, because obviously Adrien only now starts to stop craving for his fathers affection and approval (which is btw a horrible, HORRIBLE thing and not something good. A half orphan losing the last remaining hope he had left of having the chance to finally get to form a bond with the only other parent he has left, just to be crushed by disappointment and abandonment all over again until he let's go, is REALLY NOT as much of a good thing people will make it out to be. This is... plain awful) it's actually quite logical.

Adriens hand outside the heart doesn't mean that his father meant nothing to him and therefore refuses to meet and accept his affection (that's literally the complete opposite of what the show shows us), it means that Adriens and Gabriels father-son relationship suffers from a fatal emotional disconnection caused by miscommunication/ a lack of communication.

And this was caused by Gabriel. How? Let me elaborate on that by going a bit far afield (cuz lbh we all have time for this. I’m writing this in quarantine and youre reading this is quarantine, so lets gooooooooooooo).

In "The bubbler" Adrien says that his father "always forgot his birthday", but I cannot agree with this in true honesty. Gabriel is controlling his sons entire life, calls him "the epitome of perfection" and temporarily truly gave up being Hawkmoth for him, he definitely never forgot Adriens birthday.

"The bubbler" even SHOWS us that Adriens perspective of the situation is actually not the truth:

This is Adriens first birthday after Emilies dissappearence and it's incredibly telling how Gabriel handles the planning.

What this entire little sequence tells me is that Gabriel is completely and UTTERLY used to NOT be the one to take care of anything related to Adriens birthday. So Emilie was always the one who did it but somehow - now without her - Gabriel apparently still hasn't even considered changing anything about that nasty non-involvement and just expected Natalie to pick everything up where Emilie left it.

Because let's be real here, knowing Natalie she would NOT have forgotten to get a present if Gabriel truly had told her to. Natalie is never presented to do mistakes like that but Gabriel on the other hand IS definitely presented to us claiming things about himself as ultimate, blameless and true when they simply do not reflect reality. A great example: Gorizilla

You didn’t even speared a minutes of your time for Adrien and he DID try to! Asshat… It's a problem guys. The lack of self awareness Gabriel displays in moments like this is legitimately concerning when you think about how deeply this man is falling right now.

But back to the topic:

Because even if Gabriel didn't even consider doing anything himself for Adriens birthday - not even taking the time to SEE his son (who just recently lost his mother, come on Gabe, really?) - one thing one cannot hold against him: he sure as hell remembered Adriens birthday like any decent parent would and it wasnt portrayed as a this-year-for-the-first-time thing.

And yet Adriens statement still makes complete sense. Because a big, BIG problem with Gabriel is just how much he takes things for granted. He EXPECTS things to be universally known and to never be doubted, just because that's how HE sees them. I will write 10 essays if it's needed to make people understand that Gabriel DOES truly love Adrien, it's just that Gabriel HIMSELF is such a rotten, twisted and toxic person that he cannot see how much his (oppressing) behavior and the way he (doesn't) express his love hurts Adrien and that HE is the one at fault. (for more, once again, read this)

Gabriel LOVES Adrien but he takes the love he feels as such a matter-of-fact that he just completely... forgets to show it.

And when we take Adriens words and look at the Family portrait it unfortunately seems that...

…. Gabriel ALWAYS forgot to show it.

Adriens hand - that should at least be reaching out to his father - is outside of the heart in accepting certainty. Because that's what Gabriels non-presence was for Adrien while growing up: an unreliable and unreachable certainty he had to accept early on as safer to not try to emotionally depend on too much or else he will get hurt.

So yeah, Adrien is the one in the portrait who is very openly not reaching out but only because Gabriel never gave him the needed affection and stability to be able to create that bond.

But let me correct what I said a little earlier: Adrien ALWAYS needed his father. Every kid, especially one in a bad situation like Adrien, does need their parents/friends etc as support system to become independent and confident in a healthy way. And if they don’t have that they WILL crave and look for it!

What Adrien has been doing up to now IS normal for a teenager - humans NEED affection, belonging and safety. What ISNT/SHOULDN’T be normal is Adriens disconnection towards his father in the portrait and just how much Gabriel fails to take care and BE THERE for his son in BOTH TIMES!

Collector:

Bother Christmas:

One thing I like about the show is that it portrays their young main cast with one very important truth: The psyche of a child/teenager of their age will react and adapt so it SURVIVES, even if it results in unfortunate consequences in other relationships and places. Thats the psyches main concern and it'll try to cope with the limited experience and development it has in whatever way necessary to get itself to the next day. A coping mechanism is not there to make you a better person, it ensures your SURVIVAL, everything else is a secondary concern.

So seeing pre-show Adrien not react to Gabriels touch and even feel completely unloved and disconnected from him is no surprise to me. Kids are incredibly observant. They may lack the needed experience and knowledge to truly understand that they deserve better and to stand up for themselves but they are masters in picking up red flags in people and can put this danger into perspective while comparing the different danger levels of their options of people and places to adjust their behavior.

Feast:

Stormy Weather 2:

So the broken connection between father and son we see in the portrait (that Gabriel doesn't even notice but Adrien fully internalized) isn’t there because Adrien “didnt needed” or wanted his father, its because Adrien NEEDED Gabriel so much in his isolated upbringing but Gabriel didn’t LET him need him - so Adrien had to adjust to that accordingly. Big, huge, ENORMOUS difference.

Honestly the most miraculous thing about Miraculous is that Adrien was able to bring up the strength to stay positive and friendly and to forgive Gabriel in hope for a better future. That boys situation is 7 kinds of depressing and traumatizing...

It's just flabbergasting to me how well this portrait shows how basically non-existent their relationship was at that point. And it's horrible to know that this estranged and unformed bond is all Adrien had left after Emilie dissappeared, just alot worse because after Emilie incident Adrien states that his father changed alot for the worse as well.

So to think that all Adrien had left wasn't even this former basically non-existent relationship with his aloof father - who would only barely show his true affection for his son because he's either not around enough to do so or he thinks it "unnecessary to proof his affection" for/to Adrien because he already thinks it so obvious and undoubtable.

Well he thought wrong. And GOSH, it breaks my heart!

So now comparing the "Gabriel" hand from Adrien with the one representing his connections with his mother conveys a pretty harsh contrast.

Because last but not least, let's take a look at Emilies hand placements:

But here is now an interesting difference to Adrien. Whereas we openly see that Adriens side of the Adrien-Gabriel relationship is completely disconnected from the heart/love - showcasing just how badly Adrien has always been neglected by his father - we don't see Emilies hand in her Emilie-Gabriel relationship AT ALL.

Once again just like with Adrien, this doesn't mean she didn't love her husband and that Gabriel was used and fooled by the woman he so utterly adored. It just means that from Emilies point of view things were a bit more complicated. What exactly this is, the portrait is keeping secret from us. We have no way of knowing if and how Emilie is returning her husbands gesture. All we can say is that if she does she is definitely not doing it in such an open and unconflicted way as she does with Adrien.

But since when has anything with this family been this easy?

One thing the portrait makes very clear, Adrien and Emilie had a strong and good bond. Definitely the healthiest because the Adrien-Emilie connection is the only one depicted without any kind of disruption from both sides. Both mother and son are reaching out for the other ones hand creating a whole half of the heart, showcasing their affection for another openly and without any of the implied doubts the other connections display. And honestly? Comparing all the hand placements, the one connecting Adrien and Emilie just comes across as strikingly pure and true (which makes it even worse that it was HER Adrien lost…)

As I said it's a HARSH contrast to the one Adrien shears with Gabriel. This contrast is highlighted even further by the way these three face on another.

Emilie and Adrien are positioned facing another and so are Emilie and Gabriel. Telling us that Emilie was "face-to-face" aka involved with both her husband and son. It is Adrien and Gabriel were this looks wildly different. These two have no way of seeing each other in the eyes the way they stand now/then, further displaying their deeply rooted disconnection. It's portrays perfectly how important Emilie was in this family dynamic, because even though Adrien and Gabriel bearly had a connection at all they at least had Emilie as a link between them, keeping the family together. But then they lost her and where this left both father and son off we know oh too well...

So to collect all the informations we get out if this portrait:

-Adriens and Emilies relationship was the strongest and purest. Both of their hands connect and reach out for another in the heart, showcasing that they had a loving and positive bond.

-Adriens and Gabriels relationship is heavily scarred by a deeply rooted disconnection leaving Adrien feeling unloved and unwanted by his father to the point where Adriens side of their dynamic is outside the heart altogether. Gabriel may love and adore his son just like he loves his wife and never thought he displayed his love for him in a lacking way, but fact is: this love never reached Adrien the way it should have and Adrien is the one in their dynamic who got severely hurt and damaged by it.

-Gabriel was the only one completely unconflicted and happily at peace with the former Family situation. He's reaching out to both his family members with open love and affection in blissful oblivion that neither his wife nor son could return them the same way (to different degrees for different reasons). Gabriel was the ONLY ONE in the Agreste family who didn't saw problems in their lives and thought them all happy, hence why he's so obsessed with changing the past and bringing THIS state of their family back. He was happy and he had everything he needed and loved right with him, of course he wants THIS back. He's not aware that Emilie and ESPECIALLY Adrien did not feel the same about their former situation and that bringing all of them back to this is not the perfect happy ending for their entire family as he thinks.

-Emilie may not have been as unconflicted with Gabriel as he was with her but she is NOT feeling the same disconnection her son feels and isn't depicted with negative feelings towards Gabriel. Her side in the Emilie-Gabriel relationship is neither shown outright positive as with her son or outright bad as Adrien with Gabriel. Her side of their bond is depicted through her unseen hand placement in the unknown area in between.

-Despite their not so unconflicted feelings towards Gabriel - and Gabriel himself being aloof - neither Emilie nor Adrien are actively trying to cut Gabriel out. They aren't flinching away from his touch or exclude him from the heart whatsoever. He's happily included, obviously feeling loved. They may not be 100% happy and Gabriel doesn't notice it, but they aren't denying him his happiness and make him unhappy. Again, he's the only one truly happy here. Something neither Emilie nor Adrien tried to take away from him.

-Emilie and Adrien are facing each other as do Emilie and Gabriel, implying the presence of communication and a bond. Adrien and Gabriel do not face each other, showing their disconnected bond. If they could see each others face Adrien would have been able to see that Gabriels hand is a gesture of genuine affection and Gabriel could see that Adriens expression does not exactly display pure happiness the way he thinks. This also goes for Emilie. Emilie just like her husband is placed BEHIND her son, so even if she is facing him she would not be able to really see just how much Adrien is not satisfied and truly happy with his life at that point (meaning how unhappy being looked up, friendless and at distance with his father actually makes him).

- This fascinating family makes me sad and I like it lol

[mypoisonedvine]

Love, Theoretically | Sebastian Stan x reader (Chapter 5)

(chapter 1) (chapter 2) (chapter 3) (chapter 4)

series summary: having lost your husband, sister, and best friend all to the same extramarital affair, you ran away to a secluded villa in the Hungarian countryside to write and get a little time away from the life you’d left behind.  you were only looking for peace and perhaps some inspiration for your novel, but instead you found an unlikely connection with the immigrant repairman– even though the two of you don’t speak the same language.

word count: nearly 2.5k

warnings: vague description of a wet dream, some sensual implied stuff (??), 

moodboard and inspiration credit to @evnscvll​

In all your life, you’d never had a wet dream.  Not even in high school when so many of your peers were coping with puberty and budding sexuality in similar ways— not even when you’d wanted to have one about David Kapoor, the cutest guy in senior year who didn’t even know you existed but that you were somehow convinced was going to fall madly in love with you one day.  

It never did work out for you two, but you’d finally managed to have a wet dream.  This one, though, was about Sebastian.

In your dream he had cornered you in the kitchen, kissing you deeply before tossing you onto the table and— well, the rest doesn’t bear repeating.  It was all very ‘discount bin romance novel’ wasn’t it?  The exotic, rugged farm boy roughly taking the formerly-prudish businesswoman in the middle of the house, too deep in the throes of passion to care if someone walking by saw them.

You didn’t find it all that sexy by the time you woke up; moreso just humorous.  That’s preposterous, you thought to yourself, nobody’s ever gonna love me like that.

It was something your husband had said to you once.  You couldn’t even remember what the context was anymore, but clearly it had had an impact on you to be repeating it internally now.  Just last week, Mrs. Alberti had gotten on your case for speaking poorly of yourself.  Clearly, the things you said about yourself to others were nothing against what you said about yourself to yourself.

Your papers had only taken a day to dry, but the ink was pretty severely smudged.  Knowing your publisher wouldn’t accept them in a manuscript, you resolved to retyping the most damaged ones— a good mindless task to do while you pondered your next steps plot-wise.  You’d seen Sebastian less for the past week, and it was no accident; you’d been avoiding him because you were trying to nip this in the bud before it got any worse.  Your divorce isn’t final yet, you need to heal.  This is fantasy, not reality.  You barely know each other.  Your divorce isn’t final.  Your divorce.  Isn’t.  Final.

That was the mantra you found yourself repeating as you retyped the waterlogged sheets; so much for the plot-pondering plan, eh?

You heard someone coming up the stairs, and you knew it was him because the steps were coming too quickly to be Mrs. Alberti.  “Come in,” you instructed before he’d even knocked.  

“Bună ziua,” he greeted as he opened the door, leaning inside.  “Am pregătit cina, ai vrea să mănânci?”

“Hm?” you asked as you turned around in your chair, adjusting your reading glasses.  However, his question became more obvious through context when you saw he had oven mitts and an apron on, and was holding a wooden spoon.  “Oh, um, I’ll be down for dinner in a minute.  Soon.”  You held up a few fingers, hoping he would successfully interpret them into minutes.

“Arăți bine în ochelarii aceia,” he motioned, pointing towards you.

“I’m sorry… what?” you asked, not sure at all what he could be talking about.

“Ochelari. Sunt drăguți,” he re-emphasized, but it was useless as you gave him another confused look.  He sighed, straightening up a bit as he began a new method: “Îmi plac,” he said, pointing to himself and then giving a thumbs up, “ochelarii tăi,” he pointed to you, and then made circles with his fingers and brought them up to his eyes.  

You laughed a little, but you were pretty sure you got what he meant.  “You like my glasses?” you clarified, reaching up to wiggle them on your face a bit.

“Da,” he grinned.  “Pari inteligent.”

“Thank you,” you nodded, and he nodded back as he shut the door and his footsteps faded back into the kitchen.

Once a few more pages had been redone, you gave your hair a quick combing before heading down for dinner with Sebastian.  It smelled a little strange by the time you went downstairs, but when you swung open the door to the kitchen, you were instantly hit with a wave of acidic air, forcing you to wince and cough.  Even that didn’t help much, and you forced your eyes shut as they stung.

“Jesus Christ,” you yelped, “the fuck are you cooking?  Tear gas?!”

“Oțetul te irită?” he asked, not sounding as concerned as you would’ve hoped considering your obvious pain.  It was like you could taste it in the air, and it wasn’t until you managed to open your burning eyes again that you realized what it was: vinegar, in a huge jug right next to the pot he was boiling it in.

“You’re boiling vinegar?” you realized incredulously.  “God, Europeans are fucking weird.”

He just looked back at you with bewildered bemusement.

“In America,” you tried to explain, “we don’t eat vinegar.  We clean our floors with it.”  You pointed to the jug and made a motion meant to indicate scrubbing a surface, and he laughed a little.

“Americanii sunt prea sensibili,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand, turning back to the stove to stir his pot of disinfectant which he apparently planned to serve you as a meal.  “Am avut ciorbă de oțet de când eram copil.”

You’d typically considered yourself an adventurous eater— even with vinegar-pickled things, like kim chi which you’d learned to acquire a taste for— but this one put you to the test.  Considering the smell alone had singed your sinuses, you were nervous what would become of your innocent tastebuds.  But after he served the soup (a dark orange color, so apparently it wasn’t just the boiled vinegar) into a bowl for you and another for himself, you found the taste of it oddly pleasant when you sipped it gently from your hesitant little spoon.

“Vezi, nu e așa de rău,” he smiled gently as he watched you fail to recoil in disgust from the flavor.

“Just like ma used to make, huh?” you chuckled as he ate the soup with incredible speed, even going as far as to lift the bowl to his lips and drink the last few sips that way.

Eating dinner in silence with him was unexpectedly comfortable.  “You wanna know something funny?” you found yourself mumbling aloud.  “I enjoy talking to you more than anyone I ever did back home, and you can’t even understand me.”

His smile softened as he stared back at you, apparently sensing the change in your tone as you spoke.

“See, right there, that’s it: you’re listening to me.  You know it’s useless, you know you won’t be able to tell what I’m talking about, but you’re listening anyways.  Over two billion English speakers on the planet and none of them have listened to me like you do.”

Then you heard yourself, and it was so heart-breaking that you had no choice but to laugh.  It was just a chuckle at first, but then you couldn’t stop it, even when you realized how confused Sebastian would be.  Everything is funnier when you know you shouldn’t laugh, and soon you could barely breathe as tears warmed your eyes from the force of it.

“I’m sorry,” you tried to spit out between your fits of laughter, but it was barely comprehensible anyways.  Sebastian began to laugh with you, if hesitantly and with a hint of confusion.

“De ce râdem?” he asked gently.

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, calming down a bit, “I’m sorry I just… I was just imagining what my husband would say, if he knew I was here…” you trailed off as you laughed again, starting over.  “If he knew I was here, falling for someone I’ve never even spoken with.”  You shook your head, resting your face in your hands as you chuckled lightly.  “Oh, he’d hate this.  He’d tell me I was out of my mind.”

With a slow sigh, your laughter subsided as you wiped the wetness from your eyes.  

“He’d be right, but… I don’t really care,” you decided.  “He’s not here.  If he wanted to find me, he would.  And maybe it’s because he’d hate this that I’m having so much goddamn fun doing it.”

When you looked at Sebastian again, his face was serious, yet anything but stern.  Suddenly, you weren’t thinking about your husband anymore.  Of course you logically understood how odd this all was, how impossible it was for you to be slowly finding yourself in love with someone like him, but it felt right, and true, and real.  It made no sense, and yet it made perfect sense in every way that mattered.  

“I’ll help you clean,” you offered as you stood up, realizing you’d gotten lost in your train of thought and probably stared at him for a bit too long.  He stood up with you, helping you gather the used dishes and letting you wash them in the sink while he put the remaining soup in the refrigerator as leftovers for another time.  “I’ll cook for you tomorrow,” you promised, “something real bland, like the English cook.”

“Sper că nu intenționați să gătiți pentru mine cândva, nu suport mâncarea occidentală,” he mumbled as he continued to wipe down the countertop with a damp towel.

With the kitchen clean, you knew you should get back to writing your book, but you were compelled instead to read somebody else’s— so, as you slipped onto the couch with one of a few of your favorites that you’d brought with you, Sebastian summoned the same copy of Dracula you’d seen him reading a few times and took the loveseat.  Not much else happened after that, save for you shivering from a draft and him tossing a throw blanket on you.  

“Ce carte citești?” he asked you eventually, breaking the silence.  When you looked up, he was pointing at your book.  “Book?”

“Right,” you laughed, “I taught you that.  My book, uh, it’s good.”  You closed it, leaving your finger inside to mark your place as you showed him the front cover.  “On the Road?  Ever heard of it?”

He just cocked his head to the side.

“Jack Kerouac?” you continued.  “It’s about going on a long journey in search of… freedom.”

“Acesta este cel despre zombi?” he asked.

“Sure,” you nodded, wishing more than ever that you could know what he was saying.  He smiled and got back to his own reading.  Indulging yourself for a moment, you watched his face as it fell into a neutral expression while he read, his eyes trailing along the page as he continued to read.  You didn’t realize it, but when you returned to reading your own book, he got his chance to look at you.

A long day of writing meant you had more than earned an evening to relax by the fire; late summer became early fall, and early fall turned into the need for a fireplace so much faster than you’d anticipated.  The days were temperate, sure, but as the sun began to sink lower, so did the warmth.  You started your evening with a hot shower, though you didn’t let yourself get too greedy with the limited supply of hot water, knowing Sebastian relied on the same supply for his own baths.  When you finished, you dressed yourself in a fluffy lavender robe, feeling especially pampered when you put on a little moisturizer before heading downstairs to cozy up with the fire.  You were already getting chilly, the heat from the shower fading as your wet hair and bare feet cooled you quickly.  Therefore, it was more of a scurry to the fireplace, which you hadn’t expected Sebastian to be tending or you wouldn’t have come down in a robe.  He’d seen you in less (namely, his shirt and nothing else, which was horrifically embarrassing) but something about this felt more intimate, like all your defenses had been washed away in the shower, too.  Didn’t help that he was shirtless, again.  Wasn’t he cold in this weather?!  Must be all that muscle keeping him warm.

“Bună seara,” he greeted.

“Good evening,” you returned.  Stepping closer, you rubbed your hands together as you felt the hot air radiate towards you.  “It’s nice,” you sighed contentedly.

He smiled back at you, moving the logs slightly with the iron poker.  Sparks jumped and fell off as he shifted them, joining the ashes below— you’d always thought fire was so beautiful, even if it was dangerous, and you took in a long breath through your nose to smell the tinge of smokiness in the air.

“Te încălzești?” he asked quietly as he set the poker aside and stood beside you.  You wrapped your arms around yourself, rubbing through the fabric of the robe to try to warm up a little faster.  Seeing you shiver, he reached out and rubbed your arms for you, which made you tense up slightly before relaxing and breathing out.  “Mai bine?”

You nodded a little, your gaze drifting slightly.  

“Warm?” he asked, making your eyes jump back up to his.  You swallowed dryly as he looked back at you.

“Warm,” you repeated, “yeah.  Good job… when’d you learn that?”

He didn’t answer, watching your hands as they reached out for his arms, finally making delicate contact with his tanned skin before drifting up to his biceps, his shoulders, and finally his chest.  He put his own hands on top of yours and held them there, looking back at you as your heart started to beat rapidly and with no signs of slowing down.  “Warm,” he repeated, only slightly above a whisper.

“Oh yeah,” you agreed hoarsely, “very, very warm…”

He smiled a little; it wasn’t mischievous, it wasn’t conniving or predatory or malicious.  It was subtle but gentle in a way you had absolutely no plan to save yourself from, no protection, no armor, no neutral territory.  There was only heat, so strong that your toes weren’t cold anymore and you didn’t even remember that your hair was still damp.  Not only did you let his heat consume you, but you didn’t even think to stop it, to swallow your desire down, to run away and say goodnight and hide in bed from the icky scary feelings.  No, you looked right back at him and let those eyes pierce right through you, that cold blue changed entirely with the warm firelight reflecting in them.  

“Do you want to come to my room?” you asked slowly.  The words were useless, but a glance back to the stairs that led to your door and back at him asked the same question with much more efficacy.  

He nodded, and you stepped backwards as he followed you: across the house, up the stairs, and to your room.  You opened the door.  He shut it behind you. 

[homieswithhades]

why steve rogers returning to the past was wrong

disclaimer: im clearly a stucky enthusiast, but please, do not be thrown off by that. i admit, there may be undertones of bias because of that in the following, but i did my best with trying to lay out the facts and draw logical conclusions, so do please give me a chance. also, i may have accidentaly omitted some moments and some quotes may not be 100% word for word, as my memory lowkey sucks. ALSO this is NOT a peggy hate post!! i think shes a dope and underrated character and quite frankly she was done dirty. but i also definitely h8 the trope of badass woman falls for the hero.

first and foremost, every sane person knows endgame was complete and utter bullshit when dealing with steves character, so this post will be more for you to maybe show (and hopefully convince) some stubborn friend or family member. nice, concise (not) and including proof from the movies (+a few tweets and stucky undertones, if u dont fw that i respect it but bucky is an integral part to steves character regardless of how u interpret their relationship) here is why steves character development was thrown away at the end of endgame.

let us begin at looking at the cap trilogy.

in ca:tfa it should be noted that steve had no one to return to in the 40s, except bucky. i believe steves relationship with peggy was no where near as developed as it should have been to elicit him returning exclusively for her. as we are aware, steves driving force has absolutely always been bucky. bucky was there for steve after his parents died, when he was sick, and always protected him from whatever trouble he got himself into. "until the end of the line" right? steves relationship with peggy was forced and short lived, literally, we're talking a matter of months here. i need to keep emphasising the important disparity between bucky and peggy, as it is absolutely key in this whole argument. steve dropped everything and went against every order just to even attempt to save bucky. even the slightest chance of him surviving being captured was enough for steve to break into a hydra camp and free the 107th division. steve even had the chance to capture zola, one of the main villains and masterminds of the war, but again, steve prioritised bucky. when theyre trying to escape the exploding hydra camp, the exchange between steve and bucky is critical. steve says "go! get out of here!" as all he wanted was bucky escaping safely. he put bucky's life over his own (this wasnt the first time he did this, nor the last) but bucky rooted himself to the spot, and yelled back "no, not without you!". they both escaped safely as we know, and then steve gathers the howling commandos to take down the red skull. bucky then falls off the train, nd steve blames himself for his death, even visibly crying over it twice. steves morals went from "i dont wanna kill anyone. i dont like bullies, i dont care where theyre from" before buckys death, to "i wont stop until all of hydra are dead or captured" after. stuff happens and steve defeats the red skull and is now in control of the flying ship with the bombs. he connects the comms with peggy and she tries to convince him theres another way to disarm the ship. steve was so dedicated at that point he didnt even want to hear it. he didnt even attempt to do anything to ensure his survival. this alone proves, peggy was not important enough to him to return to.

next is ca:tws. The stevebucky movie. in the museum, peggy confirms that steve saved the man from the 107th division who eventually became her husband (steve was never in the 107th, just to clarify) i believe her husbands name was daniel sousa (as revealed in the marvels agents of shield show) steve then finds out peggy is alive and talks to her. she, in short, tells him she's lived her life, and it was his turn to live his in the time hes in. the "my best girl" line was unnecessary and out of place; again, steve barely knew her. again, shit goes down, and steve finds out the winter soldier is bucky and immediately drops everything, and becomes dead set on saving him. not killing, not imprisoning, but saving him. no matter the cost. "he saw me, and he didnt even know me" "hes not the kind you save, hes the kind you stop. he won't recognise you" "he will." god, steve KNEW bucky would recognise him. regardless of the brainwashing, steve managed to break through the barrier hydra fought so hard to drill into buckys mind. nothing ever broke him out of that state exept for steve. "im not gonna fight you, youre my friend." "youre my mission" "then finish it. cos im with you till the end of the line." [[good fucking lord let me break out of my essay-esque semi professional format here and just say how fucking heartbreaking those lines are. oh my god. read them, over and over until it hits you.]] steve shows us again, that he is willing to not only die for bucky, but literally die by his hand. he would let bucky kill him. he'd dropped his shield. he didnt fight back. steve always, always, ALWAYS got up and fought back. always. exept that time. the time bucky could have killed him. that scene is the essence of "im with you till the end of the line" because then, it was true. it was true because steve was okay with dying at buckys mercy. theres a difference between sacrificing yourself for the greater good (steve going into the ice), willing to die for someone (steve risking his life multiple times in attempts to save bucky) and finally, being willing to let someone kill you, because you love and trust them so much (hellicarier scene). the difference between peggy and bucky's relationship to steve is that steve may be willing to die for either, but only willing to be killed by one. not to mention, bucky pulled steve from the river. he recognised him. steve broke through 70 years of brainwashing with such impact it literally drove bucky away from hydra out of his own free will.

in between ca:tws and ca:cw its confirmed (im p sure sam says it) that him and steve looked for bucky for two. years. even off screen, bucky was steves priority.

im going to squeeze in 2 points from from age of ultron here, for chronology's sake:

steves worst nightmare, as portayed in the movie, is LITERALLY going back to the 40s and being stuck there (with peggy too??lmfao) and also the quote "family, stability, the man who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago. i think another one came out." objectively confirms that steve isn't the man he used to be, and doesnt want to return to the past. aou may have sucked, but that doesn't mean the character development should be thrown away.

ca:cw. hoo boy. steve went against 117 countries and half of his closest friends and colleagues because he believed bucky was innocent of the bombing of the un conference. god, steve quite literally, did everything to defend and protect bucky. though i shall acknowledge that steve did attend peggy's funeral, however, there was no real connotations there other than the fact he was mourning her death (understabdibly so). steve then proceeds to protect bucky for 2 hours 27 mins and 41 seconds to the point where they escape together to siberia after the airport fight. "i dont know if im worth all this steve" "what you did all those years... it wasnt you. you didnt have a choice." "i know. but i did it" again, absolutely heartbreaking quotes if you read it a couple of times and truly understand the meaning of them. steve somewhat indirectly tells bucky yes, yes he is worth all of this. otherwise, he wouldn't be doing it. a quote to support that would be "for the longest time, i always did what i thought was right." (disclaimer this is not a direct quote i deadass couldnt find it to save my life, i belive steve said it at some point during civil war or tws, but the point is, bucky is the only thing that could have shaken steves morals so intensely.) and finally, the most important part of cw, the fight at the end with tony. bucky and steve constantly protected each other. steve kept fighting because he was fighting for bucky. to keep him safe from tony and the world. he got up, time and time again. "i can do this all day." the fact that he said that to tony, some people consider them the closest of friends, proves again, a million times over, bucky is more important to steve than literally anything else, INCLUDING his shield. his mantle. he dropped it and left it like it was nothing, because his priority was bucky. as always.

theres not much to discuss for infinity war other than their hug whicg was honestly just adorable.

mmmmm endgame. i will not go into how much i hate that movie because it would be a rant quintuple the length of this one. in the support group, steve dead ass fucking says "you gotta move on. you gotta move on" and that sentiment was literally forgotten at the end. my main point for endgame is this. people tend to tell me, the reason steve abandoned bucky and went back to be with peggy is because he knew that he was finally safe. :/. if you had half a braincell youd know that's not true. the steve we know, never would have left bucky for good, ESPECIALLY after the "dont do anything stupid until i get back" exchange [[god i want to beat the shit out of the r*ssos]] mostly because, bucky had fucking no one in the time he was living in!!! no family, no friends and most heartbreakingly, no one he could trust. (yes sam was there but were just seeing their friendship develop now in tfatws, all that wasnt there in endgame) and secondly, what made steve think bucky was entirely safe??? half of the worlds population just suddenly reappeared, which as we see now, there were massive consequences for that. i simply believe steve is not that stupid. steve going back was disrespectful not only to his character, but to bucky AND peggy. most importantly, the steve we've been watching since 2011 would NEVER abandon bucky, no matter how safe he thought he was (he visited him frequently in wakanda, the safest place on the planet arguably ffs) especially for such a dumbass and quite frankly, nonsensical reason as going back to be with peggy, who clearly stated to him she moved on, and so should he (which he did. idk endgame writers prolly didnt watch the previous movies :/) its not even debatable. bucky is more important to steve than peggy. even in terms of screentime.

now allow some tweets to speak for me, this one being the absolute most important one:

ladies and gentlefolk, all of the stuff ive said can be summarised in that last line. "it would be contrary to who he is."

heres some more:

and now finally, id like to briefly mention steve and tfatws, so beware of spoilers (writing this as of ep 4 coming out; praying it doesn't age badly)

bucky mentions steve, unprompted, fucking constantly. he clearly isnt over steve leaving, and im hoping that gets acknowledged and talked out in the show.

in conclusion, tl:dr, steve shouldn't have returned to the past and stayed there, it is contrary to who he is, as shown to us through his trilogy and other appearances in the mcu. not to mention the timeline bullshit in endgame makes zero sense in the first place.

[sullustangin]

Darth Marr and Satele Shan:  Names and Priorities

I’ve reached the point in my Yavin fic that I’m starting to use Marr’s POV on occasion.  One of the things I’ve been chewing on (likely to the annoyance of others) has been the Marr-Satele-Theron dynamic during the Yavin 4 op.  It’s clear that Satele and Marr have put aside differences and have become friends (as much as a Force ghost and a self-exiled Jedi Master can be friends) by Chapter 12 of KotFE. 

I give credit to @swtorpadawan for posting about Satele on Yavin 4 a few months ago and being willing to have continued discourse about the post -- thank you.  In comments and reblogs, there’s been discussion about how to interpret Satele’s references to Theron during the op and her motivations for why she does this. 

This is a spin-off of that post, since I’ll be focusing more on the dynamic between Marr and the Shans instead of Theron and Satele. 

During the Yavin op, Theron is consistently referred to as Theron, not as Agent Shan or as Shan.  The issue of his last name is avoided.   A few people (including me) have the headcanon that ‘Shan’ is a common name in the galaxy, like Smith or Patel or Garcia would be on our world; two people named Shan does not a family connection make, necessarily.  It would explain why Theron doesn’t have a code name (though he jokingly? complains about it on first meeting). 

And yet, Satele avoids using the name in reference to Theron.  So does Marr.  And Theron doesn’t insist on being referred to by his last name, even though his peer, Lana Beniko, is referred to as ‘Beniko’ by Marr. (Satele never addresses Lana using her name.)

Why the dance? 

Honestly, when I try to reverse-engineer dev!logic, in terms of the game design for Yavin 4, I’d guess it was done to help the player differentiate between Grand Master Shan and Agent Shan.  And maybe that’s all it is: calling Theron “Theron” just keeps the player from getting confused, especially if the player isn’t a Jedi and doesn’t know Satele; and/or skipped the Forged Alliances quests and thus doesn’t know Theron.

Within the universe, however, what’s an explanation a player can come up with?

The Spies in Question

Theron’s name was broadcast across the galaxy as a wanted man for killing Colonel Darok.  He was to be apprehended on sight, but Theron was a spy; spy agencies to this day rarely let any images of their active duty agents be circulated, even if they do go rogue or defect to the other side.  Theron’s image in direct connection to his name and job as SIS agent would be on a need-to-know basis.  This has led me to headcanon that Director Trant was well-aware of Theron going off the grid; in fact, he aided and abetted it.

Lana, on the other hand, was a known member of the Sphere of Military Offense.  She commanded troops on Hoth.  She had a known face, and there was an Imperial bounty contract on her head, per Theron at Manaan.  If anything, Lana was in as much danger as Jakarro; someone could try to claim the bounty on her head, since the bounties weren’t lifted til the end of the Yavin op.

And yet, Theron’s name was the unspeakable one. 

Satele and Theron

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I feel that the dynamic between Theron and Satele is not that of son and mother; both of them have gotten past that decision.  Rather, it’s more similar to a child who was given up for adoption looking for some sort of acknowledgement from his birth family -- it’s not love.  It’s not approval.  It’s.... complicated.  Acknowledgement of existence.  Acknowledgement that the decision had impact on Theron well beyond his first year of life.  Acknowledgement that Satele hurt Jace. 

I’ve interpreted Theron’s bristling at the use of the term “my agent” to be more directed at the possessiveness of the word, yet how far apart they still are, despite the biological connections.  Technically, Yavin 4 was the first time they worked on an op together.  This was their first professional collaboration.  They haven’t seen each other socially, they can’t talk about their issues/relationship/whatever.....and they have to save the galaxy together.

Giving up Theron doesn’t mean Satele felt nothing. She privately struggles with what she did and how it turned out -- still does, based on 6.2.   However, she, like Jace and Theron, believe in serving the cause at great personal cost.  Seeing Theron beat to hell after Rishi bothered her -- it would bother anyone with any sense of compassion (which she does have).  Theron got the beatdown he did because he was taken by the Revanites.  Revan attempted to convince Theron to join him on Yavin 4 by invoking the idea that they are flesh and blood -- family.

Pretty sure Revan wasn’t talking about the Malcom side.  Satele knew that.  Was there a sense of protectiveness for Theron because of what happened immediately before Yavin 4?  I think so, yes, but it’s not motherly.

Theron’s experience on Rishi probably made Satele hyperaware that if Theron was of interest to the Revanites, then the Empire would doubly interested in Theron if they knew that he was not only an heir of Revan, but that the Grand Master of the Jedi Order was his biological mother.   Referring to him as “my agent” may be Satele’s way to avoid using any part of his name on Yavin 4.

I’m willing to bet, regardless of any efforts to ignore or conceal Theron’s name, that Marr quickly figured out that the agent who managed to outfox Revan, resist torture, get Marr’s attention, and unravel an intergalactic conspiracy was something special to the Republic.  Odds were that this agent had acted against the Empire.

Marr would be interested.

The History of Darth Marr and Satele Shan

Prior to Yavin 4, Marr and Satele had most recently squabbled over Makeb in the Hutt Cartel expansion through their various operatives.  When Marr saw Satele on the Imp side Battle of Rishi, he bowed.  He respected her and she respected him.  I didn’t get any other impression from their interactions. They saw each other as equals, though on rival sides; that creates tension, since a fight between them would be a draw or mutually assured destruction.  It’s highly likely they fought against each other in the previous Galactic War (which I’ll talk about below). 

Marr was born in 3702 BBY, Satele in 3699 BBY.  They’re about the same age, and they ascended almost equally quickly when the Sith returned in 3681 -- Satele is 18, Marr is 21.  I have spoken about how Satele and Jace (who seems to be somewhere between 16 and 20 in the trailer) were essentially just kids when the conflict started.  So was Marr.

The big difference, in terms of how their characters are constructed, is that we have the end product of Marr.  Period.  We don’t know what his name was before he took on the name ‘Darth Marr.’  We know nothing about his family, his relationships, his struggles.  As Marr said later to the player in KotFE, he wanted to be a symbol to the Empire.  Marr did not let himself be just a man.

Darth Marr is not the singular leader of the Sith.  Marr is the head of the Sphere of Defense of the Empire for decades, and as of the Battle of Corellia and the death of Darth Decimus, he also becomes the head of the Sphere of Military Strategy.  With 2 of Military Spheres in his grasp, Marr was the de facto leader of the armed forces of the Sith Empire.  The Sphere of Military Offense passed from Baras to Arho and then to Arkous after Ilum.  When Arkous is killed by the player’s character, there is no indication as to who was the next head; that Sphere is never spoken of again in-game.  We may assume Marr took hold of that.  Either way, he has become the de facto leader of the Sith Empire.  His voice, his robes and mask -- immediately recognizable to the whole galaxy.

The creators of content for SWTOR took the opposite approach to Satele. We can read about how her mother Tasiele was forced into exile when Satele was still a child.  We meet Satele at 18 in a SWTOR trailer during the first Sith incursion at Korriban.  We see her in comics fighting against the Empire.  We see her at the Battle of Alderaan against Malgus.  In Annihilation,we see bits and pieces of her falling in love with Jace Malcom and hoping she doesn’t get too attached... until a pair of permanent complications occur in 3667 BBY:   Jace was severely maimed in the Battle of Alderaan, and Satele got pregnant.  Jace’s injuries made him a much harder person than the soldier Satele met in 3681 BBY; he scared her with his hatred of the Empire. 

I’ll take a moment here to say that Satele wasn’t dumb or naive when she made the decision about Theron.  Satele was at least 32 years old, possibly 33 by the time Theron was born in 3666 BBY. She wasn’t a teen having a knee-jerk “oh noes, he’s evil” moment.  She had been in a constant state of war for 15 years when she got pregnant.   It’s in that context that Satele was concerned that Jace’s hatred could drag their child to the Dark Side... but also, Satele’s love for her child would make it impossible for her to serve the Republic without a second thought.  She couldn’t fight and die for the Republic if she was always preoccupied with coming home to her baby.

So she let Theron go.  She had other adventures.  She was at the Treaty of Coruscant.  Satele founded Tython.  She became the Grand Master of her order.

We don’t get any of that pathos or glory with Marr.   Marr IS.  Marr is the Empire. He is the best of them.  He has been, is, and will be. 

The odds are pretty good that Marr and Satele met each other in combat, directly or indirectly. The bow on Imp side Rishi is a big thing for me that points to that.  Also, look at their responsibilities during the last war.  Marr was responsible for not only defending Korriban and what would become the Imperial core, but also any gains the Sith made over time against the Republic.  That’s the job of the Sphere of Defense of the Empire; taking planets was somebody else’s rodeo, not Marr’s.  His job was to defend... something the Imperial people living on these planets would love him for.  He was their protector against brutish Republic troops and their systemic corruption. 

Satele was responsible for winning those territories back; we see her on counter-strikes against the Sith.  Satele is cast as the liberator of people imperiled by the spreading Sith Empire, not a conqueror taking new territory.  Marr probably had to defend against Satele at least once in their careers, possibly multiple times.  If she was absent from the front lines for any period of time, Marr would have noticed; he had to anticipate the next move of Republic counterstrikes as part of his job. 

And indeed, Satele was absent for an extended period.  How long Satele was absent from the battlefield due to her pregnancy, we don’t know. Satele did continue her battlefield duties for “months” after she found out.  The only information we have about post-partum Satele is that she stopped visiting Baby Theron at 6 months old, according to Lost Suns.  I don’t think she could just skip off at random while in command, so I think she probably was off the battlefield at least 10 months (last 4 months of her pregnancy, 6 months post-partum), possibly as long as 18 months, since Gnost-Dural reports she was assigned to duty with the Republic Navy at some point in 3665 BBY.  She did give birth on a random planet in a cave, so she didn’t exactly have the best medical care immediately.  Maybe there were complications. Maybe she did show early. We don’t know.

Regardless of the timeline, Marr would have been paying attention.  Marr would have noticed when Satele Shan stopped fighting for the Republic.  Where was she?  What was she doing?  Was this part of a greater plot by the Republic?  What were they planning?  And when Satele did return, he may well have wondered what she had been up to.  But no matter; she had returned.  Marr had to be ready.

There’s no obvious indication in the game as to when Marr figures out Satele and Theron are mother and son.  He makes no comment to indicate that he knew before Rishi.  Based on Marr’s dialogue in game on the Imperial side, he heavily suggests that he knows who Theron is by the time Iven, the former commandant of the Imperial Guard, is taken into custody and it’s time to interrogate him. Satele objects to Marr’s plans to torture Iven.  “And what do you think your agent has done in the Republic’s name?” is Marr’s response. 

The delivery of ‘your agent’ is indicative that Marr knows.

Theron himself stated at the end of the Imp side romance that if he was indeed recruited by the player to join the Empire, people would be suspicious that he’d be working for his mother.  That would have to include Darth Marr. 

Personally, I would guess that the after-action reports from Lana and Theron would have some clues for Marr.  However, once Theron had healed up from the Rishi events, Marr may well have taken one look at Theron standing next to Satele, and then had an epiphany so immense it gave him a headache that Lana felt across the compound.  There’s the answer.  That’s why she disappeared for almost two years, twenty-nine years ago. Theron Shan.

(According to Jace in Annihilation, Theron has some similar features to his mother. He doesn’t specify which ones.)

The Lie of Omission

A lie of omission is permitting an inaccuracy or a falsehood to continue to circulate without correction, even though the person knows the truth. (In contrast, a lie of commission is when you actively make something up or contribute to the lie -- you commit the act lying.)  Marr signals he knows who Theron is by the time Iven is retrieved from the Imperial Guard training facility on Yavin, but he never says the name Theron Shan out loud.   It’s simply “the agent” “your agent” or “Theron.”  But not Agent Shan.

The use of “Theron” in the Pubside story is most eyebrow-raising.  

Marr calls people by their titles. Marr always keeps professional distance.  Underlings are uniformly referred to by their titles.  Lana doesn’t like titles, so Marr doesn’t refer to her as Lord Beniko or Darth whatever;  it’s just Beniko.

Calling someone by their first name is highly irregular.  He does not refer to Satele as such until 6.2 (and that might be the Socratic Problem of Marr in the player’s memory rather than the real Marr).  It’s always Grand Master or Grand Master Shan. In a unique instance in the game, Marr calls Theron by his given name when he finds the Imperial Guard’s buildings in ruins during the Pubside story:  “But given the destruction Theron describes, it’s mostly likely a distress call.”  This is before the Pub operative annoys Marr by going to the Imperial Guard facility by themselves; it’s not said in anger or in irritation.  It’s said under ‘normal’ circumstances (if circumstances on Yavin are normal at all). 

But why?  Why not “Agent Shan”?  That would differentiate him from Grand Master Shan.  Just referring to the pair as Grand Master and Agent would work too; how many Grand Masters and SIS Agents are running around on Yavin 4?  Why is Marr avoiding attention to the man’s last name?

And why doesn’t Marr hop on this and use it to the Empire’s advantage?

Pragmatism and Prioritization

Marr is not a Jedi.  Marr doesn’t do things for the greater good.  He does things for the Sith Empire and for the people of the Sith Empire.  Offing Theron Shan?  Definitely on the agenda.  So is killing Satele, eventually.

But not now.  Not on Yavin 4.

Marr is probably the person closest to knowing what Revan is going to try to do in order to make the Emperor take physical form again so he can kill him.  It’s going to involve a lot of dead people.  That can easily happen; up until this tiny fragile cease fire between Marr and Satele, the Empire and the Republic have been engaged in a hot war. When they first make camp on Yavin, there is a real possibility they’ll frag each other regularly.  This is why players have to do daily quests, in theory -- to build good will between the factions. 

My partner is a military nerd and a Star Wars nerd.  He watched both version of the Battle of Rishi.  His conclusion:  based on the ships we see, Marr had more than twice the number of troops that Satele did (I put the numbers in my Yavin 4 fic).  The Imperial troops, at Marr’s word, probably could wipe out the Republic forces on Yavin 4, pack up, and head back to Dromund Kaas in time for tea.

But they won’t.  Marr wouldn’t permit it.

He knows how dangerous the Emperor is, and if he does let his troops kill the Pubs, they feed him. There also appears to be some sort of weird mystical thing going on with Revan’s bloodline.  Revan knew highly personal information about Theron (and Theron says so when the player opens the temple later on); somehow, Theron was able to use that connection to get Revan to give up Yavin 4 and secure an invite there at the end of the Rishi op.

Marr knows about this.  Marr doesn’t know what Revan would do if Marr did kill Theron or Satele, plus there’s the more predictable possibility that the Republic would respond to the death of Satele Shan thanks to the Jedi feeling it through the Force.  Chancellor Saresh would not let that opportunity pass by, even if it did feed the Emperor; we saw that at Ziost. 

Grand Master Shan is a public figure.  Her name and her power is obvious to everyone in the Yavin camp.  Theron, however, is everything his mother is not.  He is a spy.  His face is not known to the general public.  His work is secret, his exact abilities unknown.

Sure, the last name is common enough....

But Theron and Satele have never worked together before.  They’ve never operated in such close proximity before.  Yavin 4 would be the first time all the pieces could fall into place to someone observant.  Marr is many things, but one of the things he really gets annoyed about in regard to the Sith is their arrogance.  They get such fat heads that they can’t see obvious danger or they overlook aliens and non-Force Sensitives to their own detriment. 

Marr isn’t arrogant.

He doesn’t think he’s the only one who can see a family similarity or sense some connection between them.  Saying someone’s name is a powerful thing; we get upset when someone screws up our name.  It’s how our attention is attracted.  Shared last names of interesting people attract attention.  Attention leads to distraction away from the primary goal of stopping Revan and the Emperor.

That’s something Marr doesn’t want to deal with right now.  Revan and Emperor now.  The Shans later.  He avoids referring to Theron as “Shan” so as to reduce any chance that some young Sith will attempt to make their bones killing Theron, since that would spell doom for the Empire, whether through Revan’s anger or the Republic’s revenge.  It would also help empower the Sith Emperor to retake physical form, which is the last thing Marr wants him to do. 

Exposing the Grand Master as having a secret son would remove an ally from the field for Marr; Marr doesn’t want to destroy his assets before he’s used them to their full ability.  There’s no point in burning Satele Shan on Yavin 4 before Revan is dealt with. 

...And Marr respects her.  It’s a cheap way to win against a rival he knows to be his equal.

Marr wants to end Revan and the Emperor now, in that order, to defend the people of the Empire.  He’ll worry about the Shans later.  Marr will let Theron’s last name be overlooked and unmentioned, if only because it makes his job as Defender of the Empire less complicated for a few months.

**

Thanks again to @swtorpadawan​ and also @inyri​ @shabre-legacy​ @theniveanlegacy​ for discussing the original post about Satele and Theron and making me think about this.  

Headcanon Postface:

This last bit is purely my headcanon ideas about Marr, so you can leave here if you so desire. I’m placing them here rather than making a separate post and having to link back to this one. 

As I’ve described previously, we have the finished product of Darth Marr, with none of the personal insight that was provided for Satele Shan.  Who’s under the mask?  Nobody knows, really.  His first comic book adventure takes place in 3678, when he’s about 24 years old.  There’s nothing about his life beforehand that would let the player wonder how his past life affected his current decisions.  Marr ultimately would do the best he could for the Empire, regardless, but knowing if he ever hesitated, ever had second thought, had a regret -- that would make him mortal. 

And Marr is an icon, not a man, in the grander SWTOR universe, per the writers. That’s the point driven home to the player.  So that leaves it to fan fic to take off the mask or not. 

In “The Planter of Trees and Other Tales from Yavin 4,” Marr comes to this conclusion about the Shans’ relationship after observing two Shan chins.  He then alludes to understanding Satele’s decision to conceal Theron’s existence.

After Marr had gained his seat on the Dark Council (late 3680s, early 3670s), a lot of Sith families wanted him to add to their prestige. The man needed a legacy; he needed heirs.  Marr had already set himself on his path, however; he understood that it was better to be an icon.  If Marr was a normal man, he would be weakened by family connections, love, protectiveness, concern for his personal future.  Instead, Marr’s devotion to the Empire was unmatched and pure.  In the public’s eye, he was the great defender. He was the perfect Sith.

Marr never did have a public wife or a political marriage. His private life -- better secured than Imperial state secrets -- produced a  daughter that did not inherit her talents from her Force-Using parent.  Marr had been relieved that his daughter was not like him.  It meant she would never be pressured to come into public life. It meant she was free of the burden of his legacy. 

Lately, I’ve considered that, regardless of having access to the Force or not, a child of Marr was always in danger of becoming a pawn.  She was something Marr’s enemies could use against him, if they ever found out about her; being Force-Null simply meant that others could not detect her as easily. That may have also have been a concern of Satele in regard to Theron, especially as she rose through the ranks of the Jedi Order.  As soon as Marr could let his daughter fly away from Dromund Kaas, he did.  She was free. 

She died shortly before the Sack of Coruscant.  Marr did not go to her. The Empire had to matter more.  That doesn’t mean he didn’t love her.  He just never could prioritize her over the Empire. 

In my fic universe, Marr understands Satele’s choices.  He can keep his mouth shut.  For now. 

Theron is far more dangerous to the rival faction than Marr’s daughter ever was, however; he is an active player in the war, while she... just got caught in the middle, in the end....

Revan and Emperor now.  Shans later.

**

[syubub]

May 13th Reading

Definitely long awaited and way bigger than I intended it to be so buckle up.

Funky disclaimer: this is for entertainment purposes only and not to be taken as fact! This is my interpretation of the cards!

Oh boy. The continuation of yoongis soulmate saga.

(Note frome future me: it's not proofread but I'm hungry. Sorry for mistakes!)

So so so so

Let's start.

I started with all the normal jazz. Connecting with his energy and shit. Same as usual same old same old. Platform= same same. I was like, "hey, let's talk about your soulmate and the whole may 13th shit" and we connected via energy stringy thing to the forehead and such. I was intresting bc my end of the string was kinda my energy color! Neato. Looks like some rest has really done me good!

Okay, here's where I start actually asking shit. I made notes at this point before the reading as I usually do. I'm just gonna insert the screen shot here.

The 14 thing really fucked me up. You'll see later. Also, when I got the whole Pisces Jupiter thing I had to do me some googling bc we established that Jupiter went into Pisces ON May 13th so I was like?? Am I missing something?

I was. I forgot that it goes retrograde and then co.es back to Pisces on December 28th. And I do indeed think it to be significant.

The shit about temperance makes a lot of sense. In yoongis first soulmate read I flipped my shit bc he was like, "You're gonna get temperance reverse" in regards to a card for his soulmate and I was like "pft whatever. Don't play me like that"

And then I got temperance reverse. It's been a significant card from the jump.

I asked him if he had any advice for his soulmate and that's what "Don't wait for big things, you'll miss the small ones that lead you to bigger things" and "Look for facts before assuming" and "Don't try pushing it, forcing it won't make sense" and "A spade is a spade/ ace is an ace" and "Don't make ill informed guesses" all were

Now this part:

"Union has happened , yet to on the physical"

Gave me some hints thankfully because he straight up said no more hints.

This ties back into the whole Jupiter thing too. The seeds are/ have been planted and now they have to grow before they can be harvested.

Well Mr. Yoongi, I'm impatient and I don't want to wait. I want to see you in love pronto.

Anyways

He showed me a little dream box/ trinket box looking thing and a super vague Keychain with no further explanation... so... there's that I guess.

I can't quite decide if "Don't make ill informed guesses" was a tongue-in-cheek pike at me or if it was genuine advice to his soulmate? He just loves to not explain things.

Now let's begin the monster read.

So. The first row of cards

I asked the question, "what the fuck was May 13th and what was it's purpose in regards to your connection"

Important is what it was lol. I interpret this as them finding their footing and this being the starting point of the genuine foundation being layer. Like they've been manifesting eachother for a while but May 13th marked the start of them making the real life changes in their actual lives that will be the set up for them meeting.

The seven of coins is about thoughtful planning and creating security/ stable plan. The tower is essentially ripping away anything and everything that was built on unstable foundation and challenging/ testing your character (an extremely rude awakeing if you will). Judgement is releasing the past so you can rise above it and confronting yourself as you are (Also legit awakening) the queen of coins is financial security and self confidence in your abilities. Ten of coins is prosperity and abundance and most of all, stability. Eight of wands is explosion of potential and rapid movement. Temperance is awareness and balance between physical and spiritual. It's also that quiet peace where you find balance.

So. Seeing all those cards it really does seem like maybe his soulmate took on something new that could lead straight to union? Same for yoongi. I'd like to analyze and recent or new-ish habits or hobbies he's picked up?

Moving right along though. I asked what the 13th did for each of them in their personal life and personal journey. Kinda like what came as a result of that energy? Let's start with yoongles

This was really intresting to me. I think he definitely gained some form of clarity about the situation with that sun card. The 5 of cups tells me that either he was kinda forced to confront some of his flaws in a way that he was trying to avoid or he had to consciously let go of something dear to him? Could be something he had to leave behind because it crumbled with the tower moment but he didn't see it coming or didn't know that it was time to part with it? With that queen of wands though fits beautifully with the sun! Its like he's found warmth after a long winter. Definitely found a spark of compassion and generosity from a place of happiness and love rather than anger, fear, obligation or pitty.

I asked for clarity cards/ anything else that may 13th signified bringing in and we got the 2 of cups and 10 of swords. I have two thoughts. Either he let go of a relationship that he was already in because he didn't feel as though they were particularly compatible anymore (Also ties into the above section) OR the 13th had made him very much consciously aware of his soulmates incoming status and he is now preparing and working on himself for when this person comes. The 10 of swords would be him releasing the past and the pain and any ill fitting behavior that don't vibe with him any longer. Yellow really seems to be working for him by the way.

Soulmate time

Lol. All signs point to his soulmate genuinely starting a new venture. New creative pursuit that will bring them good money. 10 of pentacles is abundance, prosperity and stability. The ace of wands is a new creative spark and passion and it's the first big steps into something new. The 2 of wands is "the world is in the palm of your hands" vibes. Choices need to be made swiftly and with the ace of wands I think they will be. With the heirophant too, it will be a well informed decision because they've been manifesting this and has been searching for all the possible information.

As for clarity, we have the moon. Damn. Soulmates been doing that shadow work. Dredging up all their bullshit and getting rid of it while still taking the time to sit with it and release it so nothing is unresolved. Also probably extra creative due to all the emotional baggage being thrown out. (Definitely helping with the ace of wands vibes tbh)

Now for the bad boys in the middle

The question I asked is what those individual changes (detailed in the last two sections) will bring for the bond and I just can with them. These fuckers. I am so invested in their love story bc it's so... them? And just so fucking ROMANTIC. UGH I CAN'T.

Back to the point. High priestess, 4 of wands and the lovers. The high priestess is deep knowing and insane intuition, the 4 of wands is the purest joy and marriage and the lovers is well, the lovers.a magical union.

FUCK DUDE I NEED THIS TO BE A ROMCOM.

For the row of bottom cards

I asked if they had anything at all to add so I'm gonna explain each card individually bc I think they could be individual tid bits of shit.

Knight of coins is good news about finances/ money looking promising and organized work (also dependability!!). Death is all about transformation, the beginning of a new chapter and accepting in order to move foward. Ace of coins is spiritual and material abundance and also a reminder to keep grounded. Page of swords is confidence, important news coming and really good insight! Roots out secrets or hidden things like a truffle pig. The star is promising potential, healing and guidance from an enexpected place. The two of cups is a soul connection, love, intuition especially in regards to another person and a good bind. The emperor is self awareness, foresight, fearlessness to achieve a goal and confidence. Eight of coins rev is poor discipline and skating by on low effort.

Now to the sides!

Yoongi is the left, soulmate is the right.

So, let's begin with yoongi. The first two cards are anything he wants to say to his soulmate. Wheel of fortune and three of swords reverse. I take this as "its all in divine time/ it's destiny" (wheel of fortune) and "trust your intuition. It's okay to get hurt, you just need to remember you can always pick yourself up" (3of swords rev.)

We have now cards that I asked what he was learning through this process/ in this time. Be positive and first step.

The last two cards are affirmations he wants to give his soulmate.

"When I introduce joy to a situation, I change the vibrational frequency of what's happening around me" and "directing my focus onto what's thriving creates more of what I want"

Now for soulmates cards (same structure)

Strength and eight of swords. "You're stronger than you think. Take every part of yourself and acknowledge it. You're a force to be reckoned with" (strength) and (soulmate snapped at him on this) "the only thing holding you captive is you."

Now we have peer pressure (I think soulmate is learning to say "fuck you" and "fuck off" to people who have a set idea of how everyone should be living their lives), emotional healing and open your arms to receiving.

Then we have "its good to feel good" (lol I feel like yoongi definitely needs this one) and "when I connect to the spiritual realm, I open the door to recieve divine guidance, clear direction, and great wisdom"

The last stretch my friends.

So. Completion, leave behind the things that no longer serve you. Exist in the present and don't keep mulling over the past or any future happenings. Magic, pay attention to the magic around you. Listen for the signs of the universe and take them as they come (essentially listen to divine guidance) . Be open minded but logical as well. Luminous warrior, try focusing on the good in yourself instead of berating yourself for every small flaw. Spiritual path, self explanatory. The blade, your power can be a weapon when used willy nilly (most often wounding the wielder) or it can heal. Don't fear it but also consider how you choose to utilize it. The give away, be greaful for the sake of being greatful for it, not because you want something in return. The rain maker, manifestation station. Create with the tools you have because you have everything you need in order to manifest. "Don't take life personally"

Now we have heaven sent.

""Let yourself be helped" assistance is coming your way so act on it and say yes"

" This Oracle also comes with the message that you are to trust in the things that you feel and say to others without knowing why. It moves them. You might not understand, but through trust you are allowing yourself not to overthink and censor yourself. As such you are able to become a vessel through which the spiritual gift can be passed on to others. Don't block yourself. Let life happen through you. Only benefit can come from this."

And free from judgment, free to love

" If you have been asking life for a solution to a specific difficulty you have been having, this Oracle comes with the message that a solution is in gestation right now. This situation is already being sorted out and the resolution will come to fruition very soon. Hold tight and wait for the eminent birth of that resolution."

" This Oracle also brings you a message about love. You may find that you are loving, or soon will love, in a different way. You may worry about this love, given that it defies what you have known or been taught about love. Perhaps you are becoming able to love another tremendously, even though you don't have much of a personal relationship with them. You might question if this love is real. It is real Kama it is just happening at a different level to the love and attachment you experience when you are involved in a personal relationship with someone. It is not more or less, it is just a different facet of love. It may be that you are opening up to love the planet and her creatures, including the animals, the ocean dwelling life, your own body, the trees and so on, more than before period you may feel passionately purposeful about giving your time and energy to causes that protect and nurture the Earth and her creatures. You are affirmed in this love too. The universal mother is operating through you to nurture life. She will support you in your work, so that you can continue To come from love and not become drained, depleted or lost in despair or fear of futility. Instead, you will be energised and expanded by your dedicated service to life."

" Finally, this Oracle has a message for those who may be feeling alone or lonely in a need of greater nurturing from others. You are asked to stop, relax, centre and settle into your body to feel your connection with life itself. The air in your lungs is the same as the air that moves through the trees. The water in your blood is the same water that fills the oceans and is moved by the phases of the moon. The flesh of your body is the same substance as the body of the Earth itself. The heat in your digestive system is the same fire and heat as that from the Sun. Feel this connection, then do something nice for another without agenda. Make a donation, even if just a small one, smile, say a prayer, sent out a good thought or make a wish for another. That's it. You have connected to life again and in doing so, life can connect with you. And so it shall.

And that's all for the cards but but but.

Someone (either my guide or yoongi) was like, "do a song. Do a song. Do a song." And I was like, "oki doki, sounds good.

So I asked what numbers I should try refreshing and then it hit me. The number 14 came up before the reading and it seemed a bit misplaced? So I did 14 shuffles and look what popped up

You gotta be fucking with me.

Istg these fools will actually be the death of me dude. Euphoria is so romantic and I lowkey feels like it describes a bit of what their bond must be like.

YOONGGGIIII

Anyway,

I came back to the platform to be like, "thanks homie" and it was weird bc he was practically pure energy? Like usually I visualize his energy as what his physical body looks like because it's easier to comprehend? But nope, he was just a big shimmery glob of energy.

As I was going to disconnect, a few things happened. I felt tingly and the platform was vibrating almost? So I was like, "hold on, what the fuck is this?"

And then

It hit me

"MIN YOONGI IS YOUR SOULMATE HERE??"

I could tell this fuckin asshole was smug even in his blue glob form.

The color was... blue like yoongi but also a light lavender/ pink kinda vibe. Pretty damn distinct.

I was so stoked and I thought we'd all get to chat and I could yell at his soulmate for being an elusive asshat

But Mr smug butt had different plans.

My dude dropped a little marble thing in my hand and I was like ??? And he was like, "you'll know when you need it" and I was like ?????

My guide took pity on me and said, "it's just a representation on information that you've been given but it isn't the proper time to unpack it yet"

Cool cool so like and energetic zip file that will release itself whenever it damn well pleases? Cool cool cool.

(Asshole)

Anyway, I genuinely think that my excitement of this whole situation must somehow also influence how yoongis energy handles my prodding? Like what the fuck is this marble bullshit?

To top it all off, he gives me a friendly shove off of his platform.

Thanks, buddy.

Now we are here. And as always, I'm left with more questions.

My main take away is that amay 13th through July 28th will be all the foundation and ground work and December 28th 2021 through May 10th (11th? 9th?) 2022 will be a more likely time for physical union and actual relationship stuffs.

Anyone who knows more about astrology please feel free to chime in on this whole Jupiter in Pisces bit! My understanding is super surface level!!

~~~~

That was a big boi and now my thumbs hurt real bad. Hope you were entertained by the chaos.

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: infinitely varied Ship: obikin Summary: Sometimes your husband decides to develop an artificial intelligence capable of free choice and something called a soul and succeeds in the middle of a Thursday night. Or, more concretely: he's in the middle of succeeding because said intelligence first has to learn how to speak.Also known as Obi-Wan and Anakin teach a tiny program called A.H.S.O.K.A. how to be something more than lines of code via the power of linguistics. AN: Happy birthday @ghostwriterofthemachine

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Noam Chomsky

I.

Life was a query of expectations, margins on doorframes, bucket lists, first loves, broken hearts, and happy middles because only fools would settle for a happy ending when they had so many decades left to live. The thought never failed to bring a smile to Anakin’s face, no matter how frustrated, remembering the simple way Obi-Wan had proposed. There had been no fancy dinner, particularly stunning outing, or anything resembling outlandish romantic gestures. Anakin would have appreciated them because every act would have been colored by Obi-Wan’s love, but now, older and wiser than the rash youth who’s fallen in love at first heated debate, he preferred the way their proposal had actually gone down. A quiet Sunday morning, eating breakfast together on the sofa while the news droned in the background from Anakin’s old radio, a hesitant “I don’t need forever, but I want the present”.

And, well, for all his genius, Anakin could be a bit of an idiot sometimes, but not when it came to this.

Married life was interesting.

Somehow nothing changed, except also everything. They had bought a real house, moved out of their old apartment and made more compromises than Anakin had ever thought himself capable of, for they hadn’t been like fighting an uphill battle but dancing together. It had made him happy to paint the entrance hall in the shade of green Obi-Wan preferred if he got to paint the kitchen in the light blue he wanted.

Obi-Wan got the attic for his office where his antique book collection looked right at home, and Anakin got the basement where the hum of his servers and the generator powering them annoyed nobody else.

It was as close to white-picket-fence as it could be with two queer men, no kids, a bratty cat, and an anxious dog under one roof. His childhood self would be appalled to see how much Anakin, always the whirlwind, had settled. To a nine-year-old, Anakin probably looked very adult.

Anakin, however, did not feel very grown-up, banging his head against his desk in the middle of the night. Obi-Wan had gone to sleep hours ago, and so had Anakin until inspiration had struck and he’d snuck out of bed to return to his favorite project.

A.H.S.O.K.A may not be a child, but Anakin certainly could relate to exhausted parents when they complained about their children in endless repetitions. To this day, Anakin didn’t know why his mother figured it would be great parenting to encourage her WarGames obsessed kid to dig into the world of artificial intelligence when WOPR nearly started a nuclear war, but he’d forever remain thankful.

Or, he’d resume being thankful when he could finally get A.H.S.O.K.A to learn. He’d rewritten her code a thousand times. It was his ever-constant companion, from his first awful-looking early 2000s website to its current incarnation. A.H.S.O.K.A could solve simple logic puzzles, given that he fed her enough data. Her solutions to tasks could be downright hilarious, but they were not enough. He wanted her to be smarter, better, capable of gaining true understanding.

Perhaps, it was a dream for the future and not a Thursday night.

Anakin didn’t have any work tomorrow morning as he worked as a freelancer, so he could afford to pull an all-nighter. But his dear husband had planned a nice afternoon for them, so Anakin should call it a night or a morning as a glance at the clock told him.

Staring at the many lines of code again, Anakin sighed and leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his by-now cold tea. Obi-Wan would definitely complain that Anakin had snatched his favorite mug once he got up and couldn’t find it in the kitchen. Anakin had bought it at the last linguistic convention Obi-Wan had taken him to.

Language is a process of free invention, it read in delicate cursive before the rest of the quote disassembled in pure chaos.

Huh.

Now there was a thought. Anakin got out of his chair and left the basement, haunted by fixed principles and infinite combinations. Up in the attic, carrying Obi-Wan’s computer downstairs again, Anakin thought on interpretations and free creations. He was as giddy and nervous as he’d been on the morning of his wedding day, which had started similarly early. Connecting Obi-Wan’s computer, and more importantly, the priced result of his thesis, to Anakin’s server felt a little like unwrapping birthday presents.

language_acquisition_prediction.exe

Enter.

II.

Obi-Wan was not surprised when he woke to an empty bed. Anakin had a habit of suddenly pulling all-nighters or getting up early before the sun even thought of rising. Given that he couldn’t smell breakfast yet, Obi-Wan deduced that Anakin had pulled an all-nighter again. He slowly crawled out of bed to avoid disturbing Artoo and Threepio sleeping to his feet. Obi-Wan was pretty sure he shared his bed more often with his pets than he did with his husband.

He walked down the stairs to the ground level and went by the kitchen to prepare himself a cup of tea. To his displeasure, Obi-Wan couldn’t find his favorite mug and so had to settle for another. After another thought, he decided to make a second one for Anakin, lavender this time so Anakin would hopefully crash after breakfast. He put both mugs on a small tray together with a couple tomatoes. Obi-Wan usually wasn’t one for eating a full breakfast on workdays – that was the influence of Anakin and his mother’s kitchen – but he was the expert in smalltime snacks. With both in hand, he walked down the second flight of stairs, down to the basement. As expected, he found Anakin at his desk, clinging to what was bound to be a cold cup, staring intensely at his screens, which were running one program or another.

“Good morning,” Obi-Wan greeted him and kissed Anakin’s cheek.

“Mo-orning,” Anakin replied, a yawn interrupting him halfway. “Wait, what time is it?”

“Eight,” Obi-Wan said. “How long have you been up?”

“Uuuh.” Obi-Wan didn’t need to see Anakin’s face to know the answer. “Did you even go to sleep?”

“I did sleep for a while!” Anakin argued. “But then I had an idea, I mean, look at this!”

Obi-Wan gave the screens a closer look. Despite common misconceptions, he was not technically illiterate. Privately, he blamed the fact that Anakin was quite well known for his tech know-how and Obi-Wan tended to talk more about literature given that he was filling in as a lecturer in the British Lit. department. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan had gotten his professorship with a program he’d written, and the code currently displayed on the screens looked very similar to a section that had given him stress nightmares. “Is that my thesis?” he asked.

“Yes, sorta, partially?” Anakin replied. “I kind of took it apart a lot and maybe corrupted it a bit, but that’s not the important part! Look what she’s doing with it.”

She could only refer to one person, intelligence. There were a few constants in their life, their new house the most recent one, and Ahsoka was probably the longest. Obi-Wan didn’t know why Anakin hadn’t set her aside already, he was happy enough to leave other started-never-finished projects lying around, but the last time he’d even just suggested such, Anakin had looked heartbroken.

Obi-Wan looked at the screen Anakin was pointing at and began to read.

script input: inhibition auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˌɪn.ɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˌɪn.hɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: outstanding

script input: better auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˈbet̬.ɚ/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˈbet.ər/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: rhoticism? query: define

The text continued for a while, though apparently Ahsoka only picked out the mismatched parts in her analysis.

“Is that ‘Must have done something right’?” Obi-Wan asked, the connection between the words suddenly starting to make sense.

“Yes!” Anakin grinned. “I wasn’t quite sure how to teach her sounds properly because I hadn’t equipped her with a sound analysis program before and I figured that if babies just learn by listening to their parents, Ahsoka could learn by listening to us.”

“So you fed her audio of us singing?” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure whether to be impressed, confused, or just plain tired but decided to settle on confusion for now and let the course of the conversation determine where they’d end up.

“That too, but I actually just started by playing old voice messages. I figured getting her used to just one phonetic inventory would be enough for now. Honestly, for the first hour, I wasn’t even sure whether that would be of any use because she had no symbols to connect the sounds to, and I thought using the IPA might bias her.”

Because, of course, Anakin never deleted any of Obi-Wan’s voice messages and just kept them on his phone. The fact that he just glossed over it as if it weren’t anything special either made Obi-Wan smile.

“It’s cute that you think we have the same inventory,” Obi-Wan commented. “But continue. You just let her listen to sounds and then? Don’t tell me you gave her written texts.”

Anakin rolled his eyes and confirmed another one of Ahsoka’s queries before answering. “No, I gave her the IPA then and let her listen to the full inventory and then analyze which ones we use.”

That made enough sense. Obi-Wan was reasonably sure it was a great deal more complicated than Anakin was lying it out right now, but it was still within the realm of possible and not downright sci-fi. There were enough programs that could analyze speech and filter out patterns, recognize even emotions and tone. Feeding data to a computer wasn’t too different from the way babies learned, though, as far as Obi-Wan knew from talking to people with children, they didn’t like their progeny being compared to lines of code.

“And you accomplished this by feeding my thesis program, which is meant to predict the language acquisition of children, to Ahsoka?”

“Yes, that, uh, happened more or less,” Anakin said, his nose scrunched up just so that Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t certain. “I’m pretty sure I like, wrote some of it down. Not all of it because I knocked out at like 4 a.m., which resulted in pretty interesting inquiries on the great vowel shift.”

Obi-Wan froze. “She’s asking about the great vowel shift?”

There was a difference in the size of the Atlantic between analyzing sounds and recognizing a six-hundred-year-old change in pronunciation.

“Not really,” Anakin said. “She just noticed the patterns? And had inquiries? We’ve been following up on it since, mostly by also giving her written text, but I think that might have backfired and confused her a bit. I’m thinking of synching up the input with a visible feed so she’d learn to associate an actual object with the sound, but I’m not sure whether that wouldn’t just lead to her matching data instead of actually learning its relevance. Can teach an AI what an apple looks like, sounds like, tastes like, but that doesn’t mean you can teach it what an apple is and all that.”

Anakin smiled impishly, and unfortunately, despite his generally messy appearance, Obi-Wan still thought he was handsome. “Please don’t cite my book back at me like that.”

Closing his eyes for a moment and pinching his nose, Obi-Wan tried to focus. This was not how he expected to start his free day. He needed to wake up and possibly grab his notes to sort out this mess. This almost made him wish the car was still wrecked and Anakin would spend all his free time fixing that. “Did you have to start her on English of all languages?”

Anakin was fluent in two other romance languages; it would have been much easier to deal with a French AI than an English one. Sighing, Obi-Wan looked at Ahsoka’s latest question and promptly frowned.

script input: bear auditory input: /beər/ match found: bare analysis: mismatch diagnosis: failed word formation query: bear = bare? query: deletion >bare<?

“How long has she been doing that?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Doing what— oh, that’s new.”

So Ahsoka had jumped from matching sounds to text to comparing sound to words and then referencing those words against one another. That was a logical step, but also a step Obi-Wan wasn’t quite sure she should be doing without prompting.

“She thinks bear and bare are related because they have the same sound. Didn’t really expect that turn of events. Should I show her those are two different words?”

“Does she even know what a word is yet?” Obi-Wan asked in turn.

“No.”

“Then teach her what a word is first— after breakfast. I want your pancakes.”

“You never want pancakes on a Friday.”

“My husband also never decided to rope me into teaching an artificial intelligence morphology before.”

Obi-Wan needed a proper meal for this. He could talk to his students on an empty stomach, but he could not deal with the latest brand of Skywalker insanity without something sweet first.

“I haven’t—”

Ever the negotiator, Obi-Wan decided to shut Anakin up with a kiss. “After breakfast.”

Ahsoka’s many questions could wait for an hour.

[fruitytrollroll]

Some additional thoughts from an anon re: Sasha Nein, Bad Role Model, if you like? I feel like another big factor to consider here is how extremely compressed the timeframe is- both in terms the amount of time the three games cover, but also of Raz's professional trajectory. As far as Sasha knows, he has this kid until the end of this camp session or 'til his parents pick him up, whichever is sooner. (Continued 1/?)

Maybe he convinces his folks to let him come back, maybe he just practices extremely hard at home, and then maybe in several years late-teen Raz applies to the intern program and Sasha can put in a good word for him. 'Ten year old prodigy speedruns psychic education process in a handful of days, bypasses almost all formal training, saves the day twice and gets accepted into the Motherlobe' is probably not a possibility he'd give any serious consideration. (ctd 2)

And then once that actually happens, Sasha is busy rushing off on a mission, getting de-brained, rushing off on another mission, interrogating Loboto, and then rushing off on the casino mission. Even if Sasha doesn't have kind of a blind spot for what unintended lessons he's teaching (and I agree that he probably does), he spends much of the rest of the timeline getting swept along by one event after another. (ctd)

He hasn't really had much time to think about the outsized impact he's had on Raz or what that could do to a kid, let alone recognize the mistakes he's made and to try to course correct. The contradiction is easy for us to see, but between Sasha's general temperament and all of the everything going on, it feels entirely realistic to me that he fails to make that connection. (/end)

oh my god this slaps

all these points are so reasonable and smart and i'm! going to kiss you! on the mouth!!

we've had 16 years to get attached to sasha and build up his dynamic with raz in our heads, but the fact remains that they've only known each other for maybe a week, tops?

raz might idolize sasha, but that is, as we say, a parasocial relationship! and while it's tempting to interpret their relationship exclusively from raz's point of view since he's the protagonist, raz knows a lot more about the senior agents than any of them know about him, and he's eager to do whatever they ask of him, desperate to over-achieve, and naturally talented enough to actually succeed at it.

like, the average camper would give up, or get distracted. and it's a common refrain to promise kids privileges provided they accomplish an improbable task. this way you can brush off complaints and nagging by setting the bar so high that there's no possible outcome where you'll have to make good on that promise. you can say no without brooking any argument, all while making it sound like you're saying yes!

but then raz just like. does that. and everyone around him is just like. holy shit. and at that point they might rationalize making good on the promise they made because well, he DID work really hard to accomplish this unreasonable demand... i should throw him a bone... and also at this point i am curious to see what he CAN'T do!

raz is so anomalously exceptional that people forget to hold him to like. normal human child standards lmao. (and also the suspension of disbelief was greater in the first game, but we can apply logic to the narrative that emerges as a consequence of that if we want to, as a treat)

anyway!!! that's really really smart!!! thank you for sharing!!!

[potteresque-ire]

Hello! I have a question related to your answer for your previous anon's question (WQ and WWX backup plan).

So the book fans knew about the backup plan and the actress who played W/Q got cyberbullied. I wanna ask why did that happened (sry if this is a dumb question), because even though she's the one who's playing W/Q, wasn't she just went with the script? I mean she wasn't the one who get to decide wether to film a backup or not.

I can understand the displeasure of the book fans, but is it 'normal' (I can't find the right word for it, English isn't my first language, sry) to get to the point where she was bullied for that? Is there any similar incidents occured to other actor(s)/actress(es) in the past because of the change of script/story?

Hello Anons! I apologise for the especially long wait for one of you. I was debating for a while whether I’d like to get into the old rumours surrounding The Untamed that weren’t immediately related to the genre of its source material. 

I’m not really a follower of the finer details of c-ent—my interest in it wanes rapidly with the subject’s distance from Gg, Dd and BL/Dangai as a genre. I’m also a very late comer into the BJYX fandom, and I’m never quite in The Untamed fandom to begin with. 

The more important reason, however, is this: it’s very difficult to pull out facts. There are just so many rumours, so many lies told about … everything and everyone. All for the sake of profit.

So this is likely the last time I’ll address rumours concerning the actors of the show. I’m answering these asks as you two reached me before I make this statement.

First of all, I’d like to kindly ask everyone to please consider disregarding the negative things said about The Untamed’s development and its participants. The series is about to reach its 2 years old birthday by airing date, and 3 years old by its start-of-filming date. Many things ... don’t really matter anymore. The Untamed has become an international success, and whatever was told about anyone has very likely changed.

(People change.)

To answer these asks, it’s important to understand that despite being a Communist country by name, China is at heart a highly capitalistic society, and money REALLY talks in the major industries including c-ent. Corruption is also rampant and is often associated with families with political power; anti-corruption laws are inconsistently and selectively enforced. Both the acts of corruption and the acts against corruption are therefore intimately tied to politics and related to politics, something that I haven’t talked about largely because it’s highly complex and my knowledge of it is limited — the infighting between the different factions of the Chinese Communist Party. Supporters and beneficiaries of one leader—a faction—competing for power, for money and resources with the supporters and beneficiaries of another, often equally powerful leader.

The main point of mentioning Chinese factional politics here is this: what seems to be a regular business war in c-ent, a simple competition for viewership and profit by different media companies, can actually be a battlefront of top political factions fighting for power, or more accurately, for the money that comes from with the power—not only the profit, but the bribes paid to different departments to make things happen, to bypass different laws and regulations. 

Facts about the cash flow in c-ent are therefore very difficult to track down, as both the powers-that-be and the media they control make sure the political ties and conflicts, the under-the-table negotiations and the money changing hands, are kept well away from the public eye. Example: c-ent used to be an even more lucrative industry than it is now, before President Xi began an anti-corruption campaign around 2018. There have been whispers that while corruption was indeed a major issue in the industry, the campaign was also a ploy to funnel c-ent’s profit, a significant fraction of which was once held in the hands of the Jiang faction (supporters of former President Jiang Zemin), into the hands of Xi faction (supporters of President Xi). (Here’s a good article about the once top actress Fan Bing Bing, who was made an example in the anti-corruption campaign, and how the campaign affected the people who actually worked in the industry). 

What this also means is this: c-ent is an industry where rumours and lies can REALLY thrive, their spread propagated by powerful commercial interests that are often (secretly) backed by even more powerful government interests. These are people who can afford to pay, who often have the right connections to not have to worry about the legal consequences. 

With these two factors alone, they can make almost any rumour sound true. 

I’ve looked more closely into c-ent in the recent months, and as of today, the lesson I’ve learned is this—I can’t believe in almost any of its so-called “entertainment news”. For every article that sells a viewpoint, a set of facts, there’s another one that sells exactly the opposite, and the pair of articles happily sit beside each other, waiting for their readers to pick the one they wish to read—the one praising the show and actors they like; the one dissing the shows and actors they don’t. 

Yxh, water armies...c-ent is an industry where “facts” are often constructed by money.

Entertainers are often swept into the whirlpool of falsehoods just because they happen to work on a project / for a company another side or faction wants to take down. With the exception of a very few, they don’t have much of a way to defend themselves. There have also been longstanding whispers that beautiful actors and actresses are often forced to … service, for lack of a better word, the higher-ups in the government / commercial forces (and their families) in exchange for opportunities or even survival in the industry. While such “unspoken rule” (潛規則) is, to a certain extent, true in many entertainment industries around the world, that the higher-ups in China hold very concentrated power makes it much more difficult for the entertainers to refuse to cooperate, or ask for help.

That entertainers are traditionally held in very low regard—their “career ancestors”, 戲子 (roughly, “showperson”), being one of the “lowest 9 professions” (下九流) that included prostitutes—doesn’t help their case.

Back to your questions, Anons: the consequence of c-ent money flow often being hush-hush and potentially politically sensitive is that, when a production team receives money, it doesn’t always try to look very hard at where the money comes from. Because of this, it’s easy for Yxh and Antis to make up rumours about participants of a project bringing in cash in exchange for making themselves more at the centre of the spotlight—increase the screen time for an actor / actress, for example. And when it’s pointed out that a starlet, in particular, cannot possibly have that kind of money to bring into a project, the rumour mill can conveniently explain away this lapse in logic by implying that the starlet is sleeping with someone.

This was essentially what happened to the actress who played WQ, despite her denying the rumour with a public statement and no evidences existed to suggest any truth in the rumour — that she‘d brought in money into The Untamed’s production team in exchange for a romantic plot w/ WWX as the female lead. She wasn’t paired with WWX in final version of The Untamed; WQ died pretty early on in the show. Nonetheless, the rumour (and the poor reputation it brought) has stuck with her since. It can still be found on the internet.

About the actor who played Wen Ning… I haven’t really paid much attention to him (sorry!). A quick search online shows that at some point, he said something that was interpreted to be not as friendly towards Gg, compared to how much he seemed to like Dd. After 227, however, he spoke out for Gg and personally, I think that’s what really counts because anyone who spoke out for Gg at the time also risked being harassed and boycotted. I don’t know of any successful effort in creating a popular cp between him and Dd. Since all that is required to create a supertopic on Weibo, including a cp supertopic, is sufficient seed membership (10 people) plus a moderator with demonstrated familiarity and popularity in the platform, however, is it possible that this cp, if it existed at some point, was simply because some fans wanted to explore this rare pair? I don’t know (if anyone would like to jump in with more info, please do!). But I think it doesn’t have to translate into judgement of the actor’s character at all.

[filipinoizukuu]

I saw your post about the FA's translations, and I totally agree. Sometimes, when they do not translate accurately, is to make it sound better or cooler in English, but it just ends up taking away a lot from the context and characters. We know how one of the most affected character interpretations is Katsuki's, a main character, no less. And Izuku and Katsuki's relationship too, which is something super super wrong, considering is deeply intertwined with the main plot of the series, thus if someone misinterpreted their dynamic, this person would miss a bigass chunk of the message the story has.

Here is the panel you mentioned before btw

I remember when I read this, only 10 or 11 chapters into the manga (?), and I was like "...I'm...pretty sure this guy didn't say that" khshsjdhs

OK FIRST OF ALL LMAO HELLO MANG!! THANK YOU SO MUCH AND DW ABOUT IT I TOTALLY GET WHAT YOU MEAN !!

(this is your warning for a long post ahead!)

In any case, I still think you're very correct on this! Not to ramble a bit, but Horikoshi's particular talent in developing the plot of MHA is actually very very brilliant and there are a lot of blink-and-you'll-miss-it details that together, assemble the big picture of what MHA is.

Translations are such an integral part of being able to understand foreign media. MHA or otherwise. The simplest of details say a lot about a character and often times make or break a series because everyone knows that strong character dynamics are what carry even the shittiest of plots.

First and foremost, I want to clarify that because of the nature of fan translations and the fact that most of it is volunteer work/ written out of pure enjoyment of the manga--we shouldn't judge these fan translators too harshly (if at all) for interpreting it the way they want to. FA, as far as I can tell, is a fan-based group that works out of donations.

The first thing I wanna bring up is that when it comes to fandom and its works, there are two types: Curatorial and Transformative. Now, the transformative part is something that must be very familiar to a lot of you. Fanfiction, fanart, and most headcanons fall under Transformative Works (i.e. AO3) because they are all about transforming the canon world to fit each individual's personal preferences. Meta-analysis posts and Character Breakdowns are also classified under this.

Curatorial on the other hand are fandom interactions made with the explicit purpose of being as close to canon material as possible. This is working out the logic of quirks, for example, or memorizing as much canon content about your favorite villain as possible. These are more cold, hard undeniable facts that lend themselves to the DIRECT VISION the creator/author had while making this media. If you were to ask me my opinion on this, this would be the moment where I tell you that the Curatorial side of fandom is where fan translations should (for the most part) fall under.

What people need to know though is that oftentimes, fan translations do not.

Translating isn't and has never been a one-is-to-one process. There are hundreds of thousands of aspects in a language that make it so that it isn't perfectly translatable. Colloquialisms to sayings to dialects, to just plain-out words that don't have a proper English translation to them! Manga is made by and for a Japanese audience, so obviously in a lot of instances, there will be cultural nuances that will not be understood by anyone who hasn't immersed themselves in Japanese culture/language.

So what does this mean then for fan scanlations?

It means that a vast majority of translators teach themselves to only get the essence of the message. They take the dialogue as they understand it and translate it to something of their interpretation. When language and cultural barriers exist, translators do what they can in order to make it understandable to the general populace. This means making their own executive decisions on how they see a character speaking. In example, if they see Todoroki using very direct and impersonal Japanese--one translator might interpret it to mean that Shouto is stiff and overly formal, while another may see it as him being rude and aloof.

The problem is, translators are fans just like us.

Like with the image Mang posted above, the translator based the usage of curse words off of their understanding of Bakugou's character. The lack of foul language in the original Japanese might have made the translator think "Oh. There just aren't enough Japanese cusses for his character." And took that as an initiative to make Bakugou's lines more colorful and violent because this was working off of the image Bakugou had had at this point in canon.

But Codi! You may cry. Wasn't it proven multiple times that Bakugou prefers concise and short lines? They should've known better!

Yes. Maybe they should've known better. But tell me honestly in your first watch-through of MHA, did you perfectly understand Bakugou's character either? Did you catch the whole 'direct and no flowery language' aspect of his language when you first saw Season 2?

Most people don't. I only really understood this fact after I'd read multiple discussions of it and even double-checked the manga myself. These are the kinds of things that only become noticeable with a sharp eye and some time to scrutiny. But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to fan translations, the clout and recognition are always going to go to who can post the quickest.

Am I excusing erroneous translations? A bit, I guess. It's hard for us to go in and expect translators to catch all these errors before release when we ourselves only catch these errors like 4 months in with a hundred times more canon context than these scanlation groups did at the time of its release.

Still, there are plenty of harms that come with faulty translations.

When a translation is more divorced from the original's meaning than usual, it creates a dissonance between what is actually happening versus what the audience sees is happening. This looks like decently-written character arcs being overruled and rejected by most of the readers because of how 'jarring' and 'clumsy' it seems. By the time translators had caught on to the fact that Bakugou was more than just a ticking time bomb, we were already several steps into showing how significantly he cares for Deku.

The characters affected most by these translation errors are often those with the most subtle and well-written character arcs. A single mistake in how the source material is translated can make or break the international reception of a certain character to everyone who isn't invested enough in them to look deeper into the canon source.

It creates hiccups in plots. Things that seem out of character but really aren't. Going back to MHA in specific, the way that inaccurate translations hurt both the 'curatorial' and 'transformative' parts of the fandom is that people have begun to cite them as proof of the main cast's characterization.

Bakugou and Todoroki are undeniably some of the biggest examples of mistranslation injustices.

Katsuki, in a lot of people's minds, has yet to break out of the 'overly-aggressive rival' archetype box that people had been placing him in since Season 1. One of the most amazing aspects and biggest downfalls of Hori's writing was that at first, nearly every character fit into a very neat stereotype for Shonen Animes (Deku being the talking-no-jutsu sunshine MC, Uraraka being the overly bubbly main girl, Todoroki being the aloof and formal rival). He made the audience make assumptions about everyone's characters and then pulled the rug beneath our feet when he revealed deeper sides of them to play around within canon.

What made this part about Horikoshi's set-up so good though were the many clues we were given from the very beginning that these characters were more than what they acted like. Even from the very first chapters, for example, we learn that Katsuki (as much as he acts like a delinquent) dislikes smoking because it could get him in trouble.

That is just a single instance of MHA's use of dialogue to subtly divert our expectations of a character.

Another example is when they replaced 318's dialogue of the Second User saying that Katsuki "completes" Deku with him saying that Katsuki merely "bolsters" him. This presents a different situation, as that line was meant to reinforce the importance of those two's relationship as well as complete the character foils that MHA is partially centered around. By downplaying their developed connection, it becomes harder for the MHA manga scanlations to justify any future significance these two's words have on each other without mottling the pacing of the story.

AKA, it butchers the plot.

With every new volume, there are dozens and dozens more of these hints and bits scattered around! So many cues and subtle foreshadowing at the trajectory of everyone's character arcs--yet mistranslations or inaccurate scans make it so that we don't notice them. This is what I mean when I said that some character arcs are being done great injustices.

Until now, many people can't accept that Katsuki Bakugou cares for anyone other than himself (much less his rival and MC, Izuku Midoriya), nor can they accept that Todoroki would ever willingly work by Endeavor's side. The bottom-line then becomes that because of people missing heavy bits of characterization that become very plot-significant in the future.

When it comes to the point where people can no longer accept or fit their interpretation of the earlier manga events to what is happening in canon, the point of a translation fails completely because it has lead people to follow an entirely different story.

TL;DR - Fan scans are hard. Translating is hard. Don't get too mad at fan translations, but also maybe don't treat them as the catch-all for how characters truly operate. Thanks.

Side note: DO NOT harass FA for any of these things. FA is actually a pretty legit and okay source for scans (they've been operating since like 2014 ffs), but regardless of that they still don't deserve to get flack for their work. You can have any opinion or perspective of canon that you want, I don't care. These are just my two (more like two million tbh) cents on translations. I suggest reading takes from actual Japanese audiences tbh if you wanna know more about the source material of MHA. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[lacrimaomnis]

BRF Reading, 29/7/2021

The cards were drawn on yesterday’s (28/7) evening my time, around 9 - 9:30pm.

This is the request I got from an anon, thank you so much for your request! As always, do send me an ask if you have something on your mind that you would ask me to read! 

Since this is a question about the past, I decided to draw only five cards instead of my usual seven -- but it ended up turning into two five-card spreads with a lot of clarifiers and underlying energies. 

As written, this is merely a speculation and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt. This speculation is not true until proven otherwise. 

My question is, how did Harry view Catherine, his sister in law before he married Meghan?

Remarks/Comments: This is just speculation. I cannot emphasise this enough. I will have to warn you that this is some next-level conspiracy shit. I will not blame you if you don't believe this, because I cannot believe this either. I will put the reading under read more to spare people on the dashboard the pain of having scrolling down through this post. I will be revisiting this question some time in the near future, because I just can’t believe this.

Summary: At one point before Harry married Meghan, Harry had thought of Catherine as a potential sexual partner. He also thought of her as a liberation, that he can take “things easy” and work less.

Cards drawn: Six of Pentacles, Queen of Cups, The Empress, Eight of Pentacles, The Sun Underlying energies: Knight of Cups, Page of Wands

First card: Six of Pentacles. This is the card of charity and generousity. In my deck, this card is represented by a bird and a mouse (? mice? rat?) -- the bird holds in its beak the coins (pentacles) as the mouse raises upwards to receive the coins. This card represents Harry and Catherine. Harry is the bird offering the mouse the coins -- this represents Harry accepting Catherine into the royal family. This tells me that during the early years, Harry accepted Catherine without any qualms, just like the "wealthy" bird who offered the mouse a coin from the scales containing the pentacles on its beak without any complaints due to the generousity of its heart. 

Second card: Queen of Cups. She represents virtue, feminity, nurture, fertility, success, and power. She is the most feminine of all Queens, ruling over the realm of emotions and feelings. In this reading, she represents Catherine -- she is the future Queen of England, hence the power associated with her, she is fertile, having borne three children, she is also perhaps one of the more successful royals of our time; this brought to my mind her Early Years project. Harry thought of Catherine as someone nurturing, compassionate, and he thought of Catherine as someone with whom he can connect emotionally. 

Third card: The Empress. This is where things start to veer into the conspiracy theory realm. The Empress, ruled by Venus, is the card of a powerful female figure, a matriarch, the ultimate feminine archetype. In my deck, The Empress is drawn as a woman baring her breasts with a tiger around her -- the tiger can signify the desire for attention. This tells me that Harry may have wanted Catherine's attention in a more personal and intimate way than the way a sister-in-law looks after her brother-in-law. He may have wanted the attention only a lover could give, which may or may not include sex, as implied by the way The Empress is illustrated: an open posture offering sex and comfort.

The tiger, however, can also be represented as a desire to protect. The Empress is protected by the tiger, a sign that she can definitely be fierce to protect herself, or that the ferocious tiger itself will protect The Empress. This card, then, could be interpreted that while Harry may have had wanted more than Catherine's attention, William stepped in to protect her, just like the tiger protecting The Empress. This card could also mean that Catherine herself set the hard boundaries between her and Harry, the "ferocity" of The Empress.

Fourth card: Eight of Pentacles. This is the card of hard work and accomplishment. Harry thought of Catherine as an accomplishment and a hard worker. This is where things start to get a little muddy so I drew two clarifiers on this card: 

First clarifier: Death. This is the card of transformation, of an end of a cycle, new beginnings, and liberation. This card often indicates a time of transition. As the clarifier of the Eight of Pentacles, this card tells me that Harry thought of Catherine, her accomplishments, and her hard work as a way to give way to the time of transition and transformation. This card could also be thought of as a card of liberation, so this could mean that Harry thought of Catherine as his "liberation", that he can now get away without taking his duties seriously because William, Catherine, and their children will be taking more and more royal duties and he can sit back and enjoy his days without having to work. 

Second clarifier: The Hierophant. Because the Eight of Pentacles, a minor arcana card, was clarified by two major arcana cards, this tells me that Eight of Pentacles in this reading is perhaps particularly important. The Hierophant is a card of institution, conventionality, and traditions. This is also the card of a Taurus person and I was thinking of HM the Queen, a Taurus, so this card stands for HM the Queen and the BRF as an institution. Combined with Death, this could mean that Harry thought of Catherine's arrival as a herald of the end of Her Majesty's era -- that it was time for the old-timers to give way and let the younger royals take the lead.

The Eight of Pentacles in this reading could then be interpreted as such: Harry thought of Catherine as someone whose accomplishments and hard work will transform the BRF as an institution, closing the curtains to Her Majesty's era, and ushering in a new era of the younger royals. He also thought that with Catherine on the scene, he could sit back and "take it easy" because William, Catherine, and their children will be doing the bulk of the work. 

Fifth card: The Sun. This is the card of success and abundance, optimism, achievement, and friendship. This card can indicate that people will be drawn to you because of your warmth and your zest of life. This affirmed The Empress, as the other major arcana card in this reading -- Harry was drawn to Catherine.

Underlying energy 1: Knight of Cups. This is the card of someone enthusiastic, moody, sentimental, and foolish -- in this reading, this card represents Harry. He was sentimental about Catherine. Again, as with the mini reading I did about BRF, Harry, and his memoir, there is an element of obsessiveness this card carries, and it was a romantic one. Harry, at one point, before he married Meghan, may have been obsessed with Catherine romantically.

Underlying energy 2: Page of Wands. The appearance of this card confirms to me that Harry had thought of Catherine in some sexual way. The Page of Wands is drawn like the way The Empress is: open postured with bared breasts, but this time, she has a dragon behind her. This card can indicate a desire for a new adventure, particularly an erotic one. Combined with the Knight of Cups, this card affirms that at one point, Harry may have had been obsessed, romantically, or sexually, with Catherine.

Right. This is just some nonsense out of conspiracy theory realm shit. I can't believe this. I decided to draw another five-card spread with two underlying energies, just like my first spread. The question is:

I am asking for confirmation - did Harry really think of Catherine, who is married to his brother as a potential sexual partner at some point before his marriage to Meghan?

Cards drawn: Page of Cups, Justice, Ten of Pentacles, Ten of Wands, Knight of Wands Underlying energies: Temperance, Nine of Pentacles

Summary: The cards didn’t say “no, he did not”. Take what you will of this second reading.

First card: Page of Cups. This card heralds the arrival of someone gentle, which might bring about changes in one's life. This card is Catherine, as she brought a change into the brothers' dynamic and life. She changed William's life when he married her and bore him their children -- William changed from a bachelor into a married man and a father. This change, in turn, affected Harry’s life as well. William’s obligations, first and foremost, is to his own family. Harry, which was once the closest person in William’s life, is replaced by Catherine and her children. He was replaced; this was the message this card brought.

Second card: Justice. This is the card of karmic law, fairness, justice, balance, and reason. This card champions reason and impartiality over feelings and emotions, urging the readers to be logical and put their mindset in order to make fair decisions. This card also warns against someone or something that might not quite be as it seems.

In my deck, this card represents a Libra or Capricorn person. Catherine is a Capricorn, so this card may also speak about her -- in relation to this question, perhaps there was a time where she had to make a decision about Harry. I decided to ask for clarification on what this decision was about, so I drew two cards: 

First clarifier: Seven of Cups. This is the card of illusions, fantasy, and unreal expectations. This card reinforced that the decision Catherine had to make had something to do with Harry’s increasingly unreal expectations of her and their relationship. This card warns about the illusion of temptation, in this reading, the temptation is about being disloyal towards your partner in exchange for a short, fleeting satisfaction. Catherine’s decision may have something to do with this; this is the decision she made in order to reiterate that her loyalty belongs to her husband, not to anyone else.

Second clarifier: Nine of Pentacles. Nine of Pentacles is closely associated with The Hermit -- both cards are associated with earth signs and number nine. Pentacles are the suit of earth, ruled by the signs Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn. The Hermit is the ninth card the Fool encounters in his journey, and it is also the card of a Virgo; Harry is a Virgo.

The Nine of Pentacles is a formidable card that speaks about admiration, strength, and if it appears together with a warning card, like the Seven of Cups, this card is warning against destructive behaviour of the querent or someone in querent’s life -- this card tells me that Harry’s obsessive behaviour towards Catherine may have had involved attempts of tempting Catherine. Catherine made the decision, represented by Justice, after discerning Harry’s motivations and this speaks about her strength to protect her family and herself.

Thus, the Justice can be interpreted as such: the decision Catherine made was fair and right. The decision made revolved around the boundaries between herself and Harry, in which she took this decision to protect those boundaries. In extension, this decision is the way Catherine displayed her strength and her discerning mind in order to protect William and their family.

Third card: Ten of Pentacles. This is the card of happiness, home, prosperity, family matters, and love. This is a very conservative card, as this card does not speak about taking risks, or travelling, or putting your money in hope of returns -- this card speaks about being grounded and enjoying the fruit of your labours.

This card tells me that Harry wished to have a future with Catherine. He imagined himself as the patriarch with Catherine as his matriarch, building a family, being successful in their labours; all the successes and victories that are now currently enjoyed by William and Catherine. This card also sends the message that all of the future he envisioned for himself, together with Catherine, was not his for the taking. It was William’s. William is Catherine’s husband, and together, they have built a happy family, they are successful in their role as the younger royals, they have enjoyed the fruits of their labour.

Fourth card: Ten of Wands. Tens often speak about the completion of a cycle, and Ten of Wands particularly speaks about the forces in your life that have come together and produced the end of a cycle. This card also speaks about responsibility and burden; this card implies that whatever Harry thought of Catherine, it was a burden for him. I decided to draw some clarifiers for this card:

First clarifier: The Hermit. This is drawn from the top of the deck. This is my major arcana card for Harry, a Virgo. The Hermit speaks of solitude, self-awareness, study, soul-searching, withdrawal. This may imply that due to the burden signified by the Ten of Wands, there is a withdrawal; Harry withdrew from Catherine as he was burdened by the way he thought of her, or that perhaps he was burdened by the thought of the future he envisioned with her -- it will never come to fruition.

Second clarifier: Knight of Wands. This is drawn from the bottom of the deck. This card is someone of a fire sign; particularly a Leo: Meghan is a Leo. This knight is hasty, quick, the embodiment of the youth enthusiasm, capable of sweeping anyone off their feet. As the most dynamic of all knights, this card appears when things are moving quickly. This card could be interpreted that while Harry is burdened by the thoughts on Catherine, Meghan came in and quickly swept him off his feet.

Fifth card: Knight of Wands. This card appears as the clarifier for Ten of Wands, and now, here, he appears again. He might be quick on his feet, but with his quickness comes a disregard for rules. This tells me that Harry was disregarding the rules around having a relationship with your sister in law: you do not vie for her attention, you do not compete with your brother for her attention.

Underlying energy 1: Temperance. This is the card of being moderate, patience, taking the middle road, and as we all know, Harry is not any of those things. He is not patient, he is not moderate, he is not temperate, he is always taking the “my way or no way” attitude. This is one big energy as this is a major arcana. This card tells me that pertaining to Catherine, Harry is impatient and not moderate, which can include having sexual urges when he thought about her. He did not temper his mind.

Underlying energy 2: Nine of Pentacles. This card appears as a clarifier, and this card appears again as the underlying energy of this spread. This card can be associated with Harry as I have explained above, and this card also speaks about being self-motivated and self-contained, understanding the power you possess and knowing yourself. Combined with Temperance, this card tells me that he has no moderation whatsoever in exercising his power, he only knew that he has the power and did not stop for a second to ponder what that means.

Other interpretation that came to my mind as I type this is that Nine of Pentacles also speaks about the capability of standing strong of your own. This card, then, could be interpreted that Catherine is perfectly capable of standing on her own, to hold her ground even when she is faced by difficulties; in this reading, Harry. She is moderate but firm in her decisions, as shown by the Justice.

Conclusion: This reading left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. My partner has a brother and I would never think of him in any kind of sexual way; that is just crossing so many lines. This is just some conspiracy theory shit, and I still refuse to believe what my cards said. This is one of those “I will pretend I never read this question” readings to be sealed away, because it makes absolutely no sense. I refuse to believe a person can be this disgusting.

[zorya-wellness]

Should You Read Reversed Tarot Cards and Learn Their Meanings? Beginner Tarot Guide.

Often when people start to learn Tarot cards, they limit themselves to some boundaries or rules.

Some people put aside Minor Arcana cards to learn Major Arcana on a deeper level; others ignore elements “for now”, to avoid getting confused.

But the majority first tend to ask the question: “Should I read Tarot reversals?” and try to sort of choose the side from the beginning.

I learned Tarot reversals and how to read them as a part of my Tarot education program. At the beginning of my Tarot path, I even considered them in a reading.

I also read various perspectives of different Tarot professionals on the internet, just like you are reading this Blog post right now.

But at one moment I decided to ditch the reversals completely and put all my cards in the deck upright once and for all.

No, not because it is difficult to work with reversals but because based one my knowledge and experience this was the most logical thing to do.

I will explain to you my logic and approach but always feel free to choose a path that works for you. There are many wonderful Tarot readers that work with reversals but also plenty amazing ones that never did. The choice is yours.

Reason #1: Confusion with Card Meanings and Interpretation

Yes, this is something that is worth to consider. The interpretation of reversed Tarot cards can get really vague and personal.

For example, you can “reverse” the meaning of the card, saying that the reversed Tarot card meaning is just the opposite of the upright.

In that case, if we take, for example, the reversed Devil Tarot card, we can say that its meaning is quite positive and signifies the release from the boundaries and addictions.

But we may also say that the reversed Devil card meaning is even worse than that of the upright and the person described by this card is at the point where they can’t get out.

Same applies to the rest of the cards in the deck. You can either see their meaning as the opposite of what they mean upright, or make them worse than their meaning is, in case it is negative to begin with.

Reason #2: Repetition of Cards’ Messages

This is not something you will see often if you are reading cards only in their upright positions.

Yes, you may get 5 of Pentacles and the Tower together in a business reading and both would point on financial loss but the cards’ nuances would still provide with additional information that will create one full story.

When you read both reversed and upright cards, the card meanings can once again become blurred.

It becomes much more complicated to see those nuances and differences and many cards start to simply replace one another instead of complementing. It also becomes difficult to tell if the reversed card means the same thing that the upright next to it or something else?

Reason #3: The Upright Tarot Cards Already Have SO MUCH to Tell

There are 78 Tarot cards, friends! For a reason, don’t you think?

And consider the fact that, practically in any spread, Tarot cards influence each other’s interpretation – so that the meaning of one card depends on the surrounding cards.

There really are plenty of Tarot cards in the deck and based on all the combinations, situations and nuances, we can really draw a conclusion that there is more than enough information as it is in the deck to give a quality reading. There really is no need to multiply all of this by 2.

Let’s look at a quick example here. Take the reversed 2 of Cups card that speaks about conflicts, misunderstandings and relationship struggles. Let’s say that this card came up as a Significator for a relationship reading.

Would something change drastically if there was an upright 3 of Swords or 7 of Wands card instead?

In my opinion, no. Both cards can describe the situation perfectly well, in their own ways.

For example, 3 of Swords card can say that the conflict that took place was really heartbreaking to the partners, while 7 of Wands can point on continuous arguments, clashes of opinions and misunderstandings.

And, in my opinion, these upright cards would give much more information than the reversed card, the meaning of which is quite questionable.

Reason #4: Some New Tarot Decks Do Not Have Meanings for Reversed Cards

And here you can say: “Well, a Tarot reader should be able to work with any deck.”

And this is generally the truth, but you need to take into an account that there are WAY MORE Tarot decks being created now than needed. And some people that release those decks have nothing to do with Tarot and are just hiring the artists to draw the cards choosing a popular theme, the prettier the better. Whatever sells well.

As a result, sometimes we pick up a deck that has really nothing to do with Tarot. And the meaning of the card completely deviates from the original or traditional interpretation.

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For example, look at this “The Lovers” Tarot card that appears to be a Game of Thrones inspired Tarot deck.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m a huuuuuuuuuge fan of Game of Thrones (House Bolton, anyone? No?)

But this card has absolutely NOTHING to do with the meaning of the Lovers, as the Loves card has nothing to do with love!

It is a card of CHOICE more so than anything else.

This is why when you look at the traditional version, you see that he is looking at her and she is looking at the Archangel and behind them is a snake. What is the path you chose?

When we look at this Game of Thrones version of the Lovers card, we can see a couple deeply in love. They are together, they don’t need anything else or anyone else. In fact, there is nothing here pointing on a choice.

And you may say here: “Oh, well, John Snow made a choice. He left Ingrid and went back on the wall.” You know this, I know this. Does a person who has never watched Game of Thrones and just picked up this deck know this?

So, it may seem that I deviated from our original conversation on Tarot reversals here but not really.

The point here is that if the upright position of this card does not really mean what it should, what does the reversed card even mean? Does it point on a break up? Are they falling out of love? What if you pull this card for career? Well, I suppose, you can say that is signifies breaking of a partnership.

In reality, this is my PERSONAL interpretation and you can see this differently.

In this case, we will all just interpret the cards how we “feel” not how they should be interpreted.

Here I really like the approach of Aleister Crowley. Unlike Waite, who does talk about reversed Tarot cards, in fact, most of the literature on Rider-Waite deck talks about reversals, Crowley does not mention reversals at all.

All he mentions is “the shadow side of the Card.”

And it is absolutely an amazing way to put it.

Each card has its Shadow side but you don’t need to see it reversed to understand when it shows it.

Reason #5:  The Process of Tarot Reading

This would depend on how you personally deal with shuffling and picking cards during your reading.

When I get a question, I start shuffling the cards while concentrating my mind on the question and the spread. After that I pull individual cards either from the deck itself or I spread the cards from right to left and pick the cards I am drawn to.

The most mystical process happens while you are shuffling the cards and thinking about a question. It is sort of similar to a mini manifestation meditation when you let go of the unnecessary thoughts to allow your mind to concentrate on one specific matter.

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What was happening to the deck before the shuffling process or how I pull the cards after shuffling is done is not important. After you are done shuffling your Tarot deck, the cards that are meant to be pulled are already waiting for you.

For this reason, I don’t favour card reading method when the reader pulls cards for additional questions to clarify something. For the most accurate reading it is one question – one spread.

So, the thing is, while you are shuffling the cards you don’t flip them. When you shuffle a brand-new Tarot deck, all cards are in the upright position. How do you then get the reversals?

You get them when you are not collecting your cards gracefully after the reading and are just being sloppy.

Doesn’t it then seem like you are the one creating reversed Tarot cards yourself?

Of course, you can continue to flip the cards while you are shuffling, but it is already way too much hustle, if you ask me.

Reason #6: Look at The Spread as A Whole, It Has A Story to Tell

During many years of my work with Tarot, I have learned to analyze the spread as a whole and not read each card individually. This means that I don’t interpret each card one by one, I look at the surrounding cards, their elements and how they influence each other.

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For example, when I’m doing a relationship spread, I like to understand the nature of the partners. Not based on what THEY tell me, but based on what THE CARDS tell me.

So, I usually throw three cards per partner with the positions: what he/she thinks, what he/she feels and what he/she does.

When I analyze those cards, I look at the connection between them and also at any inconsistencies that may arise. For example, a partner may think one thing but do something completely the opposite, hide something, or may feel completely different inside.

This allows you to have a full portrait of a person as a whole.

And this applies really to any spread. You always try to read a story not just interpret one card after another.

Should You Then Ditch Tarot Reversals Practice for Good?

The thing is, there are many methods and techniques used by the readers. There are even those who chaotically throw cards on the table and pick the needed ones using their intuition.

There are many approaches to Tarot and divination as a whole.

My blog post does not call upon ditching reversed Tarot cards but rather asks to think about the process for a minute.

Perhaps, if you are a Tarot beginner, it would be a better idea to leave the reversals out and focus on other important aspects, such as elements, numerology and cards combinations.

But I notice more and more that even advanced and experienced Tarot readers leave the reversals out more often.

The ultimate choice is yours and depends solely on your preference. There is no right or wrong way.