#anyway if you actually think one person presiding a group for centuries is a good idea

[shatouto]

sometimes pro-jedi discourse is fun (because i adore the jedi) and sometimes it's just "how much longer can you try to blindly defend one person before you lose track of everything else in the argument"

[lochnessies]

I mean to be fair to edelgard, if I found out the popes/president were actually one guy who lived basically forever, I'd probably at the very least question thus popeident's leadership skills. Especially if I found out that a good portions of this hypothetical popes religion was fake and that also this pope was basically jesus. Granted, that'd mostly because of a lack of context since this hypothetical immortal popes motives are largely unknown.

Like without the context of her motives, Rhea CAN seen in a pretty negative light. She suddenly goes from a mother/grandmother/wife/daughter who's got issues and is trying to protect her relatives and fodlann with her position while trying to turn some homuncili into her mom, to a dragon lady who's been in head of a major religion that she made up for centuries who actively stiffled/slowed down fodlann's scientific/academic growth for unknown reasons.

Like if you didn't know about Rhea's whole deal, she'd look pretty suspiscious. This isn't me saying "edelgard completely right church bad! Rhea is evil!".

I'm more trying to say Edelgard was SORT of right in being suspiscious of everyones favorite lizard pope, but jumped to WAY too fast onto the conclusion of "The church is definitely evil, because crest=bad and crest=blessings of the goddess, therefore church=bad!"

Rhea WORST 'crime' at most as leader of the church is that she was pretty passive as leader of the church. Like, apart from trying to keep the peace as a whole and hiding technology for a while until she decided (maybe arbitrarily maybe not) that humanity was ready for it, she seemed *largely* content with the state of things as a whole. Granted, that strikes me less as her not giving a shit and more just her not knowing about some if the bad shit going on behind the scenes in Fodlann, and her going "Okay yeah thats bad. Buuuut when mom's back she'll be a way better leader and she'll make everything way better than I ever could. Back to studying and researching homunculi children so I can maybe shove my moms soul into one."

That's my take anyway. Basically if Rhea and the lords had a group therapy session a lot of tragedy could have been avoided. Alas therapists don't exist in fire emblem, just look at the various characters with underlying trauma that they havent dealt with.

I mean to be fair to edelgard, if I found out the popes/president were actually one guy who lived basically forever, I'd probably at the very least question thus popeident's leadership skills.

why? wouldn’t their longevity make them better leaders? they have much more experience and know how the world works. i mean, agree with the woman or not, rhea’s results are hard to argue with. 1000 years is an extremely long time to help mitigate peace. our world can’t seem to avoid conflict every half decade it would seem. so it’s not like rhea is doing a bad job of it.

Especially if I found out that a good portions of this hypothetical popes religion was fake and that also this pope was basically jesus. Granted, that'd mostly because of a lack of context since this hypothetical immortal popes motives are largely unknown.

that’s when you have a nice little sit down and have a chat. and also, rhea didn’t make up the religion. it already existed before the war of heroes. all she did was change a couple of details to hide the fact that nabeteans existed and the fact that the elites were mad murderers to keep their descendants safe.

Like without the context of her motives, Rhea CAN seen in a pretty negative light. She suddenly goes from a mother/grandmother/wife/daughter who's got issues and is trying to protect her relatives and fodlann with her position while trying to turn some homuncili into her mom, to a dragon lady who's been in head of a major religion that she made up for centuries who actively stiffled/slowed down fodlann's scientific/academic growth for unknown reasons.

as for the tech thing, i mean, we see most of the tech inside garreg mach itself and nobody acknowledges any bans so it clearly was an extremely long time ago that they were taken down. also, edelgard never mentions these things as her reasons for war (or at all) so i don’t even think she’s aware of them so how could they color her view? like edel canonically doesn’t know about the homunculi so why would she find it sus?

Like if you didn't know about Rhea's whole deal, she'd look pretty suspiscious. This isn't me saying "edelgard completely right church bad! Rhea is evil!".

like i said above, all of rhea’s more suspicious behavior is never mentioned by edelgard. and everybody else in the game seems to like rhea well enough and not find her suspicious and all the crimes edelgard espouses are lies so what even is there that would turn her off from the archbishop other than the ‘beasts hiding in human skin’ thing.

the only character that has real legitimate reasons to not trust rhea due to personal experience and rhea’s extremely suspicious behavior is jeralt which he talks about in his journal. but that’s noting war worthy.

I'm more trying to say Edelgard was SORT of right in being suspiscious of everyones favorite lizard pope, but jumped to WAY too fast onto the conclusion of "The church is definitely evil, because crest=bad and crest=blessings of the goddess, therefore church=bad!"

i’m sure ionius had a hand in this since edel talks about how she has information about the church from him that’s been passed down from emperor to emperor (basically a centuries old game of telephone). what was told? who fucking know. she never says.

Rhea WORST 'crime' at most as leader of the church is that she was pretty passive as leader of the church.

is that the worst crime though? i mean, it’s a damned if you do and a damned if you don’t situation. rhea isn’t a queen, she isn’t an emperor, she’s a spiritual leader. she can’t force people to do anything outside of her staff at garreg mach. hell, she has no presence in adrestia, the western church hates her, and the eastern tries to help in the alliance but the nobles don’t listen to them.

the alternative is for her to grab actual political power and involve herself in the politics of the other nations and make laws that you have to follow the church’s teachings which is… uh… bad. thank goodness she doesn’t bc i wouldn’t be able to defend that lol

Like, apart from trying to keep the peace as a whole and hiding technology for a while until she decided (maybe arbitrarily maybe not) that humanity was ready for it, she seemed *largely* content with the state of things as a whole.

but she isn’t though. that’s why she’s trying to revive sothis in the first place. she isn’t satisfied with how things are and she’s actively trying to being back fodlan’s golden age through sothis.

Granted, that strikes me less as her not giving a shit and more just her not knowing about some if the bad shit going on behind the scenes in Fodlann, and her going "Okay yeah thats bad. Buuuut when mom's back she'll be a way better leader and she'll make everything way better than I ever could. Back to studying and researching homunculi children so I can maybe shove my moms soul into one."

yeah. when it comes to twsitd and them fucking shit up in the background she isn’t aware that it’s them. after the war of heroes the church had tried to uncover who helped nemesis since the church is suspicious of the fact that a simple bandit was able to commit so much horror on his own. they believed that he had accomplices who helped him, and with good reason. however, no matter how hard they looked they never discovered the puppet masters behind everything since twsitd covered their tracks and nobody knows they exist. the church eventually gave up the search in favor of helping the people and tried their best to put the incident behind them. and by the time of the game it’s been over a thousand years so i’m pretty sure that rhea believes them to be dead lol

then like you said at some point rhea starts her plan to fix fodlan through sothis again.

That's my take anyway. Basically if Rhea and the lords had a group therapy session a lot of tragedy could have been avoided. Alas therapists don't exist in fire emblem, just look at the various characters with underlying trauma that they havent dealt with.

very true.

[once-upon-a-pirate-ship]

it would kill me (if you didn't know)

I know. Trust me, I know. But I've been working on my novel, and when this fic slapped me in the face last night, I just went with it. And so should you.

Neverland AU - canon divergence for somewhere in 3a

(Blatant disregard of canon to follow--don't make me rewatch the show, please)

They saved Henry but all got separated in the process, and when they finally made it back to the ship, Emma realized that they were down a man. She's just gonna have to save him.

This features some pretty awesome Emma/David bonding, too.

This is a classic 'Killian's been taken while saving them and now he's being tortured and Emma isn't gonna stand for it' fic. I've read them all, and I just needed more. POV switches 3rd person between Killian and the others.

Thanks in advance for accepting the sidestepping of canon that I love to do.

Rated M for language and violence

length: 5k+

Read it on ao3

In retrospect, it wasn’t the greatest plan he’d ever had. But it also wasn’t the worst. Well, it could hardly even be called a plan, really, given that the consideration for it occurred in approximately three seconds, but he was hardly going to worry about it now. There were other things to worry about.

The thing that Killian Jones, pirate captain of the Jolly Roger and unofficial Neverland guide to Swan (and the others), needed to be worried about was the little demon child Peter fucking Pan who stood over him with that stupid evil smirk on his lips.

“Seems like you’ve finally lost, pirate,” Pan spat, but the amusement in his tone only sharpened the anger in his eyes.

Killian’s gaze flickered from the child to the grove in the distance, and when he saw not a trace of the others, he returned his attention to Pan. “Aye, I suppose so,” he said, his voice rough though calm and certain.

Pan’s brow furrowed. “Really? No witty remark? No promise to skin me alive?” he taunted. “You’ve changed your tune, Hook.”

He resisted rolling his eyes, instead gripping his wounded shoulder a little tighter. The arrow wasn’t poisoned—he’d have felt it working by now—but it wasn’t helping his predicament at all. Neither was the sizeable gash on his abdomen that Felix had been kind enough to gift him when he’d been distracted.

“Have I?” Killian asked. “I wonder what you’ll do with me now,” he added dryly. He knew. Oh, he knew.

Pan’s eyes flashed, and in an instant he was crouching towards Killian, his hand grasping the protruding arrow. “Now, I get to have my fun,” he declared with a cruel twist of his lips and an even crueler twist of the arrow.

But Killian Jones was no stranger to pain. They were intimately acquainted. That’s how he grit his teeth and buried it until nothing but a tiny grunt sounded from deep within his throat. Pan wouldn’t consider his torture much fun if he didn’t scream in agony, so he would keep playing until Killian could fight it no longer. And he’d let him. Because egging him on would make him lash out, and ensuring him of Swan’s victory would put her and the lad in danger. Pan had spent his time since their arrival playing games with them, distracting them from the important things they’d come there to do. It was only fair that Killian would return the favor.

So the demon could pull out all his toys, could whip him and carve into his flesh, could burn him until his skin was blackened ash, but nothing would stop Killian Jones from protecting his loved ones. And gods above, he loved Emma Swan.

--

All she wanted to know was how the fuck this happened. Their plan had been so perfect that even she couldn’t doubt it, but somehow the winds had shifted or their luck had run out or her luck had run out, and when they returned to the Jolly Rodger and the groups had reunited, they’d been down a man. Down a captain.

Neal, for all his talk of fighting for her, didn’t seem to mind not fighting for something that she actually cared about. He was running for president of the Let’s Leave the Pirate Here Club, and that wasn’t exactly a great way to get into her good graces, though that would’ve been hard enough as it was.

Regina, predictably, prioritized Henry to a fault—Emma was always for prioritizing her son, but not when it came to sacrificing her values or her morals or whatever, fine, she just didn’t want to sacrifice him. Henry was okay, he was safe, and they could take precautions to ensure that he would stay that way, but Regina just didn’t care or didn’t think it was worth it. A good option for Neal’s vice president.

In all her silent canvassing of the group’s feelings regarding Operation Save Hook (Henry was asleep, okay? He could come up with a better name when he woke up), Emma blatantly ignored Gold. For obvious reasons.

Tink was mostly for saving him, but not confident enough in any plan she could offer to make it stick. She’d tried to sway Regina, but that had been less than successful.

Then it was her parents. And, for once, they weren’t in total agreement.

Mary Margaret was sympathetic, to be sure, but not enough. She wasn’t in the Let’s Leave the Pirate Here Club, but she was Queen of Save My Kid and Her Kid Kingdom, so that was that.

But David—that’s what had caught her attention.

When they’d first discovered Hook’s absence and began discussing their options, Emma had held back and held her breath, unwilling to reveal her hand without knowing where the others stood. She’d gone into full Observant Mode, and that’s when she saw David, her father, and his reaction.

His face stiffened, an automatic move to hide his feelings, but Emma saw through it, even when Mary Margaret didn’t (or didn’t want to see it). It was a set jaw, a twitching lip that was almost a frown, tensed shoulders that eventually gave way to firmly crossed arms because apparently, Emma had gotten her Observant Mode from her father, and that’s what he was doing.

A few minutes into the conversation had nothing decided, but Emma shifted her stance, and her father looked her way. Their eyes locked, and while the others continued their pathetic excuse for a rescue discussion, father and daughter exchanged practically imperceptible nods, and then they were allies.

It’s what gave her the strength to step forward at last and disregard whatever half-assed ‘it’s too late’ speech Neal had been giving with a pointed clearing of her throat.

“David and I will go back for him while you guys get the ship ready,” Emma announced. Regina did that haughty half-step back that meant something between ‘I don’t care’ and ‘do whatever you want,’ and Mary Margaret’s only response was to look questioningly at her husband. Tinker Bell gave an enthusiastic nod of approval before busying herself with some bit of the rigging she may or may not have actually understood how to work.

Neal, however, was predictably Neal. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ems,” he said, that stupid nickname that he had no fucking right to use.

Emma’s head turned slowly to her ex, regarding him with the coldest gaze she’d ever offered anyone. Regina had some competition as head of the Looks That Could Kill Committee. “Hm, okay. Well, you don’t have to think it’s a good idea, because you’re staying here.”

“Emma—”

“There’s no discussion, Neal. No discussion from anyone, but especially from you. You have no right to talk, or interfere, and you especially have no right to argue against saving the man who is the reason your own son is alive and safe now.”

Mary Margaret was staring at her when she turned away from him, her eyes wide and openly confused, but she said nothing. David, however, had his eyes cutting into Neal, narrowed and calculating and damn, he was putting pieces together and he wasn’t liking the picture.

“Ready?” Emma asked her father.

He forced himself to look away. “Just have to grab one thing,” he told her, shaking his head at something Mary Margaret had said before he disappeared below.

Neal had huffed away after Emma’s little scolding, and he pouted at the exact opposite end from where his father pouted. Regina looked disinterested and mildly irritated, but when Emma glanced at her, she nodded towards Gold with a raised eyebrow.

Emma’s lips curled in something like a grateful smile, and she passed her bewildered mother on her way to the Dark One.

“You have something,” Emma said as soon as she stood in front of him. “Something to get Pan.”

“I do, Miss Swan,” he replied, that stupid tone that told her he had tricks up those stupid sleeves of his.

She hummed. “No, there’s no deal this time. No price. I’m done with games. So you can either give it to me, or I can take it from you.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Take it from me?” he asked, entirely amused by the concept.

“I’m done with your shit, Crocodile. You can play Dark One with me all you want, but we both know it’s just easier to just hand it over.”

He glared at her for a long moment, but eventually he cracked, and he glanced at his son who looked out at the water and away from them both. “Fine. But only because I’ve no use for it anyway.”

She took the box he offered, resisting the urge to mutter, ‘yes, that’s why,’ as he explained how it worked. When he’d finished, she offered him a simple but genuine “thank you,” before joining her father once more.

“Here,” David said, passing her another cutlass, one she hadn’t seen before. “You need a new weapon,” he added.

“And I’m borrowing…”

“Hook’s. An extra,” he said. “Figured he wouldn’t mind.”

“Right,” she mumbled, taking it with a frown and securing it quickly. “Well then, let’s go.”

--

For all his talk of being intimately acquainted with pain, Killian Jones was doing a piss-poor job of hiding it. The cracks in his resolve were starting to widen, and when hums and grunts became groans and low growls, he knew it was only a matter of time before Pan started to truly have his fun.

He’d been more clever this time around, to be sure. It had to have been at least a century since Killian had gotten cozy with the demon’s knife (or arrowhead, or branding iron, or whatever particular weapon he’d chosen to use that time), but Pan had certainly honed his skills quite a bit since then.

But Killian was sure that Swan had taken her lad and the others far away by now, and the knowledge that he’d helped her, that he’d kept his word, allowed him the strength he needed to keep the screams from coming.

For a while.

Pan, though, had used a trick on him he’d never experienced, and the shock alone was enough to get it working for a little while.

That trick came in the form of her, of Emma Swan, and the name had fallen from his lips like a prayer, hope that he’d never felt before rising like a rushing tide in his chest, and she’d smiled at him, a radiant, lovely thing that he’d never imagined could’ve been gifted solely for him, useless pirate that he was.

But then she’d started talking, and he knew it was a trick (tides always come back, because when there’s a rise, there’s also a fall). Not at first, he’d give Pan that, because it was easy enough to believe that the smile hadn’t been for him, that she resented him, that she hadn’t meant to save him, that they were better off without him. It wasn’t what she said that tipped him off, it was how she said it. Because Killian Jones had studied her since the moment she uncovered his pathetic hide in that pile of bodies, and he knew her—more than she knew herself, to her dismay—and he could read her. She was an open book, after all.

When her eyes didn’t burn like he knew they should’ve when she spoke of anger and hatred, he knew. When her lips didn’t quirk in that one specific way when she mentioned abandoning him, he knew. And then she spoke about her parents and Baelfire, and it was all wrong, because Emma Swan had walls, and even Neverland wasn’t enough to break them down so quickly.

Wherever she was, Emma Swan wasn’t about to run into her parents’ arms and live happily ever after with them and her True Love, because she wasn’t there yet. He knew her. He knew how hard it was for her to open up to him, someone who understood her from such shared experiences, and that wasn’t something she could just overlook as soon as she returned home. They’d hurt her—here, in Neverland, with assumptions and confessions and automatic behaviors, but also before. And if she did wish to ride off into the sunset with Baelfire, Neal, it wasn’t going to happen right away, because Killian had watched her while she shifted away from Neal when he’d moved towards her. He’d seen the way she recoiled at his touch, how she’d narrowed those jade eyes at his words, how she didn’t trust him, not anymore.

No, the Emma Swan that stood before his beaten and bruised body was a copy, and a bad one. When she hadn’t achieved her goal, she disappeared, and Pan took her place, and though he knew the demon was mocking him and prodding him with insults and hoping they’d smash the last of his resolve, he wasn’t ready to give in just yet.

Killian Jones was waiting for something. He just couldn’t figure out what it was.

--

“What’d he do?”

Emma faltered, the blade missing the piece of jungle shit in her path she’d been trying to cut down. “What? Who?”

“Neal,” her father said, clearing the vines for her before they continued on.

“Oh,” she sounded, pulling her lips together as she considered what to say. He’d noticed it before, and she knew that. He wasn’t stupid, nor was he as hope-prone and naive as Mary Margaret could often be. And they had another few miles to go, at least. “He left,” she said.

David stopped, a hand on her arm that was more than just an attempt to stop her from walking, too. “He left you?” he asked, his eyes somehow tight with rage and tender with something she wanted to dub dad-ness, because no one had ever looked at her like that before.

Emma huffed, because now was definitely not the time for Feelings, now was the time to rescue a goddamn pirate from whatever the hell Peter fucking Pan was doing to him. “He set me up to take the fall for his crime and let me go to prison instead. I didn’t find out I was pregnant until I was already in jail.”

David blinked once, twice, and then his expression was consumed by dad-anger (because it was just a different brand of anger that she’d also never seen before). “Emma—”

“It was a long time ago, dad.” They both started at the name, dad, because she’d never really used it before. A few times she’d said it, but it was something she’d had to force, a correction or a pointed joke, sometimes a near-death thing, but this was different. Authentic. Slightly heartbreaking.

“We don’t have time for this,” she muttered as she turned away, but neither was surprised, and even her dad wasn’t hurt, because Emma had her walls, and that was okay, because she’d needed them to survive this long. And if he had to put in a little time and effort to help take them down, that didn’t bother him one bit.

“I was kinda surprised that you wanted to come,” she said after a while, unable to bear the tense atmosphere any longer.

David gave her a half-smile, slicing another thicket (because they’d grown over since they’d returned to the ship. Fuck Neverland, honestly). “He did save my life, you know. And he was saving Henry when an arrow hit him—before your mother and I got separated from the group. I wasn’t about to leave him for dead after he took an arrow for my grandson.”

Emma froze, nearly dropping the cutlass that wasn’t hers. “He saved Henry?”

Her father’s eyebrows furrowed. “I thought you knew that,” he said. “So why are you so eager to help him? If you didn’t know.”

Her lips parted only to press together firmly, and when she spoke, they both knew it wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t the whole truth. “Because I don’t leave people behind. And even without the arrow, he still saved Henry. He brought us here.”

David studied her for a moment, and these pieces were coming together faster now, and quite suddenly, the picture made a lot of sense. “He came back.”

“For Henry. And Neal,” she replied.

“And you.”

She couldn’t deny it, and he knew that. But it surprised him that he didn’t mind it as much as he had before. Emma’s walls, no matter how much he wished he could change it, were in part because of him and Snow. They saved her, yes, but they abandoned her when they did it. And Neal had likely been the cause of the other fortress that surrounded her, because he’d abandoned her, too.

So if the pirate had gained her trust and her respect because he hadn’t abandoned her, then that was good. David had seen plenty of love and devotion in his life, but he’d never seen loyalty like the kind that burned in Captain Hook. Centuries in search of revenge for the one he’d loved and lost. That wasn’t the man who would turn around and abandon her the second the opportunity arose.

No, without him or the pirate realizing it, he’d pretty much gained his blessing. Because David knew damn well that if the roles were reversed, not even if Emma herself were in danger, but if Hook were here in his place and someone she loved was being tortured, there’s no one he would trust more than Captain Hook to help her. Neal had barely batted an eye. But he was apparently quite skilled at leaving people to rot.

David was just beginning to contemplate how to handle that particular situation when the screams started.

He took his daughter’s hand, meeting her huge and watery eyes, and they ran.

--

He’d held on so long, but it was worth it. It was worth it. No, she was worth it. Emma Swan was worth it.

Emma. Emma. Emma.

Her name became a mantra, a song in his head to fill the space between screams.

Killian Jones had loved Milah. He never doubted that, and his love for another didn’t negate it, either. He wasn’t sure what made his love for Emma Swan sharper, deeper, but it was just different. His working theory was that they’d both loved before, both been hurt before, both lingered in something that was slightly less than pure. Whatever had happened with Baelfire couldn’t have been perfect, because it hurt her. And she’d been so young when she’d had Henry. Milah wasn’t faultless, either. Ironically enough, that point was proven by Baelfire.

Killian had spoken to her about it for hours. She’d spun tales of rescuing the lad, taking him from his pathetic father and bringing him aboard, but it never happened. It wasn’t until Henry was taken from Swan that he realized the downfall of his Milah. He’d known it, truly, but nothing would have stopped Swan from getting back her son, and it should’ve been the same with Milah.

For a moment, the pain of his guilt overwhelmed the pain of Pan’s lash that sliced into his back.

But that was what made his love for Emma Swan different.

Try something new, darling. It’s called trust.

Be a part of something.

Too bad he’d never have the chance to explain it all to her.

--

Emma had seen so much in her life. So much pain, so much ugliness—it had made her start to believe that there was really nothing else. But then Henry showed up at her door, and things changed.

Now, standing in her hiding place with her father, she was forced to watch as the demon child inflicted brutal and unrelenting torture to Captain Hook—no, no, he wasn’t Hook anymore. Not after this. He was Killian Jones, and she was going to save him.

She just couldn’t jump in and do it. Not without a plan.

Once they’d decided who was the distraction and who was taking the box, they were ready, but she wasn’t. Each scream pierced her heart, and by this point, the tears were just a permanent fixture that neither of them acknowledged. You couldn’t listen to that kind of pain and not feel it down to your goddamn soul. And she knew that as much as it hurt to hear it, Killian was hurting a thousand times worse while he endured it.

It had only been hours, maybe, but she’d never seen a person look so broken and not be actually dead, and it felt like her fault. Because maybe if she’d been strong and reasonable enough to let go of Henry’s hand for even a second, she would’ve realized that he wasn’t at her side like he was supposed to be. Sure, they’d all been separated into groups that slowly returned to the ship, but she should’ve known. She should’ve been there. He shouldn’t have been here.

None of that mattered now. It was time to save him, and then she could worry about everything else.

Her father kissed her forehead, brushing her tears with his thumbs and offering her a reassuring nod that said we’ve got this, and then he disappeared to play his part. When she stepped into the clearing, she was much more confident than she had any right to be.

“Pan.”

The kid snapped to attention, whirling around to look at her. “Really? You’ve come to rescue the pirate?”

His words, his face, his stupid grin pissed her the fuck off, but what really sold it, the thing that solidified everything for her was the sight of Killian’s hook tucked into Peter Pan’s pocket like it was a fucking souvenir.

“Well, you know what they say about us hero types,” Emma stalled, keeping herself from glancing at Killian where he lay in the dirt. “We don’t leave anyone behind. We come back for everyone. It’s just in our nature.” She had no idea what she was actually saying, she was just talking, just waiting until her father got into place.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you take the pirate, Emma. He’s mine, you see,” Pan told her, and she thought that he’d never looked less than a child with the straight-up evil in his eyes and the weapon in his hand.

She folded her arms across her chest, pulling on strength she didn’t have. “Hm, no, I don’t think he is,” she said, letting some of her anger seep into her voice. “He’s a pirate, sure, but you and I both know that he’s pretty determined about that good form nonsense, and he made me a promise, you know,” Emma continued. “He told me he’d see to it that Henry gets home safely. He can’t do that if he’s here.”

Pan’s shoulders shifted as his chest puffed out, and he wanted something. “How about this,” he said, “the pirate in exchange for your son.”

Emma scoffed. “As I told the Dark One earlier, I’m done playing games. No deals. I’m leaving this island with my son and my pirate and everyone else, and that’s it. You lose, kid.”

Peter Pan grinned, and if she hadn’t just seen David out of the corner of her eye, she would’ve been terrified. “How’s that? I’m not going to let you leave with Henry or the pirate, no matter how much you’re convinced I’m going to,” he said, almost petulant.

“Sorry, I should’ve been clearer,” Emma smiled, “I should’ve mentioned the part about you being captured. Whoops. Too late.”

Emma surged forward, snatching the hook just before Pan was sucked into Pandora’s box from David’s outstretched hand. Neither he nor Emma hesitated for a second before they rushed to Killian where he was no more than a pile of cuts and bruises on the ground, stripped of his coat and his vest and his bravado.

David rolled him onto his side carefully, shooting her a concerned look when he didn’t even flinch.

The hook fell from her grasp and onto the ground beside them. “Killian?” Emma said softly, her hand reaching out to ghost across his sweaty forehead. If she didn’t see the rise and fall of his chest in time with the shuddering breaths he took, she would’ve been certain he was dead, because anyone else would’ve been dead.

“Emma, I have no idea how we’re going to move him when he’s like this,” her father told her, and if he were someone else, that would’ve meant that they’d run out of options, but hope was the family motto.

Emma pushed out a breath, bringing her hands back to her face, running them over her hair and locking a few fingers around her necklace. “Alright, okay, lemme think,” she said, but of course that was when her brain turned to absolute mush.

Time, nonexistent here though it was, was marked with Killian’s shaky breaths, and several minutes passed before David spoke. “Emma…” he began, and when she looked at him, that family motto was shining in his eyes. “Emma, you have magic. You can heal him.”

“I—” I can’t, she wanted to say. But it didn’t matter that she’d never done it, that she had no idea how to, because she’d do it. She’d do anything to save this stupid, ridiculous, insufferable, amazing pirate. He promised that he’d win her heart, and she wasn’t about to lose him right when she finally had a chance to let him.

“How?” she asked, hoping—yes, Emma Swan did things like hope now—he’d know something helpful.

David hesitated, as if he were gathering everything he’d ever learned about magic. “Okay, your magic is about emotion, right?” At her nod, he continued, “Well, that’s good, because you’re feeling a lot of things right now. You want to help him, to heal him, so maybe think about why?”

Emma chuckled, and it was a watery thing, but she wiped the dampness from her cheeks. “I don’t think I’ve cried this much since…I have no idea when,” she confessed.

David met her gaze, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “Use it.”

She took a breath, her eyes slamming shut so she could focus, but her hand didn’t leave her father’s.

Why was she crying now, this much, after everything? She wasn’t a crier (you couldn’t be in the system that long and still be a crier), so what had changed? All at once, she knew.

Captain Hook is what changed. Killian Jones had towered her walls, and now she was crying over him. Because she felt things. Things with a capital ‘t,’ and it was the first time in her life that she was finally, truly letting herself feel Things, the first time she honestly wanted to. There hadn’t really been a choice with Neal. He was just there, and that’s why she’d loved him. She was young, and he offered her this tiny piece of security and she’d latched onto it, and that was it. It wasn’t even about him, not really, not when she broke it down like that. Everything she felt for Killian Jones was about him.

Right from the start, he’d terrified her, because he could see right through her walls like they were made of glass. He read her because he already spoke the fucking language, but she hadn’t let herself understand that piece until later. But how many times had she been standing beside her family (she had that now), knowing that things were off or just not feeling right because they didn’t quite get it—but then she’d looked over and he’d been watching her because he got it. He knew. And he came back.

Killian Jones had never abandoned her. Well, there was that one time he locked her in a cell, but that was only because she’d just chained him up on the top of a beanstalk and it was honestly only fair, so that was different. Every moment when she waited for him to race off while in Neverland, when leaving her to her fate would’ve been the smart and easy thing to do, he’d proven her wrong (but she wasn’t really wrong, because she didn’t really believe it. She’d trusted him right from the start, and each time he didn’t leave her was somehow both totally surprising and totally predictable).

But it wasn’t just that. It was everything she saw in him when he thought no one was looking. The shadows that crossed his face when they ran into something familiar, the hesitance when offered assistance by anyone, the mysteriously filled waterskins that appeared by her bedroll after his watch. Everything he did for her and her family was a promise that he was no longer a villain—that maybe he’d never actually been one—and she could doubt everyone else (except for Henry), but she couldn’t doubt Killian Jones.

She was falling for him. Hard. She probably already would’ve fallen if she’d let herself, especially if she’d gone with her gut at the top of that beanstalk and trusted him, so she wasn’t about to let him die.

Emma raised her free hand, feeling all of her Feelings and thinking all of the Things, and she healed him, because she needed to. She felt the warmth that radiated from her palm, and when her eyes flickered open, there was a brilliant light that washed over his face and followed the path of her hand as she hovered along his body. The cuts shrank, sealing themselves while the blood seeped back into his skin, and when his breaths were no longer labored, she knew he was healed.

Her father gave her a proud smile (it was watery, too), but their attention was quickly brought back to the groaning pirate.

Killian’s eyes took several fluttering blinks before they focused correctly, and when he spoke, it was no more than a disoriented grunt. “Swan?”

“We’re here,” she said, releasing David’s hand to take Killian’s. “We trapped Pan, Henry’s safe on the Jolly Roger, and now all we need is for you to take us home.”

His eyes were stormy when he looked up at her, and his rough palm lined up with her soft one, and for a single, fleeting moment, it was as if he’d never felt pain in his life. The warmth, the ease, the life he felt holding Emma Swan’s hand made him briefly forget the hours of torture from Pan, and for what may have honestly been the first time in his life, Killian Jones felt safe.

There were many questions that he needed to ask, ones he hadn’t had the chance to think of with his present exhaustion, but he pushed them aside, because she was smiling that smile, the one he’d never imagined could be directed and him, and it lacked the tightness that Pan’s version had. Where Pan’s version had pranced around words, the real Swan was straight to the point and not flowery about anything. But what was most comforting about this Swan was that even though her smile was warm and lovely and nothing like he’d ever seen on her lips, he could see her walls hidden in her gaze, that lingering hesitance, and he knew. She’d come back for him.

“Think you can walk?” David asked him, and it almost made the pirate jump (centuries of always being on his guard, always prepared and aware of his surroundings, and Emma Swan gave him one smile and held his only hand and that was enough to block out the rest of the realm).

Killian nodded, and with some careful maneuvering by Swan and her father, he was upright. He wavered slightly—blood loss, he reasoned, because Emma had definitely healed him with her magic, but there was only so much magic could do—but they secured both of his arms without delay.

“Oh,” Emma paused, bending down to grab his hook. “Thought you’d want this back,” she added with a smile that was almost sheepish.

It was the way she held it that made him lightheaded (not at all related to the blood loss). Her hand was wrapped around the metal like it was nothing but also everything. She didn’t fear it, didn’t scrunch her nose at it—the way she held it was like the way she held his hand: a part of him, something she couldn’t quite bring herself to let go of.

“Thank you, Emma,” he murmured, and all three of them knew it wasn’t just for returning the hook. He gestured for her to attach it, and after a glance of confirmation, she did. And he couldn’t help but feel whole.

[justasingaporegirl]

Thoughts on the U.S. Capitol Drama

Okay so news from the U.S. is a bit slow to reach me here in SG, but after having read the first news articles I have so many Thoughts, most of which are probably being repeated by people everywhere already

1. I actually liked the idea of American people storming the U.S. seats of power. It isn’t just Trump, but the entire U.S. government has proven to be inefficient in addressing the needs of the people time and time again. So to learn that the people who stormed the Capitol were just a bunch of terrorists throwing a tantrum because their favoured candidate didn’t win was disappointing, to say the least.

2. I think I made another post about this before, but what shocked me the most when I first saw the news was that a group of CITIZENS were able to waltz into one of the most important government buildings in the country just like that. Either the security in the Capitol was shitty to begin with or security just really didn��t care.

3. Speaking of which...Remember how a few months ago unarmed, peaceful BLM protestors were asking for POC to have the right to live and they were beaten up by cops for ‘being a threat to public safety’? And does anyone remember how white cops have been unfairly abusing, even murdering POC on a daily basis since practically forever? But when the Capitol was being attacked by literal terrorists—armed with GUNS, for goodness sake—the cops were hesitant to shoot like “oh we can’t hurt the very people we swore to protect, they are just exercising their right of free speech” (I don’t think anyone actually said that, but that is certainly the impression they gave me) Does anyone think something is terribly, awfully, horrendously wrong here, or is it just me? 🤔🤔

4. More than anything...it was Trump’s tweets in the aftermath that really did it for me. American Patriots? You are very special?? We love you??? Patriots don’t storm government buildings when the candidate they supported lost an election, these people are spoiled brats at best and domestic terrorists at worst. Imagine having a President who is so weak he doesn’t even condemn acts of violence committed in his name but has to reassure these people that they are ‘unique’ and they are ‘loved’ so they will continue to support him and he can maintain his own personal fanbase to feed his ego.

5. I hope Biden has a good doctor, otherwise he’s going to have a stroke cleaning up Trump’s mess.

6. Some of my classmates used to say that Trump is the most useless President ever, but I disagree. In fact, he managed to achieve more in 1 term than many Presidents can achieve in their lifetimes. He has divided a previously stable, (relatively) united America and plunged the whole country into some sort of dystopian nightmare on the brink of civil war, all in the span of 4 short years.

7. Hitler would be envious.

8. But I digress.

9. Anyway, what happened at the U.S. Capitol was disgusting and disturbing but I’m not surprised, somehow. I’m only amazed that it took so long for them to go to these extremes.

10. We always like to think that things like these only happen in backwards countries where the government is corrupt and the people have no food to eat. We never imagine it happening to one of the wealthiest, most powerful nations in the world. But now it has happened, and it shows that the U.S. is more similar to those 3rd-world countries it claimed to ‘help’ when it invaded them. More than anything, it also scares me because if something like that can happen in the U.S., who is to say it can’t happen here at home? In Singapore we are very lucky—our government, while not flawless, isn’t corrupt, genuinely cares for the people and has largely done a good job making Singapore an ideal country to live in. But what happened in the U.S., not just on Wednesday (SG time) but the gradual weakening of the governmental system over the past few decades, centuries even, is proof that even seemingly ideal governmental systems can and will weaken if its members exploit it for their own personal gain. All it takes is one egoistical madman who is too damn clever by half to bring the entire system down and the whole country to burn with it.

[bubble-tae]

Bad Bait

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Angst/Lil Fluff/High School AU

Word Count: 2.5k

Summary: Your attempt to catfish cheaters goes awry when you get a message from a cute boy at school.

(A/N: This was meant to be a drabble response but I got a bit carried away! Thank you to @ddaengyoonmin​ for helping me edit and giving me the confidence to post and lovely @baepsaesbae​ for the request) 

reposted from old account

You didn’t mean to take it this far, I mean it only started as some dumb sleepover prank. For nearly 6 weeks, you had been pretending to be a girl from out of town online, catfishing different guys in your class to catch them cheating. You’d send screenshots to their girlfriends of them asking for nudes. It broke your heart to deliver news like this to these girls, but after a while it felt like an obligation. Everything was all fun and games until Taehyung fell into your lap. He was a senior who stumbled across your fake Instagram account when all his friends started following it. It all started innocently enough, a few likes, a couple heart eyes on some pics (that were of some pretty model), but before you knew it, he had slipped into your dms.

You had seen him around school before, hell, no one could mistake that gorgeous laugh for anyone but him. He wasn’t popular, but he seemed to be part of almost every group and club. Taehyung was in theater, played soccer, and even is the Vice President of the art club. He would have been a shoe in for Homecoming King earlier that year if it hadn’t gone to Kim Seokjin (now he was popular, and cheating on the Homecoming Queen). Taehyung was known, that was for sure, and anyone that met him had to of had the biggest crush on him. When he first messaged you that simple “hey”, you ignored it. As far as you knew he wasn’t dating anyone so there really was no need to talk to him at all, but one bored Saturday night, you figured why the hell not.

It wasn’t anything for a while, he seemed boring and just like all the other guys that found their way to your account, but things slowly picked up around a week later when he started his good morning messages. Soon he was sending you pictures with a big grin and a peace sign and asking all about you; what you like to do for fun, what job you wanted, even little things like what your favorite candy was. Through this, you got to know him too. Taehyung secretly loved to sing, he wanted to be a freelance artist, and how much he loved brownies.

“He doesn’t even know you exist.” Your best friend said from the driver seat of her car. You had both just pulled up to school, the foggy Monday air clouding up the parking lot.

“What’s it matter anyways?” you asked, pulling down the mirror to fix your hair. Your best friend cackled next to you.

“The matter is that you like him, and he likes her.” They pointed at your phone in the cup holder. You closed the mirror and rolled your eyes.

“I don’t like him.” just as you said this your phone chimed, but your friend picked it up faster than you could. They opened your phone, a picture of Taehyung taking over the screen. He was posing with a little fluffy dog, a fake pouty look on his face. Your friend read the message out mockingly.

“ ‘Baby boy cried the whole time I was getting ready, guess he doesn’t want me to go to school. Hope you are having a better morning than I am beautiful.’ Fuck, I’d cry for him to stay too if my owner looked like that.” Your friend held down the picture with their thumb, saving it as your lock screen. You leaned over and snatched it back from their hands.

“He’s just being nice!” you proclaimed.

“Yeah, sure,” your friend said, “and pigs can fly.”

“Wasn’t your mom on an airplane last week?” you joked. They hit your side as the bell rang. “Not funny.” You got out of the car and started to make your way to class, Taehyung’s morning message forgotten thanks to your first period calculus exam.

* * *

It was lunch time, and though you were desperately craving the cafeteria chicken nuggets, you knew you had to finish up some last minute notes that were due today. You headed to the library, where you found it mostly empty safe for a few studious peers. There was an empty table near the back, so you pulled out a chair and took your book out from your bag. With earbuds in, you fell into your own little world, taking notes on the 15th century Tudor period. It wasn’t long before you were interrupted by someone grazing the back side of your seat trying to reach a book on the shelf behind you. You were about to give them a dirty look when you turned around, but you were taken back by a face you had never seen this close before.

“Sorry.” Taehyung muttered with a smile, book under arm. You didn’t say anything, your mouth agape as you froze in the moment. He was prettier in person, and when he pushed his curly brown hair back and made his way to the front of the table, you swore your heart stopped beating. He pointed to the chair just across from you. “This seat taken.”

“No.” you finally croaked out, taking your earbuds out. There was no reason to be this nervous, he was just a person you told yourself. He sat down in the chair and open the book, cover facing you. The front read “1984”. He peeked over the top of the book, and that’s when you realized you were staring. Taehyung brought the book down to his lap.

“Sorry if I disrupted your flow.” he said.

“Oh no, it was kind of boring anyways.” That was sort of a lie, part of you actually enjoyed getting wrapped up in your work, but it could wait. “What are you reading?”. You knew what he was reading, in fact you read it just last month, but you felt an insatiable need to keep talking to him. His voice was different than you thought, more sultry and smooth.

“1984, I guess it’s about a society living under constant surveillance.”

“Aren’t we already?” you quipped. He laughed and blush spread across your cheeks.  

“I guess so.” he said. “It was recommended to me.”

‘Yeah, by me.’ You thought. “You going to check it out?”

“I don’t know, I’m not really much of a reader.”

“Yeah you’ve told me.” the words left your mouth before you had the chance to stop them. He put the book down, smile disappearing as he leaned back in his chair. You bit your lip, trying to think of some way out of this.

“What? Do we know each other?” he finally asked, brows furrowed down but eyes still cautious as he scanned your face more intensely.

“Freshman year. English.” you lied, hoping he wouldn’t ask what teacher you had. Your legs were bouncing under the table, and you only hoped that he didn’t notice how your body shook.

“But…” he started, trying to remember if he has ever met you. “I’ve never told you that before.”

“Must have been someone else then.” you spat out quickly, standing up and shoving your things in your bag. “Gotta run, nice chat.” He stood up too, confused from the change in the environment. You sling your bag over your shoulder, but as you start to leave you trip slightly on the leg of the table, and your phone falls to the ground. It lands screen up, and if this situation couldn’t get any worse, it turns on, displaying the picture Taehyung took that morning. He stopped in his tracks and stared down at your phone.

“Am I your lock screen?” he asked, almost disgusted. You pick your phone off the ground quickly.

“You weren’t supposed to see that.” The two of you eyed each other uncomfortably in the silent library. No one had even noticed that anything strange was going on. Taehyung looked around the library and then leaned in slightly.

“Are you stalking me?” he whispered.

“Taehyung, let me explain” you started to say before he cut you off.

“Oh my god, you’re stalking me!” he said a little louder and angrier this time. A kid at a nearby table looked up for a moment before returning to his laptop.

“Will you shut up?” you whisper shouted. “I’m not stalking you.”

“Then what the fuck is that?” he pointed to your phone. You let out a sigh and rubbed at your temples. ‘This is a fucking disaster.’ you wanted to say.  

“You sent it to me this morning, my friend put it as my lock screen as a joke.” You could tell he didn’t believe you, why would he, he had never spoken to you before, let alone sent a picture with the intent of you seeing it.

“I didn’t send you that.”

“Well, you sort of did.” you opened your phone and pulled out the messages, his text from this morning displayed on your screen.

“How did you get her messages?” he asked, taking the phone from your hands to inspect it further.

“They are my messages.” he looked back up at you still confused. There was only one way he was going to understand this. “She’s not real.” Taehyung’s face fell as he looked down at the phone again, the words hitting him slowly.

“What?” he said, not really asking.

“Taehyung…” you said, taking a step forward. He took one back.

“What’s your real name?”

“Y/N.” you answered.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Y/N?” he said, hurt dripping over ever word. He put your phone down on the table and grabbed his stuff.

“I can explain!” you tried, the people in the room watching the two of you. He turned around as he started to leave, eyes just a little bit glossy.

“Don’t talk to me, creep.” he hissed before storming out of the library, leaving you standing alone with all eyes on you.

* * *

You probably couldn’t fix it, and you didn’t really intend to, but you at least wanted to try and make it hurt less. Hurt less for him or you, that you didn’t know. There you stood at his front door, plate of brownies in hand, trying to muck up the courage to ring the doorbell. This was much harder than hiding behind your phone. Your hand lifted to the doorbell, but you heard the lock click out of place before the door opened. Taehyung was in the doorway, a displeased look on his face.

“You’ve been standing here for five minutes, I figured I’d tell you to get lost myself.” He picked at his fingernails as if he didn’t care. It stung a little, to have him suddenly be so cold to you, but you knew you deserved it.

“At least take the brownies.” you held the plate in front of them. He squinted his eyes at the brownies, then at you.

“They aren’t poisoned, are they?” he took the plate from your hands, still suspicious.

“No, but they are fudge brownies” his favorite kind. He contemplated something for a minute before opening the front door wider and stepping to one side.

“You have until I finish the brownies to explain.” you thought that maybe he was kidding, but when you both were inside, he motioned for you sit on the couch next to him as he started to stuff his face.

“I know how this looks from your end.” you began, “I didn’t intend on leading you to believe I was this other person. The account wasn’t even made for you, but kind of to catch this one guy who was cheating. One guy turned into two, and before I knew it, it kind of just became my thing.” Taehyung shoved a second brownie in his mouth and crumbs dribbled down his chin and onto his jeans, which he brushed onto the floor, some of them landing on the tops of your shoes.  

You tried to continue but Taehyung shoved a third brownie into his mouth before he finished chewing the second. “Dude, you’re going to choke.” you said to him. He stopped chewing suddenly, looking at you with cheeks full. He motioned with his hands for you to keep talking.

“Anyways,” you shook your head in disbelief. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I never meant for you to get tangled up in all this mess. I wasn’t faking anything, everything I said came from me, Y/N. If you wanna be friends or something, that’s great, but if you want to pretend I never existed, I understand.” The last part hurt to say, but you knew you would have to respect his boundaries. Taehyung finally finished chewing what was in his mouth, swallowing hard as leaned back into the couch.

“Wow,” he nodded to himself, “so you’re The Fisherman?”

“The what?”

“The one who’s been catching all the cheaters. Catfish turned into Fisherman, how about that?” he wiped some of the remaining crumbs from his pants and contemplated grabbing another brownie.

“I guess so? I didn’t know I had another identity.”

“You’re like a modern day Robin Hood.” he leaned onto his knees and getting closer to you. “I knew it.” You let out a laugh at that. Of course he didn’t know.

“So you’re not upset?” you questioned.

“Oh no, I’m fucking pissed.” he placed a hand on your knee, “but I’m also impressed.” You were taken back by his words. He saw the expression on your face and elaborated.

“You caught 6 different dudes cheating on their girlfriends and still no one knows it’s you. That takes a genius.”

“It’s actually 9.” you corrected. He threw his hands air up in the air in disbelief.

“That’s amazing!” he shouted. “I think I like you more than the girl in the screen.” His smile was lazy and genuine and his outright honesty made your face burn. He scooted just an inch closer, a little hesitantly. “So, everything we talked about was really you?” You recognized for the first time how soft his features were in person, eyes glittering with curiosity. His lips were slightly parted, and you wished to know how they felt. You blinked away the thought, almost embarrassed for having it.

“It was always me.” He laughed at your cheesy line and pinched your cheeks, pulling at them.

“You’re not wearing a mask, are you?” he joked. You pulled his hand away, keeping it in yours as it fell into your lap.

“No more surprises.”

“Don’t I get a chance to surprise you?” he asked, licking his lips and moving in closer. You felt your heart beat faster until it was in your throat, and time slowed. You cursed your sweaty palms and quivering lip, Taehyung’s eyes half closed as he was only inches from your face. You closed your eyes and waited for him to kiss you. His lips tickled against yours, so close but not yet touching, before he averted his mouth upward to plant a kiss on your nose. He pulled away with a wide smirk, and you let go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

“That’s not fair.” you breathed out. He pulled your hand into his lap to play with your fingers.

“I know.” he said before biting his lip and looking back up at with bashful eyes. Taehyung was a tease, but you knew that you couldn’t wait for for more of his surprises.

[alwaysmarilynmonroe]

I’m currently discovering a lot about MM and I was curious about Joan Collins talking about the casting couch. I saw that you don’t believe they met but I’ve seen several sources saying they met at a party hosted by Gene Kelly. Do you think Joan might have extrapolated the story to say Marilyn did the couch casting just because of her warning? It doesn’t ring true to me that MM would tell a stranger about this and I dislike the idea that it renews this myth that she slept her way to the top.

If Joan and Marilyn met to have a full blown conversation and become fairly acquainted, I personally have never found evidence of that.

However, they did attend a studio screening of There’s No Business Like Show Business in 1954, as pictured here; Marilyn’s on the seventh row back and Joan is on fifth.

Joan never attained Marilyn’s level of Stardom until decades later, when she starred in Dynasty in the 1980s, she was making films in the 1950s, but none were on the same level of success as Marilyn’s.

I have read what Joan has said - I will attach it here for others to read, which she wrote about first in her autobiography in 1978.

“Shortly after arriving in Hollywood aged 21, under contract to 20th Century Fox, I attended a party at Gene Kelly’s house. The star of An American In Paris and Singin’ In The Rain hosted a weekly gathering for an eclectic group of movie industry power-brokers, A-list actors and actresses, intellectuals and his friends. It was where I first met Marilyn Monroe.

At first I didn’t recognise the blonde sitting alone at the bar. Suddenly, it dawned on me that the woman in front of me was the legendary figure herself. We started chatting and after a couple of martinis, Marilyn poured out a cautionary tale of sexual harassment she and other actresses endured from, “the wolves in this town”.

I replied that I was well used to “wolves” after a few years in the British film industry. I decided it definitely wasn’t something I’d put up with. I told Marilyn I was well prepared to deal with men patting my bottom, leering down my cleavage and whatever else.

She shook her head. “There’s nothing like the power of the studio bosses here, honey. If they don’t get what they want, they’ll drop you. It’s happened to lots of gals. ‘Specially watch out for Zanuck. If he doesn’t get what he wants, honey, he’ll drop your contract.” It was a timely warning, because days later, Darryl Zanuck, vice-president of production at 20th Century Fox, pounced.

Hollywood studio bosses considered it their due to b*** all the good-looking women who came their way and were notorious for it. Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures, for example, had no qualms about firing any starlet who rejected him. He was totally amoral.

Another role I coveted was that of Cleopatra. The head of 20th Century Fox at the time, Buddy Adler, and the chairman of the board — [Spyros Skouras], a Greek gentleman old enough to be my grandfather — bombarded me with propositions and promises that the role was mine if I would be, “nice” to them. It was a euphemism prevalent in Hollywood. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t — the very thought of these old men was utterly repugnant. So, I dodged and I dived, and hid from them around the lot and made excuses while undergoing endless screen tests for the role of Egypt’s Queen.

At one point, Mr Adler told me at a party that I would have “the pick of the scripts” after Cleopatra and he would set me up in an apartment he would pay for as long as he could come to visit me three or four times a week.

Running out of excuses, I blurted out: “Mr Adler, I came here with my agent, Jay Kanter. Why don’t we discuss the deal with him?” “Honey, you have quite a sense of humour,” he spluttered. “And a sense of humour is all you’ll ever get from me,” I murmured as I left. In due course, Elizabeth Taylor got the role.

But it wasn’t just studio bosses and producers who were predatory. Many actors I worked with considered it their divine right to have sex with their leading lady. Anyone naive enough to believe the era of the casting couch had been consigned to history will have been shocked by the Weinstein scandal and the predatory institutional sexism of Hollywood power brokers it has revealed.

But it’s not just the film industry that’s been complicit in sanctioning this appalling behaviour, and it’s not just actresses subjected to it. It may occur in any business dominated by powerful, ruthless and misogynistic men, and it’s women (sometimes men) in subservient positions who are unfortunate enough to have to deal with them.”

Regarding the anecdote, it frustrates me quite a bit for the following number of reasons;

- As previously mentioned, Joan was not a huge star in the 1950s/early 1960s as she’s suggesting. Elizabeth Taylor famously received $1,000,000 for the starring role in Cleopatra (1963) and as far as I’m aware, Joan was never in the running - I don’t think any other Star was, not long term anyway. So I’m not really sure why she’s saying that..

- Marilyn was NOT I repeate NOT liked by Daryl Zanuck, he wasn’t a nice person (that’s putting it politely) and could never understand the hype around Marilyn.

Even before she was starring in huge movies she was receiving thousands of fan mail letters every week at the Studio, so much so that Zanuck reluctantly realised the money she could bring to him/20th Century Fox’s films and kept her on.

She’d already had a short term contract previously in 1947, that was not renewed. Clearly if she was sleeping with Zanuck this would not have been the case.

Furthermore, one of the only nice things Zanuck said about Marilyn was the following, “Nobody discovered her, she earned her way to stardom.”

Even being THE blonde in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) Marilyn did not have her own Dressing Room during filming.. Again, if she was sleeping with the Studio Head, you’d think she could at least have her own room.

- As for the Hollywood, “Wolves” Joan is right, Marilyn did speak out about them, she even had an article posted in January 1953 Motion Picture Magazine titled, “Wolves I Have Known.”

However Marilyn’s own words go completely against Joan’s version as she famously discussed her rejection of Studio Head, Harry Cohn’s weekend on his yacht proposition. She asked him if his wife would be joining them and he did not take this well. So much so that she was dropped from her six month contract with Columbia and never worked for them again. Therefore I find it pretty strange she doesn’t mention that when talking about him..

Marilyn also mentions numerous anecdotes in her ghostwritten by Ben Hecht autobiography, “My Story” which was based on interviews between the two.

Lastly, I just want to add that if Marilyn or any other Star slept with any Studio Staff (I used that phrase lightly as the casting couch is hardly any form of consent) then I would never judge any of them. The whole situation makes me sick and is not only assault but a huge abuse of power, fuelled by misogyny and sexism. Even now the woman is the one who is shamed and degraded, when the instigator and abuser is not condemned and reputation stays intact.

I’m simply saying that instead of listening to other words, take them with a pinch of salt and listen to Marilyn’s actual words herself. It’s her story and ultimately if others are going to talk about it, she should at least have them tell the truth.

[marshmallowprotection]

I just realized I’ve yet to say a word about Lucretia, well at least I’ve yet to go in-depth into her character just yet. I went in-depth with Eros already so I’m going to do that with Lucretia now.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Have you ever heard of the “Truth Princess”?”

“Whose that?”

“I hear it’s a pretty girl who tells the truth!”

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

“Did you not hear? The Truth Princess writes anonymous articles and submits them to newspapers to spread the word, the truth, of everything!”

“But why is she called the ‘Truth Princess’? How do we even know she’s a she?”

“Well, we don’t. She signs her papers with the alias “Truth Princess”, which is why she’s called that in the first place. So far she’s turned out to be correct in everything she writes.”

“Really now?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. I wonder who this Truth Princess is…”

“I kind of doubt we’ll ever know, bud.”

“Still…I can’t help but wonder…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Name: Lucretia

  Aliases (If Any): Marie-Elise Pierre (Current Identity)

“Truth Princess”

Delilah Dubont (Previous Identity)

Adelphia Malinac (Previous Identity)

Cindera Dew (Previous Identity)

Maria Lamogre (Previous Identity)

Helia Tanya Vesper (Previous Identity; Maiden Name Helia Tanya Levintheim (Pronounced as “Levin-th-eim”)

  Age: 2,099 (Physically Looks 25) [As of 1545 T.C.]

2,624 (Physically Looks 25) [As of 2070 T.C.]

  Date of Birth/Birthday: 555 B.T.C.

  Zodiac: None

  Status: Alive (Faked Her Death Several Times)

  Species: Demi-Goddess (Masquerades As An Elf)

  Magic: Goddess Magic

  Height: 5’4 (162 Centimeters)

  Ethnicity (The Ethnicities She Claims To Be Throughout Her Various Identities As She Has No Actual Ethnicity): Mercenian (As Marie-Elise; Currently)

Ibisian (As Delilah)

Erisian (As Adelphia)

Omnian (As Cindera)

Vesperian (As Maria And Helia)

  Relatives: Eros (Mother; Comatose)

Unnamed Father (Deceased)

The Other 11 Goddesses (Technical Aunts)

  Birth Place: Parie, Continent of Alluria

  Nationality/Current Residence: State of Mercenia, Continent of Theda

  Religion (Which Goddess Do they Worship?): None

  Occupation: “Truth Princess” (As “Marie-Elise Pierre”)

Journalist (As “Marie-Elise Pierre”)

Archbishop of The Allurian Church (Formerly; As Herself)

President of The United Republic of Ibis (Formerly; As “Delilah Dupont”)

[Elected] Empress of The Erisian Empire (Formerly; As “Adelphia Malinac”)

Judge In The Omnian Empire (Formerly; As “Cindera Dew”)

Mayor of Elvara City (Formerly; As “Maria Lamogre”)

Princess of The Vesper Empire [By Marriage] (Formerly; As “Helia Tanya Vesper”)

And Many, Many, Many More; The Above ^ Are Just Some Notable Ones

  Affiliations: Allurian Church (Formerly)

Parie (Formerly)

Elvara City (Formerly)

Vesper Empire (Formerly)

Omnian Empire (Formerly)

Erisian Empire (Formerly)

The United Republic of Ibis (Formerly)

Thedian Rebels (From 1545 T.C. - 1547 T.C.)

  Marital Status: Single (Several Previous Relationships)

  Sexuality: Pansexual

  Likes: Nature, Reading, History, Music, Dancing, Nature, Rain, Libraries, Quietness, Lakesides, Practicing Magic, Researching

  Dislikes: Her Mother, People Who Ignore Both Sides of Each Person, People Who Blindly Follow The Goddesses, People Who Blindly Believe in Anything, Dealing With Nobles and Royalty, The Church System Itself

  Role: Secondary Character

  Debut: Chapter ??? The Monochromatic “Truth Princess” (As Marie-Elise Pierre)

Chapter ??? The Lady of Verdant Green (As Herself)

  Lucretia is the daughter of Eros and a human male I have nicknamed B. Since her birth, Lucretia has had to hide who she was from the world until she was around 5. Even then she had to pretend to only be Eros’s adoptive daughter and her father had to pretend to be Eros’s servant. Lucretia frequently argued with her mother about the situation, asking her why she even married B or had herein the first place if all she was going to do was pretend they didn’t exist almost all the time, and make them hide who they truly were. If she knew the consequences then why would she take such a huge risk? Lucretia considered her mother a stupid fool who didn’t properly think through any of her actions, and constantly called her out on her foolishness. Eventually, she just stopped talking to Eros entirely because she realized that it was too late; Eros was just not going to listen to her. 

When her father died when she was 15 years old, and Eros decided to put herself into a self-inflicted coma, she felt abandoned by her mother since her mother was just pushing her responsibilities onto Lucretia and running away from her problems. But in the end, she could do nothing about it and took up Eros’s duties anyway. She immediately realized her mother’s incompetence in running the church as archbishop of the Allurian branch, as she realized that everything was working inefficiently and there were mountains of work her mother had put off for whatever reason. She became known in history as the one who heavily reformed the way the church worked and became known as “Lucretia The Reformist”. She faked her death about 50 years later and went into hiding as she realized that due to her never aging past the age of 25 as she inherited her mother’s immortality and eternal youth that eventually everyone would figure out that “HEY SHE AIN’T MORTAL!” and so decided to fake her death. About a century later she took on her first alias and used a spell to make herself look different. She began to live out the life of the identity she had created and then fake her death after several years. She became several different historical figures from one of the greatest empresses of the Erisian Empire to currently being the mysterious “Truth Princess” who releases anonymous articles through continental-scale newspaper companies and reveals the corrupt truth of governments all over the world but mainly in Theda, especially in the Vesper Empire. 

Over the years Lucretia started to lose her sense of self, as she took on so many identities and lived through several different things as each, met so many different people, and watched them die out over time, overall she just became fatigued from it all. Tired of changing herself all the time. But due to her immortality, there was nothing she could do as no one of the humanoid races on the planet were truly immortal, and because she heavily resembled an elf and overall just wasn’t able to look like nor act like another race besides a human or elf she couldn’t masquerade as a long-lived race like the Ange. 

In 1545 T.C. upon the breakout of the Second Great Theda Civil War, Lucretia (as Marie-Elise Pierre or “Truth Princess”) ended up protecting the young Alia Hallow from a Sylvannese soldier who almost took Alia’s life. She later decided to join the rebellion because she was bored. After the war was won she continued her work as the Truth Princess before faking her death in 1613 T.C. and went into hiding yet again. For the next 500 years, she would continue pretending to be several different people and faking her death several times before Aya became a problem in 2070 T.C. She would finally reveal herself to be the thought of dead Archbishop Lucretia and that she was actually the daughter of Eros. She would end up seeing her mother again for the first time in over 2,000 years, and all she had to say to her was this:

“You ran away from everything, for what? And now your awake, and now the world has changed, and guess what? You still haven’t changed one bit. Your still the same. And the only reason your choosing to stay awake is to eliminate this threat. I have nothing else to say to you.”

Lucretia would be amongst the group who defeated Aya and witness to Nymeria’s sacrifice in 2070 T.C. and would witness the remaining 10 goddesses go into a deep sleep to avoid destroying the world. 

She honestly didn’t feel any empathy or sympathy for her mother, no, not after everything.

In the end, Lucretia would continue to fake her death and pretend to be several different people for centuries to come, but would several times secretly destroy records of the goddesses’ existence and the fact that the world really truly actually faced an actual threat to its existence and that the goddesses if awakened could end up destroying the world as she didn’t want anyone to attempt to awaken the goddesses just to force them to destroy everything, similar to what Aya wanted. She wanted the goddesses to fade into myth where she believed they now belonged for how much they screwed over the world. She believed the world was better without them, and so she acted accordingly.

  Lucretia is honestly a sort of no-nonsense, serious person. While she has pretended to have several different personalities she really is the type of person who just doesn’t joke around, and in the first place, her humor is kind of bad. Her idea of a joke is pretty dark, and anytime she’s asked to make a joke it’s usually an extremely dark one. 

While Lucretia isn’t self-deprecating, she often feels unwanted due to her belief that her mother didn’t think through what it entailed to have her and so believed (and didn’t bother to confirm whether it was true or not by asking her mother mostly because her mother was unavailable and she just couldn’t stand being around her) that her mother now didn’t want her and only kept her now out of obligation to not throw her onto the streets. And so she often needs to feel as if she is needed, and always tries to take on jobs where she would become irreplaceable and takes it extremely badly whenever she’s fired because it makes her feel like she’s simply a replaceable tool. 

Lucretia despises religious people who blindly follow the goddesses because after she studied more history she realized the goddesses were overall more of a harm than good for the world, and she was aware that the goddesses would eventually destroy everything due to inevitable insanity. And so she despises anyone who believes in the goddesses blindly. While she has pretended to believe in the goddesses whilst taking on different identities, she actually despises the goddesses overall even though she’s technically the niece of them all (except Eros of course, whose her mother).

Lucretia has genuinely fallen in love before with several different people as she took on different identities over the years but has resolved herself to never get too attached because she knows she’ll have to fake her death anyway and watch them move on from her if they don’t die before her. She also has accepted the fact that she has to let go of everything because of her immortality, and that she can’t let herself get too attached due to knowing she’ll lose everyone eventually whilst time will continue to go on and she’ll continue to live.

It’s the same tragedy, over and over; the pain of being immortal, a tragedy which many of my characters face, whether they only have an extended life span or are full-out immortal.

And so, fate continues to change, but the destined result is the same-

~An Ever Changing Fate~

  Concept Art of “Truth Princess”, aka “Marie-Elise Pierre”.

Also, “Elise” is not a middle name, it’s part of her first name, just saying because thats a misconception a lot of people have about hyphenated first names.

Lucretia used a spell to full out change her appearance, however it’s a pain to both cast and uncast but she kind of has no choice because she doesn’t want anyone to recgonize her as Lucretia the Archbishop of Alluria or as any of her previous identities. Also, due to Lucretia being part human she has to eat and sleep and all of those human needs which is why she is sleeping in one of the little sketches above. I used a monochromatic-ish color pallet for Marie-Elise because I wanted her to seem mysterious and stuff, and apparently black represents mystery but I didn’t want her to just be all black so thus monochrome colors. Also, the reason there are white roses behind her name in the picture is because they can apparently mean “truth” which is awfully fitting for her profession as a anonymous journalist who goes by the alias Truth Princess and submits articles telling of the behind the scenes truth of the governments all across Theda and even the world. How she knows all this? Hehe, thats a secret (ok well over 2,000 years travelling across the world lets you find out about alot of things, ok? She also has access to invisibility spells and she even has a spy network and everything known as “Royals De Verite” which is French for Truth Royals, and because her home continent Alluria is heavily inspired by France thats why I used the French words for her spy network’s name)

- Submission

It’s actually kind of interesting that this character has been around for so long that they’ve amassed the start of energy and power underneath their belt. So, it’s very clear that she’s not all-powerful because there’s just such a gap between how much of her power that she can expand how much she cannot. The way that you framed her in the drawing as well as just something that makes it have the sort of longing sense to it that I cannot put into words. Like, it feels like I’m such a depth here that even I’m not grasping. There is definitely a reason for that though she clearly doesn’t want to be found out.

[dreamer-under-the-moon]

KH Dark Road: the Beginning

It’s only the prologue, but it’s one hell of a ride!

The game begins with scenes from KHX, up to the scene where the Player character sees Ephemer and Skuld after the Keybalde War ended. Then we switch to Xehanort, who sheds a tear as he wakes from... his dream?

Well, this is certainly one way to connect Union Cross to Dark Road. Not sure what you are going with this, Nomura, but please, go on.

I think most of us have long suspected that Heartless Xehanort had something to do with Young Xehanort getting off Destiny Islands. My main question though, is this: was Xehanort the only inhabitant of that world? If so, I do not blame him for wanting out.

Time skip! And baby Eraqus! Given what we know about him (descendant of Keyblade wielding lineage), I’m sure there’s a lot of theories on whether he is related to any of our Unchained crew. I’m betting on Brain, but it could be Skuld. Of course, it could also be a rando wielder, but I doubt it.

I must say, I did not expect his personality to be so carefree. It’s hard to not think of the stern Master Eraqus when I see his younger version, even when said younger version is planning on getting to class at the last minute.

I am getting Birth By Sleep flashbacks.

“It’s like poetry, they rhyme.” 

Again, poetry.

Xehanort is going to do a lot of falling in the future.

(This design is absolutely breathtaking and the reference to the True Kingdom Hearts is spot on.)

Here we meet the other apprentices. That makes a total of 6, counting Eraqus and Xehanort. I wonder why the numbers dwindled to 3 under Eraqus.

If anyone told me that Eraqus used to be a brat with a great sense of humor, I would stare at them hard. Apparently, a cheerful Eraqus was just what the doctor ordered.

Hold up, since when were we involving the Norse Gods in this? When did this turn into a Norse mythology adaptation?

...

Their Keyblade master was ODIN???

Baldr, I can kind of leave aside. The only reason I know about him is because I was in an MCU phase and while he is mostly known for his role in two stories in Norse mythology, his name might fly over a lot of people’s heads (aka past me).

But Odin.

Really, Nomura.

ODIN.

Who’s next? We already got Skuld in KHUX, so I guess we can look forward to the other two Norns. Since Baldr and Odin are here, I guess we’ll be seeing more of Odin’s sons? Like Thor?

Maybe we’ll see some version of Frigg since she can scry. Would definitely be helpful in the KH universe.

I’m guessing that Nomura decided to stick with Odin’s seidrmann aspect rather than the warrior one that seems more prevalent in popular media. Also, if Yen Sid was not one of Odin’s students or a close friend, I will eat my hat.

Speaking of hats, nice touch with the hat covering one of his eyes. Now the old man only needs two ravens and his spear, though I guess it would be a Keyblade in this case.

I will be calling this Birth By Sleep: Terra’s Route, Xehanort version.

Why seven? For the seven Lights? Is there always going to be a Luxu-like character who is supposed to be there but is just off on his own? Then again, the Foretellers were five, six plus Luxu, seven plus their master. Are we getting another trio then?

Anyways, the upperclassmen were traveling between the worlds to prepare for their Mastery Exam when they suddenly vanished. Apparently, lowerclassmen didn’t know about that part of their future training.

Gotta say, I was expecting Xehanort to be the one raging about being kept from interdimensional travel, not Eraqus. Though it was hinted at earlier that he wanted to go see the other worlds more than anything. Still, chill dude.

Odin does decide to teach them his ways, in order to find his wayward students, which is a surprise to the Dark Road crew.

Welp, found the troublemakers of the group. Also, the dark haired boy on the top right looks so bloody annoyed. Something tells me he’s a bit of a rule-follower.

From what I gathered of their personalities so far, we have a relatively colorful cast.

Eraqus => excitable puppy

Xehanort => Braincell

Ginger boi => the cool kid

Purple girl => cinnamon bun (mage?)

Black haired boy => class president

Silver girl => responsible one (possibly descendant of Skuld and/or Ephemer) (swordswoman?)

I wonder how Baldr fits in this group?

Oh. Well, I get why not telling him about this incident might help him not freak out, but I doubt his classmates’ absence will go unnoticed indefinitely. I am getting very curious as to what Baldr looks like and what his role in this story will be.

As for his sister, I’m going to go on a limb here and guess that she is also named after a Norse deity. Which one? No idea. I don’t recall Odin having any daughters, but if we go the MCU route, I have a good guess what Baldr’s sister’s fate will be.

Our cast goes outside and discuss how they should proceed. Ginger turns to Xehanort for advice, since he’s the only one from another world.

This raises an interesting question, do all current Keyblade wielders (except Xehanort) descend from the Dandelions?

Xehanort’s status as an otherworlder as well as his maturity are definitely traits that would make a leader of the group. And Xehanort’s knowledge, especially when it comes to the current state of other worlds, is definitely another thing his peers respect about him.

Now, Odin says that they must travel in two groups of three. You then see a screen that allows you to choose who to bring with you. Xehanort and Eraqus, however, are non-negotiable.

...

So, we’ve got their names. And what names they are. Let’s do a bit of research, shall we?

- Hermod, son of Odin, brother of Baldr. His name means some variant of “warrior” or “wrath of war”. He is said to have ridden to Helheim for nine days so that Baldr may return to the land of the living. While he succeeded in persuading Hel, Hel’s request was unfulfilled and Baldr remained in her halls. In one poem, Hermod and Bragi greet fallen warriors to Valhalla (note that it is unclear whether the Bragi in question is human or god).

- Bragi, god of poetry and originally ninth-century bard Bragi Boddason.  Evidence seems to suggest that while Christian writers made him a god, he was not actually worshipped as one before that.

- Urd, Norn of the past and the word for “fate”. Sister to Norns Verdandi (”happening” or “present”) and Skuld (”debt” or “future”).

- Vor, goddess of wisdom. Her name means possibly "the careful one," or "aware, careful". It is said that she is wise and inquiring, so that nothing can be concealed from her.

...I shall hencerforth call the Dark Road crew “the Norse Study Group”, NSG for short.

Xehanort and Eraqus are so out of place, name-wise.

Ready to take off!

Also, Nomura, giving Xehanort a throne and a crown? Are you trying to tell us something?

[detectivejigsawpines]

North by Northwest Conspiracy-Finale (Alea iacta est)

Seeing the look on Old Man Northwest’s face after stuffing the piece of paper into his mouth made the experience of sacrificing the money it would have given him totally worth it.  Stan gave it another vindictive chew, wondering if he could make it into a good spitball like in high school.

Funny how he doesn’t even seem surprised at the possibility of his family legacy bein’ a fraud as much as he is interested in tryna cover it up.

...Unless he knew that was the truth all along.

Well, he did say that stuff about the town needing someone ta look up to...

Geez, what a jerk .  He’s worse than the kid.

As he pushed the wad of paper into his cheek with his tongue, his eyes landed on Preston, still standing meekly behind his father.  The boy was staring at them in bug-eyed disbelief, probably not used to people defying his Old Man this blatantly, if at all. Stan waggled his eyebrows at him; to his surprise, for a half second the kid looked like he was trying to smother a giggle, as if there was a real human soul in that suit.

Finally Old Man spoke, in tones of sharp, clipped rage.

“If you bring this story to the press, you will regret it.”

“Oh yeah?  Why?” Ford challenged.

Old Man’s eyebrows did a little dance up and down his forehead.  “I wonder if you’re aware, Stanford, of the amount of trouble your brother has gotten himself in with the law during the years before he came here.”

Ford rolled his eyes.  “Yes, I already know about that, we’ve been through this already-”

“But do the people around here know?”

Old Man Northwest’s air of superiority returned.  “How safe do you think they would feel, knowing that that cabin in the woods not only harbors an eccentric mad scientist, but his hardened criminal of a brother?  Someone who’s spent time in prison, and has several false identities on his record?”

Stan felt his gut clench and burn with anger-but also with a touch of fear.

Old Man went on, “Of course, it wasn’t for anything serious, like murder, but who knows what crimes he committed that he wasn’t convicted of?  Or what he might be up to right now?”  He stepped closer, staring down his nose at them despite being barely an inch taller than the Pineses.  “Like those large amounts of gold that you’ve been taking to the city and selling in different pawn shops every few weeks-where do those come from, I wonder?”

“It’s nothing illegal!” Ford interrupted.

Probably, anyway, Stan hoped.  He wasn’t exactly up to date on whatever statutes there might be regarding sales rights with supernatural creatures.

“That’s what you say, of course.  But I wonder; I really do.  And of course, in a small town like this, if they’ve been stirred up against one small person, or group of people-” he clicked his tongue.  “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Stan stepped up to his brother’s side, readjusting his grip on the handle of the sword.  Old Man’s eyes flicked towards him, looking for a moment like he feared he might actually use it.  Stan just asked in a flat tone, “You really think people’d get as worked up about my petty crimes as they would about all the crap your family’s pulled?”

Old Man shrugged.  “Perhaps not...but the fact remains that if you attempt to bring destruction on my family, rest assured that I will do as much to you.”

Ford looked positively incensed that he would dare to misquote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at them.  He was opening his mouth, probably to correct him on the parts he didn’t get right, when Old Man turned away and stalked towards his car.

“Come, Preston-we’re going home.”

The boy slinked after his father.  As he got to the door, he hesitated for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something to them-but then he just climbed in.

****

For a minute, the little group silently watched the fancy car drive away.

At last Stan spat out the spitball and said, “Well, we uncovered the truth about a major conspiracy in Gravity Falls, but it’s gonna be difficult for us ta do anything with what we know.  On the other hand, it means that if they try ta dig up the dirt on us we can expose them too. I think that’s what they call mutually assured destruction, right?”

“At least you didn’t take his Judas money,” Dan growled, as he resumed dragging Ghost Eyes and his buddy to the car.  Trembley, finally paying attention to what was going on, sprang down from his perch on top of the tombstone and wandered over with interest to see what this strange “horseless carriage” was.

Stan’s shoulders sagged.  “Sorry, Sixer. Looks like I messed things up again.”

Ford’s head whipped around towards him.  “What-? No-this isn’t your fault, Stanley.  You shouldn’t blame yourself. And even if we didn’t get the end results we expected, we still found some fascinating-artifacts!”  His eyebrows raised in sudden realization. “We need to close up that entrance so they will be safe until we can bring them home! So go do that.”

Stan managed a smile, and a mock salute.  “Aye aye, Captain.”

“We’re not at sea, Stanley-you don’t say ‘aye aye’ when you’re on land.”

“Whatever.”  And he headed back to that part of the cemetery.

Just in case, Stan went down and checked inside-thankfully the rooms still had all the stuff as far as he could tell, and there was no one else down here, so once he got outside he returned to the angel statue and pressed her finger down into place.  The stone slab slid seamlessly (try saying that three times fast) back over the stairs.

“See ya later, gorgeous,” he told the statue, and then returned to the car.

********

Trembley spent the drive to the hospital marveling at their speed, and that their lungs weren’t collapsing from “going over thirty-five furlongs per jiffy.”  Stan had long since given up trying to figure out what he was talking about.

At the hospital, Dan dumped out the hench-teenagers in front of the door, with a note attached to Ghost Eyes’s shirt reading, “Please make sure we don’t have concussions or anything like that.  Thank you.” Despite his and Stan’s objections, Ford tucked a wad of cash to pay for the hospital bill into his pocket. Then they quickly drove away before anyone could see them.

When they arrived back at their home, Trembley hopped out.  “Gentlemen, I am needed elsewhere-”

“...Where?” Stan asked, confused.

“-but I will return when America needs me most!  Until then, remember that I am right here-” he put a hand to his heart...that turned out to actually be reaching into his coat pocket.  “On the negative twelve dollar bill!” He handed it to Ford.

“Um...thank you.  I suppose.” Ford looked at both sides with a critical eye.

“And for you, other Stan, I have this!”  He handed Stan his President’s Key. Stan suddenly felt a little better about how this day had gone.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Dan grumbled.

“Oh, of course!  You are now an official congressman, brave giant!”  Trembley produced a folded top hat, which he popped open and placed on top of the lumberjack’s head (he had to stand on tiptoe, but he managed it).  Then he raised his arms, and yelled, “Trembley away!”

Before they could blink, the former president leaped backwards, landing on a horse that they suddenly noticed standing by the side of the house.  It reared briefly, and then galloped off into the forest (with Trembley still sitting backwards on it).

“Remarkable!” Ford said, staring after the retreating figures.  “I think that was a genuine Coinci-Horse!” He pulled out his journal and flipped through it.  “I know I wrote about them somewhere…”

Stan gave Dan a look.  “How much do ya give his chances for survivin’ the twentieth century?”

“He seems pretty adaptable,” Dan mused.  “On the other hand, I think he’s ridin’ right into Kill-Billy territory.  So the odds’re maybe about fifty-fifty right now.”

“We’re going to have to make a closer examination of that peanut brittle!” Ford announced.  “I need to find out where it came from-if it was created here in Gravity Falls, and perhaps that gave it its life-sustaining properties, or if he put something in it, or-”

Dan gave a resigned sigh.  “I’ll get my truck-it’s got more room in the back.”  He set off for his cabin.

********

Unfortunately, Auldman is pretty good at playing dirty. So now the Pineses have made a mortal enemy out of the most powerful family in Gravity Falls; and the Corduroys were already their mortal enemies, so Dan doesn't feel very affected, but things could always get worse for him somehow. What a lovely way to end the day.

Of course, once they get all the stuff back to the house and stored safely in the basement, Ford starts considering possible actions they could take should the Northwests really try to use Stan's criminal history against them or find out where they're getting their gold from. He definitely doesn't want Auldman to find out about the creatures living in the forest-he can just imagine him trying to capture, exploit and/or destroy them to satisfy his own greed. During his classes about humanity he warns his students of the possible danger, and devises a plan for everyone to go into hiding should the worst occur. Dan, whose family does apocalypse training every year instead of Christmas, is all too happy to help with this. On his tours, Stan takes the assortments of cryptids by the Northwest mansion so they can thumb their noses at it, and forces himself to resist the temptation to use his key so they could sneak in and loot the place. Even when he learns from Dan about how his ancestor was killed building it, after being banned from the celebratory party. Instead, he looks into possible curses that they could place on the Northwest family. So far he hasn't found one that seems like fitting enough punishment.

[arcanalogue]

ON TYRANNY - An Unsolicited Tarot Tour, pt. II

In my initial post groping for symbolic parallels between the Major Arcana and Timothy Snyder’s ON TYRANNY, we covered The Fool and The Magician. 

In the few days then (just to show how fast time seems to move during a budding oligarchy), video has surfaced of the President speaking to rich donors at one of his own hotels, in which he says: “The European Union is a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, it’s as simple as that.” He goes on to explain why this is surprising: “We’re all sort of from there, right?”

He also tweeted a thinly-veiled threat suggesting that Adam Schiff, the US rep who gave a rousing speech in the impeachment trial the other day, “has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!”

There’s also video of his pick for Special Advisor to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, Paula White, working this bit into a sermon: “We command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now.” 

And just for fun, a case of the Wuhan coronavirus was detected near Los Angeles, and today officials are reporting that, as feared, the disease is contagious before the appearance of symptoms. There are still plenty of good folks left at the CDC, right? The lights are on, at least?

But if we let paroxysms of fear induced by bad headlines stop us from going about our day, pretty much none of us would have made it through 2017 — and yet here we are, two full years beyond that point, still rallying, still cracking jokes, still helping each other get things back on track. And sure, my beard and chest hair are suddenly growing in all white, but that’s fine! The sharper contrast will be dazzling against all of my goth attire. How’s that for a silver lining? 

Anyway, on to the cards.

The High Priestess represents everything we take for granted about our own awareness. She’s the source of our inspiration, the dream we awaken from that colors our perception of the day; she’s the vapors sighing from a crack in the earth, and she’s also the Pythia who hears and interprets those whispers. 

Most of us realize we’re more than just our cognition, or our memories, but it’s still quite easy to lose track of the various pillars our interior world is formed around... until one of them is suddenly swept away.

And it’s the same with our exterior life, because “interior” and “exterior” are only matters of scale, baby. Your mind is your own (for now), but how did it become what it became? What unseen protections was it afforded? 

Most people probably think of libraries, or organizations, or certain publications when they hear the word “institutions.” But so many different things fall under this category, it’s actually mind-boggling! It really makes you ponder about the particular framework of your community. Some are more fragile or less corporeal than others; to LGBTQ people, a bar can serve as an institution. Hell, in Brooklyn a taco restaurant can be described as a “mainstay” if it manages to last 15 years.

Some institutions are really only useful to those who created them, and others or who are well-adapted to them, and are bound to crumble naturally with time. A lot of what history has thought to provide will be useless to people in the coming century and beyond; their needs are evolving drastically, right in front of our eyes. This is why we also need to create safe and fertile territory for new institutions to be formed, and try not to take it too personally when the world just moves on. Memento mori, and all that.

But this entropy is not what Snyder’s talking about: he says DEFEND institutions, implying they are under attack. And some of this is very easy to watch for, because we think we know what an attack looks like. But as Snyder’s chapter points out:

“Sometimes institutions are deprived of vitality and function, turned into a simulacrum of what they once were, so that they gird the new order, instead of resisting it. This is what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung.”

You know, like appointing industrial tycoons to manage the EPA and the Department of Education, or leaving countless government positions unfilled so that none of the departments can function quite as they used to.

No one can look after all of them, and none of us knows which we’ll depend on most in a key moment. That means we all have to fan out and each claim a different piece of the puzzle. But which one? And how?

Reflect on the mental architecture that contributed to the formation of your own mind, and then let the Priestess guide you. 

The tarot-ticklers of antiquity may have determined that The Emperor’s power trumps that of The Empress (as the cards are ordered so that each one “triumphs” over the one that preceded it), but he can’t exist without her, and everyone in the kingdom knows it. 

In this chapter Snyder invokes the popular saying “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” adding:

“When we think of this saying today, we imagine our own righteous vigilance directed outward, against misguided and hostile others... But the sense of the saying was entirely different: that human nature is such that American democracy must be defended from Americans who would exploit its freedoms to bring about its end.”

In readings I often explain to people that The Emperor represents the outward-looking ruler, the conqueror, the prospector, the warlord. The Empress is the inward looking ruler, tending to the needs of the people, governing, presiding over everything that gives life meaning. 

I mentioned above that the very concept of interior/exterior is only a matter of scale. Those terms are used very flexibly, aren’t they? There’s the interior of my body, and the interior of my home, and the interior of my apartment complex, and so on. At some point it stops being “my” anything. Suddenly we’re looking beyond my town, or my state, or my country. Sometimes others draw those lines for us, and other times we have to be The Emperor, pushing back against that line, drawing one of our own, defending what’s rightfully ours. 

Regarding our own interior as a nation: in case you hadn’t heard (HAHA!) we’re about to stagger through a series of important elections. The one thing we know for sure is that the results of these elections will be disputed, no matter what they happen to be. If we can no longer trust the outcome of an election — due to internal fiddling, not just foreign — then what’s the point of having them at all? You can already sense everyone’s fatigue, ripe to be exploited.

The GOP is already slavering for it, canceling primaries left and right so that Trump will run unopposed for reelection. A “one-party” election suits them just fine. Debates only raise questions, and give a platform to challengers. In order for Trump 2020 to seem like an inevitable choice, he has to be the only choice.

Ruining the public’s faith in American democracy is part of the strategy, because of course it is. Later in Chapter III, Snyder offers yet another popular saying: “Where annual elections end, tyranny begins.” 

The work required to protect the upcoming election, and make sure people still care about the outcome, can only be done by Americans organizing and working together on every level: personal, local, national. The fatalism and cynicism everyone’s feeling is understandable, but it ought to drive one toward active participation in preserving what little democracy we have left. 

Otherwise, what’s the point? If it’s more important to have your worst fears confirmed, to be able to say “I told you so,” to bargain with the inevitability of fascism, then you’re rooting against The Empress and the rest of us. You’re part of the rot in your own kingdom.

If you’re someone who does Empress-related work, this is your new practice: she is calling you to serve as guardian and minister of the interior. Whatever inspiration you manage to muster, your role is to imbue others with it, and resist whatever negativity you may encounter as you do so.

Are your friends and family registered to vote? Are they sure? Do your representatives in Congress have a plan in place for when Trump refuses to concede? What communities near you could use a leg up in terms of outreach? Ask questions. Get creative. Be a constructive part of the pressure. 

What you manage to accomplish on your own may seem meager, but pouring energy into these concerns will remind others why this fight still matters, and it will encourage those who never forgot. We need everyone in this fight.

Our last “real” election can’t already be behind us. The Empress is counting on us to make sure of it. 

This is Part II in a series of posts about Timothy Snyder’s ON TYRANNY, which can be purchased via your local bookstore, and also here. 

[clockworkouroboros]

This amazing art by @ouidamforeman inspired me. I need to go to bed, instead I’m writing stupid short fanfic about Narvin and Romana looking for their wife.

———

“I refuse to wear that.”

Romana hangs up the shirt with a huff, doing her best to not use her presidential voice on Narvin. Instead, she sighs. “Need I remind you, Narvin, that even if it seems nonsensical, you need to wear something not quite so… Gallifreyan?”

Oh dear. Her voice sounds just a bit too wearily imperious to pass as annoyed. Funny how the presidential voice stuck with her after all these years. She hasn’t actually been president in centuries.

Currently she and Narvin are in an old TARDIS—their TARDIS, she supposes. Its internal layout keeps reconfiguring itself. Apparently it can’t reconcile her tastes with Narvin’s. Which is fair enough, she thinks, as she looks over the rack of clothes that she found somewhere in the depths of the Ship. The only thing she and Narvin really have in common is a fondness for Leela.

Although, of course, they care very much for each other. But their upbringings were so different, and it took an actual civil war for Narvin to even ally himself with her. Now they’re friends. More than friends, really. It’s amazing how near-death experiences bring people closer together.

“Why do I have to wear these things again?” Narvin asks her, gesturing at his trousers. He’s much better at sounding annoyed than she is. “What are they called again?”

“Trousers,” she supplies tiredly. She looks him up and down, and he blushes, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “They’re practical for what we need to be doing. And anyway, most humanoid life forms wear something similar. It will help you blend in.”

“And what if I don’t want to blend in?” Narvin asks. He probably thinks he sounds rebellious and cool, but this is Narvin. He can’t do any emotions other than annoyed bureaucrat.

Romana fixes him with a hard stare. “Time Lords are not going to be the most popular people in the universe, I can guarantee it. Not with Rassilon and Mantus running around like that.” She looks him up and down again, staring at him like she’s never seen him before in her life. “You look… younger.”

“The… thing that I told you about,” Narvin mutters. “I think it gave back some of my regenerations. It also rejuvenated the current one. At least, I think it did.”

“Or maybe being on Gallifrey was slowly killing you,” Romana suggests. “I wouldn’t blame you, not the way things are going.” She ignores his death glare. “Now. We need to find you a shirt.”

“And I already said I’m not going to wear that—that thing—that you showed me!” Narvin says. If Romana was the type of person to not be overly-concerned about her wardrobe, she would laugh at how concerned Narvin is about his. But she understands fashion. She knows how important it is to have the right outfit.

“That was a perfectly good shirt,” she insists.

Narvin gives a short sigh. “I’ll grant you that,” he admits. “But I’ve never looked good in Gallifreyan day wear.”

“Oh, is that why you only wear your CIA robes?”

He gives an embarrassed cough. “I thought you said my clothes needed to be practical.” He rubs his exposed arms, like he’s cold, but Romana is fairly certain that he’s just thoroughly embarrassed. And Romana can understand it. She and Narvin love each other, but he’s the kind of Time Lord who would get embarrassed over going shirtless in front of his spouse.

So, a normal Time Lord.

She leaves him to find a shirt on his own, heading back to the console room to see where they’ve landed. On the way, she grabs a big sun hat. It goes ever so nicely with the new outfit she’s put together.

—————

The planet is very sunny. Romana refused to let Narvin look at anything, so he knows nothing about where they are, or what the wildlife is like, or if it’s inhabited, or if the air is safe, or-

He knows Romana’s probably checked, but it’s in his nature to octuple-check these things.

So far, all he can tell about the planet is that it’s sunny. He’s walking in some sort of tall, golden grass. Romana’s just behind him. She’s wearing a giant hat that shades her from the hot sun.

Narvin can feel his cells reacting to the sunlight. He puts a little extra effort into making sure he doesn’t get a sunburn, and wonders briefly if he should let the sun tan his skin. Would Leela like him with a tan? He scratches his beard distractedly, then remembers that it doesn’t matter what Leela likes unless he and Romana find her. And there’s a possibility that she’s on this planet.

He shades his eyes with his hand, wishing that he could be wearing Romana’s big hat. Maybe Leela will be there, off in the distance.

And then a fireball from the sky shoots down, where he and Romana had just been walking and what was that from oh sweet Rassilon—wait Rassilon was actually evil—oh sweet Omega—no, he’d been bad too—oh sweet other.

Romana puts her hands to her hat to keep it from flying off as the hot air from the blast hits them. “I wonder what that is!” she calls to Narvin. She sounds rather more excited than Narvin feels is healthy.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” he replies. His gaze slides back and forth between Romana and the now-smoldering fireball a little ways behind her. It clearly was some kind of spaceship. “It could be anything. Daleks, Time Lords, some other hostile alien force. It could be a sabotage from a terrorist group on this planet, and we’ll end up being blamed for it.”

“It could be Leela,” Romana says, interrupting him. “And that means we’re going to look.

Narvin looks from the wreckage to Romana, then back to the wreckage, mentally doing an extensive cost-benefit analysis in which the costs involve all manner of unpleasantness, and the only benefit is the chance of finding Leela.

He sighs and, with a look of utmost displeasure and disgust, follows Romana to the wrecked ship.

[windandwater]

First, you should know that we didn’t know about any of this when we went to Crete. But we found out, when we were told the story.

If you want to be inspired and sad all at once while learning some history, I very much recommend reading the Wikipedia pages for the Greek Resistance and Cretan Resistance in WWII. Actually, I recommend reading them anyway—hi I’m a Ravenclaw and a proponent of knowledge for the sake of knowledge—but they’re also relevant to this story.

For the sake of said story, it suffices to know that the reaction of Greece, and especially Crete, to the Nazis invading, was to resist. According to Wikipedia, this is how the Battle of Crete went for Germany:

For the first time during World War II, attacking German forces faced in Crete a substantial resistance from the local population. Cretan civilians picked off paratroopers or attacked them with knives, axes, scythes or even bare hands. As a result, many casualties were inflicted upon the invading German paratroopers during the battle.

They lost in the end, but the resistance didn’t stop then. Cretan rebels hid out in the mountains and kept fighting for the duration of the war. Wikipedia once again:

As Cretan fighters became better armed and more aggressive in 1944, the German troops pulled out of the country areas, having destroyed a number of villages in the Kedros area and executing many inhabitants, aiming to cow the Cretans. Grouping their forces around Canea, the Germans remained trapped until the end of the war, refusing to surrender to the Greek army, for fear of retaliation. They eventually surrendered to the British on 23 May 1945.

It was a three hour bus ride from Chania to Heraklion. We made this trip with the sole purpose of visiting Knossos, the oldest civilization we’ve found in Europe, which also happens to be the origin of the myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth.

At the beginning, the bus station in Chania was playing “Sweet Home Alabama.” Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Is that Sweet Home Alabama??? holy shit Friend: What? Me: am I hallucinating Me: tell me you’re hearing this too Me: Do they even know what Alabama is here?? Friend: Do they know Alabama is even real? Me: To be fair, I’m not even sure Alabama is real. In fact I’m pretty sure Alabama isn’t real. Or I wish it wasn’t.

A bus, another bus, and a street cat sleeping on a motorcycle. Graffiti proclaiming that a bench in the middle of a bus stop is a good kissing spot (it did not look particularly romantic). People catching the bus from stops under dripping overpasses and benches surrounded only by trees on the side of the road.

And then we found ourselves walking through the oldest civilization in Europe.

The grounds were covered in peacocks, and we could hear them screaming in the trees. I have many questions about the 19th century British man who “restored” the ruins, but after walking around them and getting very confused, I no longer have any questions about why this was the civilization that came up with the myth of an endless maze.

I no longer wonder how the people on this island and in this country looked up at the stars and the mountains and told stories about gods and monsters, or why they got so strange. So many people, in such a mild climate, in close quarters, telling stories?

Of course Crete takes its time. Of course Crete is an island of wax wings flying away and women giving birth to half-bull monsters. Of course Crete’s food will ruin you for all other food, after taking two hours to eat it.

Of course Crete is full of stories.

There’s no good way to describe the feeling of walking through ancient ruins. I think, just like the experience of living in New York, I might be spending the rest of my life trying. What I will say now is that—like New York—only the locals could describe it properly. Only the locals know the ways in which being an ancient culture has shaped them through the years and brought them to where they are.

We only got a small taste of the community, and the spirit of the people. But I can say that both are very strong.

We did some shopping, of course. There’s a row of shops right outside the ruins, the kind that pop up all over the world in tourist areas and that prey on the unsuspecting, or willingly enter into a contract with the suspecting, to prey on them.

We only intended to be there for a few minutes—we’d purchased a ticket that would get us into the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion, and had to get there before it closed.

But, you know. It’s Greece. It’s Crete.

Never go to Crete with the attitude that you need to be on a schedule or stick to a specific plan. Expect to be derailed by glasses of raki and limoncello and new friends and their stories. Expect stories about monsters.

Our first store was run by an older man who spoke very little English but found everything I said to be hilarious, so he was my instant new best friend.

The second store we went into was run by a younger guy, who started out telling us about the merchandise, so I’m still not quite sure how we ended up discovering that we were kindred spirits. What I do know is that fifteen minutes later, we had both bought more things than intended, and were yelling about politics and our terrible president in the middle of a Greek tourist shop at the end of the day.

That’s when “Sweet Home Alabama” came on in his store. I shit you not.

I had noticed the slightly-odd playlist (I think John Mayer had been mixed in there at some point) but couldn’t help commenting this time, if only for the coincidence. That’s when Nikos (his name was Nikos) said the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life:

“Yeah, I play traditional Greek music in the morning for the tourists, and in the afternoon I just listen to whatever I want.”

A few minutes later, in the middle of us still cussing out the president, “Shipping up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys came on. Okay.

I got to yell about going to the Flogging Molly/Dropkicks concert last year and bond over Celtic punk and talk a lot about Boston and how my family immigrated from Italy and Portugal.

“And why does your country hate immigrants?”
 “I don’t even kNOW, we’re all immigrants originally, it’s so stupid, our country just hates anybody who’s not white.” “There’s a little of that in Europe too, not in Greece because we love immigrants—“ “Yeah, fascism is coming back—“ “And we're doing NOTHING about climate change, the world is falling apart, why are you so worried about immigrants when the planet is dying—“ “WE KNOW, it’s so fucked up” “Well when the world ends I’ll just be up in the mountains fighting fascists” “HELL YEAH”

And as I alluded to earlier, going up into the mountains to fight fascists is not unprecedented. Nikos would even be following in the footsteps of his family.

When the Nazis invaded, he said, his grandfather was missing a hand, so he couldn’t fight, but he hid people in a basement. He walked out one morning and there was a pile of dead Nazis—right over there, not a hundred feet from where we were standing—and two partisans standing there with guns slung over their shoulders. They had singlehandedly fought them all off. And when the Nazis tortured Nikos’ grandfather for information later, he couldn’t tell them anything, because he truly didn’t know.

Are you getting chills? I was.

At that point I asked if the traditional Cretan knives he was selling were for stabbing Nazis. He said yes.

He wasn’t wrong.

Cretan civilians picked off paratroopers or attacked them with knives, axes, scythes or even bare hands.

The next day, we were back in Chania, walking around and getting lost in the city.

We didn’t have to get lost to find the bombed-out ruins of a building destroyed by German invaders. There were others just like it.

The stories are there, right under your feet. In the face of the person walking next to you. In the history they carry with them, just by existing in this time, in this place.

Nikos had started out telling us the story of the minotaur, which I could recite back to him verbatim. I read Greek myths as a child, and Greek philosophy as an adult. I learned the real, grownup versions of the mythology, then read plays and Homer and translated Latin versions of Greek stories. My feet walked in a city that looks like Greece but isn’t, learning the story of my country and where it came from.

We went from Knossos back to Heraklion city center on another bus, this time full of old ladies coming back from work, ignoring us, and having their own conversations. We were too late to go to the museum, and barely caught the bus back.

We had the chance to be in the place where the stories came from. And I think we were lucky to hear them from someone who has had them under his feet his whole life.

[ageofkings]

Brazil 2018 elections: context and what to learn from it

I'm going to write a long post as a brazilian person who would like people to understand what happened in these elections. The rise of far-right is, obviously, linked to economic and moral crisis, and I believe the given context should help show exactly how this happened in Brazil.

First of all, we lived a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. It was bipartidary as a way to say there was any opposition at all but it made no difference, considering that elections were indirect(that is, not chosen by the actual population, holding power within military hand). It started with a coup d'état lead by the military supported by the USA against the president João Goulart, who while not being a communist at all, was left-wing. However, communist accusations already existed when Juscelino Kubitschek, who actively made it easier for international companies to enter Brazil, was the president. Even if the politician is open to capitalism, they can be painted as a communist for not following exactly USA's plan for them. Remember we're talking about Cold War, and tons of João Goulart's actions affected the USA directly.

While there was strong resistence to the military takeover, some may argue that there was popular support. That's because of the heavily spoken of(at least here) "Marcha da Família com Deus pela Liberdade", translating to March of the Family with God for Liberty: it was headed by people afraid of the "communist danger" in the name of democracy, of all things, and the Catholic Church, then an absolute majority among brazilians. Communism was associated with atheism, and the name of the march might show how big of an influence the Church was in this process.

Fast foward to already existing military dictatorship. While not as many people have died as in, for example, Chile under Pinochet, there was still torture, murder, people dissapearing and exile. And then they might say or you might think: "the only ones who would be murdered or tortured would be those opposing the dictatorship, so if you were not a terrorist, you should be fine!" I know how surreal this sounds but this is an actual thing that has been said on the topic of our military dictatorship more than once. Except one, it isn't ok to murder or torture someone because they oppose a government being overthrown. The direct opposition, like the ones actively fighting militaries, were not the only victims: it is highly suspected that Juscelino Kubitschek(the guy I mentioned earlier that is definitely not a communist) was murdered in 1976, in what was made to look like a car accident. Kubitschek was popular among brazilians and I argue he still is remembered in a good light, which might explain to you why dictators would want to murder such a personality. Now two, there are more reasons to complain considering the dictators sucked at governing?

To counterargument the "bad government" point someone might point out the "Milagre Econômico" or Economic Miracle, a boom in brazilian economy that wasn't real. How so? While our Produto Interno Bruto(PIB, in english known as Gross Domestic Product or GDP) did grow, it was in the hands of the already rich, such as great farmers who increased their production for exportation. You can't even claim it was an attempt to make private companies grow since anything that wasn't already big was forgotten, so neither is private business growing nor are state companies benefitting the population. Just making your GDP grow won't make your economy work! Anyway, inflation grew afterward and even people in the military were complaining(namely poor people who felt it). No matter how much you censor media, when most of the country hates your guts for making them miserable you can't hold on that long, so dictators started to transition to democracy. End. Understand that the elected president Bolsonaro supoorts this dictatorship.

Now let's take a look in 2002. That's when Lula was elected president for the first time, after running a ton of previous times. This man created PT, "Partido dos Trabalhadores" or Worker's Party, came from the working class(and organized strikes!) and is considered the first left-wing candidate after the dictatorship. Say what you will, the guy made some real changes to the country. He ended hunger in Brazil, invested heavily in social programs to remove people from misery, there was an increase in employed people, among other things. Of course, it wasn't perfect; in fact, to be elected, Lula had to align himself with more conservative parties and make himself less radical, otherwise the rich and middle class would not vote for him. Many actions helped the rich, especially great farmers(since economy became, and still is, dependent on commodities).

Conservative parties would not accept so easily to share power with parties so aligned to the left as PT. Internal conflict began and it has been since revealed that there was major bribery involved to make the goverment's social projects be accepted, in what was called the "Mensalão". Either way, Lula got reelected and later elected and reelected Dilma Rousseff as his successor, even if Dilma did not have the same popularity as Lula(and hers only decreased, actually). It is clear to all that Dilma was elected because of PT and especially Lula's legacy.

Dilma faced economic problems, besides protests in 2013 against the raise in bus passes(which isn't responsability of the president but it escalated GREATLY through the whole country and became a generalized protest against the government and corruption) and the disaster that was World Cup in 2014(honestly I don't even remember if it was corruption claims or the fact that people thought it was irresponsible to build stadiums while the country was dying or something). Things slowly turned into "this is PT's fault" and some even asked for military intervention like in the dictatorship, a request carried over to 2018 elections. Dilma just wasn't that popular and the fact she got reelected is, again, mostly because she was Lula's chosen successor. Nowadays, she is treated like a ghost even by the party.

Although she wasn't awful like you'd think, the media painted her as such: a major television station, "Globo", had a big role in this. In fact, the television station is only one of the medias through which it works, and the Globo group actually supported the very dictatorship I've spoken of at the beggining of this text before even having a television station. They have only admited and apologized for this in 2013. They also supported the candidate Fernando Collor de Mello in 1989 by editing the recording of the final debate between him and Lula; Collor won and was impeached later at the discovery of a corruption scandal benefiting himself and others close to him, besides implementing neoliberalism in a disastrous way. As if not enough, Globo viciously spoke of "Operação Lava Jato" or Operation Car Wash, a great corruption investigation that involved inumerous parties. The problem is, PT was clearly a target: everything was done to incriminate its party members, including affirmations that Lula and Dilma knew of all corruption happening and agreed with it. Many of the politicians spoken to were given deals, so that if they gave away someone else's name they might walk out free or have reduced penitences. One particular scandal from this operation, that is still ongoing, regards corruption in Petrobrás, one of the biggest companies of the country(although it has been progressively sold away).

During her second run, Dilma was impeached in 2016 under the claim of "pedaladas fiscais", translated as fiscal pedaling. Not exactly some war crime or corruption scandal, just tactics, and it has been pointed out that it was done in previous governments. Ironically, her vice president Michel Temer(from one of the conservative parties PT had aligned itself for support) wasted no time in making fiscal pedaling legal as soon as he became president. I must also add that Lula was arrested under corruption claims, with one of the fastest trials and investigations we've ever seen, proving that even if the claims are true, the arrest was always of political interest. Funny how corruption always existed in this country but if you may have done it(and in a much smaller scale) and you're left-wing, it's jail time; and for some reason when it is someone from PT being arrested it's big news, but most other arrests from other larties are irrelevant. That's how you throw a coup!

Now, who is Bolsonaro, the now elected president? Jair Bolsonaro has been a federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro(a state heavily associated with factions, gangs and criminality) and part of the city council. He has been thkurgh numerous parties, but spent most of the time in the 21st century in PP, "Partido Progressista" or Progressist Party(fun fact, don't take most of the party names literally because most of them don't align with the party's politics) until switching to PSL, "Partido Social Liberal" or Social Liberal Party for 2018 elections, since PP was involved in corruption scandals that Bolsonaro never addressed. He comes from a military career, having been considered mad by some military members, although others voted for him for his military benefit projects. Essentialy, he was a nobody.

Bolsonaro is a defensor of the torture from the dictatorship, homophobic, racist, misogynistic man, among other things. He has declared such things out loud and his electors either agree with it or believe he "won't really do that". For those who innocently believe in the best of Bolsonaro, why vote for a man who spent 27 years having near to no relevance as a deputy and passing no interesting projects? Simple: even though he has been in politics for so long, he selled himself as renovation by surfing in "antipetismo", the hatred for PT.

Bolsonaro grew through his hate, simply because he was in media. This is a very important part of his whole campaign: he only grew because he was given a platform. Even if most of the people who shared his content did so to say it was hideous, it was spreading him no less. In fact, Bolsonaro went to few debates during elections; while at first it would seem to be because of the stab he was a victim of during elections(yes, he got stabbed by a random guy who used to be linked to left parties so this information was used to turn it into a murder attempt by the left), at one point his doctors said he was allowed to go to debates, but he choose not to. In fact, at one point while there was a debate, Bolsonaro simultaneously gave an interview to another television station, which is illegal(because you're giving more TV time to that candidate when they should be debating with other candidates). Bolsonaro strategically ignored all debates from the middle to the end of the elections because not only his speeches are awful, he has no real knowledge of his own political plans. He claimed that he didn't have to know economy because he won't be an economist, so if anyone wanted to know about it, they should talk to his appointed economist Paulo Guedes(who wants to go for neoliberalism, a fact that attracted many self-proclaimed liberals).

Truly, the only great difference between candidates from PSDB, "Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira" or Brazilian Social Democracy Party and Bolsonaro is outright hate speech and the lack of political knowledge, since PSDB has been running as the main opposition for PT for years with the promise of neoliberalism. So why Bolsonaro instead of PSDB if at least PSDB's candidates have the decency of ignoring the poor without saying it out loud? Things were so bad that even Geraldo Alckmin, a great figure in PSDB and 2018's candidate, said he feared Bolsonaro in power. The television station Globo, even after playing a major role in PT's demonization, was considered a liar; not because of their speech against the left, but for including very shallow talk of LGBTphobia and racism. Even though it still has some influence, it managed to be hated both by conservative right-wingers and the left.

Bolsonaro's image was worshipped as that of a legend. Even if he did barely anything as a deputy, his speeches were seen as fantastic and proof of how he wasn't afraid to say what he thought was best. However, all of Bolsonaro's supporters did not come from here; while it was a high amount(people suspected he could manage 20% of votes), it was not the amount he managed by the end. But after such a growth, and with his name in every media, anyone who wanted to get rid of the big, bad PT could do so by voting in him. Bolsonaro might have been elected, but with much less votes or not elected at all if PT wasn't running, since the great majority who did vote for him just hated PT. I will not really debate if that would be the case as it is still quite the topic among some of the left, but PT has been criticized for trying to go for its 5th mandate in a row; even if it were not a dictatorship, it was easy for the media to sell it as such and demonize PT further. People who tipically voted for center candidates or used to declare vote for no one at all found themselves voting for Bolsonaro.

I find important to notice that in the Northeast region, formed by 9 states, not a single one had Bolsonaro leading. in fact, Haddad won there with values varying from 60% to over 70%, a reality quite different in states more to the south of the country. That's because PT's greatest weakness and strenght is being PT: the party's legacy in Northeast is massive, considering the region was historically ignored by the government. Its countryside is very hit and dry, and lack of water and misery was the rule; the urban cities were not in a much better state, with no investment whatsoever. It doesn't hurt to say that it also concentrates a great amount of black and poor population, due to the great strenght of slavery in this region back in colonial times. PT did a massive job there, so they would easily vote for PT again. Even with all the propaganda against PT, which did influence voters in urban locations, the party is still strong and Northeast in general seems to have a strong conscience regarding candidates of Bolsonaro's type.

That brings us a key problem when we're talking about other regions: historical education. People who allow themselves to ignore Bolsonaro's speech, while majoritarily richer, also include poor people who fell for his neoliberal promises of a better future(it is important to remember that the economic problems Dilma faced included crisis, with people losing jobs and everything) and talk of "good dictatorship times"(which people now won't even bother saying was a dictatorship because "there were elections" and "only terrorists died"). Suddenly, the fact a dictatorship existed was being doubted by growing smaller medias(reforcing the idea that Bolsonaro is an antisystem candidate as well as his speech), and the historic of racism(black people are more likely to be among the poor thanks to slavery and how its end was dealt with, which was by ignoring ex-slaves completely) was laughed at by years of claiming that a diverse country like Brazil couldn't be racist. Racism and homophobia were dismissed because "any more rights would be privilege" when murders are still very real.

I cannot stress enough how much of a role fake news played in these elections: Bolsonaro spread for years that the left and PT were trying to implement "gay kits" including books that taught children as young as 5 or 6 about sex(ironically, the book he appointed barely spoke of gay relations at all). It was repeated over and over and was a strong argument among families against PT, even though PT proved it was a lie many times. Bolsonaro was only forbid to spread the lie at the very end of the elections, when the damage had already been done, and still he spoke of it again and another time after being elected. The electoral justice did nothing about him(and many other problems during this election), proving that the system wanted him elected more than the people did.

Again: Bolsonaro was elected because the media did a really good job in demonizing the left, and especially associating it with communism, the "totalitarian regime that killed millions". It has become common to associate fascism and nazism to the left, because the political spectrum is seen as less state equating right and more state(the great evil!) equating left. If you make a bad government or were associated with corruption scandals, you're left. They made it seem as if the left purposefully gave the poor only enough so that they would be dependent on them. There were also heavy nationalist tones, with people screaming their country's flag would not be red(communism!) and they only want what's best for Brazil. Bolsonaro also brought religious tones along with his moralist ones; in fact, his campaign slogan even mentions Christian God. Catholic Church this time was more left-leaning, but Brazil has Evangelicalism as a strong religion, as well as Bolsonaro's own faith, leading to him grabbing many votes from this population.

The great takeaway from this is: people in Brazil have not learned what is left and right, and it made it easy for the right to exploit it. Even with a dictatorship and corruption scandals so recent, brazilians had their history distorted and were led to Bolsonaro in the most convenient moment. Many of the strategies used are similar to those of Cold War and mirror our dictatorship strongly, which should probably explain to you why Bolsonaro has used the USA as a role model for years and has always been eager to have Brazil linked to Donald Trump. People don't necessarily hate minorities(although some do), they were driven by the narrative of left corruption and excess of minority rights in a still moralist country.

Hopefully this has been enlightening. Give people political education!

[tumblunni]

hey uhhh YKNO WHATS GOOD brainstorming potential headcanons for a character you know NOTHING ABOUT

i guess its less headcanons and more like.. wishes? hopes? what i think would be cool to do with this dude and like ALL I KNOW is that he is a cool dude and apparantly he doesnt have a backstory or sympatheticness SO consider what if he did and maybe thatd be cooler. like dude he owns THE SINGLE BEST BOSS BATTLE THEME IN ALL VIDEOGAMES EVER and that is ALL I KNOW ABOUT HIM and i just want him to deserve it, yo. also if he turned good i could be his friend and some of the badassness would rub off on me

ANYWAY

COOL SQUID PRESIDENT

i would vote for this man as squesident

seriously the design is SO GOOD!!! how did they manage to get such a cool colourscheme out of his entire Thing being that he has no colours?? like damn i like white being used as an evil colour for once, thanks. it symbolizing emptyness and emotionlessness is like BIG YES and i really hope thats what they were going for cos apparantly the wiki says that all the yokai who join his “we should never be friends with humans” gang turn colourless to match? but like the dude himself is less plain white and more very light shades of blue, grey and gold. MAYBE REFLECTS THAT HE IS A MANIPULATIVE DOUCHE WHO MAYBE DOESNT REALLY CARE ABOUT YOKAI AND JUST WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD PERHAPS dammit why does everything about him scream “great 100% evil guy who is very scary” when man I WANT TO LIKE HIM, DAMMIT!!

ALSO SERIOUSLY the visual effect of the wild spirally red yellow eyes against an otherwise “peaceful” colour whose entire point as an evil is “peaceful” taken to a bad extreme. it REALLY immediately sells that “tries to pretend to be calm, collected and fancy but is actually an angry mofo at heart” vibe i got from his theme song??? I REALLY HOPE THATS ACTUALLY HOW THIS COOL BOSS BATTLE GOES DOWN cos man the best villains are smug asshles who Always Win and then when you FINALLY win you get that much of a better ending!!! but AGH another part of me is like “i hope im wrong because he looks like a Cool Dad and i want him to be good”. Maybe his true design concept was to betray me personality with using all his cool dad power for evil...?

ALSO im not gonna spoil you guys on it cos it is JUST AS AMAZING AS HIS SONG but i was toooootally right that he has some sort of super intimidating second form and its got THE COOLEST DESIGN EVER HOLY SHIT! and also apprantly there’s a recoloured bonus boss called Minister Squisker who’s like a colour swap in a really creative way?? it swaps him being all “blank” themed with scary bright eyes and instead his entire body is a wild ye olde mythological illustration style paint job in every colour ever. okay COOL HEADCANON NUMBER ONE thats actually the regular colour of the species and mckraken is the white sheep of the family lol

also UHHH i dunno it seems kinda weird to me that theyd have this dude running a goddamn political party about humans being bad yet he doesnt seem to have any motivation whatsoever for it? unless it really is just supposed to be ‘he only pretends he wants to protect yokai from humans so he can manipulate and rule the yokai’. but like HYPOTHETICALLY in some universe where he actually lives up to his Grumpy Dad Who Has A Hidden Soft Spot potential, maybe he has an understandable backstory that raises legitimate concerns about how humans are destroying the natural and mythological and forgetting their roots, or other reasonable reasons why yokai could think humans are dangerous and all. i mean we ARE dangerous, we’re just a wide group of people that contain evil bastards and also good people, yknow. And thatd resonate well as a plot probably, cos well the whole point of the series is “in real life ur scared of yokai but theyre actually all goofy pranksters who will be your best friend forever”. Both sides being afraid of each other could lead to some good plotness! and it could be really effective and sad if after hours of joyous childhood wonder the protagonist bumps into the first yokai they couldnt befriend. the first one thats scared of them. the first member of this weird colourless political party who accuses them of committing crimes against yokaikind, of obviously only enslaving these yokai friends cos you have an ulterior motive, just like all humans! it could be effective if its something that shakes up the whole way you saw the world and establishes that hey its not all fun and happiness, and there’s some people you are powerless to convince. maybe even some people you are powerless to save...?

ANYWAY possible idea for ‘what if the dude originally had a sympathetic motive but it got twisted over time and now he’s just a fuck BUT maybe he could still be redeeminated someday ok thanks” What if he’s the spirit of.. like.. ocean pollution? Like there’s some yokai who are ghosts of a mortal person but theres some that are just nature spirits or personifications of concepts. What if he’s the personification of the dying screams of all the wildlife killed in a particular tragic oil spill? hence squid = thematic, and blank white colourscheme = even more thematic reflecting the stain the oil would leave on a pristine ocean and also the blank emotionlessness he was left as after witnessing that tragedy. Cos like his entire Purpose would have been born out of avenging anger but i mean he was just a kid, the only one left alive on a ruined beach and seeing just how powerful humans were and how pointless it would be to try and fight them with his weak power. like he was born to avenge all these souls and he just keeps failing!! his entire reason to live and he’s just too small!! so he ends up becoming bitter and cynical and learning how to use his silver tongue to manipulate others into becoming his weapons, and he vows that someday he’s gonna come back when he has the power he needs to complete his mission. and he’s just forever had this anger seething inside that he’s been unable to get any catharsis from, so when his cold and collected persona cracks he’s really damn scary with all these years of a man who’s grown old fearing he’ll never be able to avenge his ocean friends and just AAAAAA! itd be really good cos itd be a way he could still be intimidating and high stakes as a boss fight but also sympathetic!! also it could make sense why he’d only be redeemable after defeating him? like this entire time he’s been hidden behind a million layers of politics and minions and stuff and its very easy for him to not see the reality of the fact that he’s terrorizing human children just like how humans scarred him as a child. so like his whole big second form transformation super anger mode time would be sort of a last ditch attempt to deny what he already knows, the doubts that have been eating away at his soul now he’s getting close to the end of his life goal. but also like.. he doesnt even know who he IS, under the lies! its been his entire purpose for existing. like he probably uhh.. didnt have much plans after his victory. he probably wouldnt have much will to live left. so yeah you basically beat up this guy’s emotional walls and make him face the face of the people he’s been hurting, when he’s been trying to avoid it for so long. and he gets to see how much all the other yokai genuinely trust you and how much youre personally sacrificing to protect them so maybe you really arent just lying about being a good person...

oh also i was thinking about the inherant hypocrisy present in the fact that this guy is a big spoopy REALLY WELL DESIGNED squid monster that spends all his time in a depowered humansona instead, despite his whole Thing being hating humans. and, yknow, ‘i’ll solve this using a carbon copy of human politics instead of any more traditionally magical way of fighting the humans’. Yeah. So THEORY of SADNESS maybe he like never actually met any other yokai for a long time? I dont think it really makes sense that he’d be hypocritical because he secretly likes humans or something, that wouldnt jive with this backstory idea. So im thinking another explanation could be that he genunely doesnt know much about yokai culture? Like cos of his backstory he just poofed into existance on this destroyed beach in the human world and spent the first few centuries of his life completely alone except for the terrifying monsters that haunted every second of his life, and the knowledge that it was his purpose to defeat them but he didnt know how. And he was a nature spirit of the sea but his sea was empty of everything except death, so he couldnt even hug a cute fish sidekick or something- OH GOD WHAT IF HE DID HAVE A CUTE FISH SIDEKICK AND IT DIED COS OF HUMANS!!! very tiny sad squid monster child holding a dead pet, oh god why did my heart did this to meeee!! so yeah he didnt even know he was a yokai or wtf yokai are, he didnt know anywhere outside the tiny rock pool he would hide in on this barren beach. And then someday he gets found by an older yokai and adopted and like he feels like he owes them so much cos they gave him a reason to live, and a connection to the nature that he was supposed to protect, and.. well.. any companionship at all ever. So thats how his directionless “humans are bad” turned into “yokai are good and i need to protect them from humans like i failed to protect the beach” which turned into “i need to get more power to do this” which turned into manipulating other yokai and seeing them as nothing more than tools to take down the humans, his revenge consuming him until he barely remembered the reasons he originally wanted to do it...

and blablabla thats where we bring in the recolour bonus boss also, and say thats the nice grandpa figure who adopted him when he was all lost and trapped in the human world. and cos he was sorta adopted into nobility thats why he’s so over the top with his pompousness, its like a hint of IM LOVV MY GRANDEPA shining through his grumpface. ALSO maybe a sad situation where the gramps saw his kid growing up into this scary extremist and he tried to reason with him that humans dont need to be destroyed and that led to them fighting and him getting sealed off in recolour bonus boss land. and mckraken sees it as the biggest betrayal of his life and it totally threw him off the slippery slope to feel like the one man he trusted the most was a traitor to yokai all along. but even at his most evil he couldnt bear to actually kill his beloved gramps so he just imprisoned him and tries to stop thinking about it but like THE CONSTANT SPECTRE OF THE GUILT HANGS OVER YOUR HEAD THAT YOU DID YOU GRAMPS WRONGGGG So yehmaybe protag could find the gramps guy and hear about the sad backstory via him and then defeat mckraken and make him realise he was wrong and he apologises to his gramps and atones and all the humans and yokai are friends again and BUNNI CRIES FOREVER the end

cos seriously man this guy’s design is too good to be wasted on a hateable!! srsly he’s like that archetypical goofy big beard chubby pirate dude BUT INTIMIDATING AND BADASS AND COOL FASHION AND DAVY JONES SQUID BEARD SQUEARD I LOVE HIM he is too round to be 100% evil

*slams fists on the table* IF YOU DONT LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS I AM GONNA CRY

aaa i need to stop just sitting here theorizing about this game and actually friggin play it lolllll

[twiststreet]

Adam McKay and Adam Curtis talking about Vice (2018)...

On the last legs of recovering from that cold I got before Christmas-- that one took a while-- but I'd really wanted to see this so I decided to go cough on some moviegoers, like that one guy with the Superflu in The Stand.  I guess it’s unusual, wanting to see this-- I don’t know anyone who wanted to see this movie, even a little, which is weird to me because besides Anchorman 2, I really think all the Adam McKay movies have been pretty good to great. But biopics are a pretty stuffy genre, and it’s a biopic of an especially noxious human being so I kinda get it...  

I mean, the response hasn’t been entirely enthusiastic but then if you dig into it, it’s like here’s Fred Kaplan panning it at Slate, and here’s Fred Kaplan at Slate writing “How did I get Iraq Wrong?  I trusted Colin Powell!”  You know: how does that guy still have a job giving his opinions to a fucking child let alone grown ups, after getting that wrong???  The writing was on the wall about who those fucking maniacs were well before 2003; anyone who couldn’t see who they were was and continues to be a fucking moron-- I try not to care about the opinions of morons (except when they’re calling me names at which point I pretend like “maybe they have a point?” for a couple of hours, and then get bored and go back to doing stupid shit on the internet, because that’s how I’m all wired up).  

That being said, the movie’s kind of a mess.  It’s got a lot of stuff going on-- at the beginning I was like “oh this is a great movie” but there’s stretches once Cheney becomes Vice President that are frustrating, both film-ically (the pacing’s weird) and just ideologically because... I mean, if anything, the movie understates how fucking awful he was.  And how awful those people were.  

The most notable omission is the Project for the New American Century.  And it’s kind of an interesting dilemma which... the movie mocks the idea that these guys had any ideology.  Except the neocons had an ideology-- just an incredibly grotesque and shitty one.  And in ignoring that, you know, it kinda lets people off the hook, post-Trump liberal darlings like Bill Kristol and David Frum, that the fucking dumbest centrist liberals online are like “well, they’re on our side now” about, absolutely horrifying morally wretched people whose careers have been revitalized by short-term thinking Democrats.  But that said-- with these kinds of people, do they actually believe their ideology or is that something they pay someone to craft after the fact to justify the shit they were going to do anyways?  I think that’s more likely true, at which point the Project for the New American Century becomes at best a distraction for a movie narrative.  I think they decided what they were going to do and then decided why, because that’s who they were and that’s the nature of that kind of power. I don’t know... How do you write a movie about all those fucking psychopaths??? They did so much and they were so horrible...

That said, I think their underlying “only American lives” matter and approach to geopolitics as being about ensuring American dominance and all that, that doesn’t come through in the movie-- there was an interview on the Daily Show even of Lynne Chaney where she just flatly states that philosophy to Jon Stewart where I remember seeing Stewart completely flustered by it and just moving on.  (Or maybe he just got distracted thinking about how he was covering up Louis CK’s perversions, I don’t know.)  Or just... the level of the kleptocracy, and how much the rest of society feeds into that kleptocracy-- there’s a greater and more massive corruption that kind of exists everywhere that I don’t know any movie can really capture.  Everything’s for sale-- how do you make a movie about that?

If anything, the movie even kind of understates how much they cooked the books on the intelligence-- they don’t mention the Downing Street Memo, say.  Or they give Cheney this insane monologue at the very end trying to justify what he’s done, that ... they try to undercut with the title cards (and the entire rest of the movie!) but is still... I didn’t want to hear even that much from the guy!  And I know there are some ... There are some things that people feel like it implies where it could be clearer-- I saw a couple reviewers talking about how they thought the movie was saying Cheney wanted to go into Iraq because of focus groups, which I don’t think the movie was saying at all even a little, but ... 

There’s that story about Tom Cruise where he’s making the movie about the plot to assassinate Hitler, and McQuarrie goes “The audience knows Hitler doesn’t get killed” and Cruise just shakes his head after having done a million movies and says something like “You won’t believe how little an audience knows once they start watching a movie.”  And the scoring proved he was right! Though Vice does wild things structurally and I think it doesn’t lose the audience either (though I don’t know that it justifies those things)... Like, the movie tries to make points about climate change (one very dumb point about how “global warming” is a scarier word, which is stupid because climate change is the better descriptor) but you kind of have to just know that’s what it was talking about in those bits, and I’m not sure ... I just don’t think people really understand the scale of that emergency, or else the degree of mass panic would be much higher, so the movie kind of being allusive about it feels insufficient...

Like on an elemental storytelling level, it’s all over the map.  It does some stuff that plays great, and other stuff that ... is almost embarrassingly hokey.  (The foot-tapping cut-- yikes).  The performances are pretty fun-- Bale nails that weird creepy fucking half-grin Cheney does, and Steve Carrell is actually weirdly way better as a Donald Rumsfeld character than I’d have guessed. (He makes Rumsfeld too likable). But you’re never not like “hey it’s Steve Carrell star of the Office” or “look how fat Bale got” either so.  Amy Adams made Lynne Cheney hot to me which I’m very disturbed by.  And god bless it for the fucking number it does on that piece of shit Liz Cheney-- it really just murders her total lack of character, which is *glorious*.  It’s just hard to watch some of it because... 

It was a long 8 years. And to hear people now suggest that the current Administration is somehow worse than those fucking psychopaths... maybe I just don’t read the papers anymore, but I find that very strange even though the current bunch’s evil is so much more cartoonish in so many respects. McKay’s talked about this, that it’s the difference between like... a maniac running through a mall with an ax, versus a serial killer that quietly stalks people, murders them while wearing rubber gloves and then whispers off into the darkness.  Either way’s not great, but the former’s kinda preferable, in any kind of long-term view.  

Anyways, then Obama let everyone off the hook.  

There’s a scene of assholes parroting the Bush administration’s Iraq propaganda, and they show Hillary Clinton saying stupid shit about Iraq. I’m not sure if anyone else in the theater was laughing uncontrollably at that, because I couldn’t hear them over me, laughing uncontrollably, just that the movie made sure not to let her slide (or the more insufferable part of the audience feeling smug about how they hate the Repubs while still supporting a chunky mass of decrepit people).  Useless fucking people not only forgave her for that and spent day after day lecturing young people or people with functioning human memories for being unenthusiastic about her -- they’re about to do it again.  Debates start in June-- how long after that before you see some fucking moron on the internet going “Please, young people, I beg you-- now’s not the time to care about whether the Democratic party has any policies that will actually motivate people to go vote for it in an election!  I beg you!!!”? And then everyone will spread that around like that person was saying something profound instead of just being another believe-nothing engaging in routine left-punching, in order to make heroic the fact they’re rooting for some paper-thin opportunist to just put a kinder face to an oligarchy-on-a-suicide-run.  So... I don’t know... I don’t really read the papers anymore though so I’m not that smart about any of this stuff either...

Basically, there was a lot to react to on that one.  

[anythingstephenking]

The Morally Grey Mile

Strap in for another grim tale. At least men are the ones getting fucked in The Green Mile, amirite ladies? No, still not cool? Ok then.

I suppose it is a disservice to call The Green Mile solely a “grim” tale, but because the core story focuses on an innocent man headed to the electric chair, it is pretty damn grim. If you haven’t read the book you’ve seen the movie but spoilers anyway - the innocent man dies and it sucks for the reader. It’s certainly more complicated than “bad wins” but a real bummer all the same.

Backing up a bit. The Green Mile was King’s first attempt at a serialized story release. In the book’s forward, King tells us it’s story of inception. Through a series of fortuitous events and a conversation with business associates about Charles Dickens, King concocted the idea to release a story in a series of “chapbooks”. Apparently Dickens released some of his stories that way, and they were so fervently popular that a band of dingdongs pushed each other off a dock and drowned while awaiting a shipment of Dickens into Baltimore Harbor. I imagine if the Harry Potter books were released that way I would have ended up in the harbor too. No judgement, zealous Dickens readers, I get it.

Logically, if it worked for 19th century Dickens, it would surely work for 20th century Stephen King, right? 

(cue Mr. Burns fingers). 

A single book released in installments monthly, garnering 3-4x the cost of a single paperback. Good for you SK, good for you. Cause turns out, the constant reader ate it up and bought ‘em like hotcakes.

Cause that’s the thing - this is a really really good story. Not because it’s beautifully written like Cujo or Firestarter or mind-bending like The Dark Tower books, but because it is a real page turner. I credit the format for that - you can tell it was written in a plot-driven, cliffhanger kinda way. In the same way serialized TV (before binging took this joy away) would leave you wanting more week to week, The Green Mile leaves each installment in a way where you can’t imagine not picking up the next one.

Per my contractual agreement with myself, I am required to reach each and every page of this story, but I’m a strange bird and the rest of the world isn’t a weirdo like me. At the end of the day, the narrative structure here really works and I plowed through all 6 installments in a day or so. Those reading in real-time (and not binging like me) waited a month between each publishing, from March through August 1996. There was no dock delivery in Baltimore in 1996 but I imagine if there was, the crowd waiting for each would be large.

So the narrative approach works, but what about the story itself? My analysis comes back slightly muddy but mostly positive despite some hard to swallow flaws.

I can’t claim to know what death row would have been like in 1932, but I’ve watched enough PBS documentaries to know what it’s like now. The group held at Cold Mountain are described as killers, yes. As rapists and wife beaters and arsonists. But they also come across like a rag-tag group of buds that should have their own reality TV show. One of the prisoners, Del, raped and murdered a young girl then accidentally killed a bunch of other people trying to cover his tracks by setting the building on fire. But he’s got this cute, somewhat supernatural mouse named Mr. Jingles that does tricks. Ain’t it cute? Then he fries and literally catches on fire in the electric chair.

I understand the intention of the tale - humanity lives in all of us. Empathy shouldn’t be reserved just for some. Death is final and it comes for all of us. What I struggled with was trying to understand if this was blatant reference to King’s personal stance on the Death Penalty (against it, obvs) or something more subtle. Should we take away that killing is wrong no matter what? Or that there is more nuance at play here?

Because there’s more happening on the green mile than just murderers dying (no matter how dramatically) in the chair comically nicknamed “ol’ sparky”. We’ve got John Coffey in chains, convicted of raping and murdering two 9 year old girls. JFC. I just can’t.

But he did, and he will die for his crimes. Here’s where the controversy around this novel begins. John Coffey is a large black man with magical powers. Spike Lee specifically calls out King publicly for this “magical negro” trope, which honestly I can’t disagree with. Dick Halloran from The Shining and Mother Abigail from The Stand fall neatly in this bucket as well. But even as I type this I know I am cherry-picking; I’ve read plenty of King stories with mystical beings and they’re mostly white (or more often other worldly). But King’s repeated use of the n-word and other racial slurs in his writing is real cringeworthy. As I move further towards his 21st century writing I keep hoping this will stop. It hasn’t yet, as of 1996. But King and writing about race is an entirely separate post for another day.

Back to The Green Mile; we learn that John Coffey has special healing powers when he cures the head guard, Paul Edgecomb of a UTI by grabbing his crotch. Normally this type of behavior will get ya thrown in the hole, but Paul’s so grateful he lets it slide.

Once we learn of the healing powers of Coffey, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. While getting arrested he cries “I tried to stop it but it was too late.” Everyone involved in the investigation assumes he means he tried to stop himself from murder but couldn’t; anyone with half a brain can deduce that someone else killed the girls; he tried to heal them. He was too late.

We’re set off to learn who really murdered the girls, but this revelation takes a backseat, at least in my mind. For me, the big mystery is; will John Coffey get executed? I’ll be honest, I hadn’t seen this movie, so I didn’t know. The phone the governor used to phone in stays-of-execution was mentioned early, so my Chekhov’s Gun senses lead me to believe it was possible. Why bother if not? Well the phone is mentioned at execution time, only to say it won’t ring. And of course it never really was a question - Coffey is a black man in the south, convicted of murdering two girls in 1932. Of course no one’s coming to save him. It’s sad. Real sad.

We’re given solace in the fact that Coffey claims he’s ready to go - his powers are too much and he’s tired. This is a nonsense cop out that provides relief to all those that understand the truth, allowing them to go on living, loving their wives and kids and casseroles. John Coffey should not have died. The end. 

Things are wrapped up in a bow with the end stories of everyone involved and their timely and untimely deaths. I guess that’s it; life sucks, then you die; death can come for you in any way, without discrimination.

I earmarked what is one of my favorite lines I’ve encountered so far in King’s work.

“We had once again succeeded in destroying what we could not create.”

Executing anyone (murderer or not) takes a toll on most of the prison staff. I just loved this so much on so many levels; they are men without the ability to create life; they are not god; they are mortals stealing mortality. So beautiful.

So, it’s no stretch to call this the brother of Shawshank, but at least we get a female character in Paul Edgecomb’s wife. I don’t remember her name so that’s not great. But she was a woman and she at least was there, so it gets knocked up a few rungs from Shawshank IMHO.

I’d have to say this is one King novel that really perplexed me. I suppose I got into the routine of enjoying typical good-vs-evil tales where the good guys eventually overcome. For me, The Green Mile wasn’t green at all but a wavering shade of grey I still can’t see properly.

(Side note: As I sat down to write this, I thought to myself “I’m not sure what I’ll say about The Green Mile.” Turns out, quite a bit, this is probably one of my longest entries. Who knew?)

8/10

First Line: This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain.

Last Line: I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.

Adaptations:

Like it’s brother Shawshank Redemption, I had never seen this movie before. It made it’s run through awards season in 1999, mostly for Michael Clarke Duncan’s portrayal of John Coffey. Who later tragically died of a heart attack with his girlfriend Omarosa (of Trump WH fame) which I didn’t know, but good golly, that is another sad story for another day.

Listen, this is a highly regarded movie that’s on many top lists, so I won’t stab into it too hard. But it is SO LONG.

Frank Darabont got his panties all in a bunch when folks told him a 3 hour running time was too long, claiming that if 2 hours was the correct length of a film that cinema classics like Lawrence of Arabia were invalidated. Well guess what? I’ve seen Lawrence of Arabia, and yes that shit is too. damn. long. As is The Green Mile.

One would think that with 3+ hours of material, the character development would be on point. It’s not really; the prisoners are mostly glossed over (even more so than in the book) as lovable murders. Wild Bill is the exception (overacted by Sam Rockwell), and he serves as the sole real “bad guy”. 

Edgecomb and his other prison guards are painted as saints (again, minus one guard who takes on the “bad guy of the good guys” role). If the book was grey the movie is much more black and white. Tom Hanks for president for sure, the guy is a national treasure. But they were one step away from giving him an actual halo. As someone complicit in the murder of an innocent man, I just can’t declare his character for sainthood. The real Tom Hanks, a million times yes. Paul Edgecomb? Nah.

The movie is fine. I approve of Darabont’s relationship with King and have thoroughly enjoyed their previous collaborations. I was sad to see that he let his film rights to The Long Walk expire last year, picked up by New Line and James Vanderbilt (of Vanderbilt fortune... old money... sigh) who penned Zodiac, which leaves me slightly hopeful but assume it’ll trickle back into development limbo for the remainder of eternity.

I’ve already finished my next read, Desperation and after I slog through the 2.5 hour ABC miniseries (UGH) I will keep trucking. New Year, more pressure placed on myself to plow through the back half of King’s bibliography.