#anti/chase has many issues and is angry all the time

[deepfriedseagullfeet]

its 2 am. i really want to bring back the ego fusions. does any one remember my old blog where i posted about ego fusions. i hope everyone knows i have a rough outline of all possible 15 (i think) ego fusions down in my head and they all exist at the same time and dick around and have Lore. i just havent posted about them or drawn them. but i think of them. often

[sour-sharkk]

hello again gang (4 followers)

RAHHHH MY FAVORITE BOY TIME

introducing....

SUNNY!!! :D

he's very orange, and angry. Honestly his arc in the story is CRAZY (like Adam or Brie)

he was born in the lab, and was created by Dr. Gallagher to be 'the ultimate weapon' but he's. just, a little guy? and she kinda of hates him for it (mommy issues 😔) but he used to look up to her, and now he really resents her for making him. (more just the way she raised him but he's a very confused lad) (mommy issues again)

So yeah

anyways he's diabetic!! (plot device) and has polydactyly (extra thumbs) and he's technically intersex (xxy chromosomes)

its a bit extra but as Gallagher's first 'creation' he has many "mistakes" (they are features!!)

he's always been a bit of a loner, and Gallagher purposefully isolated him from the other lab kids (they will be introduced at some point) to try and train him into being her 'perfect weapon'. The lab kids avoid him, so he fully just believes that he's meant to be alone

also his name is Brutus (yes I know the connotations, its very intentional) and Gallagher uses his namesake to manipulate him by convincing him that he's basically destined to be a villain and hated

he takes his misplaced anger out on Brie (a lot), but more so the idea of Brie that he's been spoonfed his entire 13 years of life,, so he was fed anti-Brie propaganda and never had any positive interactions, ever, and hates Brie at first (as he was raised to believe) but through his chase for victory (helping Gallagher so she can be proud of him (mommy issues, again)) where he goes from continuously trying to kill/beat up Brie to trying to beat them at anything and everything possible

(they think he's just a random competitive kid at first, but later realizes something is wrong after seeing just how independent and desperate to 'win' he is)

Brie then makes an effort to try and understand him, and Sunny is like "no WTH ur supposed to be evil, not sympathetic" and Brie is like "I think ur just angry. Idk what about but its probably not good for you, I hope you have someone to talk to about this stuff. Anyways here's my phone number if you ever wanna talk, and my Dad's phone number. He's a social worker, and if you need help he can help you,"

by spending more time in the outside ("trying to catch/defeat Brie", but he's actually very confused bc he doesn't even hate Brie, so why is he still trying to beat them), Sunny eventually starts meeting people and begins making friends and becoming a regular fixture around the neighborhood he slowly becomes a somewhat well adjusted teenage boy, and is shown love, respect, humanity (the big one), and kindness by the community.

Sunny helps out at a locally owned Asian supermarket, mechanic shop, shoe repair shop, carpenter/handywoman, bakery, etc., etc. (the neighborhood is mostly locally owned independent businesses who'd rather have Sunny around helping than out on the streets and basically they all agree to help him out as much as possible) and cleans for an elderly landlord lady, he is taken care of by his bosses ("hey man, this food is about to go bad, can you take some of it home?" "Sunny, would you be a dear by dusting the cabinets for me and putting the trash out so I can start on lunch?" "Hey Sunray! business is kind of slow today, could I work on your shoes to fill the time?" "okay Sunshine, today I'm gonna teach you about the importance of moisture!") and he learns a shit ton about all the professions on top of life/social skills and gets some money as well.

he also begins collecting more personal items,, like books, clothes, keychains, and other stuff (he has a backpack that he stashes away outside the lab)(and he keeps Brie's and Pierre's contact info)

throughout this Gallagher does NOT gaf about him,, like at all. Mostly because she starts more seriously training brainwashing another lab kid (Athena, shes important later on)

He doesn't want to go back, and starts to doubt his 'training'. and decides to run away (for not the first time) because he doesn't trust Gallagher (and he fully believes no one would miss him)

Gallagher is like "fine I guess,, I mean you ARE the one who's a danger to society, so if something happens its YOUR fault 🤷‍♀" and Sunny is SOOOO upset but doesn't let himself get mad (doesn't want to prove her point (shows self restraint (character growth)) and just leaves

he experiences his first night in the outside (he had a "curfew" of midnight before this lol) and sleeps in an alley (he has never slept on a mattress in his entire life basically)

he wakes up at like 4/5 in the am, feeling groggy (more than usual) but chalks it up to the change in environment, and starts his day.

he hangs around the neighborhood, chatting like usual, avoiding any talk of his "home life" and throughout the day he begins to feel sick (dizziness, nausea, fatigue, etc., etc.) but tries to hide it (he thinks that the people in the neighborhood worry about him too much, he's probably just getting used to being outside? so much? right?) so in the mid afternoon (like 2 pm -ish) he's like "welp,,, I -uh gotta go!" and stumbles away (remember how I mentioned that he's diabetic? yeah that's important now)

His neighbors (who assumed he was a kid trying to stay out of the house bc of a bad home life) realize that there's something going on, and a few follow him to make sure he's okay. They then find him in the alley passed out and unresponsive (weird bc he's a super light sleeper, and usually guarded) so they call an ambulance and he gets rushed to the hospital.

when he wakes up ( in a hospital bed) he thinks he's back in the lab and almost freaks out before one of his neighbors comes into the room and is like "you okay there buddy? we found you passed out in an alley and like all of us are pretty sure you're homeless?? and undocumented?? anyways we're all very worried. Do you have an adult you can call?" and Sunny proceeds to call Pierre ("uhmm,, he- hello? Is this a uh- Pierre? Brie gave me your uh- phone number? if I ever needed help and Ikindaneedsomehelprightnow-") and Pierre being the charitable father figure he is just. shows up to the hospital.

Then, it is explained to Sunny (and Pierre) that Sunny has type 1 diabetes, and because he hasn't taken his insulin he became sick. (the doctor is like "you need to be more responsible about managing your condition young man" and Sunny is so confused bc "wdym I have diabetes??? I never knew about this")

after being discharged (maybe a day or two later) he and Pierre have lunch and Pierre starts asking him about how Sunny got his number, and why his neighbors think he's homeless and undocumented, and Sunny is like "listen man idk. I was raised away from society" and eventually they come to the agreement that Pierre will work on getting Sunny citizenship in the Magical Country (I don't got a name for it yet) and check on him occasionally, and Sunny will continue as 'normal' and stay out of trouble in the meantime.

Otw back to the neighborhood Sunny then starts worrying about medication (insulin) and Pierre is like "dw Abt it. I gotchu, just make sure to go get it on time, okay?" (he set up an autopay for Sunny's meds) (#1 father award)

when they get back Sunny is SWARMED by like the whole neighborhood ("we were so worried!" "Are you okay?", etc.etc.) and Pierre talks w/ Sunny's "bosses" (aka The Neighborhood Adults), and informs them of the situation, and how Sunny can either go with Pierre or stay in the neighborhood, but he can't be homeless (Sunny responds to that with "I'm not homeless, I just don't have a house.") while he begins the process of documenting him so he can get citizenship.

Sunny's landlady boss is then like "he can stay with me, I have an extra room I'm not renting at the moment, it just needs some furniture and a bit of paint." and Pierre is like "alr ma'am I'll keep you updated, and I'd appreciate if you kept in touch."

cue the entire neighborhood pitching in to help with Sunny's "room" (its more like a studio apartment)

and he lives there for the remainder of the story, lol.

Later on he goes to school ("You gotta at least get your diploma, man.") and his "bosses" (pseudo-parents) and the neighborhood kids help him study different subjects

(that was so much fun but also owie, my fingers.)

so yeah Sunny is best boy, and more happens after that but it involves other characters (also I'm tired) he's very independent but learns to let himself trust others and rely on people. Later on, when he gets his official birth certificate he officially changes his last name to Allard (Pierre and Brie's last name, because they started all of the changes that helped him) but his full name is technically 'Soleil "Sunny" Caius Martinez Park-Thomas Allard' lmao. the entire community be adopting this boy,

(side note: the owner of the supermarket and the carpenter are married, and the mechanic and carpenter are siblings!!)

(can you tell that I have the neighbors planned out? lol I'll post Abt them soon, hopefully with some art)

also here's his playlist!!!!

[pintobordeaux]

to elaborate:

Bruce terrorizes Superman villains with just angry glares and growls.

Clark has to learn to live in a not invulnerable body.

Clark on his first night as Batman: "Ouch! You stabbed me! It hurts!!!!"

Everyone thinks Batman has gone completely insane and might turn into a new Joker.

The Pentagon is this close from activating their anti-Superman plan because the man looks one inconvenience away from a worldwide dictatorial regime.

Bruce has to learn to hold his strength back because he breaks absolutely EVERYTHING.

obligatory NSFW: they masturbate to see how the other's body works (bc of course Clark has alien genitals).

Bruce starting to have blood pressure issues from having to act meek with all the ppl shitting on him at work.

Clark not putting up AT ALL with Riddler's schemes and riddles and stops him by entirely other means.

Clark getting anxiety from having to be in the spotlight all the time and being chased by ladies.

@jellyfitzjelly OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. Yes this 100000000000x this!!! (You sent it in two messages so I screenshoted the first for context for everyone and I’m using the second as the answer since I didn’t wanna transcribe it lol)

I am WEAK in the soul for body switching fics and headcannons. To add on more thoughts to your thoughts

The absolute body horror/dysmorphia/dissociation at being in a body but not your body but still having that vouyerustic fascination at being able to explore someone else’s body from your own consciousness.

^^^ I am 100% on my bullshit about those “I have a crush but we haven’t said anything or been close yet and it’s so wrong but this is my opportunity to get as close as possible to them in a way I’ve been dreaming about” tropes.

The uncanny valley at seeing the other’s expressions on their face! Like Batman’s signature scowl on Superman’s normally cheery face. Or Clark’s sunbeam smile on Batman.

An excuse to push them together to work through it! Maybe secret phone calls alllll day to each other. “How do you deal with the Wayne enterprise board?” “I broke another door handle. What now?” Just so many options.

Do they try to hide it? CAN they hide it? If not who figures it out first?!? If they don’t hide it now what? What do they do with their time?

I 100% believe that Bruce would make Clark practice sparring/ hand to hand combat in Bruce’s body. Just let the implications of that sink in. Are those thoughts nice and marinated yet? Because YES.

Do they have the angst and unsureness of “this might be forever?” Or the bittersweet relief of “we only have _ amount of time to experience each other like this.”

And on that note - if it’s established relationship Superbat. O.M.G. The wonderful idea that they get to use this opportunity to get to know each other in ways they never could under any other circumstance.

Like imagine Clark finds out all the little things bruce has been hiding. Maybe Bruce actively suppresses blushing every time Clark runs a finger up his arm. He had no idea. And Bruce finds out that while he knew Clark doesn’t need to eat he actively craves certain things sometimes. They use this to learn more about each other and carry that over into a stronger relationship once they’re switched back.

My obligatory NSFW addition - sleeping together. Is it an act of ego? Sure, maybe. But the body is a shell to house the person they love. That can change and they’ll still love them no matter what. I wanna see some fic that just goes for it. Let Bruce as clark sleep with Clark as Bruce. No cop out ‘this is too weird.’ Na bro it’s interesting and novel and Batman is a detective who loves puzzles, and Clark is an investigative journalist. You bet your ass they’ll sleep with their partner who physically looks like themselves.

Second NSFW addition - in Smallville the heat vision is absolutely first triggered by horny feelings. I just want Bruce to have to experience that and Clark having to bumble through and explain it to Bruce. But then Bruce’s mind immediately goes to “so you have to be turned on to use heat vision!?” And letting flashbacks of all of the times he’s seen Clark use it.

And if you wanna go the public/political/social investigation route - ooooo boy! How does each of them handle that stress? Are any aspects of each other’s life harder than they thought? More pleasurable? Surprising?

Does bruce cry big alligator tears when visiting Martha Kent and she calls him “son” and looks at him with such love? Sources say yes. (Sources are my head)

Okay okay but also if they don’t know each other’s identity when the switch happens?!!?!!! Wouldn’t that be something? Alllllll the identity reveal. And the mad dash to find each other to help hide both secrets from the world. Do they form an initial alliance? Lay it all out?

Alternatively, what if Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent body switched. Neither knows the other’s superhero identity. But the sheer panic from Clark about Bruce using super strength and immediately finding out. And Bruce panicking because Alfred doesn’t know he’s not him. What if he says something in 2 seconds upon arriving home about anything batman related and this investigative journalist will now immediately know who batman is.

I just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this. Not enough cohesive ones to write something. But A LOT of thoughts and feelings.

[sparkbird-jewelry]

It took me thirty years to start looking into what really might be wrong with me, or different about my brain. Therapists and doctors seem to avoid getting into actual diagnosis. I’ve taken every medication there is, nothing worked. Diagnosed with side effects like depression, anxiety, aDD. Misdiagnosed by my mother who seemed to know it all. She knows jack about mental health. I’ve suffered years substance abuse, prison lost people to overdose and one after another volatile relationships. After a million videos and lectures on mental health disorders I realized that I meet all the criteria for bpd. You only have to have five of nine. I meet nine. I also meet overlapping criteria for the different types of bpd. So I’m pretty certain I have it. It took the discovery of actual self reflection to realize my emotional reactivity was problematic, not only for myself, but for those closest to me. This search was out of my desire to save one of the best partners I had ever found in my life. This person saved me and he does know it, because I have told him. He supports me in literally every way you could hope a person would. This is somewhat new feeling for me.

While my self exploration started with me, it led to a LOT of problematic issues with other people in my life as well. I ended up stopping contact with my elderly parents. Not for the fact that I don’t love them. But the reactive abuse had become too much. They began to verbally attack my terminally Ill sister as well now, and they had put her health at risk for no real reason other than to make her feel bad, emotionally.

My sister has since moved away again and I lost her all over again. The first time I lost her was when she ran away at 18 to escape the home my parents built. A home of guilt, shame and “misbehaved” daughters “from hell”. My parents always pitted us against each other and we realized this at 45. It’s heart breaking. She is my idol. She was always the literal coolest person to me. I looked up to her secretly and I want her to know how much I admire her for so many reasons. I don’t know how to tell her a lot of these things. But I hope I get the courage someday and I hope I get a chance.

I cut my mom off because I’m angry. I’m tired of feeling like her biggest “problem”. She never made me feel loved or cared for. She stigmatized me for my mental health, my substance abuse, my relationship issues. Forced me onto dangerous medications at eleven and yeah.. I was a Prozac kid. Lucky I didn’t end up in prison for life. She started this nightmare by having us, but that does not mean she gets to end it. I do this time. I love my family, but the pain my mother has caused us all, is sick. I have to watch her abuse my dad daily. My sister, my aunts, uncles, cousins and even close friends. She destroyed everything. Like a narcissistic hurricane. She fat shamed me and then put me on anti depressants but would never admit to being the actual cause of that depression. And worst of all I lost YEARS with my family members that she isolated us from. She chases my family members off and I’m left feeling isolated after her smear campaigns. I’m just done.

Now I have to work on me. I fixed my substance issues. Eleventy years clean now. I still have ocd, control issues, low self esteem, trust and abandonment issues, addiction to tobacco and weed. I still have emotional problems. I still have eating disorders and insomnia. But I’m able now to start fixing those things. I’m not completely alone. I’ve got my favorite person, and my kids. I have my sister to talk to. Some family left that still talks to us a little. I can definitely seek therapy, yet again, and be more direct this time. Looking is hard. These days they don’t even answer the phone when you call in. I have more knowledge and that’s a start. However I’m not going to run off to apologize to my mother for the abuse she put on us. She gets nothing from me. She can go stew about how she’s the victim and I’m the abuser. Let her think what she wants. I’ve seen the rage in her eyes forty years and I’m sorry to let her down, but that rage is not meant for, and should not be directed towards me. And not my sister either. Not today, not ever. She doesn’t get to hurt us anymore. We stand together against the reactive abuse, the how could you’s and the after all I’ve done for you’s. And the why don’t you appreciate me’s. No. You’ve done nothing but damage. How could we possibly appreciate that?

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Could you talk about the Statute of Secrecy? Or the Ministry’s corruption in General :)

Well, those are two different things. Given that I believe I have an ask floating somewhere in my inbox on the Statute, I suppose we’ll talk about the Ministry of Magic today.

I feel like this is such a broad topic though that I’m not quite sure where to start. I guess I’ll just throw spaghetti at the internet wall and see what sticks.

The Ministry is a Reflection of Society Who Never Admitted They Were the Death Eaters

In the ministry of Harry Potter’s era the Ministry is hopelessly corrupt and filled to the brim with spies (more on this in a later section). Lucius Malfoy, very high up in an unofficial capacity in the Ministry and owner of the Ministry’s mouth piece: The Daily Prophet, was a known Death Eater with a very flimsy excuse.

How is he even able to wield so much influence, you ask? Well, I think it’s not just because of Fudge picking the wrong friends.

I think most the population probably does believe Lucius Malfoy is innocent the way Fudge does. I think it’s a very small subsection, i.e. Dumbledore’s lackies, who go “Nah, ain’t buying it.” I think that, in 1981, when it came time to reveal just how many were Death Eaters and how far this went many people just couldn’t handle it.

Because it was to the point where the nation wasn’t battling Death Eaters, Death Eaters were the nation. Look at the members, these are and were the most influential and prominent families in the country, who combined hold a non-small minority of seats in the Wizengamot. More, these were only the participants, combine those who given anti-muggle and muggleborn sentiment (which I believe are pervasive even among those who claim they fight for the rights of muggles and muggleborns) and you get a nation that is suddenly facing a huge cultural issue that was never previously acknowledged.

We’re talking an entire purge of the Wizengamot, of the Ministry, of the major families and cornerstones of this society. The Black family is completely and utterly destroyed.

People were and remain throughout the 1990′s, desperate to believe it was not as bad as it was or isn’t as bad as it is. If Lucius Malfoy says he was never really a Death Eater then he was never really a Death Eater.

The Ministry is Lousy With Corruption and Spies

What’s hilarious to me is not only is the Ministry incompetent. It is positively flooded with spies. Given the ministry’s overbloated, it’s not even a sizeable minority of employees, but nonetheless every major department has at least one person (if not more) who works for somebody else.

Most work for Tom Riddle. He seems to have intelligence in every department. Through Lucius, who is working pretty much as an unofficial aide to Fudge, he has access to Fudge, complete control of the Daily Prophet, and a voice on the Hogwarts’ board of governors.

Through Rockwood, Tom has direct access to the Department of Mysteries which Lucius is then able to take full advantage of.

Lucius is able to set up an ambush in the Department of Mysteries, getting escaped convicts into the building with the none the wiser, and, had his sole purpose not been a prophecy that only Harry Potter and the Dark Lord can touch, he would have been able to take what he liked. (Though it was always odd to me that the plan was to get Harry Potter to do it, when the better solution would have been to polyjuice Tom Riddle into someone else, set up a tour with the department, and then Tom wanders off conveniently to pick up the prophecy. My theory, I suppose, is that chasing after the prophecy was mostly an exercise in punishing Lucius. And then Lucius fucked up.)

And of course, in book seven, Tom Riddle makes a puppet minister. Point being, to me, it always said a lot that in Book Seven Tom just sort of walks into the building and says, “I’m in charge now” and everyone says “okay”. There was no second Wizarding War, it was a bloodless coup that met zero resistance from anyone but angry school children. 

But that’s Tom’s spies, we also have other spies. Who am I talking about, Dumbledore’s folks of course.

Shacklebolt, Moody, Tonks, and Arthur Weasley are all spies, they just don’t have the introspection to even realize it (which really tells you something about the state of corruption in the ministry). They all work for the ministry, yes, but they in fact pass on information to and serve another master, whose goals do not always align with the government and was a hop skip and a jump away from overthrowing the government at any given moment.

And they don’t even really realize they’re doing this! There doesn’t even seem to be a thought of “I’m doing this for the greater good”, they don’t seem to acknowledge that what they’re doing is very very very bad. Arthur, in fact, is appalled when Percy refuses to do this (well, he’s upset for a lot of reasons, such as that he thinks Percy is spying on Arthur for the minister, but in there is also that Percy refuses to help out with the Order or follow Dumbledore without question). 

Harry paints the Dumbledore’s Army threat that Umbridge saw as something utterly ridiculous, but honestly if I was the ministry I would be worried about this. Dumbledore’s people have infiltrated the ministry just as deeply and badly as the Death Eaters, Dumbledore’s known for recruiting children into his vigilante organization, I don’t know what he’s doing with an army of schoolchildren but I can smell a coup coming.

Anyway, I’m getting off track, point being though that corruption is not only expected and accepted by the ministry, they cannot recognize what it even is. They’re at the point where paying bribes is allocated in their budget.

I Don’t Blame the Ministry For Not Thinking Tom Riddle Was Anti-Jesus

Fudge is designed to get a lot of flack for his outright denial that Voldemort had returned from the dead. He, and other denier characters, are meant to be fools with their heads in the sand who can’t see the obvious.

I ask what about it was obvious?

The only witness to Tom Riddle’s resurrection, Harry Potter, has a known history of erratic behavior.

The previous year, he’d performed illegal magic on his muggle aunt and run away from home. During the previous school year, Harry was revealed to be a parselmouth in a time when the Chamber of Secrets was presumably opened and the mystery was never fully solved (remember, that it was a possessed Ginny never comes to light for more than a few people.) Beyond that, since his first day of school, Harry is routinely in and out of detention, constantly out after curfew, and only seems to not be in serious trouble because he’s openly favored by Dumbledore (who gives him hundreds of points for breaking one of his school rules, during the Philosopher’s Stone fiasco in first year). In 1994, Harry is entered into the Tri-Wizard Tournament under very suspicious circumstances.

We know why all this happens to Harry but from the outside he looks like a delinquent. In fact, he kind of is a delinquent. 

Point being, the only witness is not only Harry Potter (who is already sketch) but it’s Harry Potter holding a dead body of a rival in the tournament.

And he’s claiming that a man who has been nearly fifteen years dead, a man who held the nation in terror and Harry Potter is beloved for destroying, has returned from the grave and conveniently murdered Cedric.

Why is Cedric dead? Well, you see, he and Harry both touched the goblet at the same time because they were going to share the reward. The goblet, a national treasure, was turned into a portkey so that Voldemort could kidnap him.

Why didn’t Voldemort just kidnap him at any other point during the year where he’s guaranteed not to get tag a longs or the wrong kid? Uh... VOLDEMORT IS BACK (for the record, I think it’s because Barty got hung up on the goblet scheme and was determined to ruin his father’s day.)

Where is Voldemort at this very moment? Being evil, somewhere, that is not right here. No, Harry has zero evidence this happened.

Frankly, I wouldn’t believe Harry either.

And when Dumbledore goes about promoting this as sound evidence that Tom Riddle has in fact returned, it starts to get even sketchier. Rather than sounding the alarm, Dumbledore is using this boy’s madness to stir the public into a panic that he, perhaps, plans to take advantage of.

After Dumbledore does that, I would suspect that, even if Harry does give me a memory of the graveyard scene that his head had been tampered with by Dumbledore.

And it’s so convenient that, of all the names Harry picked, it’s Voldemort who killed Cedric. It seems like a ploy to not only deflect the fact that he murdered Cedric but 

Harry’s very upset when some don’t take him at his word but Harry’s also a dumbass and a psychopath. He hates everyone who doesn’t agree with him.

More importantly, necromancy isn’t a thing in the Harry Potter universe. People don’t rise from the dead. Horcruxes exist, but they’re extremely rare, and it seems like no one ever really makes use of them.

So, yeah, not unreasonable that Fudge didn’t immediately go, “My god, Voldemort has risen from the dead! LIGHT THE BEACONS AND SUMMON ROHAN!”

So yeah, it’d take me seeing Voldemort waltzing through the Department Mysteries to go “... Goddammit, this man is more unkillable than Sheev Palpatine.”

After the Epilogue, I am Certain It’s Still the Same Damn Ministry

People hate the epilogue, but in a way, I love it, because it confirms many of my headcanons: these people don’t learn a goddamn thing.

Nothing in their society seems to have changed. Instead of one set of families holding all the power it’s now a new set of families and friends holding all the power. The difference being that they are now all in some way connected to Harry Potter.

Nepotism’s still the name of the game, we still see only human children boarding the Hogwarts Express so you know shit hasn’t changed for the goblins, Draco Malfoy’s alive and well and holds a position in the Ministry that Kingsly graciously allows him to have, it’s just now you have Hermione writing all your laws for you.

The Wizarding World is still the Wizarding World in every single capacity. The only difference is that Voldemort is dead again. Hooray.

Harry and friends simply don’t have the introspection to even realize it.

[feysandandnyx]

I've noticed that people are constantly angry at Rhys because he doesn't treat people the way he treats Feyre. Any criticism I see of the character starts with: he is a hypocrite, because he would have done differently if he were Feyre. Well, you know, Feyre is Rhys' mate, so the treatment he gives her will never be the same as the treatment he gives anyone and the character's antis need to get over that.

I've seen a critique that Rhys didn't even allow Cassian to freak out when Nesta was taken to the blood rite, but that he would have blown up the mountain if he were Feyre. Would it really have? It's true that Rhys loves Feyre and would do anything but he's also absurdly focused. When Feyre spent two months at the Tamlin Court (at risk to her life) after she saved the IC and the sisters, did Rhys drop everything and simply go after her? No.

He only went to the spring court after he stopped feeling Feyre for the manting bond.

When Feyre went to retrieve his mother's ring, did Rhys intervene when she was in danger? No. When Amren and Feyre went to steal Tarquin's book, did Rhys interfere because Feyre was in danger? No. When Feyre tricked Mor into meeting Suriel in the middle of the war did Rhys drop everything to chase after her? No. There are a multitude of times Feyre has been in danger and Rhys has not intruded.

Every time he did this, it was when Feyre couldn't defend herself: under the mountain, during the wedding ceremony with Tamlin and then when he sealed her in the mansion and she lost control of her powers.

Cassian is Nesta's mate, all right, but he's also the general of the night court and if it was necessary to resolve the issues with Eris, someone from the Court needed to go. All Cassian could do was think of Nesta as if she were a maiden in need of rescuing. I don't like the way the blood rite was developed, I still find it very wrong in many different ways. I believe that because it was something exceptional due to the involuntary participation of three newly trained girls, it was something that could be stopped somehow. But since Sarah created a stupid law that forbade even Rhys from interfering with the rite what could be done besides believing in the training of three girls who cut a ribbon and read a book? 🤡

[anonil88]

Malcolm and Marie live blog

I don't usually do liveblogs for movies but yea.

Spoilers ahead!!

I love that its modern timed but very 70s stylized.

A tune indeed.

When you are high and drunk on success and

How the white critic reacts is why I feel like gatekeeping my scripts. At the same time some things I do make are about race or involve.

Marie sitting on the patio smoking is a mood whenever men are talking.

So he's pretentious and unaware.

Whoever chose the music for this, I feel like we would be Spotify mutuals.

Can this nigga stop pacing.

Also can he stop talking;

Marie is so tired and unimpressed.

Also little booties matter and are to be bitten.

Oooo the tension and the jazz.

Title Card over mac and cheese.

Shitty boxes mac and cheese but still mac and cheese.

Tbh i always wonder if spouses/significant others get upset when their spouses don't acknowledge them during speeches.

John sounds so much like his dad but I really hope his acting style differs from his dad a lot.

Guilty confession?

He did not profit off of his partners backstory and then not even acknowledge her.....I.....

If that ever happened to me catch me cussing my partner out during the beginning credits, the end credits, in the car, and at home.

GASLIGHTER!

The way I'm excited for Zendaya to give me some, oooo can she work with Regina King. Please on my knees I pray.

Um no that's not your job to coddle your lead.

He's a dick and the type of dick who makes himself look like a good person around other people.

If Sam Levinson is trying to make his viewers more of misandrist, it's working.

I feel like Marie has her flaws probably a lot of them and we will surely see as this continues, but Malcolm needs to learn how to apologize sincerely.

70s vibes! 70s vibes!

Them kissing and talking about criticism and dreams makes me miss a partner. A partner that I've had and haven't had.

Women really are behind every great man.

Yea sir you fucked a happy moment.

Oh visual allegories for looking in from the outside and cat and mouse chasing and looking from the outside in.

She's saying she doesn't feel noticed by you.

Gas lighter :0 he called her an emotional support dog, bruh.

I would LOVE to co-write or take a writing class held by Sam Levinson. The fights i write are very much in this same realm of reflection and anger and monologue.

Sam.....sam.....are all the sides inside of you doing okay sir?

The ugly side of dating and being in a relationship with someone who struggles with their own demons.

Honestly I could close my eyes and listen to this script being read without seeing these characters visually. Just close my eyes and get a sense of these characters like it was a radio story.

Oh. Oh this is a new wheelhouse of Zendaya acting; a different voice is like breaking through here and her expressions aren't the same we are used to. You can literally hear another character in there....hmm.

Mans is outside really fighting with his invisible demons lmfao.

Selfish ass, how after everything she said you came out of it thinking about your own craft and self instead of how you hurt her.

So she's conditional.

Me: did sam (a white man) say nigga this many times in his script or are the actors adding their own inflections. Not just the lingo used but the topic of race and directing etc. being written by a white writer about black characters is always gonna be a critique when you're writer is a white person.

Alexa play Broken Girls by Saba

He is so hurtful.

A clown nigga a clown look in the fucking mirror you bozo head ass looking like you need some Mehron clown white and a size 16 in clown shoes.

John is doing a really swell performance and reading of these lines.

He is reading her for her insecurities by bringing up his experiences with other women and that.....is yikes.

Arguments can get messy like this in real life but it takes a lot of maturity and control to either not let it get to this point or have a healthy conversation afterwards.

This film is really shot on some very crisp lenses.

They sitting there like 🚬🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️.

Leftover Mac and Cheese and unfinished cigarettes.

The nyt etc. pay walls are so annoying, but there is a work around look at the articles on incognito or add a period at the end of the url.

He sounds like his daddy so much here, weird, this is the only part I'm eh on the dialogue it feels real but a bit out of pace in how they are bouncing off one another.

Nail scissors? So the end is not the only part he based off of Marie. 🙄

ITS A GOOD REVIEW YOU DINGUS but also its a full review they are going to critique things. She isn't wrong though he did profit off of a woman's story that was not his own to profit from.

Yes Malcolm because unfortunately all marginalized people look through a lens of life that is inherently political because of the world they live in.

He is so mad and upset and had a lot on his chest. But I think he Malcolm and Sam are talking about something thats an issue and a non issue. Being critiqued for you art is hard but also Malcolm is not super self aware. He's like a stand in figure of for example rich depop sellers who wanna be oppressed so badly they yell at others instead of examining their own personal behaviors and ethics.

Oh Marie, when you know the spark is gone and you pick fights because.

He ain't even ask her to read?

One critic I have for most of hollywood actors is they learn their cry and that is it. A change from this is Margot Robbie, I adore her fluctuations of crying being similar but the crying is carried differently for each character. If I had to say any actor that does a cry scene amazing its this woman right here (Amy Adams)

You stole her story from her and gave it away, she has a right to be upset and angry and a rubber band ball of emotions.

Citizen Kane, not the cinematography, but the story is it even that good? (Unpopular opinion but meh, maybe in my rewatch it will be better.)

But that is what people want authenticity and whatever authenticity means to them. What is real for one is false for another.

To be honest look at the criticism of Euphoria, well earned, but a lot of people were like this isn't real even though he literally wrote about his own life. People said it was inauthentic like....wtf.

Ahh the smoking is just a habit, he quit and she didn't.

CAST ZENDAYA IN A HORROR MOVIE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING. Get Lupita and Zendaya and some more black actors preferably less known ones in a horror movie. One with a interesting script and story, directed by Regina King. Please and thankyou.

I love Marie yep that was amazing.

Behind every great man is a greater woman, one that deserves her credit for how she has stood behind. I wonder the stories of those women, what they have sacrificed or not sacrificed. Their thoughts and feelings when the world is surrounding their partner and views them as a plus one. (I'd write a short script about this but I think do I have the time, can I, or am I equipped ?)

He is a shitty person for bringing up his exes, like she even said I don't wanna know any of that.

Imagine being on anti depressents and rarely having a sex drive and then when you do your partner starts talking about their exes and tearing you apart for all your faults.

I love when you see peaks of Zendaya's cadence in roles.

Tension, what if's and he didn't even bring her up in his speech.

Marie to herself and the audience:

He is not afraid that he will loose her but as my character says in my unreleased story, "i can't wait til you give me a fucking reason to leave your ass." Malcolm expects everything in order for not even doing the bare minimum and she is only asking him for something as simple as consideration. She just wants him to be considerate. He wants to get married and considers their relationship like rolling down a hill at full speed and he cannot apologize, he cannot be considerate, and he cannot admit his wrongs. He can only offer her I love yous that he probably does mean but he does not back up outside of what he's done for her in the past. The past which was more of her experience than his and he sees his part in it as a burden. He doesn't use his own vantage point of the past to further his career he uses her. He does all of these things without a real apology or thankyou because he is not afraid to loose her.

The restrictions of quarantine and the panorama have made Sam's writing very no frills. I wonder how other films from other directors and writers that are filmed in small contained crews like this will be structured. But this was a very good movie gonna add to my letter box 3.3-3.5

Oh shit this is my song,

Ratings/overall thoughts:

Script is like a C+, B- : I could go into my heavier big brain thoughts on the script but I don't feel like it. You catch hints of it above it centers conversation on race and privilege, mainly the writers and questions i have that won't be answered but Sam did make me grow disdain for Malcolm over a short time. Which is sometimes hard to do because im one sympathetic person but the sympathy i have for Malcolm is at 0. Maybe a 2 at some scenes but then it quickly goes back to 0. Some parts of the dialogue miss the mark or hit the are off balanced. While some of it like Malcolm's bathroom speech albeit mean is really strong or their conversation when he comes back from peeing really shines for me.

Performances: B+ to A- because they carried the script further than it could of gone with less talented actors. The monologues do well to showcase their current skill levels which are already high af and leave room for anticipation in where these actors go next.

Zendaya holding a knife: A+ with a gold star. That switch on and off and on is delectable.

John being a shitty boyfriend but following Marie like a lost puppy: B+ with a good job written at the bottom of the paper, Malcolm being nervous a frantic dialed up with more realistic nervousness would have sold me completely on Malcolm's anxious waiting.

Cinematography: A and a participation award.

The mac and cheese: A+ for the easy mac. Wish it was like Annie's or Velveeta.

Cigarettes: Participation award and their picture hung up for student of the month. Why the grill lighter? Everytime Malcolm opened up his mouth Marie was like sparks fly.

The music: A++ with a prize. Whoever picked the music probably makes good Spotify playlists.

[hello-yue-here]

Yuetara, zukka, and maiko

yuetara

ship

1) its not one of my main ships. i dont rlly read fanfic for them but if i see a cute fanart of them ill enjoy it and i think i first started shipping it because of good fanarts for them.

2) i like yuetara because of how similar they are. theyre both women from the water tribe. they both understand the misogyny that they have faced. and they both said f sexism im gonna be a strong woman. i also love the tui and la parallel. moon spirit and ocean spirit parallel COME ON. YUE IS THE MOON. KATARA IS THE MOST POWERFUL WATERBENDER. THEY ARE THE OCEAN AND THE MOON. the push and pull they could give eachother. that dynamic ftw.

3) i guess if i didnt like something about this ship would be the fact that if i read a fic or see a fanart w yuetara then than means in that particular au i wont get any yuekka and yuekka is probably my second favorite ship. but then again if i get yuetara than i could get a plethora of other sokka ships to go with it so my sadness disappears in like two seconds. gosh shipping is hard sometimes until you remember ‘hey i have like fifty different universes in my head. all ur ships can coexist in ur brain olivia’ other than that i really see no downsides to this ship. maybe i wish it had more content. maybe if it had more content id ship it a lot more but its not one of the more popular ships so the content is kinda few n far between on my feed.

zukka:

SHIPPP

1) my boys. my babies. my loves. i watched this show for the first time when it came out on netflix and when it ended i really didnt ship anything other than kataang. i came onto tumblr to find fun atla content and one of the very first things i saw under the atla tag was zukka content. i was like oh? whats this? zukka? interesting... i was intrigued so i found a list of fic recs and i fell in love with the ship. the rest is history. its probably my number one ship because it was my very first ship here and im nostalgic

2) oh boy there is so much i like about this ship. i relate to a shit ton of characters in atla. but sokka and zuko may be the ones i relate to most. i relate to sokka because i tend to feel second best a lot to my friends. i try to stay positive but things rarely go the way i plan or hope for them too and while im happy for my friends and their achievements i oftentimes find myself thinking why cant that be me? and i see this a lot in sokka especially in sokkas master. i dont feel special a lot and idk seeing sokka feel the same way and then realizing he is special kinda helped me realize that im special too. on the flipside i relate to zuko because i have wild anger issues and difficulty dealing w my emotions a lot as well. i get broody and short tempered and insecure very often and i tend to push people away and i refuse to ask for help (the amount of teachers and adults and therapists who have told me its okay to ask for help ur not any weaker because of it is astounding. do i listen to them? .....im working on it.) and i saw a shit ton of this in zuko. book one and two zuko rarely asks for help as seen in the blue spirit and zuko alone and he pushes away uncle so many times and even when the gaang iffers to help him in i think its the chase he tells them to leave. when he finally has his redemption and joins the gaang and lets them kinda become a better person i was so happy. i want that for myself yk. seeing him finally win the agni kai and overcome his family that always told him he was nothing was such a win. my sister and i get along but when we were children we were very much like zuko and azula. it was extremely competitive all the time and there was so much toxicity and sibling drama to a concerning extent. we get along great now which im very happy about but yeah their sibling relationship hit a lil too on the nose for me. seeing as i relate to these character so much and want them ti be happy i want to live vicariously through them so seeing them together is amazing for me to project into them. i love projecting onto fictional characters and with them i can project onto BOTH so its a winwin. plus so many zukka fics are so well written and heartwarming and heartbreaking and emotional and fluffy anf UGH the talent here us astounding.

3) what do i not like about the ship? again the list is long. oops. mainly the toxic shippers. there are so many toxic zukka stans that sometimes make it hard for me to enjoy this ship but hey! thats what the block button is for:) i despise how often people infantilize zuko and completely ruin his character for the sake of making him a soft weak lil boy who needs protecting. thats just not zuko for me. and ive seen many many accounts even state that this kind of portrayal of zuko is rooted in racist stereotypes about asian men (now i am white so i personally have never experiences racism but i feel the need to bring that up because it is wrong and attention needs to be brought to it because a lot of poc fans have criticised this) and the same for sokka. some ppl rlly skew his character and make him a big strong brute and hypermasculine and once again poc fans have said that this take is rooted in racist stereotypes. again! these are just my opinions! this is my favorite ship! but i think its important to acknowledge some of the bad parts of our ships as well and be critical where criticism is needed :))

maiko

ship

1) I LOVE MAIKO. “i dont hate you�� “i dont hate you too” BRUH. my little heart just burst into flames. im sorry guys but maiko is so cute. they hate everything except eachother. BRUH that is one of the cutest tropes. i shipped them the moment i saw them together onscreen and i was so happy when zukos face lit up in the finale when mai came back.

2) “i hate everything but i have a soft spot for you” TAKE MY MONEY I AM A SUCKER FOR THIS. they are so cute together. like zuko is rarely happy in a majority of atla but mai makes him happy and i- 🥺🥺 HE DESERVES IT. and mai is always so supportive of him. when hes stressing out about the war meeting she tries her best to comfort him. and zuko cares about her too. he may not be the best at showing it but oh my god hes TRYING HIS BEST. i think its a very accurate portrayal of teenage relationships because they arent perfect and they do fight but like,, every teenage relationship does that. and even after everything and how he left her in the fire nation she still had his back at boiling rock. she still risked her life against azula to save his butt.

3) the thing i hate about maiko isnt even about maiko. its about antis who think mai is toxic and that zuko deserves better. that has got to be the worst take ive ever heard. they had a fight in ember island. that is NORMAL. they are teenagers. they are not perfect. but underneath all the rough edges and things they need to work out they still care about eachother so freaking much. i genuinelt believe that neither of them would do anything to intentionally hurt the other and i think thats what matters the most. if anything mai is the best girlfriend in the entire world because zuko fucked up like,, quite a few times. he got rlly jealous and dumped her thru a letter and ppl always say that mai was toxic for being mad at him for those two things. umm she had every right to be mad at him for both of those. and while zuko is allowed to feel his emotions and be angry sometimes as well sometimes he needs to think things thru and realize that hey maybe some if this jealousy is unfounded. BUT EVEN THEN. HE RESPECTED HER FEELINGS AND DIDNT TOUCH HER WHEN SHE SAID DONT TOUCH ME. HE RESPECTED HER. so i hate toxic maiko takes because they are literally so wrong in my opinion.

again all of these are just my opinions!! feel free to agree or disagree but please be respectful!! i will respect whatever u think as well because this is all just for fun :)

[lostsoulaltair]

Owari no Seraph. Special Analsys for Hiragi Mahiru - Part II

Yesterday I started updating again, likewise, I posted an analysis of Mahiru’s actions related towards chapter 97 but, likewise, people have different opinions and that’s alright, but well, I’d like to reply to the post of a person that was kind enough to give its respective opinion; as for that, I do have answers for the actions Mahiru did in the past; therefore, let’s begin!

Before starting to reply said post which is something I’ve seen with other people that share the same ideas, let’s first recall what was Mahiru’s vision back in the LNs along the criteria that is often thought about Mahiru:

Mahiru manipulated Guren  (Wrong)

First of all, Mahiru and Guren didn’t meet as a random thing; their meeting was elaborated by Rigr Stafford; at that time, Mahiru and Guren were 5 years old; back in the day, Mahiru’s mother was murdered by Tenri’s orders; which made Mahiru leave the Hiragi household; what she wouldn’t expect was to meet a young boy around her age.

(This is taken from Catastrophe LNs and World Resurrection LNs)

The young girl didn’t reveal information about her since she wanted for once be a normal girl, she called herself a fairy of the forest; of course Guren didn’t believe such thing but nevertheless, both enjoyed each other company; said happiness wouldn’t last forever, since the Hiragi Family found Mahiru and of course, that leads us to the scene on which Guren is beated

According to the Official LNs of the World Resurrection at 19; Rigr planned those two to meet each other; he wanted to keep removing the power within the Hiragi household but what he didn’t expect was that Guren Ichinose and Mahiru Hiragi would fall in love with each other.

After Mahiru was taken back, Guren kept on with his training which is something Mahiru did as well until the promised day came, they met back back when they were in highschool.

Back in the LN Vol 3, Mahiru made a phone call for Guren, on which she begged him to kill her; Guren of course, having the same feelings towards hers wants to know why Mahiru is doing all of the activities she did back in the Catastrophe; Guren eventually reaches a building; said building had a diary. Such diary was Mahiru’s diary.

Such diary had information about her and Shinoa such as the events we saw in the latest chapter whcih focused on the Hiragi sisters; Guren learnt that Mahiru and Shinoa were born as guinea pigs, they were the only ones that remained alive and healthy, eventually said experiment was stopped due to the cost it carried.

Though, new experiments started and this is due to the fact, Mahiru one day had a dream, a dark dream; she was in an endless darkness and was constantly interrogated by an Oni or a Demon. Said dream was shared with Shinoa; which is exactly the events of chapter 97; Mahiru warned Shinoa to not tell anyone about it, and of course, in order to make Shinoa endure all the torture methods they could do, Mahiru managed to erase Shinoa’s memories in order to make her a person without emotions.

Due to this, Shinoa ended up forgetting many things, and eventually Mahiru ended up removing Shinoa’s demon and took it within her; which is also stated in the diary she left for Guren back when she had more control over herself.

Mahiru’s contradiction (wrong)

Another point a user along and friend of mine that has been doubtful  pointed out, was that why Mahiru cared if in chapter 57 Mahiru was encouraging Shinoa to open up her heart a bit more so she could see her again:

(Image taken from Official Translation of chapter 56)

Back then, Mahiru didn’t know what monster was exactly possessing her sister, Mahiru believed Shinoa could take down her demon after so many years passed, after the experiments no longer existed, but, now, you might wonder how she wasn’t able to recognize how dangerous was Shinoa’s demon if she took it within her.

For this, there’s an explanation; Shikama Doji is capable of only displaying himself as a scythe, in the catastrophe, he was tied to Tenri Hiragi, he wasn’t tied to a contract until the cursed gears existed; Mahiru used Shikama Doji when she went to meet up the Queen and eventually made Guren to return it to Shinoa; but, the sole issue is, that Shikama is known for being a liar along being someone who’s able to have control over its own manifestation as seen in chapter 72

(Image taken from Official Translation of chapter 72)

Within that arc, Guren and Mahiru were aware a monster was roaming free, a monster trying to possess the Hiragi Family, but here comes the issue, they believed that whoever controlled fate and the Hiragi Family, was a monster that came directly from Tenri, instead of having suspiciousness of being the same monster residing within Shinoa:

(Image taken from Official Translation of chapter 72)

Within those moments, Shinoa was ambiguous and didn’t reveal whenever the monster was the same as the one possessing Tenri or Kureto, but rather, gave an idea that she was fending against that thing for so long, when in reality, the monster has been the one she was born to; and that revelation occured when Yu was in danger

(Image taken from Official Translation of chapter 74)

At that very moment, Guren realized who they were fighting, and, by obvious reasons, Mahiru as well, which that’d explain that Mahiru didn’t know Shikama Doji’s real appearance but then again, how can I state that?

That’s very simple:

(Image taken from Official Translation of chapter 71)

Mahiru found out thanks to being a demon, who was the monster that always tried to prey within them, but well, things went south with Shinoa, she got possessed but eventually was saved.

Mahiru murdered Guren’s friends out of anger (Wrong)

It is believe that Mahiru enjoyed the chase of the cat and the mouse with Guren and his squad along Kureto, this is wrong; she was delaying everything; back in the Catastrophe, she was keeping two demons within her, which were corrupting her and taking away her humanity faster; she couldn’t withstand the intensity of having two demons within her since she could hear the voices from them; but, at the same time, she remembered what was she fighting for; she was often seen as a person with hurry but in fact, she was desperately trying to make or set things in order to keep her two loved persons alive, them being Guren and Shinoa.

After she became a vampire, the contract with Shikama Doji and Asuramaru was broken, her heart was no longer human, and the cursed gears were like poison to her and the final race was beginning.

While I understand why people get angry about her for killing Guren’s squad, there’s a reason for that.

Have you forgotten that Tenri Hiragi was alive at those moments?

If Mahiru didn’t kill Guren’s friends, they wouldn’t have been saved in any possible way, how can I state that?

Tenri’s goal was to follow up the orders of the First Progenitor; and he’d always neutralize whoever was a nusiance or in this case, he’d have gotten rid of the people who didn’t serve any longer; Mahiru would have been dead still but in the case Guren’s friends didn’t die, Tenri would have personally killed them without mercy, and thus, Guren wouldn’t have been able to even bring them back.

You might ask or wonder how I can state such things and this is due to the fact, that in the Final Volume of the Catastrophe, Kureto had a conversation with Tenri Hiragi; Kureto learnt that Tenri was behind everything along the fact that he used Shinoa as a hostage so Mahiru couldn’t refuse or do the opposite of what she wished to do; so Mahiru did her best to fool Tenri along the Hyakuya Sect without having Shinoa getting killed.

Within this, it doesn’t mean her actions are well seen, nor it’s something that readers enjoy, myself included, but, if she didn’t do such things, there wouldn’t be even a story in the first place; if Mahiru didn’t protect Shinoa, Shinoa would either have been dead or would have been submitted to worser experiments until they were able to trigger her demon within the process.

The experiments of the Hyakuya Sect and Mahiru were part of a deal; the Hyakuya Sect which was under Rigr Stafford’s care had its own goals, Mahiru only aimed to use Rigr’s personal ambition and goal to actually use it in benefit for humanity in order to make humanity get rid of the curse.

Along this, it is to state that she never enjoyed children experimentation; back when she visited Yu, she was angry by the fact on how he was experimented upon; which is why, when she saw him, she told him he had the right to live along finding a reason to live.

For now, this will be the second part of her character analysis. Mahiru is a complex character that hides too well her emotions but in reality, Mahiru was afraid, she had to face the world alone, she was gifted but instead of being like Tenri, she aimed to break the ties she had with them, she tried to bring some sort of salvation to new generations to come along the fact she entrusted many things to Guren.

Guren’s decision to stand next to her or follow her wasn’t due to manipulation or the sorts, Mahiru was dwelling between demon and her own persona. Within this, a decision was eventually taken, Guren wanted to learn and be next to her and fight with her.

Guren might be seen as an evil character but he’s an anti-hero, he’s doing what it’s possible to bring back what was lost, to actually defeat and get over the curse the First settled within the world. And for that, even if it was inmoral, he required the help of the boys that were experimented upon long ago.

Therefore, I can only say that, despite being portrayed as an evil character, Mahiru did many inmoral things in order to give at least hope to humanity to fight back agains the cruel destiny that was settled in by the First.

[princewylder]

BRO, YUKARI. 👀👀

OK HERE WE GO STRAP IN FOLKS IT'S YUKARI TIME! Also a lot of this is kinda salty? I guess? So just a fair warning I just have strong opinions on Yukari 😔

Ok so Yukari. I love her so so much she's one of my favorite characters in the series and one of my trio of comfort characters (the other two being Akihiko and Mitsuru). She's such an interesting and complex character that gets heavily misinterpreted by a lot of the fandom (*cough* cishet men *cough*).

Like ok first off people say that she's mean but while she can be very rude and one of her big flaws is that she doesn't consider others' feelings she's not entirely a bitch either? I think the best example of this that not many people I've seen talk about is how she's the only character who objects to the protagonist and Fuuka joining immediately and wants to make sure they're not being forced into joining. While ultimately both of those characters join of their own accord, Yukari asks them multiple times if they're ok with joining, something the others never do (Mitsuru is guilty of being quite insistent on them joining but that's a discussion for another time). She also feels incredibly guilty for spying on the protagonist at the start, pointing out multiple times that it is a violation of their privacy. Both of these show that she genuinely cares about other people. Pictures are from you lol <3

On that subject when Ken joins Yukari is actually the nicest to him out of all of them, often making sure that he feels welcome and making an effort to talk to him. I think the only other character that does that (if my memory serves me right) is Fuuka. In her social link too she helps out that little kid that was crying in the middle of Paulownia Mall, staying with them until she found their parents or that they were safe. And even in Ultimax her relationship with Ken is just so cute she's so nice to him, she really is like his big sister. So to say that she's just mean and just a bitch is wrong because there's plenty of examples of her being a very nice person.

And actually a lot of people hate her because of how 'easy' her social link is to reverse (I've seen people on YouTube mention this a few times so I thought I'd talk about it). I think it's either rank 5 or 6 there's a scene where Yukari loses her purse and goes back to get it. You find her surrounded by a bunch of guys who are threatening her and are very close to hurting her. The protagonist steps in to stop them and then chases them off. Now I think it's only in the male route this happens (again my memory is bad so sorry about that 😞) but she gets annoyed at you for helping her and then you're given a few options. The correct one is to leave her alone (or something like that) but the one that most people go for which reverses the Social Link is the option to hug her. And people (male youtubers *AHEM*) get annoyed about this because oh yeah of course in this scenario hugging Yukari is a great option and why the hell would she get angry and reject them like that. Like jeez I don't know definitely not the fact that she's very clearly shaken up by the fact that she was almost attacked by three men (who could have done god knows what to her if we hadn't intervened). And definitely not because she's said lots of times that she doesn't like to rely on anyone (particular men) given the whole situation with her mother. The other thing is that I don't think it's outright stated but I really wouldn't be surprised if Yukari was super touch averse given the situation with her mother throwing herself at random men all the time. And (as we discovered lol) there's a very high possibility that her mother was an alcoholic because of this she says in the answer after Junpei's past where he talks about his alcoholic dad:

So like if her mother was an alcoholic there is a high chance she could have suffered some form of abuse which would lead her to being very anti touch. So it really drives me mad when people get annoyed about her Social Link being so easy to break because if you think for a second before doing anything, you'll realize it makes sense that she wouldn't want to be hugged.

But that's enough salt, I love Yukari for a lot of different reasons but the main one is (predictably given that it's me) her relationship with Mitsuru. Regardless of how you want to view it, they are so important and integral to each other's character development. From the tension between them at the start of the game to the end where they're so close, it's honestly one of the best relationships in the game in my opinion. You can really see how much they grow to care for each other. Yukari is the only character brave enough to call Mitsuru out for her bullshit and you can see how Mitsuru grows to appreciate that (because as much as I love Mitsuru, Yukari is absolutely valid to call her out for some of the stuff she does and she needs Yukari to do that). Yukari also ends up being the catalyst to Mitsuru's ultimate persona awakening. At the start of the game too, we're made to believe that both of them are very different. But as the game progresses we're shown that they're actually quite similar. Something I love that the movie does is this scene here (again thank you for pointing this out to me):

The way Yukari finishes Mitsuru's sentence so to speak shows that they actually have pretty similar reasons to awakening to their powers (Mitsuru in order to protect her father and Yukari to protect her father's memory and find out the truth about what happened to him). Yukari also helps Mitsuru open up to others (she's the only other person aside from Akihiko that Mitsuru calls by their first name) and Mitsuru helps Yukari (in a way I can't explain because my brain is failing me) to not judge people as much. They're so important to each other and their character development is so interlinked I just love it so much and it's a big reason as to why I love both of them.

And my other reason as to why I love Yukari is that she's allowed to express her anger in a way that isn't fake or cute (I honestly can't think of another female character who is allowed to do this but I'm sure there's other examples). The best example of this is of course the Answer which I've spoken about before so I'll do my best to keep it brief. I think Yukari's anger in the Answer is a very real response to grief. She's upset over the loss of the protagonist (whom she's heavily implied to have feelings for but I don't think it's outright stated) and she's jealous of Aigis because she inherited his power. She wants to save him so badly because she really cared for him so now that she has a chance and the others are stopping her (in her eyes) she feels betrayed so of course she's going to lash out. Now I fully acknowledge that what she was doing was wrong and she is acting very rude but as I said it's her way of dealing with grief. Something P3 does very well is show how different characters react to grief (eg Mitsuru closing off even more from the others, Akihiko deciding to take it in his stride, Ken having a similar reaction etc). And Yukari's way is no expectation and it's not bad because there's no bad or wrong way to deal with grief. Something people forget as well is that she acknowledges and apologies to the group after the Erebus fight for her behavior and she explains herself (another example of how she is actually a nice person and not a total bitch). I just really related to how she dealt with the whole thing and I love her for that. I also think that some of the other characters in the series (Ann mainly) should have been allowed to express their anger in a more... Real way? Ugly way? I'm not sure how to describe it but I would have liked to see them get angry in a way that wasn't cute (somebody pointed out that the negative reaction to Yukari's anger is probably what stopped future female characters from doing just this and it was an excellent point).

OK so this was super rambling and if you got to the end then wow thank you. I just really love Yukari and it makes me upset how a lot of fans treat her, either as a typical oh this is my persona waifu uwu or she's such a bitch I hate her with no thought process. I honestly understand why some people don't like her but I just ask that people think about how she reacts to certain things and why she acts the way she does before just essentially watering her down to a bitch with daddy issues. She's my emotional support bisexual and I adore how she interacts with the other cast (especially Mitsuru).

[salmonthestoryteller]

Salmon is going to rant again. Promise to get back to regular spec next post. I'll mark this with the anti tag, but no other show tags. So, as always, please respect that.

So I couldn’t fully put my finger on what was bothering me about Miluca in s2 - I figured it was just a series of choices I didn’t like. Maria chasing after Michael after he ghosted her, them getting back together during Mimi’s disappearance (the kiss happening when it happened, in particular, was just a big squick for me), Michael physically holding her in the scene when she’s angry at him after finding out about all the secrets; 02x06 in general.

But something still wasn’t sitting right with me even during their other s2 scenes - and I was fine with them in s1 so I couldn’t figure out what the issue was. Finally connected the dots.

I love some snarky banter. And I really think snarky banter couples are super fun. It’s why I hopped on the Maribel train at the end of season one. Clearly from her interactions with Michael, Maria is a snarky style flirt. It was easy enough for me to see potential in her and Isobel’s interactions.

Here’s the thing, though. I like snarky banter. And banter is two-ways.

In season one, Michael gave as good as he got with Maria. The snark about the fire code, telling her he didn’t want her number, the “usually” in Texas.

Let’s step back, though. Because we’re introduced to Michael’s romantic style with Alex - and snarky banter isn’t actually at the top of their positive interactions. Instead, Michael leans towards honest conversation and romantic declarations. Telling him about his music when they’re teens, about his childhood when they’re adults, about his bunker, his spaceship - even about Walt in season two. And in between are declarations like, “Not with anyone I liked as much as I like you”, “I never look away, not really”, and “If anyone’s going to destroy me, it may as well be you”.

Who does Michael have truly snarky banter with? Isobel. Max. His siblings.

It’s little wonder so many of us were sold on a sibling style relationship for Maria and Michael in season one - Michael is snarkiest with the Pod Squad. He actually is less snarky with Alex by comparison, and Alex is his main romantic relationship. Even the two times we see Michael with a potential hook up (The girl at the reunion in s1, Lindsey in s2) - there is no sign of the snarky banter style of flirtation.

In RNM season 2 - Michael’s half of the snark completely disappears from the Miluca relationship. Instead, he starts to display the type of romantic style we’re used to associating with Michael. Telling her about Sanders letting him crash on his couch in his teens. Trying to talk to her about her powers, her health, her visions, etc. But Maria does not return in kind - she continues to snark at him.

One-way snark can come across very poorly - particularly in a romantic relationship. Written badly, it can even look toxic. Given that we’ve spent a season with Maria doing absolutely nothing for Michael, the one-way snark only makes the relationship seem even more uneven. (Season one she let him stay for a drink when he was upset and sat with him when he talked to Arizona. Season two there has been nothing similar. Even the trip last episode, they made clear was not about her being there to support him.)

It doesn’t work. Michael either needs to start roasting Maria back again, or Maria needs to stop snarking at Michael and start returning his honest communication in kind. Because continuing as it’s currently being written, Miluca is coming across as an unhealthy relationship - with Michael carrying all the emotional burden and receiving nothing in return.

Last year during s1, I said that Michael was clearly shown as being what Maria needed in a romantic relationship, but that I hadn't been sold on the idea that Maria could be what Michael needed. Almost to the end of s2, and that has definitely not changed. If anything, I'm even more convinced she's not - Michael hasn't relied on Maria emotionally once. In fact, he's mainly relied on Alex. When not with Alex, his emotionally vulnerable scenes have been with Isobel and Liz. (Or an unconscious Max once.)

Michael broke down over Max's temporary death in the scene with the car, but there is so much else he hasn't unpacked. I expected an emotional journey for Michael this season I have yet to truly see. So, honestly, can we please have Miluca break up so Michael can finally go on that journey in s3? Because as it currently stands their relationship is only getting in the way of that journey, not aiding it.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

a meaty pack of anti LO opinions:

(1) Older version of lo had much more better design. Hades and other males didnt have such a big nises, there wasnt so much same face problem, colors qerent so neon and eye hurting, persephone didnt have different hair every episode, not every female was so much shorter than man(some were only a little shorter some were more shorter) so there wasnt same body syndrome

(2) Reading through peoples comments and opinions on LO on this blog, makes me realize that RS has done the ultimate storyteller mistake of not have written any manuscript or thinking through the themes and characters beforehand. If you write your comic based on fan reaction, then the story is ultimatly doomed. I'm no experienced comic artist myself, but I can only imagine how exhausting that kind of situation would be for someone like her.

(3) A big issue too is that RS has created a cult of personality around herself. Other WT creators don't interact with their fandoms like she does. She's in their discords and making the rules for them, she's in their (private!) fangroups forcing them to conduct what they say, she's barging in on their posts and obviously looking at all sorts of threads for praise or criticism to get angry over. That's not a good thing, especially when we can tell she dictates her writing choices off fan response.

(4) What was the point of that episode other than the pomegranate symbolism which we've used like 4 times already and a cliffhanger we didn't need? Maybe establishing Persephone is insecure but we've done that already too

(5) The new fastpass episode really annoyed me. She's literally just stretching out the story at this point. *Spoilers (for 147)* When Artemis confronts Apollo, she decided to introduce a whole new character to interject into the conversation. I wouldn't mind if we weren't 147 episodes in and no trial in sight. Like, the character just came out of nowhere to defend Apollo.This really just felt like a way to add more hype while ignoring how long it's being dragged out. (the same anon adding:) I just realized, the myth surrounding that goddess (It's Leto btw), if Rachel chooses to follow it, would make Apollo related to Zeus.I'm dying inside.((*The title was because her and Leto were friends then, Hera made her an outcast (hence pariah).*))             

(6) I think LO's crown is sliding a bit. Down to Earth is now the top romance series (rating wise). I see this as a great thing as it means that maybe other series will be able to get more recognition instead of LO being the main focus. 

(7) Prepare yourself: according to LO fastpass spoilers Apollo is on the track to redemption (yes, after raping the main character! And trying to blackmail her!) because it's being revealed his actions such as chasing after Persephone and lack of respect towards women are due to [drumroll please] him being manipulated and abused by Leto! Who told him to try and get together with Persephone! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

(8) I just cant with the recent chapters of LO. Do we rlly need a back to back mindless shipping fother between H and P? We get it, their horny for each other. Moving on.

(9) I actually liked the panels in the recent LO chapter. It was filler and fluff but for once the composition it was nice

(10) by @jackcinephile : I know this is stupid, but I just needed to get my thoughts out there. The general response to the newest LO episode really bothers me. I don't like how many people clearly think one-sided relationships are ideal. Everyone is saying that Persephone shouldn't have to do anything for Hades while he continuously worships the ground she walks on. Hell, he's practically committing treason by keeping her safe in his home. All Persephone does is smile and look pretty. Hades is risking everything for Persephone and she barely does anything in return. I'm so upset by this because I used to think this is how relationships are supposed to be. It's wrong for Persephone to barely put in an effort, especially when Hades goes above and beyond for her safety and happiness. Both partners will always be of equal value and importance to each other, in any kind of relationship. So far, everything in this relationship suggests that Persephone's sake is far more important than Hades'

[gffa]

@ap-trash-compactor replied:

1/7 I wanna preface this by saying I agree with everything you’re saying here but I think there’s another layer to how Raffa’s story functions both textually and meta-textually, and to what it illustrates about how many people in the Galaxy /might/ perceive the Jedi, which I personally haven’t seen addressed yet. Sorry in advance if this is something you’ve heard/read/discussed ten million times already, but... 2/7 If you took Raffa’s story out of Star Wars and put it into a contemporary drama, changed the word “Jedi” to the word “police,” and made the particulars about a high-speed car chase? I think it would sound pretty believable. And I think this illustrates something Palpatine does through the mechanism of the Clone Wars to make the position of the Jedi especially vulnerable or precarious wrt to public opinion. 3/7 Even if every single Jedi engages w the power and authority of their military or police role only in the best intentioned, most good-faith way imaginable (which the Umbara arc tells us doesn’t always happen), any time you are in a role where you, even have without wanting or intending to, exercise the power of life and death other lives, you will cause pain and be a target for resentment. Someone will lose someone, and be angry. 4/7 No matter how good or how well-intentioned or how compassionate they are, during the Clone Wars the Jedi are forced into the role of a state authority exercising the power of life and death. They are not only a cultural minority during the Clone Wars. They are also a branch of the state, and in that role they sometimes either kill people, or are involved in events where people die and where, no matter their intentions, they are the face of the state and the voice of authority. 5/7 Many of the military and police actions shown in different episodes of this series leave destruction in their wake. The Jedi’s participation is barely by choice and almost never by preference— but if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your parents just died, the distinction probably does not matter much. I think this is a corner Palpatine absolutely wanted to paint the Jedi into, because it absolutely serves his goals. 6/7 There are not many Jedi during the Clone Wars. Certainly there are not many compared to the problems they are trying to fix. I have no doubt Luminara tried her best, wanted a different outcome, and gave Raffa all the comfort she had the time and the opportunity to give... But if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your only direct experience of the Jedi is like the one Raffa describes? You’re probably primed to consume all of Palpatine’s worst lies. 7/7 If you’re Palpatine, making the Jedi rush from violent crisis to violent crisis doesn’t just distract them from the fact that you’re a Sith Lord — it also makes the Jedi into the face of a lot of negative, hurtful interactions with the state, which is going to impact the way people see them.

I think you and I are very much on the same page!  I have discussed this before (the public’s turning on the Jedi), but I’m always down for discussing it again!  Especially when I love pretty much allllll of this. If you’re Palpatine, making the Jedi rush from violent crisis to violent crisis doesn’t just distract them from the fact that you’re a Sith Lord — it also makes the Jedi into the face of a lot of negative, hurtful interactions with the state, which is going to impact the way people see them. You are spot on with your summation, to the point it’s almost hard for me to respond with anything because I feel like all I can do is bang my fist on the table and go, “Yes!  This is what I’ve been talking about!”  Though, of course, there is a lot going on here that’s making it complicated. This post that you’re responding to is focused more specifically on the theme of unreliable narrators + the close associations this season has had with Revenge of the Sith (the moments that make us sit up and go, “Oh, that’s foreshadowing for stuff in ROTS!” like Padme’s pregnancy, Anakin’s advice to Rex, etc.), but there’s also what you’re talking about here--that it’s been a long-running theme in the GFFA that public sentiment turned against the Jedi and that the causes of that are fascinating. I said a bunch of times that Rafa’s hurt in this episode is valid, that there’s room for both the Jedi acting with honorable intentions and that people don’t trust them, don’t draw comfort from them, that these things are not mutually exclusive and you’re hitting on exactly why--because they were put into a situation where, if they’re not 100% perfect, then they’re going to fall off the pedestal they’ve been put onto.  That any flaw they have will then get magnified a hundred times. Luminara seems to have made a point to go back and try to talk to Rafa, to tell her a phrase that is narratively meaningful within Star Wars on a meta level, like, that says to me that she has really good intentions!  But that Rafa doesn’t draw any comfort from it, as a non-Force sensitive and someone who probably is left to the Republic’s shitty welfare services (which isn’t the Jedi’s jurisdiction, they’re not social workers and we can’t expect them to be), doesn’t undercut Luminara’s presumed good intentions, just as Luminara’s presumed good intentions don’t undercut Rafa’s hurt. And that it’s understandable--because, as the Maul arc in season 5 says, the Jedi aren’t doing the things that they used to do, that crime is flourishing because they’re being so busy with this war they’ve been drafted into.  Even Star Wars: Propaganda makes it clear that public sentiment turned against the Jedi because of a cultural absence, rather than anything they actively did. This is all by design from Palpatine, that he’s keeping them so busy putting out tire fires on Ryloth (who were being slaughtered by the Separatists), on Mon Calamari (who were being enslaved by the Separatists), on Kiros (who were being kidnapped and taken into the resumed Zygerrian slave empire), that they don’t have time to do the things they used to, like take care of a lot of the criminal elements or the outreach programs that we see hinted at in the supplementary material. The Jedi had to make a choice between fighting in a war where entire worlds were being enslaved, that there were only so many of them and they were dying, that they died in droves on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones and they’re dying every day in the war, that they were literally one out of six billion in the galaxy at their height, and that they had a million expectations placed on them.  They have very little political capital/power, yet they’re expected to solve all the problems in ways that will last.  They’re expected to police the Underworld, but also not police the Underworld because then they’re restricting people.  They’re expected to be social workers.  They’re expected to fight and die in a war that the public itself refuses to stand up in.  And when they don’t live up to those impossible perfections, they’re torn down. This is not to set aside that of course there are instances of people like Trace and Rafa, where the destruction wreaked by chasing down someone like Ziro is going to sometimes cause people to get hurt and, honestly, I don’t feel like Rafa really blamed Luminara for that, given the acknowledgement of the crowded platform she was trying to avoid.  But if she had?  That, too, would have been reasonable and understandable!  That it doesn’t matter if the Jedi were doing literally everything they could, that doesn’t mean there’s not also room for Rafa’s hurt.  And that, even if I think there was absolutely nothing that Luminara could say that would have given Rafa comfort, that doesn’t make Rafa’s hurt/viewpoint any less empathizable. My blog tends to focus on the Jedi side of things because those are the characters I’m interested in, not because they’re the only element that matters. In the meta we’re responding to, a lot of the focus is on Luminara and the Jedi because that’s my jam, that’s the part I thrive on, but we’re definitely in agreement that Rafa’s feelings are not wrong and it’s not hard to see where they come from! I do take issue with the idea of--whether it’s true or not, we can all argue about it all day long, but it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not--that if the Jedi are remote and distant from the galaxy, that that narratively is approved of how they then “kind of brought their downfall (aka, violent genocide) on themselves”.  That’s something I’ve seen skirted around in commentary from the creators and I’m wary of it leaking into the narrative in a more substantial way.  But that’s an entirely separate issue from the fact that anti-Jedi sentiments exist in the narrative and that they led to the Jedi Purge/Jedi genocide. As part of the propaganda and manipulations Palpatine did, yes, absolutely, that is one of the most fascinating things!  And that doesn’t mean that there’s not validity to those feelings, even if they’re rooted in propaganda and manipulation! But that, just as there’s room for Rafa’s hurt despite Luminara’s intentions, there’s room for the Jedi’s good intentions despite the public’s hurt and/or mistrust. My thing is that I tend to look at why the Jedi act the way they do and I usually come away with empathy for how they got into the situations they did.  Like, take their alignment with the Republic, which was an organization with corruption down to the roots by the time of the Twilight of the Republic, that that association absolutely led to their downfall/genocide.  But what else could they do?  Being part of the Republic in that way allowed them to actually help people, to have negotiating power, to form treaties that would be honored even when they were no longer on a given planet.  If they weren’t under the jurisdiction of the Senate, they could not have helped as many people as they did, especially because how would they even be able to afford starship fuel or housing costs?  Would they charge people for their services?  That’s a disaster waiting to happen! There’s room for both “the best option for the Jedi was to be part of the Republic and try to improve the system from the inside, which is what they did” AND “the being part of the Republic is what ultimately fucked them”, those things are both true! but if you are one of the Raffas of the galaxy and your parents just died, the distinction probably does not matter much. I think this is a corner Palpatine absolutely wanted to paint the Jedi into, because it absolutely serves his goals. Spot on!  I have fun looking at what Luminara’s intentions likely were and what the context of the structure of the show entails, that Rafa’s character doesn’t have to be a reliable narrator to be valuable (and I say this as someone who actually really loves the unreliable narrators of SW, which honestly is almost literally every single character, very few are ones you can take at face value without seeing the circumstances for yourself), but to Rafa it doesn’t really matter what Luminara did or didn’t say, because that’s not what she was looking for or what she got out of that conversation.  I can’t say I would act differently in her position! And that’s exactly what Palpatine did.  He pulled the Jedi in so many different directions, made them responsible for things that literally no group could possibly have survived with public sentiment intact, and even if the Jedi had been literally perfect (which they weren’t), it wouldn’t have mattered, given that the entire point of the prequels is that you gotta choose between Shitty Option A and Shitty Option B. It’s the galaxy’s worst ever version of, “Which would you rather?” except its real and you have to play the game, because not playing gets you fucked over even faster, like it did with Mandalore.

[sims4monarchist]

A Lesson in United Realm History: The Reign of Empress Heida II

Empress Heida II is one of the most memorable, renowned and commemorated monarchs in the history of the United Realm - formerly known as the Empire of Cisleithania - as well as its longest reigning monarch, having ruled the empire for 63 years. 

Born to Emperor Felix III and Empress Juliana in 1818, she was the younger sister of then-Crown Prince Karl, and spent her childhood and young adult life with no expectation of ever acceding to the throne, especially after Crown Prince Karl married Princess Frigolda of Lippe and had a son with her. 

In 1839, Heida married the youngest son of the Duke of Dornn, Lord Augustus, and they soon welcomed three children into the world, Archdukes Gustav and Otto and Archduchess Charlotte. The family settled in Telluride Castle in the Grand Duchy of Erebor, an alpine estate that now serves as a winter retreat for the Imperial Family. 

Three years later, Archduchess Heida’s father, Emperor Felix, passed away from a bladder infection and her brother was proclaimed Emperor Karl III. He and his wife, Empress Frigolda, were crowned in a grand ceremony at Stephanorhinos Cathedral, the ancient church where all previous coronations had been held.  That same year, Heida gave birth to her fourth and last child, Archduchess Silvia.

Alas, the life of the young family was about to drastically change. Only a year after he ascended the throne, Karl III was taken ill with severe pneumonia. He battled the disease for several weeks but ultimately succumbed to it. His son, Crown Prince Dion - now Emperor Dion IX - was too young to rule on his own, so his aunt Archduchess Heida was made Regent of the empire. Since his mother, the Dowager Empress, was not a blood member of the Imperial Family, she could not assume that title herself. 

Things soon got worse. In 1844, only a year after his father had died, the 8-year-old Emperor Dion was struck down with typhoid fever. Doctors did their best to help him heal, but he would never recover from the disease. Upon his death, Archduchess Regent Heida was formally declared Empress Heida II, Ruler and Autocrat of all Cisleithanians. 

A Coronation Portrait of Empress Heida II

Heida was devastated. She was only required to act as Regent until Dion turned 16, but now she would spend the rest of her life as monarch. She famously wore black every day for ten years after her coronation, mourning not only for her deceased nephew, but also for the life she never had.

Empress Heida and her family moved into the Imperial Palace in Uplic, which was found to be in a seriously dilapidated state. The Empress ordered a complete renovation of the palace, taking the time to adjust it to her needs. She was a great lover of nature, so an illustrious garden was erected on the south lawn of the palace. 

During her reign, the Empire of Cisleithania saw an economic boom thanks to the many trade partnerships and agreements she had managed to negotiate. The Middle and Upper classes saw a great spike in their wealth, but the working class, not so much. A new and dangerous movement of anti-monarchist, anti-imperialist workers was rapidly growing and spreading across the empire, threatening the peace and prosperity - and even the very existence - of the empire. Domestic tensions in Cisleithania came to a boiling point when a group of assassins bombed the Solisan Royal Theatre during a ballet performance, killing 23 aristocrats who were in attendance and wounding dozens more. 

Rather than being angry and chasing after the bombers, the wise Empress Heida understood that this violence was a result of her inaction. For too long, the working class, especially ethnic minorities, have been underrepresented in national debate and often oppressed. The conservative court which Heida had inherited opposed any mention of reform and strongly advised the Empress against improving the conditions of workers. Now that the Empress has sat on the throne for nearly 20 years, she had had enough. She dissolved the Council of State - the group of aristocrats and courtiers who counselled her - and decided to take matters into her own hands. 

The first and most significant reform she decreed was nicknamed “The Great Reset” or “The Cisleithanian Reformation”, which had completely altered the face of the Empire. It formally changed the name of the empire from Cisleithania to the United Realm of the Federated States, and established a federal, almost democratic system where the states of the empire, who numbered 6 at the time, had more autonomy and by extent greater representation in the Imperial court. The reform also established democratically elected state assemblies which had more power than the monarchs of those states.

Although the Empress still maintained her absolute power and had the final say in any state matter, this reformation was wildly cheered by the people and cemented Empress Heida’s place as one of the most consequential monarchs in United Realm\Cisleithanian history. The side which had the most to lose from the reform was the aristocracy, whose power over state affairs virtually vanished overnight. A group of aristocrats assembled a small army from their lands and marched on the Imperial Palace, demanding Empress Heida’s abdication. The coup was quickly quashed by the Imperial Guards, and the humiliated nobles were mockingly paraded through the streets of Uplic, whilst being stoned and egged by pedestrians. That put a resounding end to any resistance to the reform. 

For the remainder of Heida II’s reign, the United Realm continued to prosper and grow. In 1890, it had acquired the Kingdom of Tyyr which was accepted as a new state of the empire. 

The last photograph of Empress Heida II, taken weeks before her death. 

In 1908, the old Empress, who turned 90 that year, passed away in her sleep. A wave of mourning swept the United Realm, whose citizens didn’t know what to do now that the “Mother of the Empire” was gone. She was succeeded by her eldest son, who became Emperor Gustav I of the United Realm of the Federated States - the first monarch to be crowned as Emperor of the United Realm rather than Emperor of Cisleithania.

Empress Heida II’s legacy lives on to this day. The founder of the modern-day United Realm, her achievements and policies shaped its future and secured its prominent position in the world. In 1978, 70 years after her death, Heida’s great-great grandson, Emperor Karl IV - who was the last emperor of her line - issued an Imperial decree making the long-deceased empress, Heida the Great. 

[dirtyfilthy]

The Betrayal Of Chelsea Manning By The Coward Adrian Lamo

I have only participated in “cancel culture” once that I can remember. Once, over the broad course of my life, and that was when Adrian Lamo sold Chelsea Manning out to the authorities. Motherfucker has the  sheer gall to call himself a hacker, and then rats someone out — not because of his principles, but from a constant desire for pure narcissistic supply -- and all this from a position of trust no less… 

I was real angry, and I wanted to put the boot in, any way I could. There was a special circle of hell reserved for people like Adrian Lamo… and as it would turn out, he was already in it. 

Amongst petty vendettas like stuffing his wikipedia page with all the well referenced dirt I could dig up, along the way, and kind of by-the-by, I ended up doing a lot of research on the guy, and then, well, the picture of Lamo that emerged… 

Jesus. 

He’s been a hardcore benzo addict since his twenties. If you know what to look for you can tell in some of his interviews, slurring his words and looking very spacey.  He never really had a real job, never broke into the industry he was aways on the fringes of. It’s kinda crazy, if you search for “homeless hacker Adrian Lamo” you can still see what the mass media thought of him before he turned in Chelsea. 

He’d kind of weaselled his way into popular consciousness by being a shameless self-promoter, and then managing to get caught in that spectacular “rebellious teenage hacker” vs. “huge faceless corporation” way that tends to capture people’s imagination. 

There were whole articles about him in Wired. Multiple in fact. Here’s one of earliest from 2004 (unfortunately now behind a paywall), “New York Times vs The Homeless Hacker”. The first few lines can still give you the gist, however

A self-styled security expert and serial self-promoter, Adrian Lamo made headlines as a grayhat hacker. Then the Gray Lady came down on his head. Not long ago Adrian Lamo was exploring an abandoned gypsum processing plant in West Philadelphia with two friends, when a police cruiser drove slowly by. Lamo’s friends were high on methamphetamines…

https://www.wired.com/2004/04/hacker-5/

Even during this phase of his life, a lot of people in the scene didn’t like him. At least, there were people complaining on hacker boards about him stealing exploits and then burning them for the publicity.  In the end he got off with probation and home detention, and that was the end of blatantly hacking into shit. Any more and he would certainly end up in prison. Attitudes were changing, the authorities had stopped seeing hacking as just high-spirited teenage hijinks. and the increasingly severe penalties could land you some serious time. 

After this, he just sorted floated around. He never got job in the industry like the rest of us, and I suspect he may have been  basically unemployable for one reason or another. The next time he popped up in my news feed was in 2010 with a strange article from ex-hacker turned journalist and friend of Lamo’s,, Kevin Poulsen — “Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized, Diagnosed with Asperger’s” 

The first paragraph or so reads:

Last month Adrian Lamo, a man once hunted by the FBI, did something contrary to his nature. He says he picked up a payphone outside a Northern California supermarket and called the cops.

Someone, Lamo says, had grabbed his backpack containing the prescription anti-depressants he'd been on since 2004, the year he pleaded guilty to hacking The New York Times. He wanted his medication back. But when the police arrived at the Safeway parking lot it was Lamo, not the missing backpack, that interested them. Something about his halting, monotone speech, perhaps slowed by his medication, got the officers' attention

— (https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lamo/)

The article claimed Lamo had been arrested for acting strangely and then institutionalised, basically claiming the police had arrested him because he was autistic. At the time, I didn’t really give this a second thought, “oh well, ho-hum”. As itt turned out, this was a case of the most spectacular kind of “spin” I think I’ve ever seen; the only place the article actually intersected with general consensual reality was in stating Lamo had been arrested and placed on psychiatric hold.

The real story, which is entirely far more pathetic, was that Lamo’s family had become worried about his benzo use (“prescription anti-depressants”) and had cut him off. He totally lost the plot at this point and stormed out of house. Concerned about his mental state, and with fears for his physical safety, it was actually  his own family that called the police to try and find him. 

When confronted about this fairly massive discrepancy, Lamo claimed he hadn’t exactly “lied” as such, and had simply withheld some facts due to personal privacy concerns. 

It was at this point I finally began to see the whole tattered trajectory of Lamo’s entire life — trace the greasy path of his rainbow with my fingertips, and watch as the once bright twine became  increasing gray and frayed as each thread began to curve back towards it’s inevitable impact with the earth, when, at which point, everything important would begin to totally unravel around him.

At his core, Adrian Lamo was a narcissist, and so Adrian Lamo absolutely believed in the Adrian Lamo narrative, as only a narcissist can. Near of beginning of his tale, this was easy to do. He was a wandering Daoist sage, a renegade techno-monk character in a Neal Stephenson cyberpunk novella, and anytime he wanted to see his own reflection he could simply look in any of the major newspapers.  

After his arrest and release, the rest of the world moved on. His peers all settled down to well-paid industry gigs, and you couldn’t just pop the New York Times through an open proxy any longer — well, at least: not most of time, anyway. His own sword, never the exactly the sharpest in the first place, was beginning to show some signs of a serious structural rust. 

Without the constant assurance of people telling his own story back at him, what was he exactly? What did the mirror portray to him now?  An unemployed, semi-homeless drug addict, a hacker who couldn’t hack his way out of wet paper back with pick axe, the tired punch line to any number of bad jokes...   

Of course, the many similarities to my own life were not exactly lost on me. I was basically a case of being a few near misses and unlucky hits away from sitting in his exact position. I had made the transition to an industry career successfully, but I was still a drug addict with mental heath issues.  I had gone through my own narcissistic stage when I was younger, but thankfully grew out of it, the old moons no longer pulled on my tides the way they used to. 

The essential Lamo pattern had began to emerge. Still chasing the same bright stars that had long since sunk beneath the horizon line of the ocean; Lamo would begin to feel irrelevant —  Lamo would get then his name in the media in some fashion. A momentary peace was then achieved, then came a brief period of post-orgasmic. cosmic serenity. 

But of course, the wheel of karma will not stop spinning for anyone, and so, soon enough and all-to-quickly, the entire process of personal renewal, would have to, you know…..  begin anew.

A few other case studies were observed. An unreleased, permanently unfinished documentary featuring Lamo was mysteriously leaked on the internet. Of course, Lamo himself had leaked it. And there was always appearing on various morning television shows, Good Morning America, Fox News & the like.

But then the mother of all opportunities just dropped into his lap.

Chelsea Manning needed someone to talk to. 

Chelsea knew Lamo was Bi, so he was at least in the LGBT community. Adrian was a hacker too. He’d fought against the system in his day, he was certainly someone who would “get it”, she was very sure of this.  And when she did reach out, he was indeed very sympathetic. Honestly, it seemed like he really cared. Just a genuine human being, reaching out across the vast emotional void to provide a sense of empathy to someone who really, really needed it right now.. 

He was very sympathetic when Chelsea told him all about her struggles with gender identity, and he was very sympathetic when she said she was leaking gigabytes of information to Wikileaks…. But behind his sunglasses, Lamo eyes had already morphed into a marquee LED matrix endlessly scrolling his own name. Think of the news coverage!

This was big. This was very big.

It would, in fact, turn out to be fucking huge. Of course, within in the hacker scene, and to a certain extent, even outside it, everyone just fucking loathed him now.  Eventually even the news moved on, nobody wanted any more interviews, and in the end, when everything has already been all said and done: you are ultimately left with only yourself….

… a pathetic drug addict.  Of course, I have to keep telling myself that one point of intersection does not an entire venn diagram or an actual equality make. But I can’t shake the feeling that, perhaps, maybe we weren’t really all that different.  Maybe my own betrayals have had the simple luck of being a lot less public. 

Perhaps my own sins were just as ugly, but far less ambitious. 

Adrian Lamo died alone, from a drug overdose, in a private unit in an aged care facility in Wichita, Kansas.  He was 37 years old. An autopsy showed his kidneys were already failing. 

I guess Sartre got it wrong. Hell isn’t other people, it’s being left totally alone, with nothing else around but the tedious company of your own terrible self, and of course, the fucker won’t stop talking...

So obviously there was nothing more I could do to hurt Adrian Lamo, nothing that Adrian Lamo hadn’t done already. He had long since locked himself away in a prison cell of his own making. I do wonder if maybe one too many silent 3am’s hadn’t come crawling around the clock face when he was there & awake to witness it, lying in bed & staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about things.

Like I’m doing.

Shit, I hope don’t go out that way. 

[asterekmess]

S3A - E3

Hiya, back with another episode of the rewatch. I am...not looking forward to this episode. *deep breath* here we go.

Read More’s save sanity

Hey, so I know this is a really heavy first bullet point...but isn’t anybody else uncomfortable with the image of a black boy running around out of his mind with fury and bloodlust and going after little...white kids? Am I reading too much into this? I know Cora’s running around too. I just...whatever, I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut.

Straight from way too heavy to way too light. So that girl dropped a big jar of fireflies, but they say that fireflies that actually glow aren’t native to California, which would mean these are part of the whole magic thing going on, and at the end of the whole firefly thing they get rid of all the fireflies. So...what if someone finds that jar and opens it?

...nevermind the jar opened up somehow...

Okay, listen, I have a petty and biased hatred for this moment with Scott. Like...is it so hard to say, “I had to get the kids he was chasing away from him?” It’s not like they don’t have time..they just stand there in silence for a while. I also hate the savior pose he strikes there with the kids clinging to him. Like, I get that it’s a very common trope. I still hate it. I use the anti-scott tag for a reason, let me be salty.

why te fuck does Scott FLOAT in the intro?

Lydia has seriously emptied an entire bottle of ibuprofen? She should be dead. Or at least at a hospital. She’s too smart not to know how dangerous it is to take ibuprofen (even the recommended dosage) for too long at a time.

Lydia...Lydia knows about werewolves now. Did no one tell her about this whole escape plan for the betas? She could’ve helped.

Cue the shitty SFX running. Y’all look ridiculous.

Man, come on. Are you seriously telling me that Derek never played hide and seek with his siblings? Like, they’re werewolves for fuck’s sake. Derek never did fake chases through the woods? He tracked PETER for christ’s sake, all the way across town. He was like yards behind him before he got shot that one time.

This show relies a lot on character’s losing time and just finding themselves places. Jackson losing time, Lydia losing time. Lydia losing time again, but in a new way. Later, it’ll be Stiles losing time. I’m just saying, it happens a lot.

It’s fucking august in California. Does it actually get that cold? Poor Lydia’s nose is always red cus she gets forced to wander around in the dark and freezing. I can see her goosebumps when she kneels next to the pool.

I know it’s gotta be hell on her voice, but I think it’s so interesting the way Lydia screams and how it has to jump around the chords before hitting that one note. I don’t know why I find that so interesting. Guess it just reminds me of a wolf howl. Seriously, look ‘em up. Weirdly similar. GO  Holland!

What do you mean the last memory that she had of her mother, Scott? You should’ve told her RIGHT THEN. Right off the bat. There was TONS of time between her getting bit and when she died. You should’ve told Allison right away. Fuck you, you had all of spring break!

god fucking damn it now I’m crying again. Erica, sweetie...Derek honey...

I’m trying to get past the tears to enjoy this romancey stuff, with the candles and the lil lamps, and the LOTR references. I’m really trying.

This is totally not what I should be thinking about while watching the two of them make out, but like, so does Caitlin not go to their school? She just sort of appears a couple times, but Stiles doesn’t seem to know her. Maybe she went to the same school as Heather?

don’t like bugs don’t like bugs ew ew ew ew

Hi cora!

Isaac! You’re somehow feeling better, even though you were apparently out of commission like an hour or two ago...wait huh?

I gotta say, okay, listen I just can’t help it. I know this is serious, but that lil smirk on Isaac’s face? I don’t think he looks smug, personally, I think he looks like he’s about to go play, go rolling around in the grass and leaves, playing with a pack member. He’s been alone for so long this summer, what with Jackson leaving. he’s had no wolves to play with (cus’ we know Derek’s a grump). As worried as he’s gotta be, I bet he’s having funnnnnn.

I..uh..Cora what sound is coming out of your mouth? That..that does not sound like a wolf. That sounds like a wild cat of some kind. Wolves don’t make that screechy noise. They bark and growl, like the sound that came just before. That doesn’t even sound like a roar. Who gave you cheetah sounds?? You’re canine, not feline. Come on they did SO WELL with Derek’s sounds-- No. NO Do not tell me they gave Cora cat sounds cus she’s a chick. I’m gonna fight someone. (For those of you interested, if you scroll to the bottom of this webpage, you can listen to wolf growl snippets and they’re such good quality (I think the bark snippet is broken tho). Listen to those whimpers and whines too, fucking fascinating. I love wolves. Such beautiful animals.)

Cora with Isaac and Scott attacking her and growling at her: “Fuck you, I’ll bite you!” Cora with Derek just growling at her: “BYE bro!”

Stiles, honey! I missed you! Literally, just the sound of your voice makes me feel better.

Scott, Seriously, Derek just said you haven’t tracked either of them anywhere near the pool. You’ve both been following them all night! Yeah, they’re dangerous, but they couldn’t get to the pool and back in time to fight you! I”M GONNA SMACK YOU. DOn’t use that fucking patronizing tone of voice when Derek is TELLING YOU FACTS.

OUR fault? OUR FAULT? I’m gonna fucking *kicks a chair and storms off, grumbling* *Spins around, cus fuck it i’m gonna yell. it’s my post.* NONE OF THIS is DEREK”S FAULT. NOne of this is ISAAC’S FAULT. Fuck dude, I’ll even say that it’s not Scott’s fault! If it’s anyone other than the Alphas’ fault, it’s Allison’s, but tbf she thought she was helping.

DEREK SHUT YOUR PRETTY MOUTH. I swear to god.

ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING? DEREK WOULD NEVER SUGGEST MURDERING BOYD AND CORA. NEVER. He thought Cora was fucking dead and he just found out she’s alive! HE WOULD NEVER. NEVER. FUCK YOU. FUCK EVERYTHING. *Throws a plate* YOU KNOW YOU ONLY FUCKING WROTE IT SO THAT YOU COULD SHOW OFF SCOOT MCFUCKFACE’S SUDDEN FLIP IN MORALITY BY HAVING HIM SAY THAT “KILLING ISN’T THE RIGHT THING TO DO” OH REALLY Scott? REALLY? Killing is bad? YOU DIDN’T THINK SO WHEN YOU SPENT MONTHS attempting to commit PREMEDITATED MURDER of a GUY WHO WAS ALREADY DYING. MONTHS. Scott. FUCK YOU. FUCK THIS SHOW. 13 minutes in and I’m already about to chuck my laptop across the room. MY CAT WON’T EVEN CUDDLE ME ANYMORE I’M SO ANGRY.

And now I’m really fucking sad, cus’ I hate watching this poor girl get told she’s just hallucinating.

WHY does everyone go shopping at fucking 8 pm in Beacon Hills? What...Chris you don’t even have a day job.

I don’t...I don’t understand this scene with Isaac. Like..what exactly are they trying to imply? That he thinks she’s hot? All he’s seen is her raging around with fangs free and glowing eyes. And yeah, some people definitely think that’s hot. But like...that’s just so...what? I choose to read this scene as him just wondering about Derek’s home life. Like, “Since when do you have siblings? Why don’t you tell me these things? I have an aunt?”

WHAT DO YOU mean “Your world?” CHRIS YOU GREW UP AS A HUNTER. THIS IS YOUR WORLD TOO. He was YOUR dad. You’ve been a part of this WAY longer than Scott! Don’t blame the werewolves for ruining your life! THAT WAS YOUR DAD and YOUR STUPID HUNTER CODE’S FAULT.

OKay, listen, I have so many issues with this I need a therapist to mediate my conversations with it. FUCK YOU TW for bringing in Chris. I dont’ give a fuck if he’s experienced or trying to redeem himself. He is a HUNTER he has Slaughtered Derek’s kind for his entire life. He may want to do the right thing, but the right thing definitely doesn’t involved him Standing in front of Derek and forcing him to listen to hunter PROPAGANDA BULLSHIT. I’M SO FUCKING MAD. This was so inappropriate, holy shit. SO far beyond okay. Even the CONCEPT that werewolves wouldn’t be as good at tracking other werewolves as hunters are is fucking stupid. You said it yourself, Chris they can follow scent up to TWO MILES AWAY. Wolves can track their prey for weeks without losing the scent. Just because Isaac stepped on some footprints doesn’t mean he’s incapable of finding them. And what’s all this shit about them “Being able to rely on their human half”? NO? First off, minor detail. Werewolves aren’t half wolf, half human, dumbass. They’re all werewolf. AND The show has said like Ten TIMES that they can’t access their human form/the thought processes they would normally have during a full moon without an anchor, and Boyd and Cora are effectively anchorless on this moon. This is just utter bullshit and I’m so goddamn angry I don’t even know how to process it. “If you’re not trained like me you have no idea this print is Boyd’s” YEAH THEY DO. THEY CAN LITERALLY SMELL IT.  DEREK ALREADY IDENTIFIED THE TRACKS. FUCK you.

ALSO. Getting REAL SICk of people slicing their wrists every time they need a little blood for a ritual or for bait. YOU CUT THE MEAT of the arm. ON THE BACK. WHERE YOU WON”T HIT a VEIN. DUMBASSES.

WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK DO YOU MEAN NINE YEARS DEREK? YOU’D BETTER MEAN CORA WAS NINE YEARS OLD, CUS’ THE FIRE WAS SIX YEARS AGO. and what do you mean you don’t have a lock on her scent? you’ve been following it just fine all night! Wolves remember human scents decades later.

Booooo, i hate the entire concept of wolves going mad on a full moon. It’s lazy and boring. Wolves are not vicious animals, they’re shy as fuck. THey don’t attack without reason. Werewolves should be the same. Full moon’s enhance their wolfishness, so it should make them MORE SHY. The moon should enhance whatever they feel, rather than just making them mindlessly aggressive.

“Primal apex Predatory satisfaction”? seriously? Shut the FUCK up Chris, I’m really fucking sick of your hunter bedtime stories.

....i hate this woman.

Casual reminder that Isaac wouldn’t suggest Killing boyd. Ever. I fucking hate these writers.

yeah yeah, running scene. blah blah blah.

See, I never really understood those fics where Peter just refuses to give anyone any info. He tells Derek what’s up constantly. He didn’t lie or hold anything back when he helped Derek figure out what was up with Jackson or how Jackson needed Lydia to be cured. He walks right up to Derek and says “Hey, so those Alphas clearly want you to join them and that means they’re trying to make you kill your own pack” Peter helps Derek all the time. He’s just a dick while he does it.

Look, I love this moment with Peter, his “Let Scott be the hero of his morally black and white world. You and I, we live in shades of gray” lines are so good, and they speak so much to his character and personality. And he’s right. But I hate that they built the scene around Derek planning to kill his own pack, and following Scott around doing as he asks. I just hate what they do to Derek here.

The dog whistles suddenly have no effect on their hearing? Love it.

Take a second to bring up a plotline you won’t explain for ages. I vibe with that, so long as it is eventually explained.

OOh, suddenly BHHS has a football field?

Not gonna cry, not gonna cry. FUCK I’m crying again.

I just...dude I’m over here trying not to completely lose my shit and cry like a baby, and Stiles is in the middle of panicking and losing his oldest friend and he still puts the dots together. Like. Jesus christ this boy.

NOW Derek? You choose NOW to take Every Single Step down the stairs? JUMP.

...what is this a cartoon? Glowing eyes in the dark? one too many sets? Yeah, yeah, I get it, they’re supposed to look like fireflies.

Why did you stop to look at each other after blasting them? Just go.

OH, yeah, of course Scott has to be the one to hear the extra heartbeat. Scott. Not Derek. Not the ALpha who’s senses are heightened above the a Beta’s. Not DEREK the ALPHA who has a PACK, which makes his senses even stronger that that. No. Scott. The omega. Because he’s like an inch closer to the door. Yah. Sure. That makes sense. SUre.

Dude I wish my high school had that much backup supplies free for the teacher’s to grab. Also, I hate this woman.

WHy were the lights off in the boiler room if she was in the back grabbing stuff? That..what?

OH. I forgot, so Caitlin’s out of high school? She’s...what, 18? 19? Okay, fine, I’ll take that.

Oh stop faking Jennifer, fuck you.

Crying again. dont’ mind me. This is Derek. Not choosing to kill his beta or his long lost sister. Choosing to die himself instead. THAT is Derek (it’s self-sacrificing and it’s because he gives his own life no worth, but it’s still him.)

HOW IS IT DAWN? THAT WOULD BE like 6 HOURS of standing around! Or did the sun not set until like 10 pm? Hm? This show has no concept of time, and werewolves are very time oriented. Someone take away the show from the writers. They’ve lost their privileges.

I hate this. I hate that Isaac shouts for Scott. Not Derek. That’s just so fucking dumb. I’m so tired of it. I’m just so fucking sick of it.

I don’t even wanna look at this. I hate this woman so much.

YOU REALIZE that the third Virgin was Taken. The third virgin is DEAD. the sacrifices have been made, and now Jennifer has control over people. This is where she starts controlling Derek. Right Fucking Here. He loses his agency the moment they touch, if not the moment they make eye contact or he gets in range. I hate it. I HATE IT.

BOOM. Episode three, and Stiles already has the villain after next figured out. He’s past the Alphas now. 

Final Thoughts: I’m angry, I’m tired, and I honestly got very little joy or interest out of this whole episode. I hate what this show did to werewolves and how much insane Scott glorification there is and how every little thing HAS to be about Scott. Scott’s relationship with Chris. Scott saving the kids. Scott’s the one Isaac calls for. Scott’s the one who hears the heartbeats. I get that he’s the main character. I also hate that he’s the main character. It’s just so sad and pathetic and boring and just....ugh. I’m going to bed. I will try for another episode or two tomorrow.

(I promise I’m okay. Just go listen to the wolf howls for me in that link, huh? Listen to those beauties and imagine how amazing a wolf show could have been.)