#as long as you ignore the core premise and how fucking stupid it is that any of them are going along with it

[cephalog0d]

Me: I'm not going to keep reading Gotham War as it releases, I'll just wait until it's over and just get angry once at the end instead of being angry every week.

Also me: *does not do that, keeps reading the garbage fire, keeps getting angry*

[ot3]

What's the core appeal of orv? I know the premise but why does it make you so hyped up?

OH BOY OH BOY....... i will try to be as concise as possible here but i could write without exaggeration thousands of words about why orv is good. But I guess here's the big stuff.

- Its funny, for starters. it is extremely funny, which is very high up on my media priority list. in orv, there will be incredibly grim things that make you laugh, and incredibly cringe and silly anime bullshit that will hurt you as heavily as any other media you’ve seen. 

- it executes it’s thematic arcs with pinpoint precision the likes of which i’ve hardly ever seen anything else manage to do. regardless of whether or not the themes themselves are the sort of themes you go bonkers for in media, it’s always just delightful to see something perfectly stick it’s landing in terms of the big concepts its trying to grapple with, and orv does

- it’s got fun and fascinating worldbuilding mechanics. the core concept being ‘reality now operates on the rules of a shitty novel’ means that the worldbuilding doesn’t have to function logically, it functions thematically. it’s explicitly stated in orv canon that some of the internal rules governing this new reality are objectively really stupid and illogical, but they just have to roll with it because that’s what was in the book, and i think it’s a really enjoyable way to do it. This may at first sound like a copout, where the writer is trying to excuse their own bad worldbuilding, but it isn’t. The world building is actually incredibly deeply thought out, but it doesn’t exist for the sake of rational function, it exists for the sake of, once again, furthering orv’s thematic arcs. the rules by which this universe operate do a magnificent job of strengthening the core concepts the authors are exploring. 

- it deals with morality in a really wonderful and nuanced way. there are almost no characters in orv’s extremely large cast of characters who are just explicitly morally condemnable, and almost every conflict allows you to understand exactly why the antagonists believe they’re in the right by opposing the actions of our protagonists. the central conflicts are never pure right and pure wrong; they’re always about contrasting goals, conflicting worldviews, and different priorities between ends and means. this makes the conflicts all feel so much more dynamic and engaging than those where the only stakes are physical harm. 

- the characters interpersonal relationships are some of the most interesting ive ever seen. orv is very slow burn and it takes a long time for a lot of these to come out of the woodwork, by design, but by god once they do they fucking hit. similar to the plot conflicts, the interpersonal conflicts also almost never occur where there’s one side clearly in the wrong. the characters are almost all genuinely attempting to do their best by each other, and the tension comes from the ways in which human communication is fundamentally imperfect and part of our feelings and intentions get lost in translation. it’s very heartwrenching and heartwarming to see unfold, in equal measure. 

- following from that, it’s a narrative that really meaningfully prioritizes non-romantic relationships over romantic ones as the central focus. obviously there’s shipbait and the ot3 is real and good and my friend but if you’re looking for deep complex platonic, (found or otherwise) familial, and antagonistic relationships that never get ruined with forced romantic arcs, we got em baby!

- the pacing is unlike anything i’ve ever seen before. from a purely technical standpoint, it is genuinely a fascinating case study in how to execute a narrative that is almost constantly escalating without exception. there is very little downtime or breathing room in orv, which is insane for something that clocks in at over a million words, and somehow, it still works. i’ve never felt more like a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water than i did when i was reading orv and i can’t believe they pulled it off. it’s so interesting to read something like that.

- it is a tragedy without resorting to cynicism and a very adult narrative that’s really steeped in childlike wonder. i’m a big fan of cartoons made for children cartoons made for children are my favorite things to watch because i like media that is uplifting and encouraging. but of course children’s media will always be simplified and not very relatable to an adult. orv is very much a serious and heavy adult narrative, and a deeply tragic one at that, but this is never tragedy for tragedy’s sake. it’s a very compassionate piece of media over all, that holds a lot of reverence and sympathy for the ‘naive’ optimism of children that gets stripped down over time. if you, like me, feel more like a grown up child than an adult someday, i think it’ll hit for you. 

- if you are a person who has ever gotten deeply involved in media to ignore bad things happening in the real world, which i know you are because you are reading my tumblr blog, then there is going to be a lot about orv which resonates for you. a lot of metanarrative has attempted to comment on the voyeuristic nature of media obsession and storytelling, but a lot of it does so in a bizarre way that almost seems to shame the audience for having the audacity to... enjoy the product the creators have produced for them. orv is what i can only describe as a love-letter to its own audience, and it’s really a manifesto about how engagement with media can foster genuine human intimacy, even if initially it’s something you’re using as a crutch to replace that intimacy. the closest thing to orv’s metanarrative i can think of would be undertale. if undertale made you Feel some Things, orv is gonna make you Feel some Things as well. 

- it is extremely cathartic and meaningful. i am not exaggerating at all when i say that reading it gave me the closest thing i have ever felt to any sort of spiritual breakthrough. it helped unfuck my head a ton during some very grim times and i think the perspective it offers on the value of human life is a really really good one

- its really funny i promise

- its cringe in a way that’s hype

- please read orv please not even for me do it for yourself i want you to experience what i experienced for YOUR sake not mine

[adifferenttime]

Andrew Ryan vs. Robert House

On almost every House post I make, someone in the notes will reliably reference Andrew Ryan. I totally get it - they look similar, they're based on the same guy, the parallels are so clear that the NV dev team added an achievement for killing House with a golf club - but I think these commonalities tend to engulf both characters, blotting out some of their more interesting ideological/personal differences. It's useful to examine them in relation to one another, but part of that is figuring out what distinguishes them, which is just what I’ve attempted to do.

It's difficult for me to talk about Randian objectivism because I don't think it's sound enough to address on its own terms, but considering this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan has adopted, I kind of have to. What I’d identify as the core premise of Randian ethics is this: altruism is a moral wrong. Some Randians have argued that isn't really what they believe - that the real point is anything resembling altruism is self-interest in disguise - but they're departing from the beliefs of their icon when they make those claims. Per Rand:

The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice – which means self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

The way Rand defines altruism is by linking it to self-sacrifice, which she uses to differentiate it from kindness or benevolence. Aiding others at no cost to yourself is benevolent, but not altruistic, and therefore not evil. Sacrificing your happiness to help another human being is, from Rand's perspective, evil, as is any philosophy that prioritizes the other at the cost of the self. This whole idea has been broadly rejected by most scholars on account of it being really fucking stupid. What justifies the leap from "man is naturally selfish" to "selfishness is good"? If selfishness is moral, wouldn't the most moral behavior be to exploit others through whatever means necessary, favoring force over the market? Rand defines happiness as "using your mind’s fullest power," achievable only when you "do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal," but why is this the only definition? What if your only options are self-sacrificial in nature? How do you weigh them if neither sacrifice is linked to values, individual achievement, or "your mind's fullest power" at all? Rand didn't care because she was too busy trying to ethically justify cheating on her man with her best friend's husband, but nonetheless, this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan’s adopted. He claims that "Altruism is the root of all Wickedness," in what's almost a direct quote from Rand herself.

To that end, Ryan builds a system that doesn’t just accept selfishness but actively incentivizes it. Every other principle he expresses is subservient to the ideas that selfishness rules man, and that for Ryan to act on his own selfish impulses is the highest good in the world. His lesser political principles (individual liberties, negative rights, the creation of a stateless society) don’t matter to him as much as the central precept from which they stem: that selfishness is his moral imperative.

What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism.

It doesn't come as a particular surprise to me when he starts imprisoning dissidents or executing rivals or banning theft (standard practice in most societies, but not what an egoist would pursue; if you can get away with taking it, you deserve to have it, or so the thinking goes). I’ve seen him described as a hypocrite, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true considering everything he does is in line with his opposition to altruism. He'll adhere to his other principles only if they don’t sabotage his pursuit of personal power. This is evident in the fact that he only adopts a negative perception of Fontaine when his own interests are threatened, but doesn’t give two shits what Fontaine might be doing to sow conflict and harm people before that point. A guy named Gregory asks Ryan to step in against Fontaine early on before Fontaine's fully established himself as a threat to Ryan's power, and Ryan's extremely blase about it.

Don't expect me to punish citizens for showing a little initiative. If you don't like what Fontaine is doing, well, I suggest you find a way to offer a better product.

Contrast this with how he reacts when Fontaine has risen as a genuine business rival. This is from the log titled "Fontaine Must Go."

Something must be done about Fontaine. While I was buying buildings and fish futures, he was cornering the market on genotypes and nucleotide sequences. Rapture is transforming before my eyes. The Great Chain is pulling away from me.

This double standard is the natural outgrowth of his prioritization of self-interest. If your most deeply-held belief is that you should never give up your interests for others, ancillary rules become flexible in times of personal crisis, and Bioshock makes the case that putting someone like that in charge of a city will leave you with a crumbling, monstrous ruin.

Superficially, House has some similarities. Ryan executes political rivals; House has you blow up a bunker of his ideological opponents. Ryan is the highest authority in Rapture; House is the absolute monarch of Vegas. Their goals and moral codes, though, are almost diametrically opposed. When you ask House why you’re expected to trust him when he’s openly admitting to installing himself as the despot of the New Vegas Strip, he says this:

I have no interest in abusing others... Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine-god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions.

Most of his resources are devoted to large-scale, impersonal projects, aimed either at building the power of Vegas or securing his long term goal of “progress” as he sees it. He’s rejected selfishness as a moral good because House is very far from Randian objectivism. He's a Hobbesian monarch.

In that respect, he shares an outlook on human nature with Ryan that I deeply disagree with (that human beings are essentially selfish), but in terms of what that means for the structure of a utopian society, House takes a very different position. From his perspective, human nature breeds suffering, not industriousness, and the only way to stamp out conflict - and, in a post-nuclear age, ensure the continued survival of the human race - is through a strong sovereign. The purpose of a state as laid out in Leviathan aligns very, very closely with the one House expresses.

...the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men...

The monarch's successes are reflected in his society and the well-being of humanity as a whole. To subvert his goals is to subvert society's goals, and to doom humanity to the war, death, and suffering that exist in a state of nature. When you destroy his Securitrons/kill him, he doesn't plead for himself or get offended on his own behalf. He accuses you of betraying not him, but mankind.

Single-handedly, you've brought mankind's best hopes of forward progress crashing down. No punishment would be too severe. Fool... to let... personalities... derail future... of mankind? ...Stupid! Slavery... the future of... mankind? What... have you... done?

An important corollary of this idea which again distinguishes House from Ryan appears in Leviathan’s description of the political/moral responsibility of a monarch to his subjects:

...that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority... he hath the use of so much power that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.

Hobbes and House give the monarch virtually unlimited power but match it to the monarch's duty, which he lives to fulfill. His obligation is to speak for the people, act for them, and protect them from all threats, internal and external. House generally abides by this, orienting his decisions around his goals for society irrespective of the personal cost (the negative consequences of his actions are a product of his fucked evaluations of what’s best for society, not personal greed). It’s not just a departure from Ryan’s philosophy but a complete refutation of it. He's almost died for what he's misidentified as the greatest good.

Given that I had to make do with buggy software, the outcome could have been worse. I nearly died as it was…. I spent the next few decades in a veritable coma.

This is not the behavior of an egoist. This is the behavior of an extremely arrogant but marginally altruistic (from a Randian perspective lmao) guy. This is some distorted “from each according to his ability” shit if you’ve managed to convince yourself your abilities exceed those of everyone else who has ever lived and that you can get the Mandate of Heaven by being really good at statistics.

The reason these guys develop such similar structures and hierarchies despite the ideological gulfs between them is because both of them are elitists who’ve experienced a massive failure of self-consciousness. They’re unable to conceive of other people as being fundamentally like them. Ryan separates people into the clearly-delineated classes of “producer” and “parasite,” ignoring the fact that everything he’s ever “produced” was reliant on a huge, coordinated effort between workers, architects, accountants, middlemen, and others, all of whom, in conjunction, contributed more to the realization of his dreams that he ever could have alone. Rather than realizing his own position is more parasitic and reliant on other people’s labor than that of anyone else in Rapture, he adheres to his doctrine of selfishness even when it’s not reflective of reality and is ruining the the lives of an entire city of people. He deludes himself into believing he’s a superman among ants instead of one flawed man who is reliant on the goodwill of others to help him survive, as are we all.

House, too, thinks he’s exceptional. Unlike Ryan, he acknowledges the necessity of the worker to a functioning society, but while he’ll accept his reliance on that labor, he doesn’t trust the laborer enough to share political power. House knows he’s invested in humanity’s survival and the creation of a better world, but he refuses to consider that he might not be alone in this goal. He chalks up the existence of the Legion to fanaticism/the ambitions of a sultanistic dictator and attributes everything the NCR has done to greed, without it ever occurring to him that the massive harm these nations have done was partially motivated by the same goals he’s devoted himself to - and that the atrocities he’s committed since his rise to power are, in some respects, very similar. House knows himself to be invested in the well-being of humanity, but he’s too arrogant to ask himself if his methods are wrong or trust other people to build a new path, one that doesn’t necessitate his complete control over the land and people of the Mojave. Ryan and House’s worldviews are distinct, and their flaws, as highlighted by their respective narratives, say some interesting things about how each set of devs view power and the pitfalls of elitism.

Anyway. If you put these two men in a room, they would probably try to murder each other, and I think that’s great.

[sintreaties]

Can you do an analysis of Yumeko's character?

I can try, though as always keep in mind that I’m more of a creator than an analyst and I don’t believe my comprehension of these characters to be above anybody else's.

(cut cause long post)

For the longest time Yumeko was and still is one of the most enigmatic characters I’ve ever seen. We know nothing about her past and now that with the latest chapters her role in the story seems to be changing, the only thing we are sure about is her addiction now.

Yumeko, as the series name clearly states, is a gambling addict. Now, in a word being an addict means that a compulsive behavior takes over one's whole life. We can oversimplify it in two statements: 1) I can’t stop doing this 2) No one can stop me unless I truly want them to.

In a setting like Hyakkaou’s this is twice as dangerous. Not for Yumeko herself — Sayaka’s background check tells us she’s quite loaded in terms of money — but for the people around her. There's a pretty obvious duality to Yumeko's character: on one hand, we have the sweet, childish, almost naive Yumeko, who’s able to befriend even her worst opponents; on the other we have a “plague” who’s unable to keep herself under control and who would do anything to get what she wants, ruining whoever is in her path.

The contrast is interesting to see in scenes like the one in which she offers her tissue to Sayaka because she was crying, knowing that she hates her with all her guts vs the way she completely lost her facade when Yumemite refused to play seriously against Sumika, or when she pressured Itsuki into gambling her Life-Plan. This is simply another consequence of her addiction. Try to politely tell a smoker to quit smoking, see how they react. Amberlynn Reid, a youtuber who’s become a lol-cow during her failed weight-loss journey, suffers from BED (binge eating disorder) and when she can't keep her impulses in check, she calls that part of herself “the binge eating monster”, stating that it pushes her as far as to abuse her own partner if she doesn’t get to eat what and when she wants to.

Here’s the thing though: addicts usually want to stop. Most importantly when their behavior starts to take its toll on them. Although they’re often forced to ignore them, they do have feelings of shame and regret when they end up to do things that average people wouldn’t do (i.e. stealing to have more money for their dose). They know that what they’re doing is bad. They have constant reminders of it. Just like Amberlynn has the hate comments and smokers have the warnings on the packages, Yumeko finds her reminders in her own sister, who ended up in a mental institution precisely because of gambling, and in everyone at Hyakkaou, the main example being Sayaka (I speak about this a bit more here).

And yet, here’s the odd thing: Yumeko never really showed the desire to stop nor a hint of true remorse for anything she’s done. People are calling Kirari a sociopath and a narcissist only because she doesn’t show herself as the usual cute anime girl. Yumeko isn’t that better than her in these terms.

The whole premise of the KKG movie revolves around Suzui trying to convince Yumeko to join the Village, where gambling and money are banned, only for the latter to say, “No thanks. I have only two desires: better desserts at the cafeteria and watching Murasame gamble.” (Full on expression of her duality once again).

Because of gambling, her moral compass is sort of all over the place. She never wanted to liberate the House-Pets destroying the system, that’s Tsubomi who got the wrong idea. Yumeko was an anti-hero for a while, but only out of pure coincidence. Simply, her goal of taking the Student Council coincided with the wishes of whoever wanted to see the SC fall.

Clearly, this could be because Yumeko came at Hyakkaou with a specific goal in mind. At the Academy gambling is often your only mean of survival and it would be foolish to give it up. As Murasame says, “Kirari’s a monster and only another monster can defeat her, hurting everyone else in the same manner.”

That does fit Yumeko’s character, doesn’t it?

So why does Yumeko give up gambling altogether when Kirari refuses to play with her and calls her an ‘impurity’? It would make sense if she came here specifically to defeat Kirari. If she was certain that Ririka would win, that would prevent her from obtaining what she wants, throwing out of the window everything she’s done so far. This is the only possibility I can think of for now, so the next chapters will hopefully clear that up.

Now, Yumeko said that she won’t gamble, but if she’s truly an addict, no matter how stubborn and displeased she gets, she won’d be able to stop just like that. The addiction will either take over or find another mean to express itself, just like sometimes smokers turn to food when they try to quit and how people with BED can end up becoming addicted to shopping, resulting in hoarding behaviors. It’s all about that kick of dopamine.

Rest assured though, that as long as her addiction remains, Yumeko will never fully be able to be one of the good guys. Not like this, and not in a world in which adults can’t plan a fucking intervention. It makes sense for her to be holding the Election under her heel now and going on it could only get worse, with Yumeko hindering her own allies — if she ever had any.

Which brings us to a final point: the way Yumeko builds her relationships and why.

Her first connection at Hyakkaou is Suzui, who’s in so much debt that he’s considering dropping out. He’s a naive guy, too good for his own good. He’s easy to mold in Yumeko’s hands and that’s eaxctly what she does in more than a gamble (ESP, Zero Nym-Type). Is this also because of the “monster” inside of her, preying on the weak to take as much as it can? I don’t believe their friendship is completely “pure”, though I also don’t think Yumeko is harmful by nature. She might not even be fully conscious of this.

We have Saotome, who believed herself so sleek and ended up as a House Pet. Why would Yumeko befriend someone who tried to ruin her on her very first day? Did she see a powerful ally and a perfect opponent in order to seek the thrill of the risk, or is she really just that naive? Yumeko isn’t stupid. Intelligence also comes through emotional values. Again, I don’t believe her connection with Mary is devoid of secondary reasons, though just like in Suzui’s case, the latter come into play only when they hinder Yumeko’s gambling.

Tsubomi and Itsuki were practically shouldered and then used with the promise of obtaining something better for themselves. Sayaka? She called Yumeko a “plague” and yet Yumeko never really resented her. Sure she almost caused her death, but that was a collateral matter. Yumeko harbors no ill intent towards her, notwithstanding Sayaka’s hatred. Yumeko doesn’t show hate for Kiwatari either, and yet he never acted right around her.

Midari, on the other hand, deserved her indifference and dislike because she messed up their gamble and there’s nothing that Yumeko dislikes as much as a set result in her games. The two cases of Midari and Sayaka/Kiwatari are perfect to show the contrast between the kind of person Yumeko would be without her addiction and the kind of person she is now that her life is ruled by gambling.

What about Kirari then? In terms of risks, Kirari too showed a similar appetite. Perhaps Yumeko herself would like to see her own addiction consume her, just like she thinks Kirari would — thought I’m starting to believe the supernova talk was more about the clan than about herself. Maybe, just like Kirari with Ririka, Yumeko wants to fight the part of Kirari that resembles her the most and Kirari’s refusal proved that she had been very wrong in judging her character. Apparently Kirari “killed” her sister, but that’s Terano’s word, Yumeko never expresses herself on the matter.

In all these examples, the main thread is still the same. The gambling addiction has always been Yumeko’s core in the series and as of today it would be impossible to consider Yumeko’s character whole without it. People tend to forget its extent.

I do hope flashbacks and such will let us see how Yumeko was before she became a kakegurui, because in the end, addictions are only a part of who we are — unless we let them consume us.

I hope this answer was as satisfactory as it could be.

[littleeyesofpallas]

SO.... HEROINE'S JOURNEY. YA?

There are a few approaches to the Heroine's Journey and they're all a little wonky as fuck.

is to look at old myths about Heroines and find patterns in them, the way Campbell found patterns in Hero myths. Problem here is that there's much less narrative consistency in those, and they're generally a little less common, and so there's not as much of a pattern to distill into a neat little diagram.

is to craft a psychological model for little girls coming of age, akin to the one the Hero's Journey provides for little boys, and work off that. This is nice, but tends to lack the weight and kind of viral catchiness of the mythologically derived formula

is just to genderswap the Hero's Journey, or to put a Heroine through the Hero's Journey as is. These most often fall apart on account of having zero critical assessment of what the plot being acted out is or how it functions. No one learns jack squat, no one grows, and as a shitty cherry on top the plot just looks derivative. (Looking right at you, Force Awakens.)

The old mythic approach is generally ignored for being far too loose. It also tends to revolve around awkward at times sexist narratives of purity and purification as a process, the role of healing, mending and forgiving flawed and often outright antagonistic individuals, preservation and protection of the home, and consequently a lack of real adventure. It very often ends in an ascension to goddess-hood by way of or for the ends of some kind of self sacrifice. I'm not super keen on this for a number of reasons, not the least of which being the narrative trend in which a woman's role is give herself up for the good of others... But worth pointing out here is that the myths that can be referenced that don't fit these themes are so wildly different both from the proposed core formula and even one another that they don't outline a new or alternative trend at all. Women that kick ass in myth absolutely exist, but they tend to be unique rather than formulaic, be that for better or for worse...

Funny enough Zelda: Skyward Sword utilized this in a fascinating way. As Link goes through a very conventional Hero's Journey, really beat for beat, in his pursuit of the missing Princess Zelda he continually gets to the end of a dungeon to find that Zelda was just there, but he missed her and she's moved on. And in fact each time this happens we learn that Zelda had her own reasons for visiting all these temples and sure enough this background plot that Zelda has been acting out is the mythic Heroine's Journey.

Seeing the two acted out in tandem, and showing how the two actually facilitate and serve one another in a bigger picture is actually a really brilliant way to tell these old stories. Zelda's quest has added urgency because we know that as she progresses, the encroaching evil is only barely being beaten back by Link. and Link's Hero's Journey is given new importance because his Meeting with the Goddess isn't just about shipping him with Zelda, it's about saving Zelda from the consequences of her self sacrifice.

The distantly Jungian derived model is actually only as old as 1990 and came about as a centerpiece in a women's self-help book. Maureen Murdock suggests this process:

Shift from feminine to masculine

Identification with the masculine

Road of trials

Experiencing the illusory boon of success

The descent/meeting with the goddess

Yearning for the reconnect

Reconciliation with the masculine

The union

In which the girl has to adopt masculine agency in order to act upon the world in the way man are expected to and girls are not. She adventures with these masculine skills/features at hand. She feels fulfilled by these conquests, but then must face the idea that masculine conquest is not a valid or meaningful kind of accomplishment. She has a conflict of self, dives deep into the self to meet with her own feminine side, now long repressed. She learns to want to be a woman. She confronts the flaws of the masculine pursuit she's been on. She learns to embrace both gendered identities and is at peace.

This thing has so many little bumps and hiccups and things to get caught up on. I'm really not fond of it. It's a product of its time and its writers' predecessors' biases and already kind of misaligned premises. (Btw this is a huge contributing factor to the plot of Revolutionary Girl Utena.)

The second version is generally exemplified in the Heroine's Journey formulated by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. I'll be totally honest, I'm not as familiar with that one. But it was written to more directly mirror Campbell's Hero's Journey in its cyclical nature and use as a writing template (where as Murdock's was decidedly less focused on story telling applications) and it's major pitfall is that it really doesn't seem to have any kind of "universal" mythic origin, and so kind of lacks the punch Campbell's implication of myth speaking to the innate human psyche in the universal familiarity of its trends.

Illusion of the perfect world

Betrayal/disillusionment

The awakening

The descent: passing through the gates of judgment

Eye of the storm

All is lost/death

Support

Rebirth/moment of truth

Return to a new world

Like I said, I'm just less familiar with this one in practice. It doesn't feel like a terrible plot or character arc, and there are aspects of it that I really like, even. But it doesn't really feel like it particularly "fixes" any of the problems at hand with its predecessors.

And the third one, I mentioned is typically just bad and stupid; a creative decision made in pure ignorance. When removed from any psychological context the motions of the plot become meaningless. But a fascinating case of sort of doing it was Disney's Moana. Not because it genderswapped the Campbellian Hero's Journey but because it chose to merge the myth Hero and Heroine's Journey together, and yeah, in which a little genderswapping happened to be involved.

Moana's role is to "stay" and be mother to her people, to protect and preserve, to purify and heal and forgive... BUT in a beautifully deft twist she discovered that preserving her people's way of life means heeding the call to adventure/call of the sea, means venturing into the unknown to learn new things and conquer trials... it means meeting with The God, Maui (instead of the Goddess) means confronting The Mother (Instead of the father) but instead of defeating her like a Hero, healing her like a Heroine. It really beautifully juggles the two cycles in a way that doesn't give either one supremacy over the other, in the truest Reconciliation/Union of proposed masculine and feminine. (Yes, the Te Ka/Te Fiti reveal was 100% a textbook Vader moment.)

But of course the big pitfall this, and the original Hero's Journey fall into is the assumption of some kind of deeply essential gendered aspect of psychology, and not separating elements of biological impulse as they relate to psychology from the heavy HEAVY filter of socialization. On the one hand, I still believe the Hero's Journey, and some variations of the Heroine's Journey(s) can absolutely be utilized in writing in a deeply meaningful and largely accurate and affecting way. But I'm also very much in favor of seeking out alternatives to these in ways that pursue more of that universal appeal that Campbell thought he'd tapped into. But that is yet another rant entirely...

[oliviaischillin1204]

a stupid bet

Pairings: Romantic Prinxiety

Word Count: 2,139

Warnings: Character Thomas

this is kinda a weird one! it was originally gonna be part of my t2eb series for the “holding it in” prompt, but it very quickly got out of hand lmao. it’s not a trope/premise i normally play with, but i think i did an alright job!

This was all Roman’s stupid fault.

Well, Virgil begrudgingly reasoned, it was his own stupid fault, too. When Roman made the suggestion, he could have said no. He could have told him he wasn’t comfortable with it, or that it was too embarrassing, or he didn’t want to risk the others noticing. But if he was being honest… he was kind of excited to try it.

“If you need it to stop immediately, scratch your nose,” Roman repeated, strapping the belt-like device he’d created around Virgil’s waist.

“I know.” As soon as Roman pulled his hands away, Virgil pulled down his shirt and hoodie. The belt was snug, and it fit perfectly around Virgil’s waist, although it was also connected to a few padded squares that reached down to his belly and up to his ribs.

Roman stepped back, looking him up and down. “Completely undetectable.”

Virgil opened his mouth to respond, but suddenly felt the familiar pull in his spine that meant he was being summoned. From the way Roman jerked slightly, he felt it, too.

The two looked at each other, nervous smiles inexplicably rising on their faces.

“Are you sure about this?” Roman asked once more. Virgil exhaled slowly before nodding.

“Let’s do it.” And with that, the two sunk out to join the others in the living room.

Thankfully, Thomas’ current issue really had nothing to do with either of them: he was having another heart-versus-mind crisis, so all Roman and Virgil needed to do was occasionally offer input on Logan and Patton’s debate.

Virgil tried to pay attention, but the feeling of the belt rubbing against his skin kept pulling his focus away from the video they were recording. He watched Roman out of the corner of his eye, but the creative side seemed fully ingrossed in the conflict.

Virgil frowned a little. Had he forgotten about their game? Did he not want to do it anymore? He felt doubts starting to pile up in his head, until-

“Virgil? What do you think?”

His gaze snapped back to Thomas, who was looking at him expectantly.

“I-”

Virgil gasped, barely turning it into a cough at the last second. He felt something pulsing against his stomach- a light touch, like someone was merely rubbing the skin, but it was enough to distract him for just a beat too long.

“I think this whole argument is pointless anyway,” he finally spat out. The vague answer seemed to satisfy the others, as they continued their conversation. Virgil peeked back at Roman, who wasn’t looking at him. His gaze fell to Roman’s hand, which was shoved casually into his pants pocket.

His pocket. Where the remote that controlled the belt was located.

Virgil inhaled sharply. Okay. So they were really doing this.

As if on cue, the sensations on Virgil’s torso increased just slightly: there were now two sections of the belt gently buzzing against his skin, one on his tummy and one on his waistline.

Virgil shoved his hands into his pockets, hoping to hide the way he was clenching his fists. It felt… weird, really weird; he could tell Roman was experimenting with all of the different features, considering the way the sensations kept changing. It kinda felt like when Roman would dig his fingers into Virgil’s body, but there was also a slight vibrating feeling, like a less concentrated version of an electric toothbrush.

The feelings were distracting enough on their own, but the knowledge that Virgil couldn’t smile, laugh, squirm, or otherwise react without drawing the attention of the others (or worse, the audience) made them so much harder to ignore.

The conversation continued around and around, and Virgil couldn’t find any rhyme or reason in how Roman was controlling the tickles. One minute he’d be focused on the pads attached to his stomach, causing Virgil’s gut to suck in on reflex; the next minute he’d be struggling not to wiggle as wave after wave of tickles massaged his sides.

At one point Roman cut off all of the tickles abruptly, and Virgil could barely wonder why before they all came back on at once, ruthlessly tickling him all over his tummy, ribs, sides, and waist at the same time. It lasted for less than a second, but Virgil couldn’t stop the high pitched giggle that managed to escape. He flushed bright red, slamming a hand over his mouth, but no one seemed to think his reaction was strange.

Until he heard Logan complaining about Patton’s puns, and he saw Roman smirking at him triumphantly, and- oh. Roman had timed the sudden attack just in time for one of Patton’s dad jokes, knowing that no one would question it if Virgil laughed. Virgil didn’t know if he wanted to kiss him or kill him.

The game continued, and although Virgil was struggling to keep his face neutral and his breathing regular, he didn’t want to give his signal. Plus, Roman was kind enough to turn the belt off when Virgil was talking- ironically, this made him partcipate in the conversation more than he normally would, as he used the opportunities to catch his breath and rebuild his resolve.

Speaking of which, he felt like he needed a bit of a breather, actually. But there was a problem: Logan and Patton would not shut up. Virgil was only barely aware of what they were arguing about, but whatever it was had them both firing back and forth, speaking too quickly for him to get a word in edgewise.

Virgil bit back the whine that threatened to rise from his throat. His eyes darted to Roman, who was looking way too smug, in Virgil’s opinion. Virgil glowered back, which- uh oh. Judging from the way Roman raised an eyebrow at him, that might have been a mistake.

Virgil felt the belt tighten around his waist, the buzzing sending tingly tickles all over his torso. Virgil coughed again, this time a little too forcefully to pass off as natural, but he couldn’t waste any focus on the others’ reactions to his outburst, because these tickles were suddenly much more intense.

The pads on his stomach, ribs, and sides were all buzzing anew, and the feelings seemed to travel deeper into his core than before. The belt itself, now ever more fitted to his waist, was mercilessly attacking the hyper-sensitive stretch of skin. It took all of Virgil’s strength to not fall to the floor then and there.

By that point he’d completely lost track of the conversation. Logan said something, then Patton retorted- he’s pretty sure Roman added something to the conversation, but he found he couldn’t even look at anyone else, lest they see right through his crumbling exterior. He just hoped that whatever the argument had turned into, it would be over any minute now-

“Virge? You good?”

Oh, fuck. Thomas’ concerned voice broke through his giddy stupor, and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on him- including, he noted, Roman’s, who was perhaps watching him the closest of all.

Virgil pictured what he must look like to them: shoulders tense, face red, desperately trying to keep himself still as he sporadically twitched at random. He wanted to assure them that he was alright, but after just a few beats he realized… Roman wasn’t turning off the belt. Roman wasn’t stopping the tickles.

“Kiddo?” Patton’s voice was laced with paternal worry. “What’s wrong?”

Virgil just shook his head, hoping beyond hope they’d let it drop. He was inches away from losing it, in front of the other sides, in front of Thomas, in front of the camera. His stomach flipped as he imagined breaking down into helpless laughter, his completely embarrassing giggles being filmed for all of Thomas’ viewers to see.

“Virgil, are you alright?” Even Logan seemed close to distress at Virgil’s bizarre state. Virgil bit the inside of his cheeks, staring resolutedly at the floor. This was it, they were gonna make him talk and he wouldn’t be able to hide his laughter anymore, and they’d realize he’d been getting tickled for the entire video, and-

“Of course he’s not alright,” Roman interrupted. “You two know-it-alls have been driving him crazy with all this fighting. Right, Virgil?”

The tickles intensified further, all parts of his torso being assaulted with evil buzzing vibrations and rhythmic pulses all at once. Virgil nodded a little too desperately.

Thomas, Patton, and Logan all got similar regretful looks on their faces.

“Our sincerest apologies, Virgil,” Logan said gravely. Virgil dugs his nails into his palms to not burst out laughing.

Patton nodded. “I think we’re almost done here, kiddo, but will you be okay to stay?”

No, no, no, he could not stay out here another second, but he couldn’t just say that-

“If I may,” Roman interrupted again, “perhaps I could escort Virgil back to his room? We’re not really needed for this fight, and I don’t wanna leave him alone in this state.”

Patton awwed at the offer, Logan hummed in agreement, and Thomas nodded.

“Yeah, of course, guys,” he said, waving his hand. “You’re good to go.”

Virgil couldn’t duck out fast enough. He couldn’t even focus on where he ended up, which is probably why he found himself back in Roman’s room.

Immediately he fell to his hands and knees, bright screams of laughter escaping from his mouth. The belt had not once stopped tickling him, and now that he was away from the others he had no qualms over desperately clawing at the belt to get the tickles off of his skin.

Unfortunately for him, the belt could only come off at Roman’s command, leaving Virgil no choice but to flop to the floor, rolling into a fetal position as he let loose the giggles that had been building up for the past half hour.

“Rohoho!” he gasped, the rest of the word lost to his peals of laughter. Two feet appeared in his line of sight, and as he blearily looked up he saw Roman’s gleeful grin.

“Yes, Virgil?” Roman asked nonchalantly. “Do you need something?”

Virgil batted at his leg before uselessly wrapping his arm back around his stomach. “Plehehehehehease!”

Roman chuckled, squatting down so he could be closer to Virgil.

“Please, what?” he asked. Virgil couldn’t even respond; he just threw his head back as the tickles refused to deviate from his most sensitive spots.

“Please use this?” Virgil looked over to where Roman was now waving the remote control in the air. He reached out for it, but Roman easily pulled it out of his reach.

“I’m pretty sure the bet was that you could last an entire video, right, stormcloud?”

Virgil groaned as much as he could through his laughter. “Cahahahan’t!”

Roman laughed. “So you admit you lost?”

The words were hardly out of his mouth before Virgil nodded desperately. “Yehehehes!”

His laughter fell silent after that, leaving him writhing on the floor in ticklish agony. Finally he felt the sensations start to lessen, allowing him to gradually take in more and more oxygen; eventually all that was left were light giggles and the occasional snort as Roman eased the tickles down.

“Good?” he heard Roman ask, although Virgil was so far gone it took him a few moments before he could respond.

“Yeah,” he murmured, flushing a little as he heard his wrecked voice. “That was fucking crazy.”

Roman laughed softly. “I kept waiting for your signal, but when you didn’t use it I kinda... intervened.” He bowed his head. “Sorry, my love.”

Virgil was already shaking his head. “Don’t be. I knew I could’ve called it off, but...”

He cut himself off, blushing profusely before he mumbled, “I kinda liked... being at your mercy.”

A beat, then Roman chuckled darkly. “Oh, you did, did you?”

Virgil’s eyes widened, but he met Roman’s gaze and nodded.

Roman hummed in consideration, leaning back. Virgil realized with a start that he hadn’t removed the belt, and that he was now slowly turning the remote over in his hands.

“Well,” he pondered, “you did lose the bet, my dark prince. And I doubt anyone’s gooing to come looking for either of us for a while.”

He held up the remote control, his fingers hovering over the control panel.

“Would you like to take your punishment now?”

Virgil inhaled sharply, watching the remote control with trepidation. But despite the fact that he’d just nearly lose his mind to Roman’s newest tickle torture invention, he couldn’t deny the jolt in his stomach at the thought of another round with the belt.

So he rolled his eyes and rolled his shoulders, eyeing Roman with an unearned confidence.

“Let’s see what you got,” he replied flippantly, as cocky as ever.

Judging from Roman’s predatorial smile, he’d definitely be paying for his attitude. And he couldn’t wait.

[jonismitchell]

it’s not really a topic? but ur fave movies and why u love them / ur least fave and why u hate them ☕️

I’m going to do five for each—and I’m going to try and do films I haven’t talked about before on this blog! (Except for the obvious... my favourite film... putting this under the cut because it’s really fucking long)

FIVE OF ARDEN’S FAVOURITE FILMS

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) [5/5] Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that everyone saw this coming. I think The Trial of the Chicago 7 is an utterly excellent film. It is well-written, with punchy dialogue and an interesting moral perspective that is made clear with every scene. The actors are phenomenal; making the roles of real people interesting without infringing on personal privacy. And with the exception of a few liberties and errors, the film is almost entirely historically and legally accurate. It’s a masterpiece.

In The Mood For Love (2000) [4.5/5] Wong Kar-wai is an absolute genius of filmmaking. With very little dialogue, a loose plot, and a simple premise, he creates gorgeous insight into a pair of almost-lovers. Almost every scene in this film looks like it could be rendered as a painting, and the atmosphere is so effectively built that I felt the real world rushing back to me like a rush of cold air upon completion. The romance of the writing is simple but effective. That era has passed, finishes the film, nothing that belonged to it exists anymore, ending with the same flourish it began. 

Persona (1966) [4.5/5] While this is not my favourite Bergman film, it is definitely one of my favourite films of all time. It is carried by two brilliant women, acting in loosely defined roles that stir the imagination. Operating within a punchy eighty-four minutes, Bergman sets the stage and destroys it, leaving you wondering how much is true and how much is a dream. It’s a true testament to his talent as a director. (Bonus: the cinematography is exquisite.)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) [4.5/5] Okay, apparently I just like feature films with essentially two main actors and not much of a plot. But I digress. This masterpiece—which incidentally shares many themes with Persona—builds a romance between its two main characters with the adept hand of a woman. Every scene in this movie does something with its characters, moves the plot forward, makes your heart wrench for longing (okay, let’s tone the dramatics down). It is gorgeous and miserable at the exact same time. 

Dead Poets Society (1989) [4.5/5] This film is so, so good. It emphasizes and fervently defends the power of art and poetry, it is a quiet swan song to drama students, it is the reason people romanticize dark academia. Robin Williams takes his most iconic role and acts beyond the demands of the script, the visual marks of the film are obvious and stark, and the script presents its views without being cloying or inarticulate. Again: it’s genuinely great, if often talked about, and I highly recommend it.

FIVE OF ARDEN’S LEAST FAVOURITE FILMS

Marriage Story (2019) [0.5/5] How this garbage movie came to be nominated for Best Picture (and snag a 4.0 overall rating on Letterboxd) astounds me. The film unites two of Hollywood’s least likeable actors and pits them against each other in two hours of boring, mind-numbing, and idiotic marital feud. Laura Dern’s sweet minor role is the only reason this movie gets half a star from me... as opposed to the zero stars the stupidity of the script actually deserves.

Nomadland (2020) [1/5] Everyone and their mother seems to be enamoured with this film, but I will politely say that I completely despised it. Technically, it’s well shot, but other than that it is disjointed and nonsensical to the point of absurdity. It’s critic bait, a string of images to pull intellectual observations from, but the moral of the movie is so nonexistent and the main character is so poorly developed that it’s hard to see why anyone would enjoy it. Throw in some obvious classism and rich person idiocy, and you’ve got a nice little counter to Parasite’s (actually deserved) Oscar sweep.

Ender’s Game (2013) [1/5] Has there ever been another film that so obviously ignored its own source material? Ender’s Game is a hodgepodge of stolen book moments, fake romance thrown in for Hollywood appeal, and CGI so over-the-top that it’s a wonder this thing got made in the first place. It’s a nightmare of a supposed artistic statement, and I hate it on behalf of everyone that enjoys good science fiction. At least it’s pretty commonly disliked.

Palm Springs (2020) [2/5] If Andy Samberg can’t save a movie, you know something’s wrong. While both of the comedic talents that headline this picture lend their best effort, the moronic script and the hideous landscape doom this budget Groundhog Day. Not only is it a fundamentally boring movie, it’s an asinine one, with characters who get about thirty seconds to be human before delving into another joke. I hate to think of it as the future of romantic comedy.

Clueless (1995) [2/5] Seriously, what the fuck. Every time I remember that this is a loose adaptation of Emma I become more annoyed. It’s not a remotely funny movie, it has a few good scenes but can’t maintain a clear storyline to save its life, and only select members of the core cast seem to have gotten their actual scripts. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and visually unappealing. I’m sorry, but that’s a pass.

[shadowphoenixrider]

Why N’Zoth should have been behind BFA’s War

Okay so I’ve been thinking this for a day or so now, and I’m gonna just dump my thoughts here.

In this essay, I’m gonna make the argument that I think N’Zoth should have been behind the war in BFA. It’s gonna be long as shit, FYI. Here we go.

It’s no secret that opinions on BFA’s story have been...mixed. Some think it’s a garbage fire, others think it’s okay but not stellar. Some bits of BFA’s story, such as Jaina’s arc I find very well done, whilst others are very...below average, must try harder.

I think the main problem is the overarching storyline running through the entire expansion. It feels very disjointed, like many self-contained narratives sort of strapped onto one another into what looks like a storyline, if you squint.

Contrast this with Legion’s story. What was the primary conceit of the expansion? The Legion’s back and we have to stop them. Great! A nice solid story maypole we can pivot events around. Everything the patches introduced tied back to this core story ideal:

Return to Karazhan: some freaky shit is going down in Medivh’s digs and we think the Legion is behind it. Stop them!

Tomb of Sargeras: Time to get to Tomb and stop the Legion from pouring in!

Argus: You know what, we need to stop the Legion Once And For All (maybe)! Time for a cataclysmic showdown on the Legion’s homeworld!

Even the Insurrection storyline held closely to the Legion storyline, since the demons had control of the city and a Titan MacGuffin we needed, so we had to help the Nightfallen boot them out.

Now, BFA has at first glance, a good premise. All-out war between the Alliance and Horde, whilst Azeroth bleeds underneath us. That seems pretty good, right? Yes, it is, but there is a problem; the status quo.

The trouble with wars, especially really big ones (like world wars), is that by their nature, they upset the status quo. The WoW status quo is both the Alliance and Horde is, in the lore’s eyes, on equal footing. Problem with this all out war is that someone’s gotta lose - but no faction can lose because that upsets the status quo.

Thus, the story has already lost its running shoes because it can’t change anything drastically at the end. There’s still got to be a Horde and an Alliance - now, Mists of Pandaria managed to end an Alliance/Horde war in a fairly convincing stalemate because of Garrosh. Since he was deposed and he was the instigator of a large portion of Bad Stuff, people could sort of understand Varian letting the Horde survive under the threat that they’d get their asses thoroughly beaten if they did anything bad again.

This did not work a second time. Why did it not work a second time?

That’ll be because Sylvanas burned down Teldrassil, which pretty much accounts to genocide. Now, Garrosh pretty much dropped Azeroth’s equivalent of a nuclear bomb on Theramore, and that was made a very big deal of, but Sylvanas decided to take a leaf from the Bombing of Dresden and add some fire to her war crime. And thus, a very large petard is hoisted around BFA’s neck.

The image of a burning Teldrassil is almost certainly a very shocking, very dramatic one, and I’m pretty sure that’s why Blizzard chose to do it. It’s certainly a very big, risky move in the terms of story that could have elevated it. The quest to try and save the citizens of Teldrassil as it burns is truly harrowing and excellent in how it underscores the hopelessness of the task.

The thing with the burning of Teldrassil is it has colossal consequences, and the story did not handle it with the gravitas it deserved. After that moment, you cannot bring the Alliance and Horde to a happy peace - the Horde has done an undeniably awful, inexcusable thing, and yet the Alliance will apparently look the other way and sign a peace treaty with them now Saurfang is dead and Sylvanas has run off to make Shadowlands happen.

So already we’re in trouble from War of the Thorns, which was not helped at all by Blizzard devs playing a ‘who burned the tree’ game only to reveal that it was always Sylvanas, she did it because she meant to do it. This did nothing but upset and annoy people (me included), which started everything off with a sour taste in our mouths.

Next stop is the attack on Undercity, which is good if not for the inexplicable stupidity of the Alliance not perhaps thinking that Sylvanas would use the Blight against them, after they just witnessed her burn Tedrassil down. And knowing she dumped Blight on Gilneas.

Despite these slip-ups, we’re keeping up this feeling of all-out war. The Horde gets word that Talanji and Zul are stuck in jail, let’s rescue them and get the Zandalari on our side to beat the shit out of the Alliance! The Alliance, not to be out done, decide to go get the Kul Tirans.

And that’s when the story fractures. The stories on Zandalar and Kul Tiras are kinda understandably divorced from the main war, but they’re so divorced as to be almost completely outside of it. The only signs of it outside the War Campaign are the Alliance sailors scrapping in Talanji’s Rebuke that you find in a non-essential side-quest, and the shoehorning of the Horde into the Stormsong questline, which then proceeds to break the latter questlines when the bloody quilboar seem to appear out of nowhere and become the main baddy (what?!).

It took the advent of 8.1 for Faction Assaults to start occurring and making us feel like all-out war, but it seemed a little too late. There was the attack on Dazar’alor that pushed the war narrative, but it was starting to get tangled up with the ‘Sylvanas is Bad Warchief, we must remove her. Or not...?’ storyline with Saurfang, which fell back onto ‘the Horde isn’t bad, it’s the Warchief who is!’ which 1, we’d already had in MoP, and it wasn’t a fun feeling that time either, and 2, it’s not really a good excuse after a genocide.

So Horde politics start, which are sort of interesting to Horde players, but not Alliance players, who only have Tyrande being understandably pissed at losing her home and people and going to wreak havoc to be content with. Well, if by ‘wreak havoc’ you mean ‘kill a val’kyr and somehow get beaten by Nathanos and then get shelved for orc drama later’. Salt was rubbed into this wound when a dev said that Tyrande had ‘got revenge for Teldrassil’ with this, which went down badly.

Now, there has been Old God stuff rumbling throughout the expansion up to this point, granted, but you can count on one hand the amount of times it was given a shit about. Only when Crucible of Storms comes out does N’Zoth do a proper ‘hey guys I’m a bad guy!’ thing, and he actually starts to slither into centre stage.

8.2 begins, when Azshara comes to kick our ass and free N’Zoth, and that’s when the tried and true ‘factions unite vs. the Big Bad’ trope comes out (as everyone and their mother predicted it would), and both factions decide that maybe they should focus against Azshara and her Old God master. But before N’Zoth beating, we need to boot out Sylvanas because she’s mean and burned a lot of innocent people.

8.2.5 arrives, everyone goes and makes angry faces at Sylvanas, Saurfang dies dramatically, Anduin and Jaina look pretty, and Sylvanas flies away angrily. Congrats guys, we did it! Now for some peace. Ignoring the fact Teldrassil is still ash, and Rastakhan is still dead (and the Zandalari are pissed about that), so it should be less ‘peace’ and more ‘polite ceasefire’.

And now it’s 8.3 and suddenly N’Zoth’s everywhere! And we’re going to kill him at the end of this patch and...that’s it. Next stop, Shadowlands. That big bad we’ve been hinting for a long, long time got a single patch to wave his tentacles and then he was very dead. Even worse, his big arrival was completely overshadowed by Shadowlands’ announcement. Ooof.

With all these things, BFA’s story feels like it set off without knowing where it was going to end up, except that maybe N’Zoth was involved and Sylvanas would ditch the Horde. So it bumbled around, making weird choices, and then wrapped up plotlines far too quickly. The war felt after Dazar’alor that it was about to escalate, what with Rastakhan’s death and Talanji’s ascent to Queen. Instead, it suddenly paused before deciding it was going to end so quickly I think it gave us whiplash, just so we could fight N’Zoth as an united front. So of.

As a result, we have plotholes still yawning open, very unsatisfying endings, as well a perpetual conflict between Alliance and Horde on every public forum imaginable - Alliance aggrieved that Blizzard has ignored them yet again in the story department, except when they wanted a shocking stunt, whilst the Horde is upset that they’ve been hit the ‘villain’ stick again, except this time it was a fucking bludgeon, and we’re getting very tired of this now please stop. This isn’t helped by all the foreshadowing of the faction lines either dissolving or loosening up during the coup against Sylvanas, and then Blizzard just going ‘yeah nah can’t do that, gotta preserve the status quo’.

So, how can we improve this by adding N’Zoth? Well, remember the core premise of Legion and stopping them? Repeat that with N’Zoth. It is simple, but we can give it its sweet twist - we’ve got to stop N’Zoth, because he’s not only trying to corrupt Azeroth. He’s also playing the Alliance and Horde against each other so they can’t stop him.

Immediately that makes N’Zoth the Big Bad, and also underscores the point of We Do Not Want Him To Get Out of His Cage, which makes the fact he does get out a big OH F*CK moment. Not that it isn’t already in current BFA, but can you imagine the gutclenching despair you’d feel as you’d done everything in your power to stop this from happening, and yet it’s happening anyway? Now you’d know what Khadgar felt like when the Tomb of Sargeras opened - and you’d know that you’ve got to do everything you can to put this right.

Let’s go back to the beginning, only this time we dial the Void stuff up. We begin the War of Thorns with the factions already tensed up re: Azerite, with preliminary scraps over it and what looked like the Alliance attempting a coup over some of the Forsaken (HEY BLIZZARD STOP PUTTING LORE LIKE THAT IN BOOKS AND NOT REFERRING TO IT INGAME KTHANKS). A tenuous peace, to be certain, which could only be made worse by Old God agitators, stirring up unrest in the factions.

As much as I would prefer the Horde not being the instigator in all the bad stuff, N’Zoth is the only variable I changed in this equation, so with unrest and some intel that makes it look like the night elves are making a move either to cut off Azerite production, or funnel it through Teldrassil, the Horde strikes at Ashenvale and Darkshore, instigating the War of Thorns.

Things look to be going normally, but you as the Champion notice Old God stuff lurking about and ‘hey this looks like what was happening before the Cataclysm- Oh. Oh no!’. You try to bring evidence that this is a set-up to the people in charge, but it’s escalating out of control. Night elves are dug in so deeply that the Horde has to set fires in the forests to get them to move, which causes retaliation, which gets Saurfang involved who critically injures Malfurion, but before the final blow Tyrande punts him into next week and maybe at this point someone goes: ‘wait hold up what do you mean there’s not Azerite over here’.

We stumble over to Sylvanas to try and tell her ‘no wait we’re being played’, but she takes this as misinformation and or a bluff, and fires a couple of catapaults to show she ain’t fucking kidding at Teldrassil. A couple. Enough to cause a ‘I mean business fire’, but since Teldrassil is in the fucking sea and I would assume almost always damp around its lower regions (you’re allowed a snigger at that), it’s not going to set the entire thing ablaze.

Except it does, because of N’Zoth’s minions in the Horde (and Alliance, probably), who fan the sparks with wind and feed them with power. Alternatively, we could have naga rise from the depths to set some Azerite-infused fires too, just to foreshadow Azshara coming onto the scene later.

With Teldrassil engulfed, everyone is shocked, including Sylvanas, who really didn’t intend this to happen at all (and is pissed because there goes her bargaining chip). The Alliance of course declare all-out war on the Horde because how dare they, whilst the Horde is briefly paralyzed with shock.

Saurfang and the others yell ‘how could you?!’ at Sylvanas, who yells back ‘that wasn’t part of the plan!’ and also something along the lines of ‘why the fuck didn’t you tell me the intel was shifty before this happened?!’ before going: ‘well it’s happened now, so we best gear up and stomp the Alliance into the dirt or we’re all going to die’.

Meanwhile people are going: ‘yeah but what about the influences of darker things going on? maybe we should do something about this’ with the answers being: ‘shut the fuck up, they set fire to Teldrassil’/’shut the fuck up, do you really think the Alliance is going to stop after what just happened’?

So it’s a race against time to try and get the factions to turn against N’Zoth instead of ripping each other apart before horrible shit starts happening and we’re all royally in the shit.

Everything happens pretty much as is from there, except we get some explanation for the lack of gas masks being ‘oh no our totally legit sources told us the Blight hasn’t been stockpiled in large quantities, we’ll send infiltration teams to neutralise it’. Only to find out that this is not the case of course and N’Zoth cackles some more. Sylvanas and Saurfang have an argument leading to Sylvanas booting him out and Saurfang getting captured by the Alliance despite the orc wanting death.

Everything goes as is from there, with Zul kinda trying to get Talanji killed because N’Zoth, in a mirror of Ashvane/Jaina. Just this time, we’re pushing the Void angle hard. They’ve both got their hands (or tentacles, rather) deep into Kul Tiras (Azshara) and Zandalar (G’huun), so it only makes sense to amplify their nonsense.

Over time people higher up the chain pick up the fact that N’Zoth’s doing this on purpose, but bad shit keeps happening so the Alliance and Horde can’t put aside their differences because both sides are doing genuinely bad things to each other! Yes, including the Alliance! Sylvanas is doubling down because she wants to survive this, and the only way she knows how is to utterly destroy her opposition. When she sees parts of the Horde begin to lose faith, she gets pissed because this is not the fucking time and this is the only way to stop the Alliance damnit.

Similar stuff happens in the Alliance, with Tyrande understandably going on a rampage against the Horde with Genn in tow, whilst Anduin and the others try to pump the brakes as they see N’Zoth’s tentacles looming everywhere.

Everything reaches a hecking climax when Azshara shows up and one thing leads to another, and N’Zoth comes bursting out, prompting an ‘OH SHIT’ moment. I’m thinking during Nazjatar, the small Alliance/Horde forces there ally, and when they’re just about to do something useful, the bigger kids show up going: ‘what the fuck are you traitors doing?!’ and during the argument, Azshara steals the Heart of Azeroth and unlocks N’Zoth’s prison, which leads everyone to realize ‘bollocks, we were played’.

Anduin can bring most of his Alliance forces to a standstill, and begs Tyrande and Genn to help him vs. N’Zoth. Tyrande tells him where he can stick it, but Genn is persuaded, though he says he’s going after the Horde as soon as N’Zoth is downed.

The Horde does the same to Sylvanas, but she knows as soon as N’Zoth is down, the Alliance will have her head, and especially when she realizes Tyrande’s still out there, she stands her ground. When a good portion of her powerbase decide on the temporary ceasefire to go after N’Zoth, however, Sylvanas tells them to piss off, and ditches the Horde. Talanji does a Genn, knowing how bad the Old Gods are, but she’s still getting blood payment from Kul Tiras after this is done.

Thus, everyone finally turns their attention to the big bad, fully entrenched, and ready for this grand climax. after he’s been causing all this pain and suffering. The Alliance and Horde are splintered, each nursing legit grievances against the other, but standing together for a moment, as always.

Yes, it’s Cata and MoP dressed up in a different coat, but sometimes a simpler plot is easier. That and Cata was more the factions poking each other in the eyes a couple of times rather than all out war.

With N’Zoth as the instigator of the conflict in BFA, we get a big bad we must fight, and we understand more than he’s a legit threat - and that he knows how to weaken us, so he throws us in a battle against one another so he can win. Yet everything isn’t forgiven at the end - the status quo is sort of there, but the factions are more fractured than before. Crimes still need to be answered for, but doing so may cause more conflict and death.

Sylvanas is out there and pissed, and feels the only way she can survive is to subjugate everyone that could ever harm her and perhaps transcend death itself. This entirely speculation on my part, but a part of me thinks Sylvanas’ main driving force is ‘I’ve been through enough, not even death is a respite, I’m going to become so powerful no-one will control me - I will control fate myself if I must’, which is actually fairly tragic and does grant me sympathy for her (watch this not be her main motivator in canon tho).

Does this solve all of BFA’s problems? No, of course not. But I do think it would have improved the story, at least by managing to keep the story flowing in a more linear direction. You’ll notice that Saurfang has all but disappeared from the N’Zoth narrative, that’ll be because I wasn’t too sure what to do with him. I do like him as a character, but he was pushing the ‘only the Horde has story’ narrative, and I’m not too keen on that. He’d still be a main character pushing for fighting N’Zoth and dying in the end, but less of all the focus.

To those of you who got down here - congratulations and thank you! I went on a very, very long time. Hopefully I have written if not a persuasive argument, then at least an understandable one. This isn’t meant as a ‘Blizzard’s writing is terrible!’, because sometimes it isn’t, but as a ‘I think it would have been better if done this way’.

Thank you for reading, and I hope 2020 smiles upon us.

[kittensjonsa]

For @jonsa-week 's Day 1:

Greed ~ The Father (Justice) ~ Fave book quote (Jon, A Storm of Swords - pg 617)

Summary: Revenge was all he wanted and it didn’t matter how he got it. But Jon knew he had bitten off more than he can chew the moment he laid his eyes on Sansa Stark - daughter of the well loved and respected man in all of Westeros and recent widower turned priest, Ned Stark. 

Rated G, 2k+ words, may turn smutty. Angsty, a snippet of Jonsa, dark Jon and to be continued (maybe I don’t know yet..)

In The Name of The Father

Justice. It was all he wanted. The plans he had didn't have any room for any incidences. Nothing at all. Just get in, get it done and get out. He was prepared, or at least he thought so.

“Something troubling you, son?”

Jon jumped slightly at the call. Turning around slowly as calm and confident footsteps approached him, Jon managed a small smile of greeting. A small creak told him the priest had just taken a seat in the pew just behind his.

“Well, isn't everyone who comes here?”

A small grin and a chuckle escaped the sombre priest. “True. Aren't we all? Well if there's anything you need, confess or anything, I'll be right here.”

Confess. A heavy word worth its weight in guilt and remorse. He had a confession, truth be told but tonight was not the night. Oh the things he could tell, but he shouldn't. Not to Father Ned Stark.

“I'm sorry, Father.. but I'm afraid.. I'm not Catholic. I just came here to take a breather. It's very.. peaceful here.”

It wasn't prayer nor intercession he was after. Nor a minute of peaceful solitude. He had enough of those growing up alone.

Forgiveness. That was on his mind, the moment he stepped into the church. He feared he would vanish and spontaneously combust, on such sacred premises, for the vile things he had done but he guessed going to hell didn't work that way. Jon had a feeling he had one foot in it already.

“How could you? You animal!” Sansa's cries were acid, burning right through him.

“I fell in love with you! To think I gave you all of me, my heart was yours! A-and you.. you just stomped on it? How dare you even come here!”

“Sansa, you're not listening to me.. please just listen.”

Sansa shook her head and rubbed away at the tears that were flowing freely. Oh, how it hurts. She gave herself to him. All of her; mind, body and soul. She would do anything for him. Anything to make him happy. He was her best friend, her soul mate. But how could her feelings be so wrong?

Sansa screamed in anger as Jon stepped closer. She was done. The lies, oh God, the lies!

“No! Don't touch me! We are done! Don't ever come near me ever again! You.. are dead to me.”

No words had ever punched him in the gut like Sansa’s..Jon could only watch as Sansa ran away from him, driving off and leaving him alone by the river. The night was unbearably cold all of a sudden. Their favourite spot and where they kissed for the first time. He shouldn't care nor remember these things, but he did. Good lord, he did.

The stab that pierced through his heart was one he didn't expect. Perhaps he did love her too. .

But.. Mother. And Arthur.

He was greedy. Greedy for things to be set right. Greedy for vengeance. For vindication. But he had no right to break her heart. And for what it's worth, his too.

His happiness meant nothing if he didn't have any peace. One that would come in the aftermath of finally knowing who had taken everything away from him and getting payback. It was all that mattered. Wasn't it?

Maybe prayer was what he needed, subconsciously as what good left in him was desperately trying to claw its way out. But he didn't believe in God. What God would allow such things; what happened to his mother and Arthur, and more importantly to him, making him this way causing hurt and grief to someone he actually loved?

Pray then. Pray to your new Gods, and I'll pray to my old ones.

And they are Revenge, Betrayal and Blackmail.

Jon shut his eyes, remorseful for thinking such thoughts in such a place. But how hypocritical, it seemed to him, considering what he had done. And he had done enough. It stung him still, remembering how her warm tears dampened the palm of his hands. How her heartbreaking pleas shook him to his very core. Yes, he had done enough.

Jon could hear the priest's smile. A warm, genuine and kind smile. “Yes, I suppose it is. Well, not to worry we welcome everyone here.”

Sinners are we and sinners we shall die. None redeemed. At least not me, Jon thought.

“Thank you. It means a lot.”

His eyes shifted to the floor and held his head low before standing up to leave Jon alone. He had been a priest long enough to know when he was not needed. And it seemed to him this dishevelled young man, with dark eyes and unruly curls probably cherished his moment of solitude before he walked in.

“Nice to meet you then. I shall leave you in your peace. I'm Father Ned and I hope if you feel like you ever need a place to breathe, you'll come here.”

“Thank you Father Ned. I'll take you up on that offer.”

And perhaps.. more.

SIX MONTHS EARLIER

“What? What do you mean you can't tell me? What is it?”

Sam clicked the mouse and whirled his chair around to face Jon. He hoped he had better news to tell him.

“You've got to promise me you're not going anything stupid. You can't. Promise me, Jon.”

“All right. I promise. So go on then... Oh for fuck's sake, Sam! Out with it!”

Sam turned and tapped on the computer screen.

“That man you've been looking for all this while? The one you think had something to do with your mother's death? That's him right there. The private investigator sent me this.”

Jon grunted and glared at Sam before setting his gaze on the screen.

“So that's him. I've got to look for him then.”

“And do what Jon? Ask him questions, interrogate him? I know what's going through your mind and I think it's best if you don't.. do anything at all.”

Jon looked at the name again. And the stealth pictures that came with it. He needed to decide now. Closure, that's it. Though it puzzled him why Sam was so concerned. He knew how much he needed this. Sam, of all people.

“And why shouldn't I?”

“You're mad, angry, pissed off. You've been like this ever since you started this whole investigation thing. Dude, listen to me, just don't do it.”

“And isn't that the exact reason why I should? It's called closure, Sam. Besides, who the hell is h-”

“He's mother fucking Ned Stark, that's why!” Sam objected.

Ned Stark. I'll remember that name for as long as I live.

“So, who's he?” Jon asked, though he had heard of him before.

“You're kidding right? A Westerosi legend. The lawyer who brought the Boltons to their knees and best friend of the late President Robert Baratheon. How do you not know all this?”

Jon stared at the pictures once more and shrugged. Probably a good thing he didn't. Makes it all the more easier. He was too busy trying to survive the past twenty years or so, doing his best on the cold hard streets than to mind about politics or gossip.

“But.. it looks like he isn't one anymore. Or retired. I mean, look the photos. He's a priest, Sam.”

“Dude give that guy a break. He just lost his wife and his two sons. He's found God and maybe that's how it's supposed to be. I mean, come the fuck on, Snow!”

And I lost my mother.

Jon didn't like the tone in Sam's plea. Why should one man's redemption be more important than his poor mother's? A life snatched away from him much too soon. The years spent in foster homes, in the orphanage and trying to seek some form of solace and God forbid it, even love - was a painful sorrow no one would ever understand.

“Stop fucking telling me about this man! His life is no more important than what my mother could have had! You don't fucking tell me how that's like, Tarly. No one can and best you don't say anything about this anymore.”

“No, Jon I didn't mean that!  You know that. Come on, Jon! Jon!” Sam's words fell on deaf ears as Jon grabbed his coat and left. Nobody tells me what the fuck to do. Not Sam, not even God. Whoever the fuck they are, Jon screamed in his head.

Days went by without as much as a call from Sam, Jon knew he was smart enough to leave him be but still he wished they could talk. A text or two dinged but Jon chose to ignore them. He had more important things on his mind. Rubbing his tired eyes, Jon decided to call it a night from staring at the computer.

The research and probing had gotten a little too mundane, the more he learned about Ned Stark, the more he uncovered - which was really how Ned Stark was practically Captain Westeros, a well loved man, an upright citizen with morals of steel. There was not an ounce of dirt on him except one tabloid article years ago that depicted him leaving the scene of an infamous night club with the late former President Baratheon. But that was only because the former late President was a bad boy with bad habits, it wasn't really about Ned Stark per se.

How are you connected to my mother's death? Jon wondered. Something's gotta give, no one can be that good.

Jon needed to do something different, he needed more. He had set out to find the truth and right now, he'd do just about anything for it. Anything.

The Stark family radiated pure happiness and perfection, from the web portrait alone, one that rudely yelled out at him.

Such a pretty family.

It made him sick to his stomach, to think that that could have been a portrait of him and his mother and Arthur Dayne. His own family where he was loved and protected. Arthur wasn't family but he was the closest father figure he had in someone and the only confidante his mother trusted. Arthur probably loved his mother too, Jon was certain. They were happy and Jon's life was perfect. Just like the picture of the Starks.

Till a note found in his mother's cold dead hands with a scribbled 'Eddard Stark' destroyed everything he held dear.

And there he was, Father Ned Stark.

Ned Stark, a name that made a six year old Jon an orphan that day and since then he made a vow. Devoting the rest of his life to avenge his beloved mother. Even if it meant hurting someone along the way. He was more than willing and growing up fending for himself went on to equip him with the skills he needed. Jon had years in preparation for this.

They've got to pay, Mama. Someone has to.

“Sansa! Sans! There's someone here to see you,” Jeyne called out from the bottom of the stairs.

Sansa almost jumped and dropped the pencil in her hand. Good thing she wasn't writing anything important or else she'd have to rewrite the notes.

That's weird. Who could it be? Sansa checked her watch again and grunted at the time. It was going to be the third time she was late this week.

“She'll be right down. What was your name again? Jay, was it?”

Jon nodded with a smile. “Yes, it is. I'm actually here for the caretaker position? I believe it was posted in the jobs section in the papers.”

Jeyne eyed him warily. She didn't recall putting an advertisement out for anything lately. If Sansa did, she'd definitely inform her. Yet not even a mention of it. Jeyne didn't quite like the idea of strangers coming up to the Stark's private residence looking for jobs. Regardless of how dark and handsome they turn out to be. But then again, perhaps she might be taking her job as Sansa's personal assistant a little too seriously to care this much.

I'm sure it's nothing, just a guy looking for a job.

“I see. Sansa did mention once that they needed a caretaker here to help with house and the dogs. Though that might have been a few weeks ago and the applications are closed. But maybe she hadn't found one yet. So.. you're okay with dogs though right?”

Jon shrugged. “Dogs? Sure, I love dogs. I have one of my own. Ghost, his name is. Big large white dog. He's a good boy.”

Jeyne nodded approvingly. “Well, all right then. I have to go and leave you in Sansa's good hands. I was just here to collect some paperwork. Nice to meet you, Jay. Oh, and good luck!”

Jon waved a polite goodbye as he closed the door and resumed waiting by the stairs. Beads of sweat were pooling on his forehead. Jon inhaled deeply. So close. He was so close and everything was going according to plan. Jon knew he was at the right place and at the right time and he was mightily pleased with himself.

That is, until - he saw her. Sansa Stark.

“Jay? Hi, sorry to keep you waiting. I'm Sansa. Nice to meet you.”

Nice indeed.

Fuck.

[marrowskies]

that post i promise is here

and it’s long

imo you can see moffat's failings even in the episodes he's hailed for. like okay so one of the things is that in empty child everybody lives, but the everybody lives thing gets twisted as the show continued under him because... well... he's the doctor! everybody lives!

EVERYBODY.

LIVES.

EVERY. BODY.

THE time lords? his entire race dead to separate it from the original show in a definable story driven way that elaborates on an aspect that the doctor always had? terrible decisions he's had to make for the sake of good, even though he dislikes making horrible decisions that kill people????????????????????????? WHICH MAKES THE DECISION REALLY BAD???????????????????????????????????? AND DIFFICULT?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

fuck that shit the doctor is awesome! everybody lives!

"JUST THIS ONCE?"

HOW ABOUT JUST THIS EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME EVEN IN RETROSPECT BECAUSE FUCK YOU. I WANT THE DOCTOR TO BE AN INFALLIBLE MESSIANIC PIECE OF SHITTY WRITING but not in like an interesting but flawed way that RTD always tried to do even if he didn't always succeed but at least messianic bullshit was presented as a FUCKING FLAW and not just another DOCTOR IS AWESOME HIS FLAW IS JUST THAT HE IS TOO AWESOME ALL THE TIME

LIKE okay so I've seen that post going around that's like HAHA LOL NUWHO FANS DON'T KNOW THAT THE DOCTOR WAS ALWAYS MORALLY AMBIGUOUS BECAUSE IN THE FIRST EPISODE HE NEARLY KILLED THAT ONE GUY WITH A ROCK BECA-FUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKK OFFFF

that scene is so poorly indicative of what the doctor's character would become that it's been post-explained TWICE in TWO DIFFERENT FORMATS OF THE SHOW. YES the doctor can be morally ambiguous YES he has done horrible things and HE WILL GO ON TO DO HORRIBLE THINGS EVEN IN CLASSIC!WHO - but that is typically, for the rest of the show's existence, brought up as a THING HE'S GOTTA DEAL WITH, not some bullshit as "but he knows best" fuckery. the way that the Eight Doctors deals with it isn't half bad, actually, considering he basically confronts his younger self as a cocky "i know best" kind of idiot who hasn't had the 7 lifetimes to understand that it's not the right thing to do (especially when by now we understand that he's been living on an entire planet of "snarf snarf we're the best and lower lifeforms are primitive and pointless" assholes)

this argument also bothered me because OF COURSE nu!who fans would think this! there are lines all over the series indicating how awesomely badass the doctor is, how wonderful, how amazing, how just so fantastically remarkably brilliant and good he is to the point that MOFFAT RETROACTIVELY REWROTE THE FOUNDATION OF THE REBIRTH OF DOCTOR WHO ON THE SIMPLE INSISTENCE THAT THE DOCTOR WOULD NOT DO A BAD THING. of COURSE there are people confused about the mixed messages the show is giving them! is he an infallibly good awesome messiah? IS he MAYBE perhaps SOMETIMES BAD? oh, let me just HINT AT THAT A FEW TIMES but OVERALL NAH! HE GOOD! good is always a real, quantifiable thing that you are, and difficult decisions are... never difficult! because there's always a good one!

moffat's ALWAYS been like this! even in empty child i will argue! even in blink!

blink and empty child are often bandied about imo as "when moffat was good" and the video makes a point about how moffat is good in small doses, but empty child and blink are recycled so constantly that you realize that moffat's shit stank from the beginning much in the way that s4 sherlock reflects how sherlock has always been shit. empty child's premise worked because it was out of context with moffat's overall writing - how everyone ALWAYS lives, how women are ALWAYS WRITTEN through his perspective.

blink is so caught up in its obsession in being a cool thing for cool people that it shits on its own premise eventually. that becomes more clear when moffat brings it back constantly. but it's still pretty evident in that episode alone

"you can't look away from the angels because that's when they move"

"well we've figured it out! so we'll keep an eye on them now!!!!"

"well you can't because they can turn lights off for no reason!"

"what? why?"

"because FUCK YOU IS WHY also there would be no tension going into this final scene if i didn't make some bullshit up to make your solution pointless but anyway let me also ruin this two seasons from now by letting you see US MOVE"

blink's premise is fucked just mildly enough that we can ignore it and then because moffat has been squeezed of what creative juice he had left and then fucked it up some more, but more flashily! with budget! and guns!

god and his stupid fucking "crying is happy for sad people" just fuck entirely off moffat, yes? keep the preteen "i'm sad because i'm emotional and deep" shit to your 40 year old journal you keep up to date on how misunderstood and genius you are.

i haven't even gotten to the fact that sherlock isn't even sad or validated when moriarty dies. he isn't like well that fuckhead who was fucking with me is dead but at least crime is over. the video doesn't even go into a core aspect of sherlock holmes which is that he solves crimes because he wants crimes solved. that he maybe solves this stuff in particular because he cares about people and dislikes bad things because he’s a person, even if he does morally ambiguous things for the sake of a mystery. one of holmes’ enduring traits is supposed to be THAT HE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE. that he wants murder to have justice, that he wants a thief to be caught, and if he didn’t want those fucking things he wouldn’t solve crimes, he’d be fuckin mycroft. THAT’S BASICALLY LITERALLY THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF MYCROFT AS A CHARACTER, TO SHOW WHAT SHERLOCK WOULD BE IF HE WAS AN MISANTHROPIC PIECE OF INCONSIDERATE SHIT, holing himself up in an intellectual elite club full of uncaring shits who work in underground politics i mean i know that gets sort of elaborated on later on but CHRIST sherlock!sherlock would fit right fucking in at diogenes, except it wouldn’t be silent because he’d constantly need people to tell him how fucking smart he is all the fucking time

i'm so sick of this character on a fundamental level because moffat isn't the only one who does this - yes he's the one who has unfortunately laid waste to my current enjoyment of two of my favorite stories - and for those of you who counter often with "well you don't have to watch it" - you're right. I don't. and i've honestly never given Sherlock the time of day past its bullshit Orientalist episode, but as a fan of Holmes it is literally impossible to say that name without people pouncing in with how awesome Sherlock is. it's impossible to talk about Doctor Who without someone talking about the more recent season. DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE HOW UNAVOIDABLE.

Moffat as a writer has always capitalized on a particular archetype, the misanthropic genius. the misanthropy can be on a scale, but the genius part is paramount. the misanthropy adds a mystery to the character - because he doesn't LIKE people, his inner machinations lay undetect, but this can be done through various means. sometimes it's just done through being so sheer genius that they cannot be understood, like sherlock-archetypes almost always are, or they're so WACKY that they cannot be understood. whatever the case is, they're sometimes unlikeable, and are paired with people who don't UNDERSTAND them, but *understand* that they are so brilliant that they cannot be understood and therefore put up with whatever shit bullshittery they might be going through. (usually they're queerbaited because that character tends to be male)

here are some examples i can think off the top of my head: kingkiller chronicles, big bang theory, pure genius, dirk gently as written by douchebag mcfuckface Max Landis, frankenstein as written by douchebag mcfuckface Max Landis, most main male characters in stuff written by douchebag mcfuckface Max Landis, stargate atlantis (shared by mckay and shepard), basically every single adaptation of Holmes that didn't understand the fucking point (including house), arguably Elementary too tho that's actually dealt with in the show as a real tangible character flaw, Ender's Game, honestly as much as I love LeGuin - Wizard at Earthsea, and Catcher in the Rye to be honest, and... and... god what was that show about the guy who takes a FUCKING PILL TO BE SMART? (looked it up: Limitless), Will in Hannibal, APB WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT WAS?, HONESTLY JAKE FROM BROOKLYN 99 ALSO TOES THE LINE FOR ME especially in the early seasons but Jake is a NICE. BOY. AND christ the list goes ON and it NEVER ENDS WE ARE STILL WRITING THIS STUPID FUCKING CHARACTER.

this. shitty. character. a deep, philosophical, genius so beyond our normal human being's conception that they don't have to be nice to be liked. they just have to be smart. beyond smart. amazingly, stunningly, inconceivably smart. so smart that even their bad thing is a good thing. even their bad decisions turn out to be good ones, and their flaw is some manufactured bullshit like drugs! (House) or unfairly poor! (Kingkiller) or possibly autistic! (bbt). none of these aren't real, actual that real people have to deal with, of course, but they're USED in these cases to artificially insert a character "flaw." (and being an addict or poor or autistic isn't a fucking flaw! fucking stop it!!!!) the ultimate male wish-fulfillment character. don't require physical attractiveness or humor or charm or kindness or money. just smarts. then the women will love you!

this character has been around for so fucking long in media i feel like we've been tricked into thinking it's a good character. it's in so many well known classic things because shitheads like moffat and joss whedon and max landis and patrick rothfuss have been around forever, perpetuating their own bullshit since forever and i'm fucking sick of it. it's the writing equivalent of a white guy with acoustic guitar. a lazy, self-serving piece of writing that only serves to help the writer put his head up his own ass in an attempt to outwit himself with the most uninteresting archetype that exists. this is worse to me than the DREADED Mary Sue, because Mary Sues don't tend to be FUCKING ASSHOLES that people LOVE ANYWAY. They're just blank slates for people and that's FINE. everyone needs that at some point in their life! DO WE NEED MORE WHITE GUYS BEING AMAZING GENIUSES BUT WACKY ASSHOLES BUT SO GENIUS THAT EVERYONE LOVES THEM???? DO WE? DO WE NEED TO PERPETUATE THIS EXHAUSTING PERCEPTION THAT BEING RIGHT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING KIND????????

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[toomuchtimenerd]

Review for ‘The Cruel Prince’ by Holly Black

Wow wow wow. I’ve got some things to say about this book. Yes, this book, not the entire series. Because I can’t bring myself to read the rest of the series. Why? Because I can’t even bring myself to finish this book. Aghhh. I really hate leaving books unfinished, I truly do. I feel like I’m being unfair and not giving the author (and their book) a chance. Maybe one day I will return to this book and finish it, and maybe one day I might like it enough to even finish the series. But right now, I am in shock that I even MADE IT to 80% completion. I really tried to finish it, I really did. But if I read any more pages of this book I will lose the rest of the few brain cells I have left. And I really need those brain cells for when I inevitably go back to school soon. 

Now, I was really excited to start this book/series and I’ve heard nothing but almost amazing reviews from the YA fiction community about this book and Holly Black in general. Heck, even my coworker from two years ago recommended this book to me, and she’s one hell of a nitpicky critic. So yes, I had pretty high hopes going into this. I half expected the Fae/Faerie elements to be similar to Sarah J Maas’ vision of Fae, but it wasn’t and that’s perfectly okay with me. In fact, Holly Black’s world building was probably the best part of the book. Her world building, and character descriptions. Yes, descriptions, not character progression. Because the way each character progressed through the timeline was just one of the many things that rubbed me the wrong way when I was reading. Now onto these other things.

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black is about a girl named Jude (story is told from her POV) who is born human but taken from her world into the Faerie world with her twin Taryn and half sister Vivi (who is half faerie). Jude was just living her normal human life until her mother’s Faerie ex-husband arrives at their house and kills Jude’s mom and dad out of sheer vengeance. He then takes all the children back with him to Faerie because he still sees all of them as his duty and responsibility... which is kind of... thoughtful... I guess? This man’s name is Madoc, and he plays somewhat of an important role in the story. He is Vivi’s true father, but treats the three girls all the same, giving them respectful educations and upbringings and etc. 

So there are two ways for mortals to stay in the world of Faerie I think, and that’s either through marriage or by being appointed to a royal court (or something, I’ll be honest I skimmed quite a lot of this book because it was just so difficult to digest sometimes). Ironically, Taryn and Jude both want to stay in the world of Faerie so desperately despite being human mortals whereas Vivi who is actually fae and appears fae and has all the powers of fae despises the place and just wants to live her days with her human girlfriend in the human world. Taryn’s plan is to fall in love and get married, but Jude wants to fight her way to the top and become appointed as a knight to someone’s court. She wants to prove to herself and to everyone else that despite her humanness she still belongs there and she can still be useful. Sounds all dandy right? Sounds like a great start; human girl perseveres and tries to defy the odds while she seeks power in a world that hates her and is constantly trying to oppress her. Not a bad premise, in my honest opinion. It’s just that the execution was horrible.

Now, a large part of what made this book incredibly difficult to read for me is that I really did not like Jude. And it’s so hard to like a book when you don’t like the character that’s narrating the story. She is whiny, she is self-contradicting, she is so incredibly hateful, and virtually everything she does in the entire book is fueled by her own hatred of herself and of others around her. She wishes she could be fae yet despises the fae, she wishes to rid herself of her own mortal weaknesses, she wishes to be the most powerful so nobody can step on her anymore. She hates almost everyone around her, and those that she doesn’t outright hate she barely tolerates them. She hates and hates and her life is literally miserable, yet when Vivi gives her SO MANY opportunities to just say “fuck this” and go back to the world she ACTUALLY BELONGS TO, Jude continues to be like “oh nah I’m fine I’m good everything’s fine I’ma just plot my revenge and it’ll all be great”. Which is fine, but Jude is SO irrational and succumbs to her feelings of hatred so often that she never actually has a real plan to get revenge, she just does things and somehow gets away with it. Like the part where Valerian tries to kill her in her own room but she retaliates and kills him first? How does NO ONE NOTICE that he’s disappeared for so long?? How do NONE of the servants of the house notice his body behind the stables?? None of that whole thing makes any sense, considering Valerian is a child of the Gentry and his disappearance really SHOULD be a big deal for his high-ranking parents. But it’s basically just brushed off and nobody even bothers to bring it up until Jude herself brings it up to Cardan, who literally only gives a one-liner about Valerian’s disappearance before they change the topic. Like... what.

Now as for the main love interest, Prince Cardan. I do not understand his character at all, nor do I even want to at this point. So let me get this straight... he’s an asshole towards Jude because he thinks she is... loved? And he’s jealous because he’s unloved? Okay, but how is that any justification for his seriously brutal treatment towards her? I get some people may be super into the whole “oh he’s been so hurt in his childhood it makes sense that he’s just a tortured soul now�� but I don’t know fam I personally don’t believe that childhood trauma is a 100% justification to be a straight asshole to everyone, but hey that’s just my opinion. In the beginning, Cardan just comes off as such a piece of shit disgusting excuse of a character. I get that he is the titular reference ‘Cruel Prince’, but good god I did not expect him to be THIS cruel. He’s straight up just abusive and without ANY good real reason for it. And not only that, he very quickly goes from super abusive to being a drunkard 24/7 who suddenly decides that he doesn’t want to bully Jude anymore by last 30% of the book. Uhhh... character progression? Hello? I don’t know, the whole scene with the faerie fruit and Cardan making an enchanted Jude kiss his feet or something destroyed him as a character to me. That was just too cruel, too far, and his character just had no real substance to bring him back from that brutality. 

Let’s see, side characters... if I can ever remember any of them at this point because I’m pretty sure my brain auto wiped as much of this book as possible overnight. Oh right, Taryn. God, I hated her. And I’m glad that this is a sentiment that I can share with readers who actually did like this book. Taryn is a seriously sorry excuse for a human being, and if I were Jude I think I would’ve tried to strangle her or something. Like I get that she is much more timid than Jude and just wants to fit in with as little violence as possible, but to fuck with your own twin sister like that for the sake of someone’s hand in marriage? Seriously?? I understand what it’s like to want to fit in, I was a stupid and desperate teenager before too, but I would have never done any of the remarkably pathetic things that she did for the sake of “fitting in” and becoming “one of them”. YOU’RE HUMAN!! YOU’LL NEVER BE ONE OF THEM!!! EVEN IF YOU DID PLAY THEIR TWISTED AF GAMES THEY’LL NEVER TRULY ACCEPT YOU AS ONE OF THEM!!!! HOW DO YOU LIVE IN A PLACE FOR TEN YEARS AND STILL BE SO DUMB/IGNORANT!!!!!! Excuse me. I was hopeful for a story that highlights the love shared between two siblings, but this whole relationship just ended up becoming another thing of hate. This entire book is just that: hate everywhere, people being cruel for the sake of it, people being cruel for their own selfish gains, people being cruel out of revenge, people being so cruel because daddy didn’t love him as a child boohoo. 

I think the only character I could even kind of bring myself to enjoy was Vivi. She’s the only daughter who kept her promise of forever disliking Madoc and never truly accepting him as her father. She’s the only one who sees the cruelty of the Faerie world for what it is and despite the fact that she is one of them, she wants none of it and continuously tries to get her sisters out of it because she sees the damage that world has done to both of them. She’s incredibly selfless, especially with the whole Sophie situation and in my opinion she’s probably the only character in the entire 80% of the book I’ve read who actually has a heart and cares for things beyond her own motives. God, maybe I would’ve actually liked this book more if it was told from Vivi’s perspective. There is only so much hatred I can stomach. 

I do want to touch on a few of the good things, and a lot of that is the writing itself and the world building. I despise the book, but I have no negative judgment towards its author. Holly Black is clearly a very talented writer and her writing at its core is generally very easy to follow. The only thing that made this book not easy to follow were the characters and character progression. But the world building was fantastic, I could really envision each and every detail of each setting and I honestly really liked the world that she crafted. It was so unique, different from the worlds I’m used to (since most of my prior experience with fae is Sarah J Maas stuff) and her world of Faerie had that genuine element of fairy-ness to it that Maas’ world of Fae generally lacked. If only the characters were more likable, then Holly Black could have created something seriously amazing... in my eyes of course. Clearly I am in the minority here in regards to my feelings with this book, considering how this series is so highly rated on Goodreads. I feel baited.

With that, I end my rant for this book and will be leaving it at DNF 80%. I will forever keep it on my kindle app, and maybe someday in a couple of years I will have the stomach to read it again and hopefully better appreciate it. Or maybe not. Either way, it’s okay because there are still so many fine books to read and I only have a finite amount of time before my life will become busy again. I think I will be reading some light-hearted contemporary romance before I jump back into YA fantasy again. I need a little comedy and fluff to remedy my heart from all the hate that went on in The Cruel Prince. I’ve always regarded myself as someone with a pretty high tolerance for brutality when it comes to fiction, but this book just made me cringe and feel so uncomfortable. I had to skim many of the bullying scenes, and let’s be real I felt like half this book was just bullying. It got to the point where I was just like, “Ok Holly Black... we get it. Everyone’s a total jackass in Faerie, please stop with the bullying scenes and write some real character progression now.” Ugh. Well, with the weekend ahead of me and some fun plans marked on my calendar as well as a lovely new book in my Amazon cart I hope that in my next review my heart will be lifted and no longer filled with the regret of trying to finish The Cruel Prince. 

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Ah, the “Sorrows of Empire.” Its lies these days so easily exposed. Yet, too often ignored. Saturday morning, April 14, 2018, the world released a collective sigh of relief after a week of anguished hand-wringing at the too-likely possibility of our own utter annihilation. US President, Donald J. Trump, a man of massive ego, reportedly small hands and apparently insignificant phallus, had failed, despite direct attempts by the Big Bad Wolf of American military madness, to blow down the retaining walls protecting human conscience… and reality. Or fatally damage Syria. Having witnessed this failed attempt to blow the world to pieces via the winds of war, we, the remaining civilized world, were instead treated to worldwide giddy, heel kicking and side-splitting laughter at the ultimate tepid US military inspired results. Yes, despite a week of US hegemonic huffing and puffing — and tweeting — many of us were amazed to actually wake up once again. This past Saturday, we all discovered that the latest triumvirate of self-serving, sadistic and socially-challenged world leaders (US/UK/ FR)  had suffered a storied defeat…one caused by two little pigs — guinea pigs really — and one black cat. Thanks to these three demur little mammals, who spoke not a word of English, but were likely – if the UK media folly is to believed-  secretly taking Russian language lessons, these three accurately summed up current Western foreign policy: “You can fool some of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but… You can’t fool all of the people all the time.” This sage advice, of course, was not within the full understanding of Messrs. Trump and Macron, nor Ms. May who instead preferred to believe in their own weakening hearts and minds the much older capitalist mantra: Never give a sucker an even break! Having seen their laundry list of previous cunning political connivinces go almost unchallenged by their own populace in routine acquiescence, their lies became ever bolder. And inexplicable. This lulled them into a false sense of overconfidence that believed they could provide all manner of utter nonsense as long as it was alleged to be attached to the never passe “Soviet Union” better known as “Russia.” So, it was natural for these three myopic world leaders to assume their latest plot would pass easily within the shadows of their own dark souls. Instead, theirs was a comedy show that suddenly snapped the world to the realization: We no longer believe a fucking thing you say! This ultimate and fundamental realization was spawned weeks before this past Saturday’s illegal attack. In the quaint UK town of Salisbury,  former double agent and recent MI-6 participant, Sergei Skripal, had relocated to go out to pasture, retire and die. Little did he know that his long-term goals would turn out to be somewhat premature. Well, almost. UK Prime Minister, Theresa May was, and is, a desperate woman. So desperate is she — after her own recent David Cameron moment of parliamentary disaster — to retain power within the posh digs at No. 10 that she quite willingly proved correct all criticisms of her Conservative Party: She joined forces with the Irish Nazi party, better known as the DUP… and gave them a 1 Billion British pound mortita for their trouble. That’s desperate! Strangely, Ms. May could not understand why, after all this, she was still reviled by all the UK parliamentary parties and most of the British people. Having done her best to achieve Neville Chamberlain style unpopularity, she needed a distraction… no matter how amateurish the production. For she had long ago concluded, as have so many foreign leaders, that her public was just as easily controlled as watering a potted plant in the window of her number 10. Over arrogant, Ms. May sent in her Keystone Cops — MI-6 — to do what had worked so often before in times of political need. So easy. Indeed! As the plot unfurled on a park bench in Salisbury on March 4, 2018, the press dutifully expanded daily on the one proffered set of lies. Nice and smoothly… Russia did it! Who, but a treasonous Brit would possibly argue with such a complete lack of prima face evidence? Yes, all was going so well for Ms. May and her conspirators until their hired media minions made their first fatal and undeniable mistake. Enter the true hero of our story, our savior, Nash Van Drake. Cat. Black cat. Likely Russian agent and the only live witness; one who knew all too well the other fundamental slogan of political cover-up…”Dead men ( and cats) tell no tales”. The two Guinea pigs were already toast, which, of course, fit the UK narrative that the Russian sounding Novichok — quickly renamed that week from its original name, “Foliant” —  had ultimately (after the Government story changed multiple times) originated in… or on… or around the Skripal house, hence the two little Guinea pigs’ timely demise and convenient incineration. However… You see, Van Drake was a black cat: Persian of Arabic descent. In the UK being black and/or Arab is increasingly great cause for caution. After years of living safely curled up on the living room settee watching the daily BBC propaganda reel or evenings on former spy Mr. Skripal’s lap forever watching James Bond reruns on ITV — over and over and over again — when the strange alien-looking men in yellow suits, plastic masks, and oxygen tanks picked the lock on the Skripal’s front door, astutely Van Drake took to these years of imposed TV training and knew just what to do. Run! The poor caged Guinea pigs didn’t have a chance. Once upon a time, the secret services of the dominant world had at least the courtesy to respect the world’s intelligence quotient even when discounting their country’s own. In that era, evil political intentions did attempt to carefully cover the footprints leading to their too many false flag operations. Professional surreptitious skullduggery, however, has now given way to plots of conquest that are really ham-fisted affronts to simple mental logic followed by a near total media cover-up in favor of same. This has so far been all too effective, and with the similarly agendized publishers in the US and UK having control of over 90% of these “media choices,” a media black-out of inconvenient facts has been the de rigueur method of cover-up. This new methodology of political deceit relies on one single, all-important premise, one that evil minds similar to those of Trump, Macron, and May believe to their soulless core: We control the story and …You… are too stupid and willfully ignorant to find the truth. While quantitatively and historically accurate in their belief to date, unfortunately for MI-6 and their resulting worldwide television theatrical performance, Brits are also animal lovers. One might well, then, imagine the look on the faces of the conspirators when, after already disposing of the evidence of the two conveniently dead rodents and thus certifying their claim that the Skripals were poisoned at their home, they were suddenly shocked by the very first serious media question, one for which the co-conspirators collectively had only one confused, nervous, sideways looking answer… “What Cat?!” Like Jack Ruby seeking out Oswald, the cops were off again to fix this glaring omission. Poor Van Drake, still hiding in the dark of his own Palestine under the couch, and now revealed, never had a chance. As the yellow suited masked men dragged him kicking and screaming off to certain chemical weapons death at Briton’s own self-proclaimed Auschwitz, the secret chemical weapons facility known instead as Porton Down, the poor kitty had no way of knowing that his cremation would make him the hero of this hilarious and almost fatal — for us — tragedy. For it was Van Drake, his being alive and next dead, that snapped the world to the proper realization that: one: the highly lethal military grade Novichok/Foliant in question was approximately as deadly as Van Drake’s own flea collar, and better: Ms. May, the Cons, and the vaunted UK press were completely lying out their ass! Finally, it seemed the counter-intelligence services of first world hegemony had actually managed to underestimate the true intelligence of the average Briton and, apparently, the military intelligence services of most of the other nations on earth. It’s one thing to shoot Palestinians for target practice, inflict the world’s biggest cholera epidemic on Yemen while bombing its hospitals and doctors, or terrorize a few hundred thousand Rohingya into abandoning their homes for the pleasure of capitalist pursuits: all these so easily ignored by a deliberate media sedated, flag-wrapped public. But, this time they had gone too far. They had killed… a cat! What a fuck-up! Fast forward to the land — the epicenter — of nationwide mind fabrication. Just as strangely as barely-prime minister, Ms. May, the new White House presidential marionette in orange, despite having been repeatedly for a year bitch slapped into submission by his adversaries on all sides of the aisle, was still having problems with those pesky Democrats and their Justice Department, their attorneys, and this past week, their cops. Worse, to a President who craves personal approval like an American male does Opioids, his popularity ratings were down. What to do? To a man with a golf ball sized IQ, there was only one thing he could do. A choice that would make him popular from the boardrooms of Halliburton to the gun-toting, Jack Daniels-swilling taverns, and barrooms of Tennessee. From the dark shadowy dampness of the Israeli Knesset to the gold lined palaces of the newly anointed Saudi prophet, MBS in Riyadh: A nice “new, shiny, smart” war. Perfect!! But how to start a new war. That chemical weapons false flag rubbish had failed, one, two three… six times in the past. Oh, and that Salisbury debacle — where the Skripal’s were doing just fine all of a sudden — now makes seven failures. But, to hell with a smart guy like Einstein, why not give it another shot. Besides Trump had a specially prepared US media tool awaiting: Those ever handy and timely White Helmets; the ones who always seem better with a video camera than at performing first aid. Fresh off being handed a shiny 2017 Oscar for their star acting role in their own Hollywood propaganda film of justification, surely they could finally get it right this time? Thus we, the civilized world, were treated to another round of intelligence insulting western inspired theatrics. And it might have worked. Almost did. Because, hey, these are the guys who wore the White helmets. White ones. Who could argue with that? Needing a coalition of the willing for his new war, the logical first choice for Trump was to invite his equally flawed counterpart in London to jump into bed with him.  Apparently the salacious allegations of the Steele dossier — which the UK press failed to show as connected to Skripal senior — may be true since Trump showed a continued passion for the kinky in next going French, and inviting another similarly descending political hack to his menage a trois of war. Macron, whose popularity echoes his two concubines in being approximately that of Napoleon bringing the troops home from Russia, was down to his skivvies in seconds. Reduced to attacking farmers and peaceful protesters in his stated effort to bring all things capitalist to bare in traditionally socialist France, he had obviously failed to yet master the emasculation of his own media. Thus the irony of all this, applied to French Napoleonic law, was that in the eyes of his countrymen Macron was at the very least, “guilty until proven innocent.” And, good luck with that. So, when Washington called, followed by a short follow-up ring from Tel Aviv, Macron also knew just what to do. And, off to war it was. For two weeks these three frolicked in a pre-war orgy of selling the exact same pack of lies to their own nation’s public via their own controlled media; lies that continued to include the connection to the Soviet Union Russia via the Skripal chemical weapons attack in Salisbury. Of course, this Syrian attack in Ghouta was real this time. Right? However, in this mad three-nation ramp-up to new war many persons of rational mind and a penchant for self-preservation, persons that included world leaders still in possession of their facilities, continued to wonder about the massive logical and factual problems with the Skripal incident and “the cat.” This was shown in the universal lack of willingness of other countries to enter the fray. When Angela Merkel doesn’t willingly join an American rush to war, you know there’s a big problem. However, many leaders did save face with Israel and half-heartedly attested to the full package of lies being true by abstaining in their UN votes to stop the pending attack. So, our three continued to cavort in pre-war bliss despite the constant interruptions made by John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, scratching and whining at the bedroom door while trying to get in. But, their orgy did continue, the glee of upcoming death and destruction being spawned from their own loins an aphrodisiac far too strong to be controlled. Sadly, despite the inquiries and outrage of the few sharp minds — and cat lovers — worldwide, these three Israeli concubines did finally manage to achieve coitus this past Saturday, April 14, 2018, with the Donald next indiscriminately ejaculating cruise missiles all over Syria. These missiles, having an unusually high mortality rate of their own (71/103), did almost nothing to Syria or Syrians who that new morning danced in streets afterward. But this charade did allow an embattled US president to temporarily forget his troubles, put his golf balls back in his sack and feel much better after having finally relieved himself. Not quite done, it was time for the final act: for the three to prove that, when it comes to congressional or parliamentary oversight for more war: 1) it is far easier to beg forgiveness, than to ask permission and 2) these same legislative checks on war powers are in reality as effective a deterrent as that of a Las Vegas boxing commissioner. A few more calls from Tel Aviv, soon to be Jerusalem, and the little fish in the US congress and the two parliaments were again nicely ketteled into the proper way of retroactive thinking and approving…more war. Well, the moral of this ages-old recurring fable of overconfident governmental, covert operations should be obvious. It should not take one dead cat and a couple of Guineas to shock us all to the proper realization: When it comes to the Governments of our world…it’s all a pack of lies. So, we the intelligent world salute you Nash Van Drake and your tiny brethren. May you all rest in peace in the service of us all. May we together pray: pray that the world quickly awakens to the terminal realizations of poor Van Drake, reluctant hero, as the steel doors of the gas chamber called Porton Down creaked open before him and he swallowed forever his last breath… Not a one of us has nine lives, and our governments are pretty sure that we are all… dumber than a god damn cat! http://clubof.info/