#and she needs a billion and a half things apparently

[mythgirlimagines]

Me: yeah I need a new pair of jeans, I can take 5 minutes at this one store-

The rest of my family: *drags me on a shopping trip that'll probably take at least an hour and three stores*

[chewingbatmanlikeasqueakytoy]

Okay this is actually a partial reply to another post

but my reply got so long i think tumblr literally cant cope LMAO so (context the Amity park perception filter thread with @kaidatheghostdragon which i will edit a link into after posting (X) Edit: the context link is now attached)

Honestly they might not CRASH crash the economy but I honestly think they could do some serious damage. At the very least if Amity is going to start essentially printing USD with these cards to get infrastructure and the like set up the inflation within the town is going to go crazy and they might just need a new currency. I think it's also determined by how LARGE you consider Amity to be. As I've always seen it described as a small town I've always envisioned it to have a population of around 10,000 people. AS IT TURNS OUT the wiki describes it as 'Amity Park is depicted as a moderately large urban city, reminiscent of Chicago, San Francisco, and/or Philadelphia' WHICH IS WAY LARGER THAN I IMAGINED. I don't know SHIT about American cities or their layouts apart from the fact that Everything Is Squares and also apparently the junctions are death(? Apparently America doesn't have roundabouts??? Bro??? I don't know if that was a Simpsons gag but I think about it maybe half as often as I use roundabouts), BUT the point is that google says those cities are somewhere around 800,000 to 2.6 million.

Honestly I think those are weird numbers because those are enough of a range to not be at all considered the same size imo but we'll take Philadelphia as our base bc that's the one in the middle at 1.5 million. In "Amity Park's" population statistics (X) if you take everyone from 20-44 (we're pretending people under 20 can't get one bc apparently 13 year olds can get them with special permissions and that fills me with a special kind of anguish to have learned) but if you take everyone from 20-44 that population totals something like 613,028.

We'll give an error margin of 10% to account for people who are auto disqualified for whatever reason and between that error margin and the people I'm ignoring I think it's realistic to assume you could get 551,726 people credit cards. Unlimited ones? maybe not. But look me in the eyes and tell me if Sam Manson was told 'We can fix the public infrastructure that's damaging the environment and cause serious damage to predatory lending companies' She would not use her families wealth to be backing people as some kind of collateral/co-signer to get OBSCENLEY high credit cards SO FAST. That's to say nothing of if Tucker and the Other Nerds decide it's actually completely fine for them to hack into these companies and auto approve all these credit cards. Like the towns in dire straights so why not? It's unfortunately a pretty human tendency to see the people you care about in trouble and decide you're willing to throw literally anyone and everyone under the bus so I can see him/them doing it.

So. 551,726 people, with theoretically unlimited money to spend. CONSERVATIVELY if they racked up $500,000 USD on each card, the amount of money spent by Amity would end up being $275,863,000,000 or $275.8 BILLION Now the GDP of the USA is $25.44 Trillion, which looks like $25,440,000,000,000 so it's not a LOT in the grand scheme of things but it is just over 1%, I'm not going to pretend I know what that does economically to the entire USA but consider that Beer sales in the USA accounted for $106 billion in 2022, and that amity would potentially be generating nearly three times that. (X) I have just gone on a fucking TANGENT about the economy in this silly fun times thread of ours so I apologise I will try and sum up very quickly why I think they could spend so much so quickly. Philadelphia has a total of 37 hospitals. They built a new one sometime around 2021 to the tune of $1.6 billion (X) If Amity built a new hospital for liminality care and a few new ones Just Because They Realised They Can, say they build ten new hospitals, which is a VERY LARGE amount of new hospitals to build on workforce Alone, but they probably have tireless ghost workers who are probably obsessed with construction and regular living workers who want to be paid in the times before everyone had acclimated to the ghosts properly. Split among 551,726 people that's actually a fairly reasonable $28,999.90, which, hilariously, is actually just in and around the average limit to credit cards. So they wouldn't even need Sam or Tucker to mess with credit cards yet (X) Averages typically suck as a way of measuring stuff but this isn't a Real Life Government Project so I'm willing to call that acceptable. So if it's only $30k for ten hospitals why the hell am I citing a fat $500k each? Luxury Shit. A few luxury cars and some big name watches and you've blown through that $500k no problem. That's to say nothing of all the REST of the infrastructure that needs fixing - the roads, the schools, the libraries, the replacement materials for the transport system - hell building the APDC is going to probably be another billion dollar project if they want two portals large enough to get what is probably multilane traffic through in regards to transport. Sure the cars won't be useful for long maybe but that's just one example. Jewellery, coats - hell designer shoes and collector nonsense can go for STUPID amounts and as people who are desperate to outpace their neighbours in Cool Stuff They Own realise that their neighbours are capable of getting all the same crap they are? people are either going to stop caring or they're going to start buying some Really Obscure Shit. For the others who just wanted to buy pretty things? There's literally no reason to stop. Amity might have to limit the amount of crap people can get shipped in per week/impose serious shipping tariffs just to make sure the new FTL supply chain doesn't collapse because people are determined to get their new Cashmere and Mohair coats with Gold Embroidery or what the hell ever on next day delivery. Honestly in this scenario the cards over time thing probably doesn't matter because I'm pretty sure the Amity expenditure would DESTROY the lending company, which might then actually be the thing to get Amity rediscovered or maybe they space all these buildings out over time so they keep living the sweet life.

[formosusiniquis]

the bells, the joy (together in darkness)

Robin Buckley & Steve Harringto WC: 11963 | T | Tags/Themes: hivemind, Post S3, Scoops Troop Friendship, Nonbinary Steve and Robin, Blink and you miss it Steddie and Buckingham pre-slash AKA It's the Stobin Hivemind fic y'all! thank you very very very much to @spectrum-spectre for beta-ing this for me!!

Steve has never done LSD before. Which is the kind of statement his father would call ‘qualifying’ and ‘implies other kinds of wrongdoing, Stephan.’ Like the time he’d said he hadn’t smoked anything other than cigarettes that weekend. Apparently the ‘that weekend’ was a qualifier that got his very small pot stash flushed, and forced him into a second transaction with Eddie Munson in as many weeks.

Yeah okay maybe there were worse things, as far as punishments go.

Qualifying or not though, Steve has never done LSD. Not after the weekend he spent reading the supposedly true diary of a supposedly real teen that had been left on his bed. Like mother, like son, his father had sneered when he'd caught Steve curled up with it, like the whole plan to keep him from becoming pot-addled and destined for the gutter, or whatever, hadn’t relied on his gossipy nature.

It was mostly stupid, the book, but Steve figured it didn’t hurt to stick to weed. The stuff about that he knew for sure was totally fake.

Except now, he wishes he maybe knew a little bit more about what LSD was supposed to feel like. So he knows how to portion out blame for his current state. It’s currently 50% Upside-Down-Shit and 40% Russian-LSD-Shit and 10% Concussion-Shit, but if he’s being fair he’s blamed the Upside Down for about half of everything that’s gone wrong in his life since 1983. He’s willing to acknowledge that maybe the blame breakdown should be readjusted for this one.

“Hey Robin?” Trauma changes people, makes you want to stay close to the people who are changed the same way you are. Robin had shown up at Steve’s house the Monday after everything, trumpet case and duffle bag in hand. Apparently, she had walked from the school where she was supposed to be catching the bus to Band Camp, like she does every year. Apparently, when you undergo traumas heretofore unexperienced by any teen ever, Russian torture and flesh monsters, it’s okay to skip Summer Intensive to move in with your new best friend without telling your parents. Apparently, if you’re the kid that the Band Person, Director, wants to keep happy because in addition to the billion and seven languages you can play any instrument with a mouthpiece -- except trombone, slide positions, Steve had pretended he knew what that meant -- then you can just leave school to deal with your ‘mall fire smoke inhalation’ at your ‘aunt’s house’ instead. Apparently this is fine and Steve doesn’t need to worry about any angry former hippies beating down his dore because ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them.’

So he can call out for Robin, without raising his voice because he knows she’s there. Somewhere in the house, the weight of it changed now that someone else is in it with him. He can call out even though he’s pretty sure she’s holed up in his Mom’s library on the ground floor, because he can feel her in the back of his brain and he knows she’ll hear him.

Drifting in an unfocused middle distance, he can imagine Robin. Curled up, she knows she’s been called for but isn’t in any hurry to comply, Steve will wait. He's fine with waiting, at least for the five minutes it will take for her to finish her chapter. He can see her, slotting her bookmark in place and sitting up straight for the first time in hours. She stretches, uncurls from the window seat that Steve also favors, gently sets the book down before letting a foot dangle and brush the floor to actually stand. And she leaves the library. She starts to feel closer, her presence looming stronger in his brain and Steve aware of himself in his own body. Then he hears her feet on the stairs.

“What is it, Dingus, did you know your Mom has a whole collection of French books? I’m in the middle of a bunch of lesbian short stories.”

“Yeah, she speaks it, not sure why.” He answers absently, “Have you ever done LSD?”

“I’ve had half a pot brownie and gotten way too high before.”

That’s not really the same thing, Steve thinks.

“I know it’s not really the same thing, Dingus, I was using it as a framework.” She flops facedown on the bed beside him, wiggling into what he’s started thinking of as her side. A lucky coincidence that she prefers to be tucked in on the side closest to the wall. Probably because she’s never seen anything burst out of one.

“Okay don’t think that, cause now I’m never going to be able to sleep again, I don’t think you’ve got enough space for us to pull your bed into the center of your room.”

He can see the way she imagines it. His bed, an island in the center of the room floating in a sea of plaid. Something about it is even more unnerving than if it stayed up against the wall.

“Not a good look.” He doubts anything will come from the walls again anyway, the Upside Down has proven to be surprisingly adaptive; it doesn't seem to attack in the same way twice. It makes it harder to be prepared, but he’s less worried about not being able to protect Robin in the middle of the night.

“Savior complex. Your mom has psychology books down there too. What does she even do?”

“Reads mostly. Do you think there’s anything down there about LSD?” He doesn’t think this is normal.

“Nice leap, Steve, I don’t think there are many drugs that link your brain with your coworker.” She says coworker, but he feels friend. Even that concept isn’t enough to describe the depth of warmth and affection that he feels wash over him as she thinks.

He lets the silence hang for a second, thinking but not sure what yet. His thoughts are slower to arrive and more jumbled in these early days post-concussion. His right hand curls, his fingers flex. First and third finger tap, then one and two, then none, one and two, and two, and none.

Robin’s knee jostles the bed as her leg bounces just a little.

“I think something else happened to us.”

“Wondered how long I’d have to tap your fingers for you before you got there with me.”

Read the rest on AO3

[carionto]

"So Basically... You Work For Cthulhu?"

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6

Trisha was the first to break the strange silence after Iorvan had finished explaining in the most vague terms possible what his purpose here was.

"That is a very crude and inaccurate oversimplification, but yes." with a hint of irritation in his voice, he agreed to her assessment. "The High Priest is all knowing on matters that matter, yet every now and then a "nothing", as beings of such magnitude view mortals like us, will happen upon the right combination of irrelevant information to form new true knowledge."

"Like the million monkey typewriters writing Shakespeare!" Trisha energetically interjected. "So why not just scry or whatever they do every brain and pluck out all the good info?" she questioned.

"As I said, we are "nothings" to them, and though their capabilities are beyond our understanding, they are not without limits, and observing billions of human minds is just incomprehensible static, I imagine." Iorvan looked directly at Trisha, "How much effort would you say it would take to comprehend your thoughts alone, Trisha?"

"Good point, I don't bother doing that half the time myself." she replied eagerly without a second thought.

Chief Engineer Tameki, very clearly confused, finally gathered herself enough, "Wait, please. So why are you here? What does any of that even mean?"

"C'mon ira, keep up, it's not that complicated." Trisha seemed to be more surprised by everyone else's apparent confusion than everyone else was by how she wasn't.

"Us going through a tear in space-time made the universe glitch out. You know, the quantum entanglement thing breaking when it shouldn't and some mumbo-jumbo about our spiritual selves being in two places at once or something. Oh yeah, souls are a thing, but only sorta? Did I get that right, Prof? To Cthulhu it looked like we duplicated our ethereal form and that should not be a thing that anyone can do, so they took notice and sent you here to investigate."

"In the simplest and most inaccurate terms, but correct." Iorvan, now more composed after accepting that Trisha's brain functioned imperfectly enough to somehow comprehend his altered understanding of the true nature of the world. Well, changed by as much knowledge as the High Priest deemed essential to impart onto him.

He continued, adjusting his own explanation to match the intellectual level of the subjects. "Such an unprecedented occurrence will not go unnoticed by the rest of the Old Ones, and the consequences for this event originating directly from the High Priest's physical domain are unpredictable, hence the unprecedented intervention you see before you in my form."

He continued, "In the simplest acceptable terms possible - the actions you took to arrive here must be reversed. I was granted all relevant knowledge about the hybrid warp engine, however, the local domain here is inaccessible and information must be retrieved manually. What is the status of it and all related matters?" Iorvan addressed the question with an icy stare towards everyone on the bridge.

Ira, with a slight look of worry, answered: "It didn't come with us when we warped. Because of the instantaneous nature of the transportation, it couldn't send any data about itself during or after the warp."

At this, the unofficial head IT guy, Valencio, chimed in, "Well, it's not impossible that whatever energy discharge that did happen couldn't have sent some signal to the nearest connected devices. The warp cut every quantum connection, but some of them were connected with a hardline, right?"

"That is true, the Dusk was printed at a military shipyard," Haespar Kraus, having found something sensible to cling to, was finally able to feel useful. "Short range redundancies like that are always integrated, even with unconventional designs like the hybrid warp engine. We'll just need to retrieve them and look at their final logs-"

"D O S O !"

The bridge, which had begun to regain a bit of life, was stunned silent by Iorvan suddenly echoing this command in a voice that came not just from his mouth, but also the walls, the floor, ceiling, and even right behind everyone's heads.

While Trisha, once again, composed herself first, even she was unnerved by the ominous aura Iorvan was exuding.

"A-alright, Prof. No need to be all evil occult on us. You're human too, or were at least. You know pressure like that isn't the most productive, yeah? So, like, chill. Please?"

His dagger-like stare towards her did not diminish, but his presence on the bridge did become less intense.

"Find the answer. Deliver it to me in one year. My own visit to this foreign domain will not go unnoticed, but the High Priest accepted this price. The knowledge you obtain, however, MUST be worthwhile. It is, after all, a trivial matter for any Old One to simply erase all "nothings" that have made themselves known in a... negative light."

With those final words, the form of Professor Iorvan evaporated into a mist.

"Back to 27..." came Emily's voice after a moment of sobering silence.

"So, uhh..." Trisha felt the need to fill the air with something productive, "basically, if we don't figure out what exactly happens during a warp, everyone back home is gonna die. Umm... let's go get those data thingies?" with uncertainty, she looked at everyone on the bridge.

Haespar, wanting to keep his image of the sensible cool headed one, picked up the baton Trisha had almost dropped, "Yes, well, that is something we were going to do eventually anyway, it's just been bumped up the list. Ira, Valencio - will you need anything not currently here for a full warp simulation once we get whatever may exist in those terminals?" he regained his actual composure as he faked the first few sentences, and was now in his serious mode.

"There's not enough computing power hooked together with the quantum computers being all blank, and we'll need either one fully powered reactor running on overload for half a day, or get a second one back up." Valencio counted each though on his fingers, an old habit.

"Good. Emily will head that, everyone else will have to postpone your previous tasks." Haespar declared. "Ira? Ira!" Haespar approached her with worry. "With Knoslark being a grumpy baby, and Sergeant Zhao still in a coma, by rank, you're the de-facto leader. It's a lot to take in, but what are we going to do. Cthulhu is real. Magic is real. Souls are real. New information, sure. World upending even, but that doesn't change what reality is right now for us. So, please, don't break down on me. It's just one thing at a time, just like any other problem we've dealt with before."

Ira Tameki took a deep breath. Then another. After a moment, she looked over everyone on the bridge.

"Right, you heard Haespar, but I have one correction - I'll be heading the reactor repair and re-ignition. Emily, you take everyone you need and retrieve those terminals and any other digital and electronic devices close to where the warp engine was, even damaged ones. Extract everything.

Valencio, start working on the simulation code, you'll have all the computing and raw power needed, I'll make sure of that." she saw the uncertainty and nervousness on some of the junior crew members' faces.

"It's going to be a long year, but we already did the impossible once - we broke physics and traveled thirteen billion light years in zero zeptoseconds. Let's figure out how and get ourselves back home."

[o2studies]

༻`` 25 Jan 24 — Thursday

100 days of productivity 25/100

Generally I can't study in school. I need to say things out loud and repeat them a billion times. But I haven't had the will to study physics at home where I could do that. Apparently studying physics 🔭 in school is the way to go because I covered a whole 4 topics!! I did my math homework and half my physics homework, the rest I'll do tomorrow morning 📝

I was really productive in school today. Studied for an hour between classes and still managed to use one of my frees to just talk with my friend. Plus we had our group therapy again and it was so fun!! It was actually quite healing too 💗

My pup's been strange again. She was growling around her food much more today and I tried something different. Didn't work and she went into time out. Then she started to guard her toys. ;-; I don't know how to stop this.

Lastly, I made that discord server for ⚛️ The Sci Journal team and made a form for others to join from! I literally almost cried because it was happening 🥹. It IS actually happening. Other people are involved with this now and it's a bit of a bigger task than I initially thought. But just think of the reward that will come from this!!

[multifunctionalnitroglycerin]

The Locked Tomb Series Names and Symbolism #1

I am not certain I'll ever make any more of those, but I have found myself restless and in need of expressing how ingenious the naming system/patterns/meanings in these books is. I would very much like to start nerding out about the usage of Greek and Latin numeral roots for seemingly everyone's names depending on their house. Admittedly, some are more prominent than others. (I am looking at you Judith Deuteros - I honest to God cracked up on that one)

The theme of today's post however is Alecto. I will admit to no little amount of shame that it took me a while to connect the dots between Alecto and Αληκτώ. And as usual Muir's way of integrating symbols, myths and folklore so seamlessly and yet so obviously in her work, left me with my mouth hanging open and a ridiculous amount of joy for no apparent reason.

Onto the actual post now, the name that Muir chose for this not quite human byproduct of John's actions if you will, is so glaringly fitting it's insane. For those of you that aren't Greek mythology fans -or PJO I guess- Alecto was in Greek myths one of the three - allegedly- Erinyes. The Furies, also known as Εὐμενίδες. Ancient chthonic deities that hunted down and punished those whose actions opposed the natural and moral order of things. Does that ring a bell?

So we have Μέγαιρα for hatred and envy, Τισιφόνη for vengeance and murder, and Αληκτώ/ Alecto for fury and mania. Alecto's mission was the infliction of punishment, the expression of divine rage against moral crimes, especially those committed by humans (The gods fell under Nemesis' jurisdiction). She is most well known for her appearance in Aeschylus' Ευμένιδες a tragedy centered around Orestis whom the furies hound for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra.

Alecto for the Ancient Greeks was the divine personification of fury, and meting out punishment to mortals that upset the natural and ethical order of things.

And what did our boy John do? Nothing much but destroy the entire livelihood of a planet and try to consume its soul. (Gaius is also an ironically fitting last name - of the earth with Γαία or Gaia being the primordial deity of the earth*). But he couldn't quite do it, could he? She was too vast, too infinite for him to fully consume. And what is left behind is half a soul, butchered and unwhole. Sewn in a monstrous, lacking body of John's measures. WE know that John refers to her as his Anabel Lee (I think, at least.) but Alecto seems to be a name she chose for herself and is so much more fitting. For what is she but the lingering righteous fury of billion souls taken before their time? What is she but an ever-present reminder of John's failure. What is she but a presence that haunts him with her mere existence, that threatens his power so much that he locked her away for ten thousand years like all humans do - at least those with a semblance of a conscience- with their guilt. They lock it up, for they cannot erase it - he cannot end her - but it always comes back haunting their dreams, hounding them in their waking hours. Alecto is John's very own Fury, one that will inevitably met out her punishment for his failures (Including his failure of loving her as wholly as he promised to), matching him beat for beat ( see Cassiopeia telling him that he is less interested in saving anyone than he is in meting out punishment). I guess monsters do take after their creators after all.

Not to mention that Alecto's behavior and presence as described by Augustine and Mercymorn is quite fitting to the role she has come to play. She is unsettling, intense, violent, mostrous. A Fury in her own right.

*Note: Gaia is the poetic form of the word Γη meaning earth and in the Cosmogony was used to describe the material side of the cosmos, not so much the earth itself. Again. Oddly fitting

That's all folks. If you reached the end of this ridiculous rant, here have a μελομακάρονο. It's almost Christmas after all.

[autismserenity]

How are you holding up? I ask because I'm only, like, addressing antisemitism that leaks to my dash with every term related to Palestine I can think of blacklisted. And i'm like. Barely crlinging to fragile sanity. I hope you are better equipped to handle the stresses of this ongoing disinformation campaign. You're doing good and important work, which you must know, but I want to re-emphasize it.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

i swear to god I thought there was a way to reply privately to asks, but apparently either there isn't or I don't have the patience to find it again.

I think that you're describing how most Jews with any connection to social media feel.

The good thing, in a way, is that researching and fact-checking is my major coping mechanism. Researching and rebutting and arguing with people until I understand everything well enough to be pithy about it. Creating ways for other people to defend themselves and to push back. Doing the research to know when I'm right helps me a lot.

I'm probably as well-equipped for this as I can imagine being (that's not really true, I should be talking to people more about it and using 12-step tools to deal with it and gosh some therapy would be nice), and like... there have still literally been times when I've been triggered for an entire week by this shit.

Most notably: the time when I saw a clip on my TikTok fyp from some podcast where some journalist fully got all dressed up and prepared to go on camera, to say that she could imagine there were a few individual rapes on Oct 7 -- although she wasn't aware of any -- but that certainly there was no evidence of systematic rape, and that saying there had been systematic rape was dehumanizing propaganda.

Like. If you can't even take one minute to google whether there had been individual rapes before you go on camera. And you haven't heard of them two months after the fact. Then you don't know enough to talk about this, period. That makes you the very opposite of an expert on the subject. And yet, that is who gets platformed. Ignorant randos who have no personal connection to any of this.

I literally knew there had been gang rapes by Hamas within the first week of the massacre. Because I cared enough to do a search for eyewitness testimony of the massacre, and I found an interview on PBS immediately.

Or, more accurately: it was because it slowly sank in that the attack had been MASSIVE. 22 kibbutzim leveled in one day, hands-on, without an airplane or mortar shell involved. All those people killed the way you would kill a horde of zombies: burned alive, or shot and then mutilated, or cut up and then shot. Like they needed to double-tap, to make sure no one was coming back around.

Two years of planning. Almost half a billion dollars in funding from Iran. Detailed guides even to the dentist's offices and kindergartens and grocery stores they were invading.

And it was very plain to, I think, nearly every Jew on earth that this was an attack aimed at Jews. Even before any recordings of attackers saying "I'm inside with the Jews" or "I killed 10 Jews with my own hands" even came out. Even though everyone else was denying it from the moment it happened.

And I felt compelled to learn more about what happened.

To KNOW.

To bear witness.

Even before it became apparent started to seem like the rest of the world would rather die themselves than bear witness to us. Even before it became apparent that Hamas had been telling people Israel would commit genocide in response before its fighters even left that country.

A reasonable person, imho, would ask why the fuck Hamas would commit such atrocities if if thought Israel would respond by killing every Palestinian in Gaza.

The Palestinians in Gaza are certainly fucking demanding to know why the hell Hamas thinks it gets to start a war on them, why its leaders get to hide out and evacuate their families while demanding civilians bleed and die for it, and why it doesn't goddamn turn itself in and give back the hostages.

But anyway.

But that's the thing. I looked it up because I was compelled to. I identified with the people attacked. I needed to know what had happened to us.

That's something outsiders would only do if they were allies.

We know, now, that we don't have allies on the left.

I've seen post after post after post, hundreds and hundreds of comments, on Jewish Reddit, asking if other progressives are okay. Asking, "how are you dealing with rejection by the left??" Asking if others are also shocked and confused and betrayed. Talking about how many friends they've lost who went masks-off antisemitic. So many people who've had to end long-term relationships when their partners went masks-off.

There's usually at least one politically conservative Jew in the comments laughing wryly and going, "wow, you really thought you were safe?"

Sometimes they ask why we're on the left if everyone there wants to kill us. Then we defiantly point out that it's not any different on the right. Or that we're not going to abandon our political beliefs for anyone.

Anyway.

I didn't even watch the podcast clip past that moment.

I ragequit. I went to the file of eyewitness testimonies I'd already put together, after weeks and weeks of denial. (And by "file," I mean "draft in gmail, because it saves automatically, and it's easy to find, and i don't know why it's better than google docs or dropbox paper, but it just is.")

I took the clearest, most authoritative ones and put them into their own document -- which i did make in dropbox lol.

I duetted the video, or whatever the fuck the one is in tiktok where you just take 5 seconds from one video and the rest is your own. It's not duetting. Idk.

It was the middle of Hanukkah. I recorded a video where I read each of however many testimonies I had, and lit a candle before each one. It was almost 10 minutes long, even though I made them as short as I could.

I didn't post it.

I was triggered all to hell for a whole week. I was staying up till 3 or 4 in the morning, researching horrifying rape testimonies, arguing with people on the internet, then sleeping too little and too late, then doing it again.

Watching myself lose a whole week to this. Knowing I couldn't do anything about it. Half-angrily, half-numbly thinking about how I couldn't afford to lose this much job search time, this much unfucking-my-life time. How I couldn't afford to have people I didn't even know fuck up my life even more.

And the bitch of it all is that the tone of the discourse makes me strongly suspect that if we said, "hey everyone needs to walk it back, you guys are deeply fucking up the mental health of pretty nearly the entire Jewish community," people would just respond by angrily telling us anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, mockingly saying that's what Zionists deserve.

Thanks for asking <3

[autisticlancemcclain]

Allura clutches the receiver in her hand, looking at it desperately. Her grip is so tight her knuckles are bloodless. 

Things are not looking good. 

“We’re not even close,” she says miserably. 

Pidge peers over her shoulder, taking in the number, and – hey. 

“It’s not that bad,” she argues. “We’re halfway there!”

“We’ve only got one act left,” Hunk reminds her quietly. Any and all hope shrivels up and dies in Pidge’s chest. 

“Oh. Right.”

It’s so stupid. The whole thing, all of it. The Coalition – it had been doing so well. They’d been getting signatures left and right, planet after planet promising their aid. But at some point, somewhere between Keith leaving and the start of the Coalition Show, they’d hit a sort of… plateau. Suddenly, they stopped expanding. They were still getting distress calls, still making treaties and agreements, but for the type of missions they were planning, the level of reinforcement they needed… it was nowhere near enough. They were even having some planets turn them away – send them a distress signal, accept their help, then refuse to join the Coalition. And it was their right to refuse, sure. Voltron would never force anyone to join them. But it definitely felt like they were getting used, and for the life of them they couldn’t figure out why.

Answers came by way of what was basically an intergalactic e-mail. Apparently, thousands of different planets and governments had gotten to talking, and had come to the ever so wonderful conclusion that they wouldn’t join the Coalition unless they saw ‘more support’. Allura – and the rest of them – had been a great mix of horrified, angry, and confused. What the hell did they mean, ‘more support’? More civilian support? More vocal support? More financial support?

The consensus had been a mix of all three. The planets on the fence had decided that if Voltron could prove that they had overwhelming, vocal support from civilians and other governments alike, then the unsure planets would join, and wholehearted support in the fight against Zarkon’s Empire. 

The proof of support in question?

A sum of donations, from anyone in support of the cause, of at least three billion goddamn GAC. Three motherfucking billion. Nine fucking zeros. 

They’d been mostly out of ideas. How the fresh fuck were they supposed to procure that kind of money? Begging could only get so far – they’d completely forgone any kind of dignity – and they didn’t want to financially cripple any planets already on the Coalition. That wasn’t fair, or even really possible. 

It had been Coran who had come up with the idea. (Although he looked uncomfortable any time someone congratulated him for it. As if he thought he didn’t deserve the credit. It was strange, and usually something Pidge would investigate, but she didn’t have anything close to the time to investigate it, so she dropped it.) What if they were to host a special version of the Coalition Show, like those fundraisers on Earth? A larger scale than any of the others, featuring acts not just from Voltron themselves, but many of their allies. A live show, broadcasted to every civilian and anyone else, really, willing to watch, on any planet that could receive the signal, whether their planet was in the Coalition or not. 

Billions of potential viewers. Enough that if each one gave even one GAC, they’d meet their goal several times over. They’d poured weeks of energy into organising this, preparing and training and coming up with original ideas.

And here they are now, falling short. One act left in the show, one and a half billion GAC left to go. They’ll never make it. 

No wonder Allura looks so upset. 

“I think… I have an idea,” Lance says, lip between his teeth and eyes trained on the number displaying their giant failure. 

Shiro shakes his head. “We appreciate it, Lance, really, but there’s no way you could come up with an idea this late in the game. It’s… well, we’re going to have to take what we can get. Just finish your act as planned, and we’ll figure something out tomorrow, okay?”

As much as Pidge hates it, she has to agree. No one could raise over one and a half billion fucking GAC in a four-minute act. She knows Lance comes up with a million plans a minute, and a lot of them have saved their asses at the last minute, but this? This is too much. A quick glance around the room tells her that she’s not the only one who feels this way. If she had to pick one word to describe the look on everyone’s face, she’d pick defeated. 

If anything, though, everyone’s hopelessness only seems to further Lance’s determination. 

“No,” he says, eyes hard. “I need you guys to trust me. Really. I have ten minutes until my act starts. I’m gonna – I’ve gotta make a couple quick changes. Trust me.”

Lance doesn’t wait for approval before striding out of the room. 

“Lance –” Shiro starts, half standing to go after him, but Allura’s hand on his arm stops him. 

“Don’t bother,” she says tiredly. “There’s nothing he can do, but there’s no point in crushing him now. It will do nothing to help him.”

Shiro sighs, hunching over. “Yeah, good point. It’s just – if he really thinks he can fix it, it’s going to hurt him that much more when he can’t.”

“There’s nothing more we can do now,” Hunk says, speaking up for the first time since he pointed out the problem to Pidge in the first place. “Let’s just go sit down and watch Lance. We’ll pretend everything’s fine, we might even enjoy it. He’s a good dancer, anyway.”

“And he does bring in the largest chunk of our viewers,” Allura points out. “We won’t reach our goal, but he’ll certainly bring us closer.”

That’s true. It’s a silver lining, at least. 

“Maybe Lance’s big plan is to switch to pole dancing. That’ll get his viewers to break out their wallets,” she jokes. It falls a little flat, but at least it makes everyone crack a half-smile. Lance’s devoted fans are… something, all right. Pidge has read the comments on some of Lance’s videos, and they are genuinely the horniest thing she’s ever seen. If Lance wasn’t who he was as a person – that is, someone who thrives in the limelight – she’d be shocked that he’d ever leave the castle, let alone tease and flirt with his fans at every opportunity. 

She once saw a picture of a fan who’d gotten Lance’s face tattooed on their person. Lance’s face. On their body. For permanent. (Personally, Pidge thinks that is insane behaviour. Whatever floats their boat, though. Lance seemed to get a kick out of it. He’d retweeted it on Space Twitter. It had gone pretty insanely viral.)

As they take their seats in the front row, getting as comfortable as they can for Lance’s performance, Pidge notices something off. 

“Hey, where are Lance’s silks?”

Hunk notices something next, squinting at the corners of the stage. “And why are the microphone speakers on?”

“What on Earth is this kid’s plan?” Shiro mutters. 

Allura shrugs, eyes still glued onto the receiver, watching the numbers start to pick up in anticipation of Lance’s performance. 

Still too slowly, though.

“Doesn’t matter,” she says quietly. 

...Right. 

They sit in silence for the next few minutes, any jovial mood built up completely dashed to pieces. Lance will get them closer, sure, but they’ll never get the support of those planets. 

Two minutes to Lance’s performance, Coran rushes over, elbowing his way through various rabid fans to get to his seat. He looks strangely excited, even for him. He knows they’ve failed. Why is he so ecstatic?

“Why such sad expressions?” he asks, as soon as he’s seated. 

“Why aren���t you sad?” Pidge questions. “We bombed, man. There’s nothing Lance can do to make up –” she peeks over Allura’s shoulder for the number – “one point three billion dollars. Not in the four minutes he has.”

Coran smiles at her, eyes twinkling. “I think you’d be surprised.”

“Hey, everyone.” Lance’s voice stops any further conversation, the very sound of it sending the audience absolutely feral. People are outright screaming their heads off, and Pidge is sure she hears a marriage proposal or two shouted in the mix. 

“It’s good to see you guys too,” Lance chuckles, tuning his guitar. 

Wait a minute. Tuning his guitar?

“Why isn’t Lance dancing?” Pidge yells over the insane amount of cheering. Hunk only shrugs. 

“No clue,” he shouts back. 

“I’ve got a little change of plans for y’all, if you want to listen up,” he says, and the speed at which the audience goes completely, pin-drop silent is astounding. 

“Now, I know you guys came here to see me dance, and I can still dance if you think this will be terrible,” he says, and the audience laughs, shaking their heads and yelling encouragements. Lance has got them intrigued – there’s not a chance they’ll turn him away now. Hell, Pidge can’t wait to see what he’ll do next.

Allura gasps. 

“What?”

“The – the numbers,” she stammers, “they’re skyrocketing. And he hasn’t even started yet!”

Pidge peers over her shoulder, and her jaw drops. They’ve already cleared half a billion donations. Half a fucking billion. They’re two-thirds to they’re goal, now, and Lance has only been on the stage for thirty seconds. 

Pidge feels dangerous stirrings of hope erupt in her chest, along with a snake of guilt. 

Will Lance really do the impossible, raise them a billion and a half dollars by himself?

…And did each member of the team really dismiss any possibility that he could?

“You see,” Lance continues, tearing Pidge’s eyes away from the receiver, “I got my heart broken a little while ago. And as much as I love to dance, I need to get this feeling off my chest before it eats me alive, so I wrote a little song. That okay with y’all?”

The audience goes fucking apeshit. Not only is the idea of Lance singing and playing for them admittedly pretty exciting, but the idea that Lance – Loverboy Lance – had his heart broken? By whom? Who is the mysterious person who didn’t want Lance?

It’s an ingenious marketing strategy, Pidge will give him that. She wonders if it’s true, if he really did write a song about heartbreak. 

She glances at Allura, who is staring resolutely at the receiver, and then exchanges a look with Hunk. This might work, yeah, but yeesh. 

It’s going to be a little uncomfortable, that’s for damn certain. 

“So this is Loneliest,” Lance announces. “I hope y’all like it.”

An echoing note sounds through the speakers, and then he strums his guitar. 

You’ll be the saddest part of me

A part of me, that will never be, mine

It’s obvious

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

His voice is crackly, upset. His brow is creased, and one hand grips the guitar tightly when it’s not moving on the frets. 

He really does look sad. 

The audience is holding its breath.

Allura still hasn’t looked up. 

You're still the oxygen I breathe

I see your face when I close my eyes

It's torturous

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

Lance’s voice is slow and sad, accompanied by soft drums in the background and his own guitar chords before every line. The audience – seemingly without realising, as if they can’t help it – has begun to sway to the beat. Pidge is surprised to find herself swaying as well, along with everyone else. 

There's a few lines that I have wrote

In case of death, that's what I want, that's what I want

So don't be sad when I'll be gone

There's just one thing I hope you know, I loved you so

The mention of Lance’s potential death causes a visceral reaction. Everyone suddenly realises that it’s not a famous singer, up there with a guitar, but a paladin, who has his life on the line every day, and may very well be killed at any moment. 

By now, with Lance’s emotion very real and obvious in front of her, Pidge is sure Lance was telling the truth, in the beginning. These words are truly coming from a place of pain, of heartbreak. He’s written this in advance. But, like, again, from a marketing standpoint: Lance has knocked it out of the fucking park. The words remind everyone what this show is for, what they’re trying to achieve, and, well –

The counter spikes. 

“He’s doing it,” Allura breathes. Her face is a strange mix of pinched and relieved, which Pidge can understand. When this does work – and Pidge is sure now that it will – it will all be because of Lance and the heartbreak that he has likely experienced because Allura does not return his feelings. That’s… a rough place to be in, that’s for sure. 

The next part builds, each syllable hitting a new note and a new beat, climbing and climbing and building tension that has the audience at the edge of their seats. Lance’s vice is heavy with pain, enough that faint hints of his accent affect the shape of the words. 

'Cause I don't even care about the time I've got left here

The only thing I know now is that I wanna spend it

With you, with you nobody else here

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

The beat drops, and Lance’s voice goes fucking raw.

You'll be the saddest part of me

A part of me that will never be mine

It's obvious

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

You're still the oxygen I breathe

I see your face when I close my eyes

It's torturous

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

There’s not a soul still sitting down, now, everyone standing up with Lance, some people even singing along. More than half of the faces that Pidge can see are wet with tears. 

“He’s done it!” Allura shouts. “We’ve reached three billion!”

“Is it still going?” Hunk asks, yelling to be heard over the noise of the audience and the heavy bass of the music. 

“Yes!”

The numbers are climbing so rapidly they’re blurring. Lance must have half the fucking people in the universe, watching and relating and weeping, each feeling the same heartbreak that any person can feel. Lance’s voice is steady and strong, and his hands are firm on his guitar, never missing a beat, but there’s – something, about his voice, that aches. 

Allura has set the receiver down, no longer worried about the numbers, but she still doesn’t look at the stage. 

I'm sorry but I gotta go

That’s what he said to me, as he let me go, he left me alone

Wait a second. He?

Allura’s head whips up to look at Lance, jaw dropped, and Lance isn’t even looking at her. His eyes are squeezed closed, and his expression looks agonised. Pidge watches, shaken, as a tear drips down his face. 

And I just keep on thinking how you made me feel better

And all the crazy little things that we did together

In the end, in the end, it doesn't matter

If tonight is gonna be the loneliest

Suddenly Pidge is thrown back to the months before they found Shiro again. She thinks of Keith struggling to lead, to stay part of a team, but the way the crease between his eyebrows smoothed when Lance spoke. How Lance would sometimes duck into the observation deck in the dead of night, eyes red, and Keith would follow, and when she went to check on them in the morning she saw them tangled together, expressions peaceful. She thinks of the insane training simulations they made together, how Pidge and Allura and Hunk would tap out halfway through because those sims were never made for the team, not really, but instead for the red and black paladins and the leaders of Voltron and the rivals, neck and neck, hand in hand, who were each other’s match in every possible way. She thinks of every quiet smile traded between them that she assumed was friendly and reassuring, of every shoulder clap that lingered too long, of every teasing look. 

She reaches this conclusion at the same time as the rest of the team, who stare at each other with wide eyes. 

This song is not about Allura at all. Lance’s heartbreak, his brokenness, is because of someone else entirely. His desperate loneliness – palpable, from the stage – cries out for one person and one person only, and he’s nowhere near. 

You'll be the saddest part of me

A part of me that will never be mine

It's obvious

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

The lyrics feel so much different, now. Now the situation is far from unrequited feelings. Now Pidge knows that Lance has been, by circumstance, wrenched away from the love of his goddamn life, from his comfort, from Keith, and he never knows when or if he’ll see him again. Pidge feels her own chin begin to tremble, because there’s no awkwardness, now, no pity. Now Pidge is watching one of her best friends flay his heart out on stage, aching, and is reminded of her own pain – she misses Keith, too. Now the song is that much closer to her heart, and it hurts. 

You're still the oxygen I breathe

I see your face when I close my eyes

It's torturous

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

Lance's voice curdles with emotion, hunched over the mic and the guitar, before he takes a breath, and the fingers shred the frets. There are no lyrics for a moment, nothing as Lance plays and plays and plays and pours his pain into the music, fingers moving so rapidly on the strings they blur, notes cresting high and crashing down, evoking the desperate and terrifying feeling of never knowing if you’re going to be whole again. 

Then he takes a deep breath, slows down, and sings again in almost a whisper. 

You'll be the saddest part of me

A part of me that will never be mine

It's obvious

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

The drums kick back in, and Lance lifts his chin, opening his eyes, and looking straight into the audience. There’s no mistaking the pain in the brown irises, the misery. 

You'll be the saddest part of me

A part of me that will never be mine

It's obvious

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

You're still the oxygen I breathe

I see your face when I close my eyes

It's torturous

The drums fade out, and Lance takes his hand off his guitar, wrapping them carefully around the mic. His voice goes quiet and sad again, like in the beginning of the song.

Tonight is gonna be the loneliest

The last note rings out in the stunned silence of the audience, shaking to its quiet death as Lance takes a step away from the mic. He takes a deep bow, song finished, and the audience goes wild. Lance walks off stage to screams so loud they’re deafening, to applause and stomping and sobbing. 

Pidge is suddenly very grateful for front row seats, as she doesn’t have to wade through a mass of people to take off after him, the rest of the team at her heels. She finds him in the same room backstage where they gathered before his performance. He’s got his face buried in Coran’s neck – he must have left before them – shoulders shaking. Coran holds him just as tightly. The room is silent, Lance is silent, but Pidge can wager a guess as to what’s going on. 

“Lance?” she asks quietly. 

He whips around at her voice, quickly wiping his face, but there’s nothing he can do about the red rimming his eyes. 

“Hey, Pidge.” His voice shakes, hoarse. Any strength he had on stage has left him. “Did we do it? Did we make it?”

“You did it,” Hunk whispers. “We beat our goal by miles. We’ll – we might never need funding again.”

Lance tries to smile, but it shakes, his chin trembling. “That’s great! Glad we managed.” He blinks rapidly, swiping the tears from his face as they drop without his permission. “I, uh, left something running, so I’m gonna go –”

“Lance –”

“I’m fine, I just need to –”

“Lance, you should maybe talk –”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lance snaps. The venom in his voice makes everyone rear back, a little. 

“S – sorry, I don’t mean to yell. It’s just – I’m fine. I gotta – bye.”

He runs out of the room, and there’s nothing Pidge can do but watch him go. 

She can’t help feeling that even though they far suppressed their goal – she’s not sure it was worth it.

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.182 thoughts

[Might as Well be Sittin' on the Sun]

(Contents: slight Fuuko analysis, power-scaling, speculation)

Okay, so maybe we won't be learning the Master Rules' names any time soon, but to be fair, I did kind of see that coming. After all, this was so clearly meant to be a parallel to the introduction to the Union in ch.8 and 9, and back then, we only learned three out of eight names (Tatiana, Billy and Nico), so it only seems fair that we only learn one new name here (Luck, in this case)

Speaking of parallels, Fuuko's dual rapid-firing to mirror Andy's Finger Bullets was sick, and I hope just a sample of the kind of things Fuuko can do as a gunner. Still waiting to see what the revolver Artifact's ability is, or its name for that matter!! Considering that we're introducing the (presumably) final team of antagonists and Fuuko has made it clear that the team isn't currently up to snuff to take them on, she's definitely going to need some kind of upgrade, and giving her a secondary ability seems like a great way to do that

Also, absolutely insane that Sick is the weakest of the Master Rules, and apparently by a wide margin given how everyone else was picking on him. Poor guy, falling asleep and slumping both forward and back because he's literally and permanently cut in half. That's kind of like what I end up doing while writing these posts late at night

Master Rule I questions Fuuko's motives, and we get to see another great, if subtle, Fuuko face: with a gentle smile and absolutely dead eyes, Fuuko claims that it would have been convenient for her if her bullets had reached the Master Rules, as they would have taken them all out instantly (I guess the 60-year range was one that Fuuko was really attached to, cus even 44 didn't actually kill UMA Heat). That look is simply unsettling, as I think it's the only time that Fuuko has ever said anything about intending to kill anyone or anything. She definitely isn't enjoying it, it's simply a matter-of-fact statement, but she also knows that it would mean an end to their struggles, so while it would be unfortunate in its own way, it would be the objectively best outcome

M.R. I immediately learns to appreciate Fuuko's best charm point, the fact that she's an actual lunatic behind her cute face, and offers one piece of information. Fuuko, of course, chooses to learn Andy's location, fearing the worst since he could only send a clone. We then learn that for hundreds of millions of years, Andy has been chilling on the surface of the sun, using his soul to trap the Master Rules inside

God damn, Tozuka, you told us that Victor was alone billions of years waiting for Juiz and then you said "well Andy's gotta do something more impressive!" Well you succeeded, sir, sitting in place on a ball of plasma that should completely atomize you for millions of years is definitely more intense than hanging around and fighting dinosaurs, or at least a more striking snapshot

I don't imagine I was alone in thinking that Andy and Ruin have been playing cat and mouse for the last 2 billion years, but the fact that at some point Andy found his way to the god damn SUN and just decided to park it really speaks to his willpower and commitment. I wonder if he checked out for it like Victor said he did when the Earth was just uninhabitable magma. I get the feeling that he didn't, since he was able to consciously launch a clone down to Earth, so...yeah, confirmed, I guess, Andy's been present the whole however many millions of years he's been there

Oh, and let's not forget the distance. 92 million miles, eight light minutes away, and Andy was able to accurately fire one of his fingers down to Iseult Hospital in France in the middle of the Sick fight. I don't know if his soul gives him some kind of clairvoyance like how Fuuko saw everything that happened to Andy while she was dead, but no matter how you look at it, that's some firing power!!! Sure, he's got infinite fuel by regenerating his blood repeatedly, but he's still gotta travel nearly 100 million miles with enough force to escape the gravitational pull of the GOD DAMN SUN!!! If Google is to be believed, Andy's finger bullet had to have been moving over a 1.38 million miles an hour just to reach escape velocity, though if he reached Earth in a matter of minutes, then I guess that's a pretty low bar to clear, huh?

I'm moving on from this topic, but I want it to be clear that aside from perhaps any given movement from Sun, this may well be the grandest display of power that we've ever seen in this series, and it's a surprisingly subtle one. No wonder Andy could only maintain the clone for a minute: the finger bullet was probably already around for at least ten. Hell, it definitely explains why this was "spreading his soul too thin"

Now that we've seen all of the Master Rules close-up, now I'm willing to speculate on what their identities might be

As with most people, I'm decently confident that 1 is Death, but with 2 "[reeking] of blood and guts" and being close to Luck, fans have taken to the possibility that 2 is Death to parallel with Andy and Fuuko's relationship. @your-zipper-is-down suggested that 1 might be Life or Humanity, which would definitely be interesting; for Death to be a Rule, that all living things must die, then logically there must be a preceding Rule that living things exist at all. That said, the existence of humanity might be independent of the Rules, but we'll find out sooner or later

If 2 isn't Death, then the most likely reason that she's so smelly is that she might be Pain, as alluded to by Ruin about 80 chapters ago. I think that would fit her religious visual theme pretty well, as self-flagellation and other forms of deliberate pain are commonly associated with religion. I'm also curious if those lizard-eye decals on her habit are actually her real eyes since she never seems to open the ones on her face

3 is Sex, I don't think anyone disagrees with that

We've established that 4 is Luck, which I imagine is because aside from Death, Luck is the concept most heavily associated with bringing death in the series (4 being a symbol of death). The real fun thing, though, is that Luck has a bandage on her right cheek, whereas Fuuko has one on her left! Does the bandage itself hold any significance? Does it simply serve as a visual indicator that she's Fuuko's opposite, or is there a deeper metaphysical connection between them that forces them to act as mirrors to each other? Unrelated, I imagine that Luck's halo is meant to represent the Wheel of Fortune, and likely plays into how she uses her powers

5 has a knight theme, and my best guess for that is either that it has something to do with defense/survival, like UMA Guard to represent survival instincts, or UMA Justice

6 is War. Guy looks like he uses napalm face wash, that's War.

I originally guessed that 7 would be Luck since he looks like a gambler, but now that we know this isn't the case, I'm assuming that the pocketwatch indicates that he's UMA Time. I've seen it suggested that he's UMA Past, but I really doubt that Juiz, a septuagenarian Nico and Phil were able to capture a Master Rule by themselves when Fuuko's Union couldn't beat number 10. Just doesn't seem right to me

8's design is really interesting, as she seems to be wearing a crown shaped like a ruined tower. This immediately makes me (and others like @bubhbuhlmao) think of the Tower of Babel, suggesting that she may be UMA Language, but again, could the Nico of Loop 100 really kill a Master Rule by himself? It's possible, but I don't buy it. She could be Knowledge, though that seems pretty similar to Information, so I don't know if Tozuka would want that much of an overlap. Intelligence? Wisdom? We'll see. However, given that she's wearing ruins, I do think it would be interesting if she's UMA Ruin and God just had really bad naming sense when creating our boy Unruin Ruin

9 is almost definitely Animal or Beast or something like that, but I stand by the extremely funny possibility that he's the real Clothes and Clothy is his Junior. That idea absolutely kills me

I do wonder if the Master Rule fights are going to be individual arcs like the Seasons or if it's going to be a team vs. team match like Union vs. Under, but either way, the introduction of a whole team of Master Rules definitely gives the impression that the end isn't as close as I thought. We still have a few more recruits to get, Ruin and Seal are definitely still going to be a problem, we have to clear the ten Master Rules, and only then can we fight Sun, and for all we know we still might have to fight Luna

In other words, I'm starting to think fouryearsandananime might have been a conservative estimate

[bleachbleachbleach]

do yall have like. a map or base layout of the seireitei? this seems like the blog to ask about that the way yall put together stuff i wouldntve even thought of

I don't know that there's a full, official map--and, I imagine, this is intentional. Because if there's a map, then 1) you'd have to hold yourself to it... and 2) others might feel obligated to heed it, too. And I think for sprawling series like these, the ambiguities are intended as invitations for the reader.

We do have Hisagi's map, which he published in the SC [aka Colorful Bleach], in a column that apparently wasn't that popular (but that Matsumoto gave a favorable review for!):

As far as invitations, go, I love that understanding the Seireitei as a cup in a saucer is consistent with the dish imagery that both Kajoumaru (in TYBW) and Rukia (in the Substitute Shinigami arc) use to describe the balance of souls across Soul Society and the Living World. Dishware culture seems BIG in Soul Society (or at least the Seireitei), and I am so here for it!! (I have written fanfic about it, which is how you can tell if I'm S-tier interested in something or not. Soul Society dishware culture passes muster ALWAYS.)

We also periodically get panoramic views of the Seireitei (I will note here that the label on Hisagi's diagram calls THAT a panoramic view, lol), like this one. ... Ignore the giant holes in the landscape. This screencap is from the Zanpakutou Rebellion arc, haha:

Which, as in invitation offers, a general sense of the layout.

In constructing all of our maps, some additional details we might choose to make use of:

10 Things We Canonically Know About Mapping the Seireitei

Running around the outside of the Seireitei's walls takes a billion years for some reason, per Yoruichi as she's explaining to Ichigo et al how they will infiltrate it.

Matsumoto also suggests that all the VCs gathering for a meeting could take half a day (Chapter 80). This could be a measure of distance, but there's likely also factors like having to disentangle oneself from work and your division's pressing needs, too.

We know from the Soul Society/Ryoka Invasion Arc that navigating the Seireitei is pretty difficult, and that this is an intenentional tactical move. (It makes me wonder what kind of invasion they were anticipating, though, since everything that has ever attacked the Seireitei in canon 1) was a resident of the dang place, or 2) just blew it up and didn't use the streets at all. With the exception of the Ryoka Invasion, and even they just barely used the streets lol.

There's an officer's housing district, per the Hell Chapter, which looks like it accounts for at least Captain and VC-level residences.

I *think* this is Colorful Bleach trivia, but I'm not sure. In any case, Rukia lives at the 6th while working in the 13th, which means that's not an impossible commute.

There's a route where, if you started from the 9th, you'd pass through the 10th and 11th on the way to the 13th, because when Hisagi hand-delivers Ukitake his copy of the SC while Rukia and Orihime are training, he comments on the 10th and 11th officers' absences (Advance Team/Arrancar Arc). This suggests that the divisions may exist vaguely in number order.

the 1st is basically attached to Soukyoku Hill and the Central 46 complex (this was always true, but the first TYBW invasion has some nice shots of this when the Sternritter invade Yamamoto's office).

There appears to be a sort of commerce district, which Hitsugaya walks through when he's trying to find Matsumoto in the karuta new year's episode.

I can't remember whether this is from the Reigai Arc or TYBW, because we watched them in close succession (lol), but someone mentions the "warehouse district" near 10th. There may be more than one warehouse district, given the Seireitei's sprawl, but at least one of them is near 10th. Given that the 10th also gets to have a big courtyard for parties (Beast Swords Arc), it makes you wonder where it is. It seems not-central, given you don't put your warehouse district downtown.

Same for the 13th, which has vast, rolling hills near it (or within its grounds), for Orihime and Rukia's training. And possibly also Ugendou, though I can't recall whether Ugendou canonically exists IN 13th, or if I just put it there, and this list is for canon map info. (Ugendou's existence is noted in Colorful Bleach).

Despite not having a map, we actually have quite a bit of info from which a map could be created!

I haven't actually sat down to make a map that I use, but I definitely have a pretty consistent unconscious mental one I work off of. Some of it is based in fact and some of it is just vibes. One of my ambitions for the future is to solicit fan maps of Soul Society as part of a fandom event. I think it would be so cool to see everyone's!

Anyway, these are just the things I could think of off the top of my head. If anyone has additional canon mentions of the Seireitei's layout, or other panels/screencaps with additional angles, please feel free to share~

[allaya-the-alien]

Being Divinekin ✨️ I've posted a lot about being an alien but I'm also a divine being so here's a little about that: also this drawing is sort of what my true form looks like but it was really hard to capture it in my art style so it's not totally accurate

So a divine being is a being that has been given divine magick by the universe - they're usually split into mortal and immortal divines of which I am the former but it's complicated lol. There's also a whole magick caste system but I won't get into that in this post. My sister and I are divine beings, I guess I should also explain the relationship between me and my sister so real quick tangent, My sister and I for the majority of our souls existence were just one being and we have been divine for billions of years. In this most recent incarnation we split into two souls (we're twin flames). Our magick as one being was that of balance between opposing forces (like creation and destruction) and when we split my sister took over the creation half of the magick and I got the destruction bit. Now divines aren't bound to one 'kind' of magick, but when you first become a divine you obtain a specific kind of magick and your growth outside of that is determined by the caste system. Also kind of related to this but there has never before this been a case of a divine soul splitting into twin flames. Tangent over! I don't remember anything that happened before this incarnation but I do remember bits and pieces of the creation story of the star system I'm from (so my world and two other planets, that I'm aware of). Basically when my sister and I were one soul, billions of years ago, we made our star system. And ever since then we have reincarnated as the alien species that lives on the biggest world in the star system. Maybe I'll make another post about my home world, I don't know much about it though, all my memories where that's concerned are really blurry. I've just been thinking about this a lot more recently and it's really put things into perspective. Like you know when you learn a fact but then years later the fact really sets in and you're like "omg yea that's a thing holy shit". That's basically what I'm going through XD This started because I was talking to my main spirit guide and I was asking for confirmation on a bunch of stuff and she just kept refusing to answer my questions. Which isn't totally unusual because she takes a very hands off approach with the whole spirit guide thing. But this time was a little different so I was like hey what's up, and she basically said; you don't need to come to me for answers, you have access to all the answers you want and you don't need to use divination tools (tarot, pendulum) because YOU are a divine! And that was crazy to me because I had never thought about it that way, I had always assumed that being in a human body meant I didn't have access to my magick. So my plans now are to figure out how to access my magick and memories and stuff intentionally. (up until this point the memories have just been coming in passively I haven't been actively seeking them out). I have NO IDEA where to start with this lol but apparently I 'have everything I need' so 😅🤷

[therealvinelle]

Apparently Lionsgate is making a new Twilight TV series. Remain to be seen what's it about, whether it'll be a remake of the movies or something new. Say they went with something new, and they somehow choose an idea that you've already done in a fic. Which fic idea do you: a) just really want to see adapted on screen? And b) thinks that they will do justice the most?

(Muffin can also answer this if they want and if their answer's different than yours)

Well, the trouble is I don't really have any particular fics I want to see on screen. More importantly, I don't imagine they would appeal much to any studios. You want something you can sell to producers, but "The romantic male lead commits cold blooded murder because his quasi-brother was too weak. His quasi-brother killed his wife back in the day, the romantic lead is fine with that and the quasi-brother recruits the murdered man's parents into his harem. Then half the cast goes to Egypt without really accomplishing anything. Please give me millions of dollars so I can make this." would not fly.

(The above, for the record, is The Less Than Immaculate Conception by myself and @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin.

Painting Red Madonnas by Muffin wouldn't fare much better, "No the male and female lead don't get together. The loveable goof is really homophobic, and the closest thing we have to a love interest murders a toddler and his own son in front of his horrified wife. Help me get in touch with investors.")

The Bleach in the Brain (by me) miniseries and its sequel miniseries, Leech in the Rain (by @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin and me) would require somebody saying, not only "I want to focus on child abuse and grooming where the white girl protagonist is attacked by a Native American man and disabled at the end", but "I want to depict a bisexual male character whose male former lover, a gay man, is falsely accused of rape, and then he gets sexually assaulted by his son" as well. Also the really hot chick protagonist who looks twenty-five is actually six years old so she can't be marketed as a sexy female character. And then getting funding for all of this.

(They might decide to make a show inspired by Jessica Stanley in those fics, but... god they'd change everything.)

And Then There Were None, same problem. "Please give us money to produce Bella Swan murdering her family for no reason."

Dark Fantasies/Writhing Coils, maybe if I got Guillermo del Toro extremely drunk and called him a coward. Except it would still need funding, so no.

The Invitation, only if the ending is completely changed. Too much of a downer otherwise.

Nebuchadnezzar's Dream would have the producers nodding along until I get to the part where the big battle happens entirely off screen, instead the audience gets to see a gay sex scene. "Full penetration," I say, tapping my powerpoint slide with a stick for emphasis.

"Let's limit her involvement," they whisper to one another, and then I don't sell them the rights so Nebuchadnezzar's Dream is condemned to development hell.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to London is too out there, and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bacchanals even more so.

The Man Who Would Be King bonus, since Muffin and I got talking about it: might fly, if briefly. It's more viable than the Twilight ideas (we've got an attractive, young, and sympathetic protagonist, an enemies-to-lovers slow burn, and our male romantic lead hasn't actually murdered anybody on screen so viewers can pull a Damon Salvatore and insist he's alright), trouble is it's not going to stay that way. For now, it's shockingly viable and gets my nomination.

My vote for Twilight fic to be televised, however, assuming I win a billion dollar and nobody can stop me...

For the Love of a Woman.

Everybody loses.

[raccoonfallsharder]

Window Across the Galaxy ✧*:･ﾟupdated 1/9

18+ only | rocket x f!oc | 24/27 chapters | wip| word count: pending. ♡ check the masterlist for expected updates ♡ ♡ see the "holiday special" ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ Winter Across the Galaxy * ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆ [new 12/5] ♡

girl falls first; racoon falls harder.

When Rocket enters their new bunk, Jo’s sitting on the floor: leaning against the edge of the bed, working diligently on some kind of woven thing. It’s a tapestry of sorts, the threads and flosses all hand-laced together. She’s put most of her tools and equipment in a closet down the corridor, and she takes them out when she’s practicing a new skill or brushing up on old ones, working on these little low-cost, low-sentiment projects that are the only ones she’ll take on board, and only for a few days at a time. She pulls out her little tools and supplies, and sits on the floor in the common area or — now, apparently — in their new bunk. She works, and then she packs up all her small things, and she takes them back out and tucks them out of sight in the closet once more. The idea of it gets under his skin, to be honest. A closet. Jo’s been shrinking her life ever since she met him, and he should probably back up out of it before he makes things worse — but it’s too late for that now. He’s too greedy to do it, even though he knows he should. And besides — if he’s pretending to be altruistic — he’d promised to not run her off. So instead, he decides he’s gonna focus on making sure she puts her name on every goddamn surface she can, everywhere they go.

[NEW 1/9] ✧･ﾟ:*Chapter XXIV. Space Would Be Better. in which Rocket ~ discreetly ~ claims the title of boyfriend. ❤︎❤︎

this was originally the last half of Chapter XXIII (the previous chapter) so if it starts a bit rough, i'm so sorry. as a result, we do jump into some smut pretty quickly in this chapter so if you need to, make sure to check out the warnings in the closing notes. i'm really excited about the next chapter, too! which is less smutty and more feelings-ish. ~♡

explicit lines or references* abbreviated explicit sequences ❤︎ detailed/prolonged explicit sequences ❤︎❤︎

General summary/notes + links to recently preceding chapters behind the cut.

let me know via comment, message, or ask if you'd like to be added or removed from my fanfic taglist ♡

Rocket is captured by a Ravager crew hoping to get rich off the excessively large bounty on his head. Throwing a wrench in everyone’s plans is the Terran girl they hired to do some freelance assessing on a recent haul of goods they’ve seized from a Xandaran luxury liner. Oops.

slight AU starting pre-GOTG volume 1 (but will hit most of the same major plot points). slow burn + eventual smut with a lot of pining in the middle. kinda enemies-to-lovers? (but only one of these idiots thinks they're enemies).

let me be real with you: this fic is really about wish-fulfillment. not just the eventual smut (but that too). mostly i just want someone to be nice to my best boy raccoon

*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ*

Chapter I. A Delicacy. in which our reluctant heroes meet atop a crate of Sovereign porn in the bowels of a Ravager ship.

Chapter II. Monster For A Pet. in which one hero wrestles with his inner Groot, and the other is quite possibly a moron.

Chapter III. A Kindness. in which Rocket gets in his own damn way: not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.

Chapter IV. Got There First. in which our heroes obtain an arsenal and street food.

Chapter V. Things No-One Has Said Before. in which one hero refuses to babysit and the other refuses to leave.

Chapter VI. Two and a Half Billion Units.in which we lean into the “they were roommates” trope. Jolie has misgivings, while Rocket has fantasies - about getting rich, of course.

Chapter VII. I'm Here. in which we visit Knowhere.

Chapter VIII. The Care & Feeding of Human Pets. in which our heroes practice breathing and we lean into a new trope: “there was (technically) one bed.”

Chapter IX. Scrapmetal and a Dream. in which we redefine homemaking.

Chapter X. Thin Fucking Ice. in which our heroes get fucked. Not in the good way.

Chapter XI. Let It Be. in which Xandar is saved and good lives are lost.

Chapter XII. So Much It Hurts. in which we try not to fuck up the vibes.

Chapter XIII. Don’t Wait. in which a lost sister is found and Drax grapples with the concept of sarcasm.

Chapter XIV. Exactly Like a Flower. in which comfort is shared.

Chapter XV: Galaxy-Breaking Shit. in which more comfort is shared, and life is good. Briefly.

Chapter XVI. Run. in which Rocket falls victim to his superstitions.

Chapter XVII. A Seedling. A Fox. A Little Girl. in which the party is divided.

Chapter XVIII. I Happen to Know a Guy. in which our heroes get fucked. Again. Still not in the good way.

Chapter XIX. He Was Loved. in which a planet is killed, a friend is made and lost, and nobody still has any frickin’ tape.

Chapter XX. Some Nerve. *in which an ultimatum is given.

Chapter XXI. I Very Still. ❤︎❤︎ in which our heroes get fucked. In the good way, this time. Finally.

Chapter XXII. Got There Worse. ❤︎❤︎ in which Rocket does not say "I love you."

Chapter XXIII. We're Gonna Need a Bigger Table. ❤︎ in which the galaxy continues to spin.

Chapter XXIV. Space Would Be Better. ❤︎❤︎ in which Rocket ~discreetly~ claims the title of boyfriend.

Chapter XXV. Little Love Stories. *

Chapter XXVI. Other Side of the Window. ❤︎

Chapter XXV. The Most Beautiful Thing in My House. ❤︎❤︎

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ Winter Across the Galaxy * ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆ A Holiday Special *

Epilogue: Interviewing Rocket & Jo. ten years after Window ends. short/drabbly, silly fluff.

explicit lines or references* abbreviated explicit sequences ❤︎ detailed/prolonged explicit sequences ❤︎❤︎

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @pretty-chips ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @glow-autumz

[with-love-from-hell]

Hi everyone,

So I'm still on Hiatus but I need to ask for help/support since apparently life never ceases to shit all over me when I'm already stressed out.

Tw: blood, animal illness, mentions of animal death

This morning, my partner and I woke up to puddles of blood all over our bedroom. There was a lot- and I mean a lot- as a result of my dog suddenly beginning to bleed from his mouth. After taking him to the emergency vet, we found out he has multiple tooth abscesses that have been caused by an underlying infection in his jaw- which the vet thinks may be linked to some sort of cancer, but right now she can't run any biopsies until the infection is managed.

So far, the vet bill has been $600, but there is more to come. He began bleeding again about an hour ago and I may need to take him back in, plus we are being referred to a dental specialist for surgery. Per what my vet has said, this is going to easily cost a few thousand dollars. I bought pet insurance today after trying to hold off on it until after we move, but they will not cover any claims until February 10th.

My dog is everything to me, and this entire situation has me stressed out beyond belief, and is resulting in draining my pto where I may need to take unpaid leave for my exam because I will be going negative after taking today and tomorrow for this. I don't normally like asking for financial help, but anything that can be offered during this time would be appreciated. I've owned Houser since he was a puppy, and he's been through a lot since then- between previous abuse from my sister's exhusband, having a skin allergy, chronic ear infections, high anxiety, joint issues, and going blind suddenly about a year and a half ago. He's barely 10 years old, and I'm really hoping to have a few good years left with him.

This whole situation has sent me into a spiral- both relating to the potential of him having cancer and financial strain on top of the billion things I have to worry about right now. If I can at least have some of the financial burden taken away, that would mean the world to me. If you can spare anything at all, I would be so grateful. After losing my cat to a cancerous tumor a few months ago, I don't think I can mentally handle having another happen.

Thank you to everyone who is willing and able to help out. This shit fucking sucks, and having any type of support rn would be great.

[memeapple2]

Huggbees reacts to spiderman one more day starters part 1 (TW: Coma mention, shooting mention, familial death)

"So let's re-read it together so we can all be stupid!!"

"Apparently him fucking old fat women wasn't in the market."

"Bold to assume the dearest person in my life is a her...God bless you Danny Devito!"

"Let me see if I can make up some lines, I'll do it on the spot! What would you do if your cable went out and Batman called you fat? I'm not very good at this."

"He has one more day in his delectable bondage web outfit! I mean look it. It's constricting all the places you want, but still leaving room for the erogenous zones! "

"Tune your ear to the frequency of despair. By cross reference the longitude and latitude of a heart in agony. Listen, this is kmlfm giving you the biggest boner in the back seat of your Ford Bronco!"

"Who the fuck would think just shooting spiderman with a bullet would work?"

"___ probally had good insurance, beacuse they got ____hooked up the the pudding suction device immediately!"

*LOUD GROSS SUCKING SOUNDS*

"Careful ____ save some tapioca for the rest of the residents!"

"They're gonna die, beacuse you didn't check them in with any insurance you stupid new identity assuming fuck!"

"What the fuck!? Everyone knows Peter Parker is spiderman, how in the shit did a fake name work!? He's a God danm international celebrity! Yet not a single human being in this hospital recognized him, Expect this one doctor who has all the kindness in his heart even though he's is still a dickhead! Huh????"

"Not a single person in New York God danm city, wants to help aunt may and spiderman get a pot of flowers for her icu room! We're off to a great start!"

"'Everyone knows my face' says the man who used a fake name to check into a hospital in a major metropolitan area!"

"So they break into ____'s surveillance room where they're apparently nakedly bathing in red jello???"

"Thank fucking god it was a superhero that they hit! If it was a regular burglar or some kind of human, they would have torn their spine in half. Good going committing murder ____!"

"So the best way to take down a man in super high tech armor is to punch him! Punches him real hard!"

"But he punches the guy...Oh fuck!"

"Punch the iorn man! Punch him! Punch him real good!! Punch him good!! Punch him! Fuck you!!"

"So after Peter introduces Tony to the exciting thrills of hard-core bondage, they have a discussion!"

"Keep in mind there's no guarantee this will save her! Keep in mind she's already a brain dead vegetable! Keep in mind aunt may is 80 something years old and lived a full happy life!!!! NOPE! PAY MY FUCKING BILLS TONY!!"

"NOPE! TONY STARK THE MAN WITH MILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, THE MAN WHO SNEEZES PROTOTYPE WEAPONS, CAN'T GIVE PETER THE MONEY FOR AUNT MAY'S MEDICAL BILLS!! BUT HE CAN LET AUNT MAY DIE A HORRIBLE OLD PERSON DEATH IN A HOSPITAL!"

"It's a fucking miracle! They're still brain dead! Crazy, I know!!"

"We need to be reminded of this 50 times so maybe you'll the the subtle message of this comic!"

"By the way here's all the money you need for all this horrible shit that happened!"

"You know your aunt who's over 80 years old, who was shot in the chest and is brain dead...WHAT YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW HOW SHE'S DYING!?"

"Spiderman gets spiderpissed and decides nothing is gonna stop him from saving his aunt!!"

"If you want to read another comic this decade read this! Beacuse it's so bad you'll never want to read another comic again!"

"The good news is aunt may isn't in the charity ward anymore and has her own private room! The bad news is she's still fucking dying!"

"The art is so good, and I feel so bad, beacuse so far this is written by a fucking idiot! But god this art is so amazing!"

"So I get to look at something nice, while I question who the fuck thought this was a good idea?!"

"Dr. Strange's stupid magic is the only thing that's gonna help aunt may!"

"I was given magic abilities and a purpose, and this shit's important, and you don't fuck around with it!"

"I know if I had a bitter enemy who life I wanted to end, who constantly thwarted my plans, and he was my sworn nemesis, and he was like 'yo yo yo, time out, time out! Yeah, hey stop, woah! Time out, time out! My aunt's dying.' I would just put a halt to everything, I'd put an arm around his shoulder and I'd say, look man it's okay to express your feelings. Where's my check book!?"

"Let me get you something to drink! You want some Sunny D? Some apple juice? Maybe a diet coke? I drank all the regular. After all, traveling with your mind is stressful and the only way to sooth it, is the cool refreshing taste of mountain dew code red!"

"He tried to punch the guy who shot her in the brain, but he's a ghost! So that doesn't work!"

"Spiderman you're too hard on yourself! You need to respect yourself man! You need to give yourselfa break! Come on, positive thinking!"

"That's fucking stupid! Imagine you're watching a marvel movie, and you're watching Iornman 2.5 the legend of Tony's toenails! Tony stark is in iornman, and he's about to punch the hulk and he goes, 'And now for the for the reason I'm punching you and we're enemies'; and the movie cuts to black, and they're hanging out, and there's a little subtitle that goes 'watch The Incredible Hulk's amazing Sunday to find out what happened!' BULLSHIT!"

"People die when they're killed!"

"What you should do is stop being a fucking idiot, stop being a whiney desperate teenage baby!"

"Go to your aunt, tell her you love her, and give her a big old kiss! Beacuse she can probably still hear you in her comatose state. In her comatose stupid body, she probably embarrassed as fuck you're having a temper tantrum! That her brittle old skeleton is gonna be dust in the wind soon! So get some ice cream, and have a nice treat, while she fades into the ether realm. Go hang out with her! Okay?"

"Then we get to a cover art with spiderman's deadliest foes! A little girl, Cyclops with depression, and Jay Joanna Jamieson if he wanted to go to a fancy tea party!"

"It's not safe to go down that alley way! Beacuse it has a nerd in it!!"

"That's why I play video games! Beacuse I look at the world and go, UGH! What wasted potential, earth! Fuck you people! Now, Mario, he's got it all figured out! Mario's on a different dimension!"

"He's like a mini devil, he rules pocket hell, he fucks with people and it's funny!"

"Beacuse I'm the fucking devil and I can do what I want!"

"If you had a demonic fetish we could have just played Doom eternal together!"

"I like to dwell in misery and pain! I like to make exchanges that hurt people, beacuse it's great! It's yummy!"

"Hey mafisto! You can take my fisto into your anus!!"

"That yummy yummy suffering of your soul, is what I'm gonna snack on for the next trillion years!"

"Spiderman man wakes up in his spider suit. I guess they're his spiderman pajamas?? God danm, they make him look ripped! I need a pair!"

[thessalian]

Thess vs JK Rowling

So let’s talk about JK Rowling for a minute. Yes, I know that you’re probably sick of hearing about it for one reason or another. I get it. I just ... have a distinct need to vent here. So I’m sorry for bringing it up again, whatever side of this argument you’re on. Just ... come on. Hogwarts Legacy comes out on my fucking birthday. The only thing that’s saving my birthday at this point, given the mess the internet’s going to be Friday over this, is sushi dinner and a little Legend of Vox Machina watch party.

The summary basically goes as follows: JK Rowling is a TERF and a horrible human being, and she underlines that fact every time she opens her virtual mouth, and now Hogwarts Legacy is coming out and it’s been an internet slap-fight ever since. The reactions I’ve seen so far have been as follows:

“I’m buying multiple copies to own the libs!”

“I’m buying a copy but I’m donating twice as much to trans organisations so it’s fine, right?”

“SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS OMG!”

“It doesn’t really deprive her of that much money anyway given how rich she is, so a boycott is pointless.”

“I’ll just pirate it and you should too!” (bonus points for talking about the cracker who’s making it a point to crack Denuvo over this, and that’s about the one good thing coming out of it because Denuvo is bullshit)

And then there’s me. I’m trying not to ascribe hateful intent to anyone who wants to buy Hogwarts Legacy. I really am. The only reason I can manage it is - and I’m sorry to put it this way but there’s literally no other way I can phrase it - US news is basically the centre of the media universe and a lot of people only hear the very basics about how JK Rowling is a TERF and a horrible human being. You combine that with nostalgia goggles and it’s a recipe for what I can only really call quasi-deliberate cognitive dissonance in people with the best of intentions. Sorry for doing this; I just need to pull this apart.

We’ll start with the nostalgia goggles. I mean, I was a ... sort of a fan when I was younger. Looking back on it, I can see why “more or less average kid from a household that treats them unfairly is suddenly elevated to popularity, wealth, a stable emotional support network and ADVENTURE!” had appeal. Thing is, looking at it with a more critical eye? It was racist as fuck. Not that much better on the sexism. Not any better on the antisemitism either. Apologetic of slavery (”No it’s okay because they like being slaves!” my entire oversized ass). Don’t even get me started about the “lycanthropy as AIDS” thing that she actually admitted to, and literally highlighting how she killed her gays when she stated that Dumbledore was gay after the last books were already out instead of actually showing any of that in the text. On top of all that, I can’t say with any honesty that it was even that well-written. While I don’t think a lot of people are forgetting that book 7 epilogue any time soon, the rest of it ... just ... doesn’t hold up to me. The wizarding houses that sold a few billion pieces of merchandise were just an excuse to legitimise bullying within the text. Her portrayal of Snape had her confusing “doomed love” with “incel”. Dumbledore was sold as a benevolent sage but came across to me as a fucking maniac and a horrible educator. Most of all, half of this series was held together with plot glue, communication fail, and having a non-omniscient, highly distractable POV character throughout. I have things to say about the pacing, particularly as regards the introduction of the Horcruxes and the Remus / Tonks relationship (which, given the “bad man spreading this AIDS-analog to people deliberately” the still somehow existing view of AIDS as “a bad gay’s disease”, and Remus’ bond with Sirius, feels like an attempt to “de-gay” Remus somehow, but all that did was code him bi and she killed him anyway, apparently to tug on heartstrings in a really clumsy-ass way, so eh). But we’ve got colourful houses coded by desirable personality traits (EXCEPT SLYTHERIN, like cunning and ambition are somehow inherently evil) and Quidditch and Every-Flavour Beans, so that’s fine, right? Egh. Sorry; I was never one to hang onto the nostalgia goggles for very long. I love poking the Jenga Tower of Logic too much.

(Also, frankly, if she’d taken Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them and turned them into a Steve Irwin-type nature series instead of the racist imperialist pile of garbage that series turned into, she’d have been a lot better off. Though I’m not sure I like her rooting around in the cultural heritages of others because she handles this shit like a moose handles a Ming vase.)

Of course, Hogwarts Legacy is a different kettle of fish. It’s not in the modern era or anything so it can’t be that problematic, right? It’s set in ... *checks* 1890. So the height of British imperialism. Oooooooh yeah that’s going to be a Thing, isn’t it. Let’s see ... Super Special Student thrown into Hogwarts in their fifth year, Possessed of Ancient Secret Magic ... Chosen One. Got it. Wikipedia won’t even go into the full plot but what I seem to recall is “Evil (and Jewish-coded) Goblins Attempt Wizard Genocide”. So that’s nice. And its lead designer is ... Troy Leavitt, Gamergate supporter and creation of such videos as “In Defense of Cultural Appropriation”. Which, given Rowling’s history with same, is on brand. So how about we not go too far into the “But SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPERS!” argument? This man does not need support; he needs a good swift kick in the balls.

So, back onto Rowling, because I really can’t talk about the game much as it’s not technically out yet. Yes, TERF and horrible human being, but there are examples of this that go beyond the shit she spouts on Twitter. As far as the TERF shit goes, here’s an example: a little while ago, the devolved Scottish Parliament wrote a law - only applicable to the Scots, incidentally - that said that people age 16 and up should be able to decide what gender to put on their identity documents. It’s called the Gender Recognition Act. Now, the UK government at Westminster didn’t like this at all, and - in a move they’re not actually supposed to make - blocked Scottish Parliament from being able to enact that law within its own borders. This kicked the Scottish devolution movement (already pretty heavy because of the end results of Brexit) into even higher gear, because fuck the English government wanting to uphold their terfitude so much that they’d dictate what Scotland can do in its own borders. Rowling is on the English government’s side here, and is very against Scottish devolution. The money she has doesn’t only go to that LGB Alliance that leaves out the T so very deliberately; it also goes to blocking Scotland’s attempt to unstaple itself from this hellscape, just because she agrees with blocking the rights of people to choose whether an M or F goes on their official documentation instead of basing it on their assigned gender at birth.

And then there’s her most recent book, written under her (ironically male) pseudonym. Yes, it’s a TERF manifesto with chapters, but it’s more than just “Evil Mass Murderer Hides Behind Woke Transgender Propaganda To Gain Access To Women’s Bathrooms And Murder Them”. That book also includes a “poor influencer accused of being ableist being murdered by disabled people because they consider said influencer too ableist to be condoned” plot. Fibromyalgia is mentioned (dude, I have fibro and even if I wasn’t a decent human being, I hurt too much to be able to actively murder someone). Also autism, which is pretty telling when you consider that she also says that “poor confused autistic girls are being forced into gender conversion because they’re too autistic to understand what they’re doing”.

If you honestly want to own anything with this woman’s name attached, that’s fine. That’s your prerogative. I am probably going to judge you, though. It’s not the money, or at least not just the money - it’s the platform this is giving her, and the validation. Even piracy says “I don’t care about your behaviour because you’re giving me what I want”. Not even need; want. I don’t get why anyone wants it, but people are allowed to have different tastes, so that’s a whatever-thing. But I live in the country where her voice has the most influence on things that aren’t entertainment. She is defended by so many of the wealthy and powerful because she thinks the same way they do. And the more she’s lauded for anything she does, the more they’ll point to her as something good about this country. She is not a good thing about this country, and no amount of flying broomsticks and jelly beans that taste like earwax can change that, in my mind.

(Also, I’ve seen some of the preview pictures - the game looks like hot garbage anyway.)