#because i am that kind of person i do suspect contract requirements to be an issue as well as image positioning pre-ms

[xcziel]

a lot of people talking about jk's lack of credits on his album and it made me think

like if it's true he was being - not necessarily pressured but let's say encouraged - to make an album suitable for winning over western audiences, then it's likely he knew the songs would need a high amount of english lyrics. and it does seem as though making waves in the western market is a goal he has had in mind, not just one imposed on him by bh

but as someone who has tried learning language later in life - it's NOT easy for some. and especially if you're used to a high level of proficiency with your language use, it is really hard to have to face an inability to say exactly what you mean, the way you want to say it, in another tongue.

plus, some of us with adhd (and i know speculative diagnoses are sus but just *look* at jk ok? come on) have a hard time prioritizing tasks that don't see immediate reward or that are discouraging because we can't do them as well or as easily as we'd prefer right away

so what i speculate is that possibly one reason for jk dragging his feet on preparing his album was that his english wasn't up to his standards (because being a member of bts means that you set and are also expected to achieve very high standards indeed) for lyric writing

and obviously he could ask for help - but normally the people (person) he'd ask would be his member(s) and it's supposed to be a 'solo' project so i feel like his pride could have kicked in - he recorded other projects just fine, with enough time he surely could swing the english on his own, right? - and then it would be entirely his songs: he'd be expressing himself directly, on topics that were personal to him, and not relying on someone else to paraphrase his thoughts into english. think about how many people he'd have to run the lyrics by to make sure they really conveyed what he meant to say, not what the translator *thought* he wanted to say. and then making sure it scanned/rhymed/was in meter - it's HARD to do in another language (rm does not get enough credit)

so here he is, faced with a time limit "suddenly" (the way every deadline "suddenly" happens for those of us with the time-blindness that lets us say "i'll get to it" until eternity lol) to produce an album if he's going to - everybody else has done their chapter 2 bit, tae has been showing him his music, talking about promo, etc. - but his writing english isn't where he hoped it would be. he has music but it's hard to latch a hook on a song with no lyrics and on top of that he's mainly a singer: words and vocals are his entry point for relating to a song

for all we know he tried switching a composition of his own to english lyrics and it didn't work out to his satisfaction, who knows?

and if he did write the music, would he be comfortable just handing it over to someone else to throw words on top of? i mean, maybe if it was someone he trusted ... maybe.

but then scoot biscuit and bang pd are like here are some ready-made songs, we're sure they'll be hits - you can tweak them but you don't have to really do anything else other than perform them and you can get practice on all the other things you're worried about - planning your own choreo and styling, doing shows solo, western interviews in english, western audiences - without feeling the emotional vulnerability of having your own art and inner thoughts just out there to be judged.

and he looked at his options, and at how all the other members were accomplishing things etc and said ok. ok that's something i can try. and i can't really blame him, even if the results are not to my taste.

also i personally think, just going from subtle things in his conduct, that maybe there was an expectation that this was a way to ensure he *not* sing about things maybe that could put him under more scrutiny industry-wise. like if the songs he would write might be uhhh imprecise with the pronouns (or even scarier very precise in the 'wrong' way) leaving the meanings up to audience interpretation, sending a message that might be taken in a non-company/industry-approved way that kind of thing. that wouldn't happen with a selection of predetermined songs and collaborators that management had more control over and thus wouldn't need to worry about jk accidently (or not) scuttling the big western takeover plans.

and i don't think this is any kind of full explanation, obviously, but more just an idea of one tiny piece of something that might have affected the decisions made, something happening in the background

think about oh for example jm's letter - if jk wanted to write something like that, have something similar as part of his introduction as 'big western pop star' how nerve-wracking would it be, how careful would he have to be? to trust that what he wanted to say was actually being said? to sit on sets with clueless western show hosts and somehow discuss it in the english he does command? to listen to bh tweak and massage public perception so that no one in the western press 'gets the wrong idea'?

soo yeah, that he said ok i'm gonna do the sexy popstar thing, don't shoot the messenger lol none of this is coming from my heart except my love of performing for the fans and as bonus i'm screwing around with my innocent baby bunny image, i think that's fair

[earlgreytea68]

I 100% am every bit as confused as you, about SMFS getting snubbed for the Grammys this year.

Personal opinions aside, it's their highest rated album to date, if Metacritic is anything to go by. They do just as much experimentation on this album as they did on Mania, while still sounding very THEM, which is an insane tightrope to walk. You'd think SMFS would be a shoo-in, if any album was, and I just don't get why it wasn't even nominated.

Did they really think that recognizing both Paramore AND FOB at the same time would cause the world to implode, because that would mean they think "emo" music is actually a respectable genre full of talented people?

I just, have so many questions...

I have a couple of theories. One is that people just weren't paying attention. The Lana Del Rey comment I posted was because that album did get massive Grammy love and came out on the very same day as SMFS so it was easy for SMFS to get totally lost underneath that. I remember Spotify sending me emails on that day urging me to listen to the new Lana Del Rey album, an artist i'd listened to a grand total of like sixteen times over the years lol and I never got a single email about SMFS being released. Which could have been because I already had it on repeat but I suspect it was because there was money being paid to promote the Lana Del rey album and I further suspect there was much less money behind SMFS promotionally.

The second theory is kind of connected to the first though in that I suspect being technically out of contract hurts them in this kind of promotional place like awards shows. As I understand their situation from the outside, it seems like this was a one record deal, not a long-term contract. I think that's exactly what they wanted and they're happy with it -- they have seemed and sound delighted with the freedom -- but I think it leaves them a little out in the cold around awards shows like the Grammys, which I suspect require a record label push.

I've made all of this up hahahah. It might all be wrong. But you're right that the album got strong reviews so I suspect it just got lost. And mania didn't because it was still on a long term contract and also had a number one debut (SMFS opened at number six and so didn't make as big of a splash for them). I remember watching a YouTube review of it at some point by some random guy, who even knows who it was, but he said something like "this album is really good and really interesting, I just don't know how many people are still paying attention to fall out boy." I feel like they needed a huge mainstream promotional push to get over that and they didn't get it.

But I also do not want to throw the record label under the bus because I'm also not entirely sure they care. And I mean that in all honesty. The lyric about "I must be getting old 'cuz I'm less pissed we didn't make it on your year-end best list" is a true one, I suspect. Like sure, they would love glory, who doesn't hahaha. But they made exactly the album they wanted and I think it was already bigger than they expected so it's all gravy. They didn't NEED the push -- and probably didn't ask for one -- because the fans turned out even more than I think they expected, and they were touched and delighted and I really think it's all cool.

And the album is still fantastic, of course.

(I always kind of suspected the mania nomination wasn't actually for mania anyway but just a general acknowledgement of fob still being around. That's how awards shows can be.)

[scentedchildnacho]

The man in the little blue truck that looked like a small suv but was a truck instead wanted to know if I wanted to smoke a glass bowl so I just said and put my hands up to show I wasn't armed so it didnt shoot me....

I had complained to David a large college is around and so populations are despicably poor at poverty like they can't understand Reaganomics.....uhm usually homelessness has people who care if I have been given private space as it's a mental health law on occasion if it's a large college none of it cares if it pushes itself into what it dismissed as not obligatory for it

Ya know sort of like the pool it never cared if it's housing mandates damaged me personally and so can go to the pool though wealth districts had lots of stuff going on....

Ya know when people would view a wall between me and the pool goers as a system of required formalities and courtesies between one another.....

I at least will just wait to not be decentered from civilization anymore the lifeguards find their miserable rich me....poor you and don't care attitude so repulsively violent they put them in chlorine behind barbed wire....so I think I might just cut the barbed wire off so semi trucks don't try to drive into the pool ...

They apparently feel they have insanity pleas aerosol science is interesting but they really really modeled an aerosol at themselves that's not normal to not dilute in water....

I walked all through Texas and read this short story about a man at a liminal point and so when there was nothing else to think about or do or care about he just went somewhere swimming the whole way because that french people just vacated....and no one was around to care...

And retail clerks find the behaviour of constant savings and always flowing in money to others constant out flow and destitution so repulsive they put their mind on slow studied liquor only jail states of hallucination....I don't know if I get mad at a bartender I can at least pity that someone has the worst ever and clean their house because of evidence of homicidal ideation

It's housing how can ya not want a system of slow bankruptcy it lets ya out of its life to a new system of fantasy voluntarily

David talked about a job so I said you could drive the bus and I worked at a resort in Alaska with an ecology like this and there isn't enough people to fish and stuff.....

Then the park and ride could be out by highway 70 and the whole sudderth area could be bus in only....and service could then justify it's retail theft as the land in the hills though old and bitter is good land though it's bitter earth though...

David asked if Alaska was fun....I said it depends on your personality type....I think it use to be a spiritual resort.....because I spent most time alone up there and it helped me to get rid of my unwanted habits I use to smoke tobacco cigarettes and the urge just left me there.....it was mostly campy when I was there....devilish sexed and kind of wrong so maybe some people had a lot of fun

Just wrong oh ya know when people use the religious gender characteristics of others as justification to lord and gender privilege over others...ya know and political types show up and it feels like Schindler's list sometimes....who played the lady that had to serve the concentration warden...

And your not sure why scorpions and their desires for crude utilitarian of necessity friends are around you till said politician threatens to accuse you of putting an allergy in his kids food and then you realize why you have such uninhibited people sometimes

Scorpio I don't know the scorpions were largely women and I suspect despite sex scandal they ended up loving partners and spouses for knowing to care about Capricorn virgo and taurean types that are difficult people to know....and ya know casually cause sex scandal when others might network negotiate and contract more before doing...

Subversive space instead of transubstantiation....I am a Libra so all my war like kind of violent friends I do kind of care about because it's a human being

Subversive I suppose because Eva was the one who maybe had asylum exposure priorly and could get through it when other bipolar types just decide everyone's a bitch

Suck my dick

You.......are a bitch

Otherwise she can really cut up salmon and the blood everywhere and piles of heads.....and yogic dancing with joints free of occidental fears twisting and thrusting and bending..........

And the anxiety of all this subversion touching one contaminating one all the anxiety without angst touching touching so near to touch......that the space of clear air and nothing but white pollen in the air with no one around after a shower was so focused benefitting that I didn't find anything else real....

Only discovered in the 90s...

Environmentally inexpensive....a topical lotion application with surprising correct advantageous properties...

Surfactant...

Nothing completely natural nothing to easily synthesized and distributed fossils oil age the progressive idea that hypo tension encouraged instead of avoided helps that was better yes better now see she is better

Exquisite view point

I was drunk a lot

Drunk drunk drunk I remember now what about drunk again the visual space....not really to feel better about myself more that I enjoy disembodied

I was really skinny I think though that was bad...

Everyday plans of being a pork junkie is only allowed if one was wealthy enough to be obese

Eros and psyche...if really drunk and one night Standish don't look at him though

He wasn't all that bad of a man I wasn't in any compelling way physically injured but the psychology of it later made me really angry

And when I confronted him about this shadow around me I'm not sure about that had me abandoned very definitively when I found it a heated argument ......must learn to prefer people not all that shocked by personality changes and head injuries from tech community

Bitch the English conscription to the Americas and their proud stance with dog

Personality change...the shells can go to Scotland envy of the male type of astrological sign my whole life could have been so much more pleasurable....exquisite view poor sleeping diagnosed

Just an argument lesson one in emotive nothing was way more serious

Daniel because it's heretical if dreaming it's heretical to do and I think they did like each other for it....

Disjointed yelled at for concern.....mountain of man if crying didn't cry anymore

It's okay I can buy my tears now and rate my experience alone doing nothing refusing to get a pedicure

Because it's a space of being closer to the French who were nicer then the states...so neat such a neat environmental ideal so beautifully not disturbed.....

Reject heresy cry again care about who wrote ones bible and if atheists realize that Christians question the existence of God all the time how can one pastoralize with nothing new to say

Alone free from other women's potential touch touch touch prone to infection areas all the touching touch all this belief in touch as more relevant then it is

That house was built with slaves hair refuse to get a hair cut cut one's own hair wait the passive resistence wait more released more released more open doors

Drink alone finally alone....alone no one trying to get into ones shower

The Libra male is especially prone to women who will kill you if he is there's....so few men that can tolerate the narcissism of a Hug

Aries so harmless so ready to confess if he knew of people's progressive tendencies to let people accomplish desire he for war just makes people think too much and feel guilty about things that no one finds incriminating

Did you do this apathy and doldrums

Passionless insipid without opinion or anything to say

No relevance to the people one is around

He only came around me because they left...I didn't know before men wanted or could tolerate the constant company of woman....

Ya know when your male friends leave and you think they prefer other women and you find out it's just to spend time with other men and life is normal again not a series of potential betrayals and what would happen does

Animals startle one if he is around if gone animals are just animals

I don't know when someone goes around in a knitted wallflower cap all the time one doesn't expect them of being the real animal of the party.....California rugged necessary actually has really beautifully kept hair as silky as a cat...I want to touch your head

Campy......

Skinny drunk...I'm actually kind of good about cooking stuff....of course I would do all this for you be a simple skinny chef without measuring the curtains yes I would do this tremendous sacrifice for you yes

Just enough tattoo to think about it just enough stretched ear lobes and vein joint cruelty to think about it....I'm getting better about cooking better better more thoughtful

Burn things on side walk...

Don't touch me touch yourself you want that...

The boss only gets a beautifully strong wife that can help with money

Everybody else has to tolerate sex icons...

[chibimyumi]

Hey there! hope you're doing well! So I've seen a few takes from people saying that Seb lacks character developement and I wanted to ask your opinion on this? I feel like some people just want him to have some kind of "redemption arc" which sounds weird to me because by now I'd guess people would understand his character and motivations?

Dear Anon,

I am doing great, thank you very much. I hope you too ^^

Sorry for the late reply! It was not for lack of interest because yours is a very interesting question to ask. Indeed, for any other character I would say that for a main character he lacks character development. However, with Sebastian Michaelis specifically I would disagree, because there are multiple factors that dramatically change matters for him. The most important one being Sebas’ age.

Four Years vs Centuries?

Sebas is a supernatural entity that has been around and for centuries if not millennia. We know next to nothing about this demon’s past, but one of the few things we do know is that he has been around and seen quite a lot of the world thanks to his old age.

The older one is, the more fixed their personality is, meaning the less malleable it becomes. Of course nobody is too old to grow or change, but it will ultimately require more time or effort to change such a person.

In our current story Sebas has been around for barely 4 years, which to him must be an equivalent of a few hours in human life. Let’s say you are 20 years old with a certain set of beliefs, principles, personality traits, etc. Now imagine going somewhere you probably have been to before for one hour, and that in that one hour you suddenly change entirely. Not impossible, but quite unlikely.

What must happen before a person would change in such a relative short time must be the occurrence of something either exceptionally shocking, or exceptionally inspiring. In Sebas’ case, at least one did happen, namely the former.

Exceptionally Shocking

As discussed in some detail in this post, the exceptionally shocking did in fact happen to Sebas in his current contract. Canonically Sebas said that he never fought reapers before he fought Grell, and therefore we also know that Undertaker is the second reaper he ever fought seriously. Judging from Sebas’ casual and confident reaction when Grell first invited him for a fight, we know Sebas never had any reason before that time to fear for his life. I mean, look at this confident bitch (Ô_ó)p.

Even after Sebas got really hurt by Grell, he still managed to say something as cocky as: “I have never fought [a reaper] before, so I cannot tell [whether I can beat one]. But if my master tells me to win, I shall.” That is certainly NOT the same Sebas as the one we know now.

After the Campania brawl, we see very clearly how Sebas’ attitude and confidence changed entirely, exactly because for the first time ever he experienced something exceptionally shocking; his life and death was outside his own control. The English translations I have seen are not bad, but they miss a bit of the nuance in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version when Sebas says that even a demon like him cannot withstand a blow from the death scythe, there was some eye-opening realisation in his tone. He learned something new there.

And indeed, most tellingly even at the mere mention of the Undertaker or the prospect of having to run into him again, even Sebas swallows his pride in front of his master, and admits he’d really rather not.

Much later in chapter 85 when they were investigating the mourning lockets, master and servant have a moment of silence thinking about the Undertaker. While to O!Ciel the important memory is Undertaker’s “it is my treasure,” Sebas thinks about the very first thing Undertaker said to him upon deciding to let him live: “I knew you would succeed at protecting the Earl.”

As explained in this post, Sebas has come to project condescension onto Undertaker. Sebas suspects Undertaker is looking down on him, and understandably so because he has no reason to believe otherwise. “I knew you would [...]” is a phrase that reflects control in Undertaker’s hands, and Sebas really hates that. For once Sebas is the prey, and somebody else the predator.

Now here is the character development; Sebas went from over confident and cocky to a demon with PTSD.

(Exceptionally) Inspiring

Though less explicit and game-changing, I would argue that something inspiring also occurred in Sebas’ short time on Earth this time: his master. In this post I compared O!Ciel to a piece of unprocessed raw meat to Sebas, as opposed to other past masters probably being a microwave-meal equivalent. O!Ciel is young and started without power, so to Sebas one he started to see the potential of a fully self-customisable meal, he really started to feel the excitement.

Though, however excited, it would only be a small blip on Sebastian’s radar. In the same post just mentioned, I also discussed how it is very unlikely that eating O!Ciel will change Sebas’ view on humankind because it would need to alter someone’s view shaped through thousands of years.

In this same sense I also argue that though Sebas did change over the course of 4 years in the human world, he wouldn’t change dramatically. His experience in the past four years must be like one grain of sand on a banked scale.

Sebas and Redemption?

My short answer would just be: “Kuroshitsuji ain’t some religiously-laden morale story wherein even a demon must be redeemed,” but that would not be fair (and too short for my M.O.)

It’s an unpopular opinion, but a good character arc or story does not require a redemption arc to work. It just needs to work for any reason. A redemption arc in a character is not like meringue is essential in a macaron. It’s more like chocolate on bread. It can be very nice if it suits well, but please don’t put any chocolate on a salad sandwich please.

For Sebas, I would say that a redemption arc would be the chocolate on a salad sandwich. As discussed above, Sebas is VERY OLD. If he were to be “redeemed” because of 4 years, it’d be like redeeming a lifetime sinner in one hour of repentance. Imagine redeeming Hitler after he saved one puppy or said “I’m really sorry”. Yeah, no.

Besides, this then also begs the question: “does Sebastian need to be redeemed in the first place?” As discussed extensively in this post, most of Sebas’ “evils” are done under someone else’s bidding. And otherwise, because he is not human the way he is “evil” is only because he doesn’t care about human lives; much in the same way most humans don’t care about insects. “AAH a mosquito that might make me itch for a bit! SLAP IT DED!!!” Or if we step on ants while we walk, “oh well, too bad”. That’s Sebas with humans. Do most humans consider humans who eat meat or slap insects “evil that need redemption”? No.

So for Sebas’ or demon standards, he is probably not even that bad. He just wants his food and payment for his hard work.

I hope this had been interesting!

Related posts:

What is Evil in Kuroshitsuji? Philosophy

If humans are insects, then what to Sebas are “humans”?

O!Ciel being a game-changing meal?

PTSD Sebas I

PTSD Sebas II

[magicalforcesau]

Letters (part 1)

The written correspondence between Obi-Wan and Satine throughout their Hogwarts career. In this part, we see the early stages of their friendship leading up to where we find ourselves in the beginning of “Dancing with Ghosts in Your Garden”.

ao3 link

First Year- Winter

Dear Obi-Wan,

I distinctly recall requesting that we continue correspondence over the course of our winter holiday and yet, here we are nearing the halfway point without any trace of a letter. It is to my understanding that you are intrinsically hardwired to automate politeness, but such pleasantries are meaningless if you do not intend on following through. Here I was thinking that despite our many differences, that we were becoming acquaintances. 

Before you go off developing delusions of grandeur thinking I am lonely or desperate for your reciprocated communication, I am quite well off either way. I am just miffed that I was not afforded the opportunity to practice writing in Mando’a more this break and my owl, Copikla, needed the exercise. 

Should this letter find you well, I must emphasize that I am not crying out for a response. Your silence will be loud enough on your intentions regarding any pursuit of a potential friendship. Do not write back out of pity, either, because that would be as insulting as it would be foolish.

Sincerely,

Satine Kryze

Dear Satine,

Please understand that I am deeply apologetic for not writing sooner. It was not out of intentional callousness nor more damningly, indifference. Cody had written to me as well asking in regard to my whereabouts. Though it is not an excuse for my silence, I’ve mentioned before that my parents are very specific in what they expect of me, and unfortunately, I did not meet their hopes for the term. As a result, I've resolved to cleaning every square inch of the house. While this might seem like a simple set of chores, I promise you my house has many inches to clean.

Even in writing this letter I had to perform with haste. Mother has, of course, enlisted my assistance for the New Year’s party as she had for the Christmas party. I beg of you to ignore the fact that this is written on a napkin. All of my parchment is upstairs.

My semester at Hogwarts could have been completely dreadful had it not been for Cody and your combined efforts in preventing me from wallowing in my own self-pity. I am beginning to see the positives in starting fresh in Ravenclaw house and hope that one day, I will be capable of showing my parents the potential as well. Only time will tell, but I cannot wait to return to Hogwarts and that is because of the both of you.

I truly hope I can return some of the happiness you’ve given me and I say that not out of obligation, but from the depths of my heart.

Sincerely,

Obi-Wan Kenobi

 Second Year- Summer

Dear Obi-Wan,

I know we just parted not but a few hours ago (don’t let it go to your head), but I couldn't help but look up what we were discussing earlier on the train. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was formed due to the many witch and wizard (mostly witch- sexism and all that) burnings that were taking place all across the globe. Witches and wizards did not feel safe especially for their young, who could not control their magic as easily. However, as I suspected, there was opposition to maintaining secrecy and it was from none other than the pureblood sectors of magic.

That’s interesting, right? Especially when you consider our present political climate where it is the opposite. The purebloods preferred the melding of the two worlds, because they enjoyed coming and going as they pleased as well as associating with the upper class muggles of the time. 

I hope you are not chained to your bedpost for the entire summer considering Ravenclaw claimed the House Cup in part to your miraculous save at the end of the match. You certainly deserve to see a little sunlight and that’s coming from someone as pale as myself.

Do actually write back this time if you’re allotted a quill and parchment. You’ll be insulted to know I am using a mechanical pen as we speak. There are some aspects of the wizarding culture that I will never understand, and the lack of simple innovation is one of them.

Sincerely,

Satine

 Dear Satine,

What is truly a wonder is that someone is tackling the summer reading assignments even before I’ve managed to touch them! If you aren’t careful, everyone is going to start calling you the nerd behind your back. They’d be utterly daft to say it to your face, of course. I do not want to hear any nonsense about you finishing your homework before me, because simply using a standard pen is giving you a significant advantage to your arsenal. Before you retaliate with some droll rebuttal about how I’ve had countless advantages in being bred with wizarding history all around me, I think you need to reconsider my sources and how often I have to sift through half-truths to find reality.

For instance, the very piece of history you’re speaking of is told entirely differently in our textbooks than it has been my whole life. My family has always given off the impression that purebloods wanted to spare the less fortunate wizards from the muggle world and that it was those of lower status who did not understand the dangers of the world and got themselves twisted with dangerous muggles. It’s a little frightening how perspective changes the course of history.

The witch burnings were truly a terrible incident altogether, which is something all sources seem to agree upon. I do wonder though if they were more like martyrs for the ISS to begin. I’m sure muggle history has its ugly spots as well in regards to this era. When you finish your assignments and inevitably grow bored enough to write to me again, I’d be interested to hear the muggle perspective on historical incidents such as these. I’m sure as someone who has gone to muggle primary school, you were afforded a different and more rounded perspective on the matter. 

Sincerely,

Obi-Wan

 Third Year- Summer

Dear Ben,

I don’t understand how you can even REMOTELY believe that an institute that enslaves LIVING BEINGS of any kind is anywhere near acceptable. How do you go a full two years of knowing a person and never come across that key factoid? While I do often find myself trying to be considerate of the environment you grew up in, this is a basic core belief that is incredibly black and white. Either you believe that slavery is a reasonable option, or you do not. It is not a subject in which someone can have no opinion, because in doing so would only support those that believe in its merit. It’s how oppression thrives, not in its believers, but in those unwilling to say anything at all. 

House Elves were not enslaved because it was the very reason they were created, but they were enslaved and then brainwashed into believing that their life’s purpose was to serve. The very ideal of their desires being infringed upon with the abolitionist movement was a narrative that was bred by slaveowners. A while back, when we spoke of witch burnings and of skewed narratives, you mentioned that you have been raised under the belief that historical moments happened a certain way. You then had to question your beliefs because your textbook said differently.

Allow me to be your textbook: wizards are not entitled to house elves. The institution that thrives off of the economic convenience of house elves was built on the backs of slavery. Cruelty. So, pardon me for feeling no remorse in the economic lapse taken when your ancestors were forced by wizarding statute to relinquish their slaves. In fact, I am doubling down on that apathy in how your family treats their paid servants. 

Sincerely,

Satine

Dear Satine,

I never said owning a house elf was okay nor did I say I agreed with it. For Pete’s sake, do you always have to dig into controversy the moment we enter the borders of London? I swear you get pleasure out of catching me with my foot in my mouth with the excuse to go on some form of a tirade. How silly of me to ever dare to assume that I had the last word on the train.

House Elves were slaves and it was and always will be wrong. You’ll have no arguments from me in that regard and I’ve always believed that, with or without your infinite wisdom. I wish it was never a facet of our society, but it was. I’ve been honest with you in reference to how poorly my parents treat their servants and that they are not paid a typical wage, but out of indentured servitude. I was merely stating before that I have no pull nor say in ending this “contract”, not that I agree with its existence. While I’ll be honest, I never truly considered the injustice of it all until more recently, I never envied him and always showed compassion. I’ve been compassionate not to lessen my burden of guilt, but because it’s the right way to be.

I do not appreciate your comments in reference to my upbringing, as though that somehow makes me a lesser person simply because I come from bias. Everyone has bias and everyone must learn to differentiate from them. 

My primary argument was from an economic standpoint only and in trying to raise the important question of how to repair that without relying on servitude. To this day, former elves struggle as some of the very elves who participated in the revolution are still alive and without a set purpose in this economy. Though they deserved to be free, the manner at which is was done was nearly as horrible as keeping them chained forever. Most fall back into stride of serving former masters. It raises the question of if they were ever really free and if we require such practices in order to thrive, are we really free? That doesn’t say much about us, now does it?

Now that I had more than exactly three seconds to articulate my point, does that satisfy you? Or would you rather return to your soapbox?

Sincerely,

Obi-Wan

P.S.: I hope your newfound abhorrence to my character does not prevent you from continuing to write this summer.

 Third Year- Winter

Dear Satine,

Perhaps it’s near damnation for me to be physically documenting this moment, but I simply had to tell somebody. That impulse alone is a very frightening character change that I did not see coming. I’ve always thought I liked keeping to myself, but now I wonder if that was mere acceptance rather than preference. Regardless, I need you to know that I released Jar Jar, our humble and bumbling servant, from his contract this evening. 

They were going to hurt him. 

It wasn’t my parents’ decision, by my grandfather’s, who if you ever believed my parents were strict and traditional, you’ve never seen him in action. Practically senile, my grandfather loathes not only muggles and muggleborns, but halfbloods and low-ranking purebloods as well. My mother swears he was not as blunt and fiery in his youth, but I cannot be so sure.

Jar Jar has gotten a bit clumsier in his growing age as well. We have a whole lot of ‘loyal’ butlers and maids, of course, but Jar Jar has been with my family the longest, dating back shortly after the house elf revolution. He made the unfortunate mistake of spilling a glass of milk on my grandfather’s lap and his punishment was decided. It was to be done later that night in the backyard like he was a rabid animal.

I did not realize such practices even existed, nor that it was impossible for Jar Jar to simply run, since he still owes a significant monetary debt to my family on behalf of his ancestors. He would have died if he’d done so, because unbeknownst to myself, an unbreakable vow had been committed. 

My Father was quite upset too, saying he’d grown to care for him and all the work he’s done since he was a child. It was the closest my father and I have ever come to sharing an emotional moment. Of course, now I can’t seem to hear anything they say regarding the matter without your words ringing through my head, so it was a bit muddled by the fact that he was more focused on losing out on Jar Jar’s service than on Jar Jar. He was also quite sloshed.

I could stand it no longer and I could simply not allow this sort of act to occur. They could have killed him if I’d heard correctly the sort of punishment method they were going to implement. I’ll spare you the details, but they were quite gruesome. 

So, I crept upstairs, grabbed the savings I’d been holding onto beneath my bed,  and I handed it over through a door that was merely cracked open enough to fit my hand through. I’m not even sure if Jar Jar knew it was me. All I knew was that Jar Jar was gone when they opened it later to retrieve him and we were all surprised.

Again, writing this down and admitting to it might be foolish, but while I might have committed a grand piece of treason from the shadows, I have never felt more relieved.

Best,

Obi-Wan

 Dear Ben,

Yes, recording the very stunt you are trying to maintain a secret is not the most logical way to keep it under wraps, but I am ever elated to hear that you did it anyway. I’m sorry to hear that Jar Jar was to be harmed at all- let alone for something so mundane and that he didn’t get to achieve freedom until late in life. Who’s to say if he’s truly free right now anyway, as you have pointed out before. However, I will say, he is certainly better off being far away from your grandfather, who cannot harm him anymore.

That does not, of course, take away from the bravery of your actions. I find myself apologizing not once, but twice in this letter, because I do owe you one for ever insinuating that you would be actively in support of cruelty. It is not your way and I should know that by now. Sometimes, I’m a bit too rigid for my own good and I’ll admit to that firsthand. I worry that your need to confirm this with me was simply because you feel as though I think ill of you.

This is not the case. I know I was brash and reactive the first time we discussed this, but while I try to empathize, you must do the same to me. I grew up in a world where this sort of nonsense only existed in history books rather than being an ongoing debate. What concerns me most about the wizarding world is that it refuses to evolve. Not only technologically speaking, but on a humanitarian level.

As always, please keep me updated. I fear not only for the safety of this recently liberated indentured servant, but for you, because I understand you stuck your neck out for him and I admire you for it.

Best regards,

Satine

  Fourth Year- Summer

Dear Satine,

I can already tell that summer is going to be brutal around here. While the climate has been tolerable, my father insists on around the clock quidditch practice. It seems my ‘lucky’ catch in second year was not enough to fully establish their faith in me. I can’t say I blame them. I’m indisputably the worst player on the team. Ever since Ventress caught the snitch for Slytherin and took the cup this year, it’s just about all they can talk about.

I actually don’t mind playing quidditch with my father. He’s very passionate about the sport or moreover, being the best at it. My father was captains of the Slytherin team his 6th and 7th year at Hogwarts. Evidently, he was an unstoppable force. I know they’ve always wished that for me, for that feeling of pure satisfaction at one’s job well done, but I am not the athlete he used to be.

Speaking of Ventress, they keep bringing her around more often than not. She’s still as pleasant as ever, if you’re wondering, and actually mentioned you the other day. She’s still cross about your beating her in wizard’s chess. She hasn’t said as much, but I can tell. I’ve got plenty of practice with deciphering young women that project their annoyance onto me. I can thank you for honing that special skill of mine.

How is your family? It’s to my understanding that your sister is not participating in summer camp this year. I know you saw her at Christmas, but you mentioned that you hadn’t truly spoken due to being so distracted from festivities. I know that you do not enjoy talking about it so if you do not want to, please do not feel obligated. I understand better than many the complications of the families we have to love. It makes us question our sanity sometimes.

Best,

Obi-Wan

 Dear Ben,

You must truly be miserable to be writing to me first this summer. Usually, I have to pry letters from your hands if I want to hear about the whereabouts of your family. Now that you’ve turned the tables on me, I can understand why you are less than forthcoming.

Bo being around certainly is odd when it never used to be. I’ve only been at Hogwarts for almost four years. Why does that feel like a millennium? She’s taken great care to be away every summer in its entirety for camp, but this year the camp had been closed. My mother says she’s furious, but I suspect that’s because she doesn’t have an entirely different setting to run off to. I suppose I can’t judge too heavily, but I usually do enjoy my time at home. Seeing my mother and my brother is always refreshing and warm. I don’t want to set the impression that I don’t love my sister, because I do. She’s just… difficult. She doesn’t understand or like the concept of magic. Where my mum and my brother see an amazing new opportunity for me, Bo sees absurdity and refuses to open her mind.

If I can be honest with you, and you’ve certainly proved thus far that I can, I suspect she may be a little jealous. It would not be out of character for her to project her own disdain towards me. 

Explaining any more deeply than that would be migraine-inducing for the both of us. I assure you my familial drama does not run as deep as yours, try as you might to downplay your situation. Before you object, I know you care for your family and wish for them to be happy. Of course I respect that. Maybe because I would give just about anything for Bo to be happy too. Within reason. She’s a bit fixated on these violent video games and I assure you I would not be leaning into that lifestyle for the happiness of a twelve year old.

As for your playdates with Ventress, do try and put some distance between yourselves. I wouldn’t want you to catch anything contagious. You tend to sit awful close to Cody and I at lunch.

Best of Luck,

Satine

 Fourth Year- Winter

Dear Ben,

I can’t believe we are officially halfway through our time at Hogwarts. It’s silly to think about when we’ve got so much ahead of us, but for some reason this evening, shortly after I got off the train, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now, here I am, losing sleep like an imbecile despite the fact that I’ve got plenty of time to consider the future. It doesn’t help that they’re already priming us for OWLS and eventually NEWTS shortly thereafter. It feels like just yesterday I’d held a wand for the first time. I’ve never been the same since, of course, but I also don’t feel all that different at the very core.

Well, I certainly don’t despise you anymore and that’s a difference. You’re going to tease me for being soft, but it’s 2 in the morning and the only part of me that is working to quell my anxieties is the realization that the passing of time has only strengthened my knowledge, resolve, and friendships. Not to mention my overall strength in general. At the end of this year, they’ll be announcing who the incoming prefects will be. Naturally, you’ll be amongst them by status and grades alone. I hope to be among that lot. You can’t possibly run the careful ecosystem of law enforcement without me. You’re far too nice.

Maybe you won’t be teasing me for going soft then…

I kid. You’re brilliant and Hogwarts would be lucky to have you. Your family is lucky to have you. I’m (And Cody, of course) very lucky as well. Do not make me say it again, but I will if I must. Sometimes, you need to be reminded of your positive light in people’s lives more than once and I suppose that's what friends are for.

I wish I had a more intellectual debate to pick your brain for at this moment, but in reality, I just wanted you to know that as we stand at the halfway point of our Hogwarts careers, I wouldn’t change a second of it.

Yours,

Satine

 Dear Satine,

I’m missing the part where I was supposed to be making fun of you. I do wonder what brought this on, but then again, I find myself in a panic over the passage of time more often than not lately. I truly need to start learning to live rather than survive, because otherwise, I’m going to miss a lot of valuable moments. That’s what Professor Qui-Gon says anyway. I will not miss this one, though, because I am going to save and highlight the portion where you called me brilliant. Just for reference.

I would tac it to the wall, but that might draw some unwanted questioning.

I simultaneously can and cannot believe we are at the midway point of being in school. Look at how far we’ve come! I mean this in the most gracious way possible, but I feel as though I’ve known you all of my life. I don't even want to imagine what I would have been like if you hadn’t shoved all that dessert in my face during first year. Most likely a lot skinnier, which yes, I know that’s still saying a whole lot considering Tarkin refuses to call me anything other than “broomstick”. I’d be more insulted if he wasn’t going gray at 16. It’s quite a pity.

But truly, you’re the reason I didn’t starve and I’ll never forget that.

Ease your thoughts, my friend, because the future for you is bright and limitless. You’ll rise beyond Hogwarts in whichever world you so choose- muggle, magic or both. I believe I speak for Cody as well when I say we have great faith in you.

Truly,

Obi-Wan

[jaskiersvalley]

Silver Tongue and Silver Hand

Content warning for: major character injury, loss of limb, lots of blood.

It wasn’t all that unusual for Geralt and Jaskier to part ways for a little while at times. Which was why it never occurred to Geralt that something might have been wrong when his path was silent for a few weeks. Yennefer had been there though, keeping him company with her own brand of social scorn. They were at a tavern, Geralt trying to pin down the person who put out the call for the contract while Yennefer got to wander through the town.

How the group got the drop on her was still beyond logic. One moment she was admiring some cloth that would make for a gorgeous, sleek dress and the next moment she was waking up cuffed, her magic suppressed and with a throbbing headache.

“They got you too, huh?” A familiar voice pulled her violently back into consciousness.

“Jaskier!”

“The one and only.” Jaskier really sounded far too cheery for someone who was also chained up. At least he looked whole with only the softest hint of bruising in faded yellows on his temple.

There wasn’t much they could do, Yennefer’s powers were bound, both of them were chained and without a hope of getting out. All they could do is talk, not even quietly at that given the distance they were from each other.

“Geralt will come, don’t worry.” Yennefer tried to reassure their bard but it only earned her a mildly worried “oh I hope not”. Which was never something she wanted to hear. While Jaskier didn’t know the ins and outs of it, he’d picked up enough to know that their captors were planning some kind of ritual and choice was involved.

Unfortunately, it was something Yennefer had heard about. A potion to boost luck which meant that while life couldn’t be taken for it, a sacrifice had to be made by an external party. And the harder the choice, the more sacrificed, the more powerful the potion. With Yennefer and Jaskier there, it could only mean one thing. Geralt was going to have to choose.

Sure enough, not long later they were being dragged to a cavern. In the middle was a cauldron, slowly bubbling away and there was a wooden block on either side. Their captors wrestled them into position, Jaskier’s left arm was forced onto one block, hand dangling over the gently steaming cauldron. Opposite him, Yennefer’s right arm was pushed into the same position. Not a few minutes later, Geralt marched through the door, looking murderous. His swords were dripping blood and he was breathing harshly as he took in the scene before them.

“Geralt! I am so glad you could join us,” the leader of the group crooned. “As you can see, we have a game set up here.”

A gesture to the cauldron and a smile. Both Jaskier and Yennefer were pinned, a blade to their throats. And a good with an axe to their sides, poised and ready to make the cut.

“It’s a simple choice. One of your companions will walk out of here unscathed. The other, well, they’ll be leaving minus a hand. So what will it be? No more spells? Or no more songs?”

Everyone waited, all eyes on Geralt as his gaze flickered between Yennefer and Jaskier. It was the moment Jaskier remembered what the sorceress had said, the spell needed a sacrifice. Without it, it was ruined. And any ingredient could upset it, it was a fussy potion and one that required more work than it was worth.

“I don’t-” Geralt licked his lips nervously.

“Choose!” Their captor demanded. But it was obvious Geralt was stuck, unable to decide, to condemn either of his companions.

The lull from the lack of choice meant their captors weren’t as attentive, focus on Geralt. That was broken when Jaskier twisted, right hand reaching for the axe and, without hesitation, he swung it through the air and onto his own arm. His scream was lost in the yells as his hand fell into the cauldron and the whole room descended into chaos.

Prioritising was difficult, Geralt couldn’t get to Jaskier without his opponents getting in the way. And Yennefer was helpless too, cuffed as she was. It was only years of practice that meant he could fight his way through those throwing themselves at his sword to free Yennefer. For good measure, Geralt sent the cauldron and its contents flying, strewn over the floor and utterly useless. Together, they whipped through the room, killing all until they were by Jaskier’s side. The bard was curled up, his bleeding arm clutched to his chest and tears of agony streamed down his cheeks.

“Let me see,” Yennefer urged and tugged at the injured limb despite Jaskier’s pained protests. A curse left her lips.

It was the matter of seconds to open up a portal and Geralt was hefting Jaskier into his arms as though he weighed nothing. Stepping through, they were in a mansion, Yennefer’s home without a doubt.

“Put him on the bed,” she pointed Geralt in the right direction. She was already off and gathering her supplies. First things first,something to dull the pain before cleaning the wound to stop infection taking hold.

Blood and tear streaked, Jaskier looked up at them and swallowed the potions Yennefer pushed towards him. The burning agony died down into a dull throb and finally, he could think.

“Why did you do it?” Geralt demanded, trying to keep his attention way from where Yennefer worked.

“It was the only way. Ruined their potion, you didn’t have to choose. It was the logical option.” He whimpered and tried to pull his arm from where Yennefer poured something over it that burned to his core. A ‘tsk’ and an iron grip kept him in place. “You need her spells more than my songs. And-” Jaskier looked away, ashamed, “-her beauty had more value. Her looks have more of an impact than mine ever could.”

Two sets of eyes regarded Jaskier in silent disbelief. Sadness filled Geralt’s eyes while Yennefer tried to tamp down on her emotions. The dumb bard actually cared for her. Idiot. Words weren’t going to be enough this time, this wasn’t a debt she could clear with a few sharp words hiding some kindness or help.

Silently, she finished doing what she could for Jaskier. Ensured that his wound would heal cleanly, as pain free as possible. All through it, Geralt held Jaskier’s remaining hand.

Healing took a lot of energy, and Yennefer may have slipped something in Jaskier’s medicine to help him sleep. She needed to talk to Geralt without him overhearing.

“I can’t grow a hand back, no matter how much I want to.” She told him and was met with a soft, resigned ‘I know’. “He’s never going to play again.”

That time, the ‘I know’ held more pain. Geralt was slumped forward in his seat, shoulders hunched.

“He knew it. Before he cut his own hand off. I saw his face.” And she wished she hadn’t, the realisation, the determination, the agony. Yennefer had seen it all and it was going to haunt her for a long long time.

“Who would you have chosen to save?”

The guilty look that flashed over Geralt’s face told her everything she needed to know. Jaskier never really stood a chance in the face of such a choice. He knew it too, that was what the realisation had been. It didn’t stop the guilt from eating away at both Yennefer and Geralt.

“He’s lost his livelihood,” Yennefer finally said, knowing they needed to lay out all the facts. “He won’t be able to follow you around and earn his keep, and he’s even more helpless, defenceless like this. And nobody will want to take him in without a way for him to pay.”

It was the truth but damn did the truth hurt. Geralt gritted his teeth, trying to find a loophole, a way to ensure Jaskier had a future that was comfortable and safe. He couldn’t even teach at Oxenfurt when he couldn’t play his beloved lute.

“Fuck.”

They sat in silence, not looking at each other, ears attuned to the soft breaths of their bard in the other room. Without saying anything, both Geralt and Yennefer made a vow to try and do everything in their power to help Jaskier.

Healing took a while. There was a false cheer around Jaskier as he tried to make light of his situation. Once, Geralt even caught him with his lute, held the wrong way round, trying to learn how to place the fingers of his right hand for chords. In the end, the lute was carefully laid down next to Jaskier and a shaking hand stroked over it.

By the times soft, pink skin covered the end of Jaskier’s arm, his smiles were brittle, breath hitching around the forced jovial attitude. Magic had eased his healing, left him free of gnarly scarring but it didn’t help the fact that Jaskier still only had one hand.

“Right, well,” he looked at Yennefer who stood by the door expectantly. “Thank you for everything but I suppose I really ought to get out of your hair.”

Where he was going to go was beyond Yennefer and Geralt. They hadn’t asked because they suspected Jaskier had no idea, but they could afford him the dignity of not ripping open his facade. Even as Jaskier refused steadfastly to stay, citing adventure calling him. All three of them knew he had no way of repaying care he had received and each day was another he couldn’t afford.

“Come with me,” Yennefer said, not accepting refusal. When Geralt moved to join them, she fixed him with a glare. “You stay.”

She led Jaskier through a portal and Geralt was left alone in the home. He thought it was especially cruel that Yennefer had Jaskier’s lute on her back. There was no telling when she would come back and where she was dumping Jaskier. It was almost better to not know because Geralt would have gone after him, with the noble notion of rescuing him, even though he knew full well that his lifestyle was not one that could keep a one handed bard alive for long.

A portal opened on the other side of the room and Yennefer strode through, accompanied by the soft sounds of a lute being strummed. And Jaskier’s laugh. He stepped through after her, playing with the world’s widest, teariest smile Geralt had ever seen. Where his hand had been missing was a silver replica, dancing over the neck of the lute.

“Geralt!” Jaskier beamed and waved his new hand. It reeked of magic, freshly wrought and powerful. Yennefer only looked a little smug.

“You sure you don’t want a glove?” Yennefer asked, offering the garment up to Jaskier.

“Who plays lute in a glove?” Jaskier shook his head. “This is now my signature look. Silver tongue and silver hand. Oh the ballads I’m going to write!”

It seemed that their worries were over. All debts paid off in one fashion or another. The guilt still lingered but Jaskier’s smiles were genuine now, easing the tightness in Geralt’s chest. Though he hadn’t had to make the choice, he still had to live with the consequences, as did Jaskier. But at least, now, they wouldn’t have to separate as a result of it all.

[vanessakirbyfans]

The six actresses also candidly discuss what outsiders get wrong about acting, juggling work and family and how #MeToo has changed the culture for the next generation: "We're getting all the bad stuff out of the way."

A fiesta grandmother. A persecuted jazz icon. A grieving mother. A sexual assault avenger. A pioneering scientist. A girlfriend scorned.

On a mid-December morning, six actresses behind some of the year's most dynamic performances came together for The Hollywood Reporter's Actress Roundtable: Hillbilly Elegy's Glenn Close, The United States vs. Billie Holiday's Andra Day, Pieces of a Woman's Vanessa Kirby, Promising Young Woman's Carey Mulligan, Ammonite's Kate Winslet and Malcolm & Marie's Zendaya. The group, who gathered via video conference from homes and sets in L.A., Montana, Atlanta and the U.K., discussed the business side of acting, their weirdest pandemic habits, the dangerous Hollywood misconception about creative genius — and the fact that "how women's voices are being received [is] the biggest thing that has shifted."

Let's dive in. What's the most surprising thing you learned about yourself during the pandemic?

VANESSA KIRBY I learned a lot about silence. I hadn't realized quite how much "doing" I was doing. Somehow I hadn't quite realized that, when you're still, it's just as present, you know what I mean? And I think it's taught me to do less. I don't think anything else would have taught me that in the way this year has done.

KATE WINSLET I became, and still am, actually, utterly obsessed with sweeping my kitchen floor. But down to the point where if there's just even dog hair, and our dog is a golden retriever, so it's blond hair, but I've got this microscopic vision where I can see the dog hair gathering in tiny little cracks, between the dishwasher and the sink, and I'll be like, "There's dog hair, somebody, quick, get me the broom." I've just become obsessed. And I didn't really care about things like that particularly before. Don't get me wrong, I like to run a nice home, but sweeping the kitchen floor? I mean, who cares about that? So I've become a bit strange about the kitchen floor.

ZENDAYA For me, it's that I never really got to know who I was without work. I've always been working. I started working when I was so young, and I've always just had a consistent thing happening in my life. I just had never spent that much time with myself. I was like, "What makes me happy? What do I like to do other than work? Do I have any hobbies?" I basically get to do my hobby for a living. So it's like, "What else do I even like?" Facing that was interesting for sure.

What is something people often get wrong about acting?

WINSLET I've been doing this job now for, I realize, 27 years or something. I can't quite believe that, but I do find myself getting almost agitated when I feel I have to explain just how hard the job truly is … I don't think people understand that preparation can take up to four, five, sometimes even six months depending on the kind of role you're playing. And also how absent, I think, you are from your family. Even if they might physically be with you — which, in my case is nine times out of 10, I'm fortunate that they are — but emotionally I know that I'm gone. I'm just not there, I'm not just Mummy, I'm not just Ned [Smith]'s wife ­— suddenly, I'm this other being. And I do find that part quite upsetting sometimes, and I wish I had more of a balance with that.

CAREY MULLIGAN There's a bit of an idea, and maybe more even within the industry, that to make something great, people have permission to behave badly, the idea of someone being a creative genius … that they are so inspired, there's a required level of darkness or unpleasantness that goes along with that, that you need to put up with. And I think people get away with bad behavior because of those reasons. In my experience, some of the most incredible people I've worked with have just been also the most delightful. So that's kind of a common misconception, that there are people who have to behave badly to psych themselves up at work, or that the process is just sort of utterly miserable. I think you can work really hard, but ultimately … the attitude on set should be one of warmth.

ZENDAYA It also is a business, which is something I've had to learn as a young person. Because often you get into it just because you love it, and you just want to be creative, and you just want to do the fun stuff, but it is also a business. There are contracts involved and a lot of things that don't necessarily contribute to the creativity or contribute to this idea of the freedom you think you'll have. I have been learning that as I grow up that there are bigger entities involved … money people … I often encourage young people who do want to do this to read your contracts, be aware, have those conversations, ask as many questions as you can, try to get advice from people, because it's easy to get stuck in a bad situation. And having that knowledge is really, really important.

GLENN CLOSE A lot of people think that anyone can do it. And of course, there have been documentaries and even some movies of people who are not trained as actors — I think that can happen in movies. I really take my craft seriously, and I think people don't know what they're talking about when they think that anyone could do it. I once had a brain surgeon who was the father of one of my daughter's middle school friends … He asked if he could come over and pick my brain about something. And so I said, "Sure," and he came over and he said, "I find being a brain surgeon depressing, I really want to be an actor."

WINSLET Oh my God.

CLOSE And it was all I could do to not throw him out of my house. He said, "But I have to make a living, so how do I do it?" It was astounding to me that he would have such an ignorant idea of what acting was. So I think, for longevity, it is a craft, and I take great pride. There's always something new to learn every day, but it is something that really does count. When you task yourself with becoming, looking through the eyes of another person and telling a story that will have emotional impact, that is craft.

Andra, how did you go about finding the voice of Billie Holiday?

ANDRA DAY Well, first she is very familiar to me just because she is my foremost musical inspiration. I worked with this amazing dialect coach, Thom Jones … Through the breath, that was a huge thing. I remember him always talking about, "Where it is coming from? How is she breathing?" And the emotional part of it as well, too. I look at Billie Holiday's voice as a scroll. And on her voice is written her entire history, every time she had been raped, every time she had been hit, every time she had victoriously sang "Strange Fruit," every time she smoked a cigarette and every time she slammed heroin or did a speedball. Everything is written onto her voice. It was also important for me not to do an impersonation. And that's something [director] Lee [Daniels] spoke to me about, too, we don't want to impersonate her, but sort of bring me through her. … I feel the same way about acting, that not everyone can do it. To be honest with you, I did not think that I could do it, and I'm still a little on the fence about it.

I don't think after seeing this film anyone will have any question about whether you can do it. Let's talk a bit about physical transformation for a character. Glenn, in Hillbilly Elegy, you're physically transformed. How did finding the look of that character help you?

CLOSE I began personally not wanting to be distracted by my own face. I wanted to have very subtle differences so that it was an experience, that you get into the full hair and makeup and costume, and there she is, because she's very different from who I was. But we started with a portrait of Mamaw and just the glasses, the hair, the ears, I changed my nose a little bit. And it was very, very finessed work to make it subtle enough that it wasn't me, but not so … I didn't want people to say, "Oh, there's Glenn Close with a really bad nose." That took a lot of wonderful collaboration coming up with that. We had video, we talked to members of her family who were incredibly generous in talking about her. And I asked just very specific questions: "How did she walk, how did she hold her cigarette? How did she sit? What did she wear?" which is basically what you see in the movie. She was very much a larger-than-life character. "What was her atmosphere when she came into a room?" I mean, all those kinds of things that just was a slow buildup [from] the moment you walk on for hair and makeup, and you feel that there she is.

MULLIGAN With Promising Young Woman, [director] Emerald [Fennell] is very intentional about building a world that felt very enticing. You wanted to build a film that you wanted to see, not something you needed to or should see. Part of the way that Emerald first presented the film to me was this Candyland environment that you're in and that Cassie lived in that in the way that she clothes herself. She's somebody who is very practiced at living with her rage and her sadness and her grief. She's figured out that hiding in plain sight and looking like someone who's functioning, people tend to leave her alone. It's very deliberate that she has candy-colored nails and blond hair. First of all, she looks very unthreatening, so no one would ever suspect that she's about to destroy a life, but also she's someone that you don't need to check on. You can leave her alone … Her main everyday look was just a way of saying, "I'm absolutely fine. You don't need to look at me because I'm just generic, and a girl, and you don't need to take me seriously." Because we so often trivialize the way girls and women clothe themselves. It was just a very easy way of putting up a boundary between her and the rest of the world.

WINSLET Everything about [Ammonite subject, paleontologist] Mary Anning is so, so held and so internalized. I had to learn how to do quite a lot of acting with my posture, or the back of head, or the backs of my hands, or just sometimes my eyeballs. I had to really find a different rhythm for myself, because I'm a very animated person … The longer that you do this, the more familiar audiences become with your mannerisms and how you are or how you sound. I just try to remove everything of myself, and there were days when I would think, "Well, did I do anything or did I just do nothing today?" And it would be really disconcerting, but just finding a completely quiet, physical stillness and heaviness to Mary came hand in hand with the costuming of her and the look of her and making her hair a little bit gray and having no makeup.

Vanessa, you have a harrowing, more than 20-minute childbirth sequence in your film. Can you talk about what that was like to shoot and how you prepared for that?

KIRBY It was kind of terrifying, because I haven't given birth or been pregnant before. We have seen so many deaths onscreen, we've rarely seen birth … I ended up writing to a lot of obstetricians asking if they'd let me come in and shadow them. One said yes, so I went to a hospital in North London and was on the labor ward for many days, which was quite unbelievable for me. I learned a lot from the midwives about what the whole birthing experience is like. One afternoon, my very last afternoon at hospital, one of the midwives came round and said, "Oh, a woman's just come in and she's 9 centimeters dilated. And I'm going to ask if she'd mind you watching." I just thought, "There's no way in hell she's ever going to agree to have some random person sit in and watch this really sacred moment of her life." But she did, she said yes, and so I got to sit with her and watch her go through six hours of … I mean, it was just probably the most profound afternoon of my life. I never, ever could have acted it without watching her, because I saw her go on this unbelievable journey, and I saw the animal in her take over. And it was only because of that, really, that I then felt like maybe I had a chance at attempting it. When we came to it … it was so physical and it was such a primal body thing. We did four takes the first day, two the second, and I think the fourth one is the one in the movie. It was a bit like doing a play, really, where once you're on, you're on, and you can't stop. And there was something magic about that, because you couldn't spend any time doubting yourself, you just have to do it.

Zendaya, when you were making Malcolm & Marie, it was really in the height of the pandemic. Can you talk about how working in that environment shaped how you worked and how the set functioned?

ZENDAYA Obviously, we wanted to do everything as safely as possible, so we created a bubble. I was putting my own money into it, as was everyone else. We were living in a hotel that was empty. It was just us, because everything was shut down. We were in the middle of Carmel, and we shot in this home that was in the middle of nowhere. We weren't allowed to leave for obvious reasons, and in that time of quarantining together, we were allowed the time to work on the material. When we got there, the script was only about 70 pages, and there wasn't a third act. Through that process of every day just being together, sometimes in a parking lot, just working through every moment and having these really long discussions about ourselves, our characters, relationships … Being able to have that time, that space with each other to figure it out, was really, really helpful. And really not having any other distraction, just being in it every single day.

We only had two actors, a very small, small crew. So we're all doing like four different jobs. I'm doing my hair and makeup and using some of my clothes, trying to remember my continuity because we don't have any ADs or scripties [script supervisors] or anything.

Vanessa, you've been shooting the Mission: Impossible sequel. Is there a lot of pressure to maintain safety on these big sets? How does it feel different?

KIRBY My sister's an AD. She started on a movie in the summer, so I kind of learned from her what the new parameters would be and how to navigate. And I was so hopeful when she went back, actually, because it was a funny feeling, I think, for everybody suddenly seeing cinemas closed. All the people that you love and you work with are unable to work in so many different capacities, including my sister. It gave me a lot of faith. But, I mean, you get used to it. There are obviously many guidelines, there are masks and lots of testing and things like that. But it gives me faith in the resilience, actually. And I feel like we will get through it — I can't wait for the day when cinemas are going to open again.

I was skeptical when the #MeToo movement began that there would be any kind of lasting change for women in Hollywood. But now we have more female directors, we have intimacy coordinators, Harvey Weinstein is in prison. Some things that I thought I would not see have come to pass. I'm curious, what has been the biggest change for you, personally, since the #MeToo movement started?

WINSLET The thing that is shifting in ways that will absolutely be long lasting is how women's voices are being received. There is a space that has been created for a younger generation that is going to be safe. My daughter is 20, and she just came into the industry about a year and a half ago. And what's wonderful for me, as her mum, is just watching her have a courage of conviction and self-belief that is just unwavering, because she's entering a time when we're clearing the shit away from them, these girls. These girls are going to change the world, and they're going to be strong, and they're going to be powerful, and they're going to be fucking amazing. And that is because we're getting all the bad stuff out of the way for them and all they will know is to use their voice in positive, powerful ways, to lead with compassion, to be strong role models and friends. And that, to me, is the biggest thing that has shifted.

This is the decade of women championing and supporting other women without judgment. This is happening right now, and that has come as a result of the mass united swell that has emerged from #MeToo. We've all come together, everyone is holding hands and walking in the same direction. And, for me, that is the single most exciting thing that is coming out of the awfulness of the past five years and those extraordinary women coming forward and sharing their painful, awful stories, and the horrendous Harvey Weinstein. The time now is about leading in a different way. Young women being able to lead with courage — in a way that I feel I certainly didn't have, that sense of courage and companionship with my peers, in a way that I think #MeToo has done for this generation of women.

This year, we saw the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement globally. And at the time it happened, a lot of media companies were issuing statements, making large donations. Do you think there will be lasting changes from that movement as well? Three years from now, will we be talking the way we're talking now about #MeToo in terms of concrete things changing?

DAY My hope is yes. And I hope that it spawns lasting change that moves faster than it has moved in the past. I'm hoping that this is an uprooting of this idea of, "OK, pace yourself, we need to make sure we make people comfortable." That's really not how you achieve lasting change. We can't survive like this, we will not survive. It ends in what? Our destruction, it ends in war, it ends in just unrest.

That was one of the things even on set, there were a few moments that were really quite disturbing, for the cast and me. We were shooting a movie that takes place in the '40s and in the '50s. And there were moments on set that we realized, "Oh, wow, that has not changed." It may have transformed, it may look a little different, lynching looks different, but it's not changed. Truth is going to be a huge, huge, huge factor in seeing lasting change, and sustaining, and transforming, and changing a generation.

As Kate talked about, with the younger generation, I think they have such a need for transparency that will actually be very helpful. Part of doing the movie, the Billie Holiday story, was that the truth of her story had never been told, because the truth of her story was intentionally kept from the public. The respinning of narratives for people of color, or for marginalized people, or for women, has been a constant technique of oppression. And I think that's going to be hugely important moving forward: We have to pop the top off of these things. And we have to tell the truth about them, and understand the scope of certain groups of people, people of color, why the scope of their pain has been minimized or retold.

The retelling of these stories also has to do with telling the truth, some of the gritty, ugly truth about maybe some of our heroes. We have to say, "OK, this isn't for the purpose of destroying people, but we need to know these truths so we can actually move forward and not repeat them."

CLOSE I just have to say I'm sitting here and I'm so inspired by what everyone has been saying. It's quite overwhelming, it's so articulate and so beautiful what everyone has said.

WINSLET Well, we've got you to look up to, Glenn.

CLOSE I can't tell you, it's very moving to me to hear all this. I've been an actress for 46 years, and when I think of the change, the monumental changes that in my short time that I have witnessed, the expectation is going to be phenomenal when we finally can get back to doing what we are here to do. I think there's going to be an overwhelming amount of stories and new ways of telling stories.

What will you do differently in 2021?

MULLIGAN The first thing that came into my mind was that I'm going to go to the theater as much as I can, and the cinema. As soon as we can, I'm going to sit around people and watch something together with them. It just shocked me how much I missed that. I watched a medley of musical theater on television a couple of weeks ago, and it just made me cry. I just want to be a part of that. So it sounds quite trivial, but I think that is something I'm looking most forward to.

WINSLET You know, I never give time to myself at all, really, I don't. People will so often say to me, "Oh, you need to get a massage." And I think, "What? Don't got time for that." So actually, I just have enjoyed, quite honestly, just going really easy on myself. If I had a week where I think, "Oh, I've probably had too much toast. Oh, well." Or, "Oh, well, maybe I should do some more exercise. Oh, maybe I'll do that next week." I'm just kind of learning to go, "Oh, it doesn't matter." It doesn't matter. Life's too short, just enjoy this time, and it doesn't matter about all that crap. I think I'd like to hang on to a bit of that, actually. Because it's easy in this job to have to live by certain disciplines, whether it's just sleep patterns or times that you eat, for example. And actually just letting go of all of that has been really such a joy. Not enforcing any degree of sort of stress or structure on stuff. I've loved all that. So I hopefully I'll carry that on.

CLOSE I came here where I live now [Montana] because my three siblings are here, and I had spent my whole adult life away from them. And we're now in the same town. So, for me, work is so I can come back home. It's kind of changed things, it's not like I'm waiting at home until I go to work. It's really, really valuing the work, because it means that I'll be able to come home.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

[glittercracker]

Kingkiller Crap

So, I’ve never really posted much here that involves my own thoughts. There are a number of reasons why, but whatever. I feel the need NOW to post some thoughts, and having no working independent blog (yet!) I suppose this is the place to dump them. PSA: none of this is about anime. None of this is frivolous or fun. TW for sexual abuse. You have been warned! So. I’ve been rereading the Kingkiller Chronicles. aka “Name of the Wind” and “The Wise Man’s Fear” and “That Other One That Shall Not Be Named.” This reread was, at the beginning, almost an afterthought. A way to keep my 13 yo happy on a 7 hour car ride. Except, he could not have cared less, and I got sucked back into the story (and okay, if that is how all our audiobook car rides go, meh? At least it keeps me sharp!) I raced through book one, and bought book 2 on audible with an eye to my upcoming surgery and recooperation. Book one was problematic in the places I remembered, but also as generally engaging as I remembered. And then book 2 happened, and surgery happened, and I have had weeks to lie in bed listening to this bloody interminable sequel, and I find myself lost in a morass of, “WTF was I ever THINKING?” Namely, how did I ever love this book enough to pine for the next? It’s been hard to put a finger on exactly what is making this time through book 2 both a slog and also vaguely, creepily uncomfortable, but if you’re interested, my rather stream-of-consciousness ramble of thoughts ensues. First, the male gaze that rears its head at times in book 1 predominates here. But while I don’t love the way Kvothe describes women, I also have 2 degrees in literature, and I’m beyond that being a reason not to read an otherwise engaging book. Second, Kvothe is a Gary Stu, for all of Rothfuss’s protestations to the contrary. Again, so far, so much traditional high fantasy. But while, say, Aragorn is content to just quietly be Awesome At Everything, Kvothe is a braggy little shit of a Gary Stu: the person you hated for announcing their perfect scores in that hs class you could never quite master. I could fill several pages with examples, but for some reason what really made me want to kick him in the head was not Felurian’s disbelief of his virginity (though really, jfc, REALLY?) Nope, it was the end of his time w the Ademrae (sp may be off, remember, I’m listening not reading!) when he crows about having learned the history of his sword 2 days earlier than expected. Why does this stick out? Oh, idk. Maybe bc he sucks so hard he can’t even get past the first obstacle in his practical final exam? Yet he still has to tell us how fucking awesome he is for remembering 6000 names of previous owners.

I know, I’m supposed to forgive his teenage idiocy. The internet sympathists (no pun intended!) keep telling me this. And I suppose that I would, IF this were a simple first-person narrative - but it isn’t. Let’s repeat that, and really think about it. This story is being narrated by an older and presumably wiser Kvothe who has lost everything - whose abilities have been expunged to the extent that he can’t open his own chest of Cool Stuff. He shows humility in his actions, mostly. And yet when discussing his 16 yo self, the humility evaporates, and he speaks with no kind of perspective or lens of accrued wisdom. He still compares women to instruments waiting for the “right” player (i.e. him) and defends this choice of words by saying, essentially, “You aren’t a musician, you don’t know!”

Interesting assumption for an innkeeper in a medieval-esque world. Interesting assumption if this is in fact authorial interjection, too, because I suspect the majority of this book’s audience *are* musicians to at least an extent, and I also suspect that the majority of us (yes, us - I own several beloved instruments, including a harp custom made for me as a wedding present from my husband) would not equate a human lover to even the most beloved of instruments.

But all of this is well-trodden critical ground. As far as I can tell, though, my third issue isn’t: although it’s perhaps the most glaringly tone-deaf example of all of Rothfuss’s excruciatingly tone-deaf portrayal of his world’s women. Namely, the two girls kidnapped and gang-raped by the fake Ruh.

Almost all of the criticism I’ve read on this section of TWMF concentrates on Kvothe’s treatment of the girls’ abusers. What’s interesting is that no one ever seems to write about Kvothe’s treatment of the girls themselves. Yes, he treats them kindly. He tends their wounds, he feeds them, he tries (and succeeds, of course) to draw Ellie out of her shocked stupor. 

Yet what he never once does, from the moment he takes control of the situation, is ask their opinions on any of this, including what their next step should be. He just decides to bring them back to their families - families who, in this type of society, might well disown them for being “ruined”. And the girls themselves, namely the intelligent and savvy Krin, seem to go blindly along with what he says. Why? Would Krin at least not question this, or object to his making decisions for her, when a group of men had so recently and brutally taken away all of her agency? Would she not question whether being brought back to her family is the best thing for the catatonic Ellie?

Okay, apparently not. So they return to their apparently very forgiving town. Kvothe stands up for the girls against the village shithead: thank you, Kvothe, bc I’m sure Krin could not have said those words herself. He assures the reader that they are with people who will love and care for them despite what has happened to them: thank you, Kvothe, though it’s stretching my credulity a bit that you would assume that no one will take issue with their deflowering. But then he “gifts” the girls the spoils of his slaughter: the horses, the valuables, the wagons. And I was about to give him a (grudging) pass for being decent about this, EXCEPT: he goes on to say that these goods are meant for the girls’ dowries. Specifically, to make them worth enough financially for potential husbands to overlook their loss of virginity. He even tells Krin not to settle for a less-than-lucrative marriage.

And suddenly, I was outraged. Why? Because a man who had witnessed the full extend of these women’s abuse brought them back to a backwater town believing that he was being magnanimous both in doing so, and in giving up whatever share he might have taken of the spoils of the debacle to make them financially lucrative marriage prospects. Because he never asked these traumatized girls if they might rather cut and run with the money than use it to make some man overlook their abuse in order to make them his property. He never even questions the idea that they will be grateful to submit to marriage contracts that will no doubt require them to have sex with their husbands, even though these women have been abused to the extent that they cannot sit a horse for *two days* after being rescued. And the worst part is that 20-something frame-story Kvothe doesn’t question this either; he just goes on to gloat about people singing songs about his daring rescue. Maybe I was just ready for a straw to break my benefit of the doubt. Or maybe this really is as outrageous as it feels. Either way, I can’t help being angry at Rothfuss. As a writer, I am very well aware that character and author are not the same thing; that authorial intent is not the same as authorial beliefs. But there are moments in some books when I have to wonder if that line is blurring, and this is one of them. Kvothe has literally JUST left a female-dominated country full of independent women happily doing their own thing. He has given these girls the means to find themselves a situation that will never require them to be beholden to a man again - even houses ffs, in the shape of those 2 wagons, should they want them. There are so many options beyond marriage: I can’t, for instance, think of a medieval society that didn’t have its version of a convent. Or, for Krin at least, why not the University? For that matter, why not marry her himself, and then set her free to do as she likes under the awning of a respectable marriage? 

Instead he returns them to their fathers, and likewise gives their fathers the means to marry them off with no argument. Who, after all, holds the reins of the horses at the end? Why does Kvothe assume that these families will actually use the wealth even in the dubious way that he recommends?

And in this, I think, I am justified in giving Rothfuss the stink-eye. This is one more instance for Kvothe to play the hero with no real attention given to the consequences. Kvothe himself, I think, would be appalled. He has suffered so much deprivation in his life, so often been marginalized, scapegoated, powerless, how on earth could he so easily consign others to that fate? How could he think, loving Denna as he does, having heard her words to the beaten girl in Severin, that buying these girls husbands who will “overlook” their abuse for the sake of wealth is anything but a wretched life sentence for them?

Sigh. There was a time when I desperate awaited book three. Now, given the other women’s lives at stake in this series, I’m not so sure I want to know.

[arcticdementor]

Kayfabe is a treasured part of pro wrestling culture. Kayfabe refers to the commitment of everyone involved (the wrestlers, the refs, the announcers, and to a certain degree the fans) to maintaining the shared fiction that pro wrestling matches are unscripted. (Wrestling is real, in the sense that the athletes are taking real punishment and risk really getting hurt, and there is a degree of improvisation, but the outcomes are predetermined.) Kayfabe has had a kind of mythical importance to many in the pro wrestling community: you keep kayfabe no matter what, even in the event of serious injury, out of a sense of sacred commitment. Crucial to understanding kayfabe is that it is not an attempt to deceive the audience. Modern wrestling is in some ways perfectly open about the scripted nature of the matches. Fooling people is not the point. If every fan signed an affidavit saying they knew the outcomes were predetermined the wrestlers would still keep kayfabe, out of commitment to the culture. Kayfabe is a mutually-approved illusion. It is artifice, but it is mutually agreed upon artifice, a consensual fantasy.

Our current political culture is kayfabe.

The illusion that we pretend to believe is that we are in some sort of uniquely politically fertile moment for progressivism and social justice, that we are experiencing a social revolution or “Great Awokening.” Further, we keep kayfabe by acting as if we believe that certain policies like police abolition or abolishing border enforcement (or if you prefer utterly meaningless sloganeering, “abolishing ICE”) are tangibly viable in anything like the near future. I say that these are kayfabe to emphasize my belief that most people who endorse these beliefs are well aware that they are not true, and to underline the sense in which the commitment to unreality is mutual, an expression of a strange kind of social contract. Most thinking adults comprehend the current moment and understand that the hand of establishment power and the influence of social inertia are as strong as ever. (Why would you feel otherwise?) But because people have understandably been moved by recent righteous calls for justice, they feel they must accept the fiction of a new awakening to show solidarity with the victims of injustice. This is emotionally understandable, but strategically counterproductive. And indeed one thing that has defined these new social movements is their relentless commitment to the emotional over the strategic.

…

Living in a culture of political kayfabe is a strange experience. It feels the way that, I imagine, it feels to live under a truly authoritarian government, where you’re constantly having exchanges where everyone involved knows that what they’re saying is bogus but you push right through the cognitive dissonance with a smile on your face. Only you’re not compelled by the fear of torture or imprisonment but of vague-but-intense social dictates, of the crucial priority of appearing to be the right kind of person. So often political conversations today have this dual quality where you feel forced to constantly evaluate what your interlocutor actually believes even as propriety compels you to take seriously what’s coming out of their mouth.

A major negative consequence of our commitment to kayfabe lies in our acceptance of behaviors we would ordinarily never accept, under the theory that this is such a special time, we need to shut up and go along with it. Take our broken discourse, as frequently discussed in “cancel culture” debates. My experience and my intuition tell me that almost everyone in the progressive/left/socialist world knows that our discourse norms and culture are totally fucked up. Trust me: most people in liberal spaces, Black and white, male and female, trans and cis, most certainly including people in academia and media, are well aware that we’ve entered into a bizarre never-ending production of The Crucible we can’t get out of. They’re probably just as sick of Woko Haram as I am.

But they’re either empowered and enriched by this state of affairs, and don’t want the party to end, or they’re holding on for dear life trying not to get their lives ruined for speaking out of turn. Look past self-interest and self-preservation and you’ll find that everybody knows that the way left spaces work now is horribly broken and dysfunctional. The problem is that thinking people who would ordinarily object don’t because they’ve been convinced that this is some sort of special moment pregnant with progressive potential, and that is more important than rights, compassion, or fairness. So we maintain a shared pretense that things are cool the way you go through the motions on an awful date where you’re both aware you’ll never see each other again.

If I say “cancel culture,” normies indeed don’t know what I’m talking about, because they are healthy, adjusted people with a decent set of priorities who value their own time and lives too much to get caught up in all of this horseshit. But if I say “cancel culture” in front of a bunch of politics-obsessed professional-class shitlibs they will pretend to not know what I’m talking about. They’ll put on a rich fucking show. They do an impression of Cletus from The Simpsons and go “cancel culture?!? Hyuck hyuck what’re that? I’m not knowing cancel culture, I’m just a simple country lad!” These are people who have read more about cancel culture in thinkpieces than I read about any topic in a year. But pretending you don’t know what cancel culture is happens to be a key part of the performance, a naked in-group signifier, so they pretend. The “I don’t know what cancel culture is” bullshit performance is kayfabe at its most infuriating. I know you know what cancel culture is because you’re currently using it to demonstrate your culture positioning by pretending you don’t know what it is. You fucking simpleton.

People say and do weird shit and it’s all wrong but you just pretend like it isn’t. Who wants to be the one caught making waves? When you’re in a group of people and someone engages in something patently ridiculous - when, for example, someone says “AAVE” in an ordinary social situation with no academic or political reason to use jargon, even though everyone there knows the phrase “the way Black people talk” is more elegant, useful, and true - and the moment passes and there’s this inability to look each other in the eye, when everybody starts studying their drink and clearing their throat, that’s life under kayfabe.

Getting to this is not normal. It’s not a healthy state of affairs. It can only happen when people come to believe that self-preservation requires pretending things are OK.

…

It is at this point that people say that “defund” does not mean “abolish,” which is true, and Defund the Police indeed does not mean “abolish the police.” Defund the police means nothing, now, though I’m sure that the people who started using it had noble intentions. At this point it’s a floating signifier, an empty slogan that people rallied around with zero understanding of what semantic content it could possibly contain. If it’s meant to be a radical demand, why use the vocabulary of an actuary? If it’s meant to mean a meaningful but strategic drawdown of resources, why use it interchangeably with “abolish”? I cannot imagine a more comprehensive failure of basic political messaging than Defund the Police. Amateur hour from beginning to end.

I take the political concept of alternatives to policing seriously, in the same way I take many political ideas seriously that are not likely achievable in my lifetime. I know there are deeply serious people who are profoundly committed to these principles and who have thought them through responsibly. I appreciate their work and become better informed from what they say. But their ideas did not reign last year. A faddish embrace of a thoughtless caricature of police abolition reigned, pushed with maximum aggression and minimal introspection by the shock troops of contemporary progressive ideas, overeducated white people with more sarcasm than sense.

Policing will not end tomorrow or next month or next year. And whoever you are, reading this, you are well aware of that fact. The odds of police abolition in any substantial portion of this country are nil. Indeed, I would say that the likelihood of meaningful reduction in policing in any large region of this country, whether measured by patrolling or funding or manpower, is small. Individual cities may reduce their police forces by a substantial fraction, and I suspect that they will not suddenly devolve into Mega-City One as a result. (Though I can’t say initial data in this regard is encouraging.) I hope we learn important lessons about intelligent and effective police reform and more sensible resource allocation from those places. But the vast majority of cities will not meaningfully change their policing budgets, due to both the legitimate lack of political will for such a thing - including in communities of color - and broken municipal politics with bad incentives.

…

Living under kayfabe makes you yearn for plainspoken communication, for letting the mask fall. The professed inability of progressives to understand why woke-skeptical publications like this one keep succeeding financially is itself a slice of kayfabe. They know people are paying for Substacks and podcasts and subscribing to YouTubes and Patreons because it’s exhausting to constantly spend all of your time pretending things that don’t make sense make sense, pretending that you believe things you don’t to avoid the social consequences of telling the truth.

When you’re someone who spent the past several decades arguing that the American university system is not hostile to conservative students, that it doesn’t try to force extremely contentious leftist views onto students, and then you watch this video, how do you react? I think many people, most people, even most people committed to the BLM cause, see that video and wince. That is not how we get there. Browbeating 20 year olds for not parroting your politics back at you is not how racial justice gets advanced. But if you’re caught in this moment, how do you object? Acknowledge that, yes, in fact, it is now plainly the case that many professors see it as their job to forcefully insist on the truth of deeply controversial claims to their students, berating them until they acquiesce? Well that would be an unpleasant conversation with the other parents when you pick up your kid from Montessori school. So you just choose not to see, or keep you mouth shut, or speak in a way that maintains the illusion.

I mean there is the absurdity of what she’s saying to contend with - the now fairly common view that policing was literally invented in the antebellum South purely to enforce slavery, because in ancient Rome if someone came in your house and stole your stuff you’d just be like “oh damn, that sucks.” Is there a relationship between modern policing and slavery? Of course. Does the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow infect modern policing at every point? Sure. Should we make political and policy decisions that recognize that historical influence on policing, especially given the racist reality of policing right now? Yes. But what good does it do anyone to pretend that the concept of “the police” is 250 years old? Why on earth would we get the correct shit we do believe tangled up with this bizarre shit we don’t believe? (The professor in that video does not herself honestly believe the police were invented to support African slavery in 18th and 19th century America.) Because this utterly ahistorical idea is being promulgated by people who claim to speak from a position of justice, we are forced to assign seriousness to it that it hasn’t earned, seriousness that it could never deserve. Because we live in a world of mutual delusion. Because of kayfabe.

…

And the fact that some will wrinkle their noses about this piece and its arguments, go about their days of progressive performance art, and pretend they don’t believe every word they just read? That’s kayfabe, my friend. That’s kayfabe. And we’re trapped in it, all of us, you and I. You know it’s all bullshit. Will you keep the code anyway? I’m willing to bet that the answer is yes.

[lilikags]

Aluxia Fanris OC Backstory

Disclaimer: we don’t know much about fontaine so I’ll scrap her if canon makes it difficult for her to exist Q_Q

I’ve written a lot for her, so this’ll be broken into many different parts [see links to other parts below!!]

link to picrew

Introduction | About | Personality | Likes/Dislikes + Appearance | Backstory | Vision Backstory | Combat Abilities | Trivia | Voicelines 

Aluxia always thought that if she was going to get a vision, it’d be a pyro one. After all, her view of herself always consisted of using sheer will to get through difficult situations. Anemo, I would’ve never thought. Am I looking for freedom? Or am I simply trapped… The thing she never noticed was how everything she did was related to her father. He himself had nothing to do with it; it was all Aluxia’s doing, trapping herself in the chains of revenge against a man who did nothing but leave. 

No one suspected anything at the time. After all, to everyone, they seemed like nothing but a happy family, content with what they had and what they were doing. Their only child smiled brightly and was always welcomed within the neighborhood. Everyone loved her. That family smiled a lot; they held lots of parties for every occasion, inviting their friends for each. The child smiled at everyone, and she laughed when adults and children alike wanted to play with her. In some definitions, it could be considered the perfect family.

 Aluxia grew up around her father. She followed him around everywhere, and he held her hand wherever they went. He even took her to work sometimes, when he had a job as an accountant. She sat in the office quietly, drawing on scrap paper meant to go to the garbage. After all, if it could be reused, it should. She spent a lot of time with him on the weekends too, when they went to hunt animals. She’d stay behind with Alencia and watch from afar, and when Antonin would come back, she’d run up to him and hug him. 

When Aluxia was with her friends and Alencia went to pick her up, she’d ask, “Where’s Papa?” He seemed to be the center of her life, the idol she wanted to be like. When she was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said, “I wanna be an accountant! Like my Papa!” When people started joking about what she was going to do when she got married, she’d respond, “I’m not gonna get married! I’m gonna stay with Mama and Papa forever!” and stuck her tongue at them. So innocent.

When Ainos and Elma were born, Antonin spent his time with the newborn babies rather than Aluxia. After all, the younger the child is, the more attention you’d generally need to give them. Additionally, there were two of them, so both Alencia and Antonin were busy and couldn’t spend as much time with Aluxia than before. Aluxia accompanied her father everywhere she could, even moving back into her parents bed just to be with them more. 

The day Antonin disappeared, Aluxia had gotten up early. She wanted to cook breakfast for the family; she was going to show off her way of making sunny side up eggs and bacon and bread. She swore to herself that she was going to impress everyone, and they were all going to be so proud and happy. When she got up, she noticed her father wasn’t there. It was strange; she was always the first one up. 

“Papa…? Where are you going?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

He turned around, facing the young child, “Oh, I’m just going out to buy something. I’ll be back later.”

“Later? When later?” Aluxia showed a worried face. She hated the word “later”. It was so indefinite; it could mean “in the next few minutes” or “in a few years from now”, and without clarification, no one would know. 

“Just later, okay? I’ll be back, don’t worry,” he gave her an awkward smile, different from any other smile he had shown her. Aluxia just stood there, in a daze.

“Okay…” she replied, not knowing he wouldn’t come back. 

Aluxia waited for him, for a very long time. Every day, she awaited his return, but to no avail. He was nowhere to be seen. The longer he was gone, the more Alencia would refuse to function. They had sent the police to find him, but when they came back with the report that they found no one, Alencia simply wept. She was still pregnant with Celen, and when he was born, all she did was take care of him to take her mind off Antonin. She could not. With both of the family’s sources of income gone, Aluxia had to do it herself. There were expenses to pay and ends to meet, and the only one remotely capable of doing so was her.

At first, Aluxia tried to enter competitions to pay for the things she needed. She quit school and entered these competitions, but the money they provided didn’t match a job. A job was what she needed. The government was able to provide aid for them, as well as their loving neighbors, who were shocked by Antonin’s disappearance as well. Perhaps, they felt they had to repay Alencia for all she had given them.

Quickly realizing she had to make real money, she turned to performing on the streets. No one would hire a young child for any real job, so she’d do something that didn’t require being hired. She spent days and nights in her room practicing, her mother bringing food to her door. That was the only thing Alencia could get herself to do, when she realized that her daughter could hurt herself trying to work for the family. Alencia did try to do things herself, but the guilt from being distraught only kept her inside the house. 

The first few months were rough. Aluxia started performing in the winter, and she rarely got any tips. Especially because it was so cold outside, people wouldn’t even bother to see any kind of performance. It was terrible timing. Once spring came, more people came by, and Aluxia constantly honed her skills in magic tricks. People knew a stage personality when they saw one, and once Aluxia was in the mindset, she wouldn’t get out until she reached home. 

Aluxia started singing too, and people enjoyed it at all times of the year. Her songs were well received, and she did a mix of covers and original songs. She would invite some people “onstage” and have them sing with her, and this gave a very positive effect on her career. Because of the popularity she gained, multiple agencies tried to sign a contract with her, and many sent letters to her home. While she had been struggling, she had lost the home she used to live in and was now living in an apartment. Alencia didn’t want to give it up, but they didn’t have a choice. With a good contract, though, Aluxia could buy the house back for her mother. 

“Aluxia, you have a lot of mail for you,” Alencia noticed, as she opened the mailbox. Perhaps it was fan mail; she didn’t know. She handed her daughter the messages, and the young teenager opened the letters in her room. She looked through all of the offers, and she spent the night reading them over and analyzing them. She told her family the next morning, and they were all ecstatic.

After she received her vision (info below in extra cred), her popularity soared. Her manager, Rosaire, saw the potential in the vision and begged her to learn how to use it to make things float. She did; Aluxia went on a hiatus for a year to learn how to properly use her vision. It was trial and error; she learned everything herself. When she returned, her debut performance was nothing short of spectacular.

[team-science-mega-nerds]

Fictober Prompt #20: “You could talk about it, you know?”

Fandom: Supergirl:

Pairing: AgentCorp (Alex x Lena)

Warnings: None

When Alex gets the call, she starts packing immediately. She calls Kara on the way to the airport and texts Eliza, but no matter what they say, she’s going. Research is something that Alex can do mindlessly. It requires focus, yes, but when she’s in the zone, nothing else matters. Alex also likes trying new things. Her ex had called her adventurous in the bedroom but old reliable in real life and Alex hated her so much for it, that she took a contract position in Metropolis for six months. Alex was tired of being that person. Predictable. She wanted something more. 

And then, there’s what happened four months ago. But that? Alex never talks about. 

These days, Alex goes with the flow and if that means being one of seventy-five researchers boarding a ship from Norway and embarking on a year-long arctic expedition, then so be it. She knows the training itself will be difficult. This isn’t just about research, it’s about mental and physical stability and Alex has to dig deep to remain consistent and convince everyone that she’s prepared. 

When they actually embark, Alex has a backpack filled with letters written from Kara. Most of them are supportive, plenty are questioning, but Alex’s replies have always been good. Positive. She’s ready. She can’t deal with real-life right now. 

The actual expedition begins with a bang. Champagne in the main cafeteria and some kind of stew that looks like it would weigh Alex down. Alex lingers around a few other researchers, who she’d call friends at this point, and pokes around at some bread. “I’m more of a whiskey girl myself,” Someone says a few tables over. Alex pokes her head up, recognizing the voice almost immediately. Lena Luthor. A brilliant mind, a no-bullshit attitude, Alex had been warned at least a dozen times to stay away from her. She bought herself onto this ship, Derek had muttered to Alex when they’d received their wetsuits and gear. 

Alex was used to men undermining her, so she took his words with a grain of salt, but she had to wonder. Almost everyone had made their research intentions clear by now, but Lena was still a mystery. Alex discards her plate and approaches Lena. Alex unzips her jacket and flashes the flask she has in her double-layered jacket. “Wanna take a walk?” 

“Absolutely,” Lena says, eagerly following Alex. 

A walk was maybe pushing it, but avoiding the congestion of the mess hall, Lena and Alex find an empty lab with a small lounge area. Lena sits on the couch first but Alex holds out her hand. “I’m Alex.”

“Yeah, I know and I suspect you know who I am.” Lena grabs the flask out of Alex’s pocket without hesitation. “Saw you on the range, pretty impressive.”

“Army.”

“I figured.” Alex didn’t know that anyone had been paying attention to her, let alone someone as well known as Lena. Alex believes that Lena’s intentions must be something greater. This isn’t just about publicity. The amount of training involved alone would make most people quit on day one. Lena had struggled with some of the tactical elements. She was terrible with her shotgun and not very good at getting into her harness during their helicopter drills. But Lena was persistent and Alex could see it in her eyes, even as they traded a flask filled with whiskey back and forth. “You’re studying polar bear movement and health?”

“Yep.” Alex kicks back and sinks into the couch. “You must be on the small scale climate change team.”

“Team?” 

“You guys are like the cool kids. We’re the dweebs,” Alex smiles. “You’re doing the 2-1-2 rotation?”

“Yeah, you too, right?” Alex nods. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” Alex doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing but she decides that she won’t ignore this friendship in favor of isolating herself.  

In her first week on the ship, Alex manages to finally come up with a proper thesis. She’s prepared to write a paper on this when the mission is over but she’s a bit rusty. Alex treks on, learning everything she can from her fellow researchers, while they’re still in the lull before things start picking up. While Alex is just wrapping up her Skype session with Kara, she hears frustrated muttering from the room across the hall. Lena’s room to be exact. 

“Luthor, you need help?” Alex yells. 

“Fucking shit!” Lena grumbles. “Yeah, can you come here for a sec?” Alex blows a kiss to Kara before signing out and heading over to Lena’s room. This is only the third time Alex has been in here but it’s just as clean as it was on that very first day. Lena is sitting on the ground with a mess of wires and her computer next to her. “This system is from like the 80s.”

“You’re not so smart after all,” Alex jokes as she shoos Lena aside and gets to work setting up the equipment. Lena lounges on her bed and watches Alex. 

“So, that was your sister, right?” 

“Hm?”

“That you were just talking to.” Alex glances up for a second. Usually, Lena is very casual but something about this conversation seems to be leading somewhere different. 

“Yeah. Kara.” 

“Because I wondered…” Alex’s heart starts to race. Alex can’t meet Lena’s eyes. She doesn’t want anyone wondering anything about her. She took this journey to get away from hard questions not to run right into them. “About the ring.”

“What ring?” 

“The one that’s missing from your finger.” Alex looks down at her hand and the tan line that’s sitting vacant on her ring finger. “Anyway...I’ll stop being observant if you want me to.”

“Please. It’s not something I really want to get into.” Lena respects her wishes. They continue their nightly drinking sessions which turn into rowdy card games and once - only once - Alex looks into Lena’s eyes for longer than necessary. It’s all fine. Alex calls Kara that night and she sits in her locked room, cuddling a pillow and listening to Kara talk endlessly about her day. 

“Are you okay?”

“Sure,” Alex mutters. 

“I would get on a plane and find you if you needed it.”

“You can’t. Literally, it’d be impossible.”

“Sisters do impossible things all the time.” Kara smiles. “You’re out there trying to save the world, aren’t you?” Kara’s video feed keeps freezing and it drives Alex crazy. So crazy that she kicks a hole through the screen. She didn’t know that being around this many people would feel like loneliness. The same feeling that she’d been trying to drown out for four months slowly began to creep up on her. 

All this and her stupid pride nearly get her killed the next day. As she’s laying there with her life flashing before her eyes, she considers how fitting it is that she will probably freeze to death out there. Alex is saved because she always is. The med bay is frenzied, everyone checking in on her and no one acknowledging the fact that Alex had been reckless. It takes a while for Alex to regain feeling in her body and then, suddenly, all the emotions come flooding in. Lena picks that exact moment to come into the room. “Was that a fucking cry for help or something?” Alex notices that Lena’s eyes are red like she’d been crying. 

“Fuck off-.”

“You were reckless out there. You need to do better.”

“Thanks. That’s helpful.”

“What do you want me to say?” Lena asks as she shrugs out of her jacket and practically throws it into a chair. “You know you’re brooding might be cool where you’re from but if it’s going to put you in danger like that, then you seriously need to talk to someone.”

“It was a mistake.” 

“You can’t make mistakes like that not when people care-.” Lena closes her eyes. “The polar bears need you.” Alex breaks into a fit of laughter that quickly morphs into something unexplainable. Tears. Lena holds her through it all which makes Alex feel different. 

Renewed. 

After Alex has pushed around her dinner and listened to Lena explain everything she’s read in their daily news debrief, things between them get very quiet. Alex expects a question because Lena is the kind of person who needs to know everything. Instead, Lena offers Alex a middle ground. “I’m going to ask you something now.” Lena props her head up with her elbows pressed against Alex’s hospital bed. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Divorced?”

“No.” Lena looks confused so Alex adds, “I was though. Married, I mean.” 

“You could talk about it, you know?” Lena motions to the empty room. “It’s just us. All the secrets travel out in that ice-cold tundra and...they disappear.”

“She’d dead, Lena.” Alex sits up and wonders why it feels okay to finally talk about her. “She died four months before we started training. Which, everyone told me...screamed and yelled at me, don’t go out there, you’re just upset. ‘Just upset’”.” Alex scoffs. “If they understood the fucking insanity of life without...her.” For once, Alex isn’t coddled, she’s allowed to feel everything. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Lena is the one who lets her. “If I didn’t do this if I didn’t take this risk...I couldn’t have made it back home. Too many reminders.”

“Grief is a nuisance,” Lena remarks. “If only it was all good times on the HMS Discovery.” There’s something that signals clarity in Lena’s voice. Alex doesn’t feel talked down to but understood. It’s taken her a while to find someone who understands the impermanence of life. It makes sense if Alex takes a step back and thinks about it. Lena studies climate change. They're both constantly thinking about how the world is folding in on itself more and more every day. This idea and this moment become the cornerstone of their friendship. 

Four months and two stops into the expedition and Alex and Lena find themselves pulling an all-nighter in the lab. Alex is used to this kind of work, Lena slugs through it. “Hey, I read a conspiracy theory about you today.”

“Really? Was it good? Am I an alien yet, I’ve always wanted to be called an alien.” Alex finishes a measurement and yanks off her gloves. 

“No, actually, someone apparently thinks that you’re not even on this expedition but actually in Italy with...get this: your rugby-playing boyfriend.” Lena seems to find it significantly less funny than Alex does. 

“That’s the best they can come up with?” Lena rolls her eyes. “The idea that I’m straight is the most offensive part of that, by the way.” 

“Aren’t rugby players kinda...jocky?”

“You’re just jealous 'cause you’re a giant nerd.” Lena whacks Alex’s stomach with the back of her hand. “A nerd with abs, very dynamic.” 

Two hours later, they have their first kiss. It’s an accident. Lena’s lips brushing against Alex’s neck as they pull apart from a hug. The second kiss comes at full force. It’s Alex who initiates it and as she’s pulling Lena into her room, it’s Alex that pushes her away. “I can’t. Sorry, it’s not…” Alex covers her face with her hands. She groans and turns away. “This is wrong. It’s...it’s me, I don’t know what I’m doing.” If Lena had said something like neither do I, they might’ve continued kissing. But she doesn’t and as quickly as it began, their unfiltered romance surrounded by nature that is facing destruction head-on ends.

Lena does apologize. It comes a week later. Lena stands at Alex’s door wringing her hands. “Sorry about what happened. Kissing you. I shouldn’t have taken advantage, you’re grieving.”

“You didn’t. I kissed you,” Alex reminds her. 

Alex gets an unprompted Skype call and when she sees Kara’s name she answers immediately. Kara looks at the camera all nervous and apologetic. “Sorry,” she mutters before pushing her webcam to the side and revealing Eliza.

“Alex, finally, I haven’t talked to you in weeks. How are you doing?” It feels like an I told you so waiting to happen. Suddenly, Lena’s in the room holding a deck of cards. Eliza’s eyes soften for some reason.

“Hey, sorry, just wondering if you wanted to play?” Lena asks.

“Oh-.”

“Go on, Alex, play with your friend,” Eliza insists. “We love you, dear. Kara and I are proud.” It’s the first time that Eliza sounds like she actually accepts Alex’s choice. Alex waves goodbye to Eliza and Kara before shutting off her computer and turning to Lena. 

“Your mom’s kinda a babe,” Lena says immediately breaking the tension. 

“Please, never say anything like that ever again.”

The third time they kiss, it’s after Lena has completely destroyed Alex in UNO. Alex suspects she’d rigged the game and when she goes to ask, Lena is busy putting her hair up in a ponytail. “You look nice,” Alex says pretending it’s the first time she’s noticed but it’s not. Lena’s smile is almost mischievous.

“I know. It’s the outfit that does the trick. I just love the sound of my synthetic pants.” Lena moves her legs against each other making the wosh wosh sound they hear every day as researchers milled about the hallway. “And I’m sure the bags under my eyes just add to the allure.”

“Totally.”

“Your flirting is weak sauce, Danvers. Bring it or get to the back of the line. I’ve got rugby admirers and conspiracy theorists galore.”

“I just want to kiss you.”

“Really? For real this time?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” They kiss and soon fall into Alex’s tiny bed together. As they’re scrambling to take their clothes off, Lena pulls the blanket over their bodies. “It’s fucking freezing.” She mouths against Alex’s collar. “I guess that’s what we signed up for.” Alex isn’t certain she had a plan coming into this but being around Lena somehow gave her permission to heal. She wasn’t certain what the world would throw her way next but she had another six months on an arctic expedition to figure it out.

[buckylokistark]

Paintings ~ part I

Summary: Loki fled his home, too tired of being the cause of his father’s constant disappointment. With help from Heimdall, he escapes to Midgard, the last place his father would look for him. In dire need of a job, he meets Y/N, a struggling artist trying to be recognised for her work. Can they help each other or are they holding one another back?

Masterlist Paintings

Loki wasn't the top of the class in Asgard. With muscles that just wouldn't grow and strength that was nearly non-existent, it was inevitable to be one of the underdogs.

"But brother, are you even trying?"

"No determination to make any progress."

"Are you sure you and Thor are related?"

"Seriously lacking in strength, not recommended in battle."

"Well, I guess someone had to be the runt of the litter."

"Lost all fights held."

"Get up and fight! And you call yourself a god?"

It wasn't until he discovered his true heritage that he ran away from everything. Heimdal saw him coming, had already opened the Bifrost to a still unknown planet.

"Midgard", Heimdal replied to him as he approached the gate.

Loki nodded, Midgard was so unknown, the last place anyone would seek for a magical Frost Giant. Now the only thing that remained was to act like an ordinary mortal. Easy, right?

________

The jingle of the bell made you look up to the door. A handsome man, looking very lost, stood on the doormat, shuffling his shoes to get the soles clean before stepping in the store, the door falling slowly shut behing him.

You left the safety of the register and moved to the front of your showroom, meeting the man halfway in front of one of your first paintings, a 100 by 200 centimetres piece inspired by the New York artist Basquiat.

"Hi, how may i help you?"

The man looked at your face, still relatively bothered by the fact he needed to act like he needed help from a Midgardian of all creatures. He was a god, after all, worthy of so much more than what he has been given.

Realising he had no other options, he sighed and took a deep breath before speaking, "I saw you were looking for a shop assistant and I was wondering if I could fill that position?" His posture never changing, radiating constant power through the whole shop.

You were a bit confused how and why a man in a black two-piece suit looking rich as hell even wanted to work here, or anywhere in this neighbourhood really. Shaking away your confusion, you composed yourself before answering his question.

"Yeah, the application is still open, I will have to ask you a few questions up first though, starting with your name..."

"I sense no complications there. The name is Loki, Loki Laufeyson."

Shaking his outstretched hand and replying with yours, you led him to the back of your shop, where your atelier was positioned. The atelier wasn’t much, but then again, so was your showroom. The showroom was 3 by 5 metres, your atelier 3 by 3. Shelves adorned the wall on the left, stacked with all kinds of paint, brushes, spray cans and small canvasses. The wall in front of you was filled with half finished paintings, an easel in the middle of the room holding another one. A tiny table was cramped next to the doorway, two plastic chairs folded against said table.

Walking inside, Loki noticed the plastic sheets on the floor, littered with dry splashes of paint. You gestured to the plastic chair next to the door, seating yourself in the other.

"I’m sorry to hold this meeting here but I have no better place to hold it." You shrug your shoulders apologetically before grabbing some papers that were strewn on the table.

"First of all, I need to see some sort of identification."

Loki nodded and turned to his bag which he had abandoned behind his chair, quickly conjuring a fake, yet very real looking, ID.

You took it from his outstretched hand, looking at it thouroughly before handing it back and nodding.

"I hope it is okay to have an $11.00 wage, it is all I can afford to lose. This job requires you to be good in accounting, resume is not a necessity, I just need someone quick to look after the showroom when I'm gone, you see, I need to inspect the places of customers, so I can make the best painting for them, one that fits their house.

So, what makes you want this job?"

Loki took a deep breath. "Well, I always loved art, but my father was really old-fashioned, always wanting me and my brother to learn how to fight, have brute strength, let the woman stay at home and clean and the men work hard, be a real man, so I had to sneak to my mum and she taught me about different art-forms, cooking, reading, the more feminine side of me, so to speak.

Once I realised I needed to grow up and get a job, I thought why not somewhere fun. I searched and searched, then I found this shop and I was immediatly sold."

"And you don't care much about the, well, significantly smaller wage than normal?"

"My parents are very wealthy, I only started to search for a job because I longed for stability. Work keeps people going, it creates a rythm in your life, something neverchanging in a world of everchanging things." He didn’t mention his ability to replicate and multiply objects, nor the prying eyes of his landlord who was becoming very suspicious about his lack of job and overflow of money.

"Well, I believe you have what it takes, so I’ll give you a two month contract and if everything runs smoothly, we’ll add another six months to it. Sounds okay?"

"Couldn’t be better. Thank you for the opportunity, I will do my best."

"I have good faith in you. Now, would it work for you to let me call you when I need a hand, so you can stay home when you’re not necessarily needed?"

"Oh yes absolutely, I have nothing else to do anyways, nothing that can’t be moved anyways." In his head Loki was already planning to spend his time your shop, the art having taken him captive.

"Great, now the only thing left is for you to fill this last sheet and sign these two papers, one for me and a copy for yourself."

Loki looked at the papers, signed them and then looked at the last form. He just had to fill in his full name, date of birth, his personal and house phone number and his email address. After he finished writing, you ended the conversation, claiming you had a project to finish by tonight. You bid each other a final goodbye and went your separate ways.

As the weeks progressed, you and Loki found a suitable schedule. You had to admit, seeing him in your shop was a bit odd at first, but you had become so used to him being there that it was as if it never was any different.

He always arrived when the clock struck 10, never after, never before. It was weird, seeing as he was only needed when you’d call him. It made it easier when you needed to go and visit people though, but he made you wonder if he had any form of a social life, just working surely couldn’t be good for your health?

Voicing your thoughts, on the other hand, was harder, seeing as you suddenly had more work then you had all year. You started to suspect it had something to do with Loki, though you were, as previously mentioned, too busy to mention.

Just like now, where your project made you lose track of time, which resulted in you being stressed, more so than normal.

"Loki I am so sorry I need to go, I have an appointment in 10 and I still need to clean and I need to change out of my painting clothes and I can’t make it in time!"

Loki watched you run around the shop, catching you by your upper arm as you rushed past him to get out the door. You paused your stressed rambling, looking up at his face, inches away from yours. His hands reached to the collar of your blouse, fixing the weirdly folded seem. Only now you noticed how intimate this position actually was, his breath fanning over your face and his chest touching yours. With dry eyes from the staring, you blink, suddenly remembering your client.

You cleared your throat and took a step sideways, moving to the door.

"Thanks, I will see you once I get back?"

Loki blinked, before smiling and answering, "yes, of course elskling."

He had taken to calling you that, his family’s Norse roots shining through.

Satisfied with the answer, you walked out the door, quickly getting in your car and driving as fast as allowed to try and make it on time. This client was still anonymous, and asked you to meet him in the coffee shop in the Stark Tower. The coffee shop, The Iron Coffee, was notorious for their strong coffee, a replica of the original Italian way. Why your client wanted to meet you there was still a mystery, even though this tells you a lot about him. He likes strong coffee, wich suggests he either has Italian or West-European roots, he likes things to be straight forward, he likes caffeine, what points to him having a job with long days. He obviously has no shortage of money, given the fact he offered to pay for the coffe, which is not cheap at all, and the fact that the price offered for this job is ridiculously high, even if you had to paint a painting to cover an entire wall you would’ve charged less.

You finally arrive at the cafe, a minute to spare. Quickly grabbing your bag with writing equipment (how did that get here?), you opened the door and rushed inside.

The first thing you noticed as you entered was the way a black haired guy in a suit stood up and looked at you. Well, you thought he looked at you, it was a bit hard to see with those big sunglasses on his face.

Taking a deep breath, you walked over to him, his eyes, you suspect, following you all the way.

"Hello, my name is Y/N, are you the one i had an appointment with?”

The man smirked, finally removing his sunglasses.

“Depends, are you Y/N?” You opened and closed your mouth a few times. Having recognised his face, you realise you were standing right in front of none other than Tony Stark, former CEO of Stark Industries and billionaire.

[meditationadvise]

Calling all Warrior Goddess Women! It`s time to Speak Your Truth.

It is unexpected how several successful and or else outspoken women have problem speaking their truth in the circumstances that matter most. We use our voices all the time, yet a lot of us were never ever taught exactly how to utilize our words to communicate plainly and also successfully in issues of the heart, or defend ourselves in difficult or awkward circumstances.

I've been functioning with women for over 25 years, and I have discovered that discovering the best ways to talk from the heart on problems varying from the ordinary to the important is just one of one of the most regular difficulties encountering the contemporary female. This isn't unusual when you think about that for a lot of us, the lessons learned in childhood instructed us to close down our true, genuine voice. Because of this, by the time we are grownups we may be unsure of exactly how we in fact really feel about particular points, not to mention the best ways to convey that details clearly to others!

For circumstances, have a look at the phrases listed below and also see if you were shown any one of them growing up:

Girls should be seen yet not listened to. Don't speak unless spoken to. Being kind suggests lying/remaining silent if the truth hurts one more's feelings. Women that "speak their mind" are bossy. Women ought to place the demands of others ahead of their own. Women must put the needs of their partners ahead of their own.

Notice how you really feel when you read these proclamations now. Yucky? Yet if any of these suitables were instilled in you as a young people, it's not surprising that you have some problem speaking your fact in a clear and also genuine way.

To speak from your honesty, you need to recognize as well as root out the old beliefs regarding interaction you found out maturing or otherwise got from your society and also made your own.

For instance, authentic communication does not include clauses such as "I must be kind so I do not injure others' sensations." Look a lot more deeply at these types of self-monitoring habits. Why must you be kind so you do not injure others' feelings? When you answer truthfully, you will possibly locate it is because you are uncomfortable standing despite a person's pain, dissatisfaction, or temper. You are being kind not because it is in placement with your inmost reality, however as a way to prevent others' reactions.

The irony is that the a lot more genuine you come to be in being and sharing who you really are, the more kindness will begin to occur automatically within you. By becoming going to be truthful, you are sharing generosity to on your own, as well as this generosity will certainly then overflow to others. You will not need to attempt to be type to others, you will just be kind since it is your nature.

I have actually additionally observed the several females have actually developed the habit of placing others' requirements ahead of their very own, as well as this further stifles sincere interaction and also healthy and balanced partnerships with the ones we love the most.

For example, the fastest method to develop pain and also bitterness in your life is to say yes when you indicate no. If a person asks you to do something as well as you state yes from a feeling of responsibility, or due to the fact that you don't intend to injure the various other person's sensations, after that you are not speaking your fact in that situation.

Being your real, genuine, Warrior Siren self indicates you could claim no from a place of love as opposed to claim yes from a place of fear.

Other, more facility, troubles could occur when we don't speak our truth. As an example, when you hold how you really feel within, you frequently finish up producing bitterness versus others as well as yourself. You obtain mad at yourself for not speaking your mind, or mad at others for not comprehending exactly how you really feel (neglecting that you never told them just how you really feel!).

In companies as well as household systems, this typically causes suspect, chatter, and also concern, and just what is commonly referred to as "dramatization." When these resentments towards others construct up, we occasionally take off in a ducting of feelings and judgment in an unconscious or punishing way. When this takes place, you are not talking from a location of love, yet instead from your injuries as well as hurt, often not realizing your component in the scenario, which was that you did not communicate how you actually felt in the first place. Intimate partnerships after that come to be hollow and also dissatisfying, and also your personal count on of self is reduced each time you do not talk exactly what you actually mean.

One note of caution: Speaking your reality does not suggest you always say every little thing you are believing. Warrior Goddess communication calls for discernment. We must be mindful not to utilize the method of speaking our fact as a reason to be cruel or hurtful.

Simply put, the spirit of discovering ways to speak your fact suggests you want to dig further into your very own heart and also your very own internal advice, and you agree to speak this reality also in scenarios where your listener may be uneasy with just what you have to say.

To find and maintain this balance, we should review and unweave any old contracts that we have around spoken interaction. Keep in mind that your destination is to experience openhearted, fluid interaction, as well as vivid expression, using your authentic needs as a guide.

When you first start speaking your fact it could really feel awkward, incorrect, as well as terrifying. Rather than feeling freed, you may originally experience a breakout of negative emotions such as fear and also shame. This results from the resistance of your belief system.

Do not expect to really feel excellent when you first speak up. Give yourself time to talk and clear out the emotions as well as beliefs that develop. Notice, without judgment: Was I able to keep my heart open? Exactly how do I really feel regarding myself now? Did I state precisely what I indicated to?

You might have to begin taking extremely little infant actions around speaking your reality. If a person asks you where you desire to consume for lunch, don't postpone to them as well as claim anywhere is great (unless of program, it is). Ask yourself, do I intend to eat Mexican or Italian? You might need to dig to discover exactly what your choices are if you have remained quiet and allow others make choices for you. Practicing talking your reality in these little instances prepares you to do so in the bigger, more tough kinds of conversations.

Find where you are worried of making boundaries, and also experiment. Be strong and method, technique, technique. Your objective is to be open as well as honest rather of closing down.

At the exact same time, remember to be gentle with on your own. Learning how to talk your fact is a long-lasting relationship. I still work to be genuine in my interaction. My 2 unfavorable routines around interaction are to be either a pleaser or a controller, so in interaction circumstances I consciously ask myself: Do I really suggest just what I will state? Is exactly what I am regarding to claim an effort to compel a details outcome?

I don't believe we ever before "master" the art of discovering to interact efficiently. We do get even more competent at experiencing ourselves as well as making new options. Maintain discovering exactly what you especially desire to connect as well as why.

When you release the old rules and behaviors that are no more serving your highest possible great, you naturally stop trying to be who you think you are expected to be, which enables you the space to be that you in fact are.

[scripttorture]

When creating torturer characters, does political party matter? They probably aren’t going to be discussing politics, but I’m curious about if you have any advice on how to handle that. Either how someone’s political party might encourage them or force them to think about torture differently. I realize this is broad. I hope it can be answered in some way.

Ithink that’s an interesting question and one that could definitelyuse further research.

I’mputting this answer together based on a sort of broad historicaloverview of cases where governments dominated by a particularpolitical party definitely had people tortured. This isn’t based onany statistical analysis or published papers. It’s me trying to puttogether an overall impression from the dozens of cases thissituation applies to.

Myinstinct is that political party doesmatter but not in the way you might think.

Isee a strong tendency in political discussions about torture to...tryand turn torture apologia into a left vs right issue. That is notbacked up by evidence.

Leftwing and right wing governments have both tortured and both supportedtorture.

Letme be clear that I am not talking about the ‘extreme’ ends here.I am not talking about dictators and invaders or people who believein torture as a matter of ‘principal’. I am talking aboutgovernments that are democratic and relatively moderate (or were fortheir time).

Aparty being left wing or right wing does not predict, in any way, itsattitude to torture. Or itsuse of it.

What’smore, so far as I can tell, left wing and right wing tortureapologists generally use the samearguments to justify torture.

Howeverpeople on the left and right seem to use different arguments whenopposingtorture.This is a general observation rather than a statistical analysis. Amore thorough analysis may refute this. But my general impression isthat right wing anti-torture activists are more likely to usereligious arguments and left wing anti-torture activists are morelikely to stress international law or the human rights act.

Ifeel like it’s important right now to stress that there have beenanti-torture activists on both sides of the political spectrum who’vemade important contributions to the global community.

Wedisagree over a lot of important things but treating torture as anissue on one political ‘side’ doesn’t help. Because eradicatingit (like eradicating slavery) will take concerted, cross-partypolitical will and effort.

Ithink that covers some of the assumptions that aren’t backed up byevidence but it doesn’t really back up my statement that party canstill matter.

Politicalparties can and do support policies that are likely to encouragetorture. Party members also sometimes use torture apologia as a wayof trying to garner support.

I’llgive some examples and talk about what I mean there but I think it’salso important to stress that ordinary individuals (and politicians)can sometimes respond to these tactics without being aware of whatthey’re encouraging. Not everyone is going to make a mental leapfrom ‘much longer detention time without charges’ to ‘possibilityof police torture being covered up’.

Somepeople willsupport apologist arguments and policies because, on some level, theysupport torture. But it’s perfectly possible to be ignorant of thelarger picture.

Someof the policies that encourage abuse are more obvious than others.

Puttinga lot of legal weight on confessions, allowing people to be detainedwithout access to legal assistance, detaining people for long periodswithout charge, overt differences in the law between differentcategories of people. (Not a complete list).

Butsome policies are more subtle. Eroding oversight for instance.Relaxing laws that protect workers. Encouraging police to prioritisecertain kinds of crime.

Idon’t think it’s necessarily about policies giving governmentgroups ‘too much power’. It’s power without oversight, withoutresponsibility, without consequences. Thatmore then anything else seems to be what encourages torture.

Ifeel like a couple of examples might be helpful.

SoJapan has an incredibly, scarily high conviction rate. Many of theseconvictions are based on confessions.

Likemany countries Japan tends to give lower sentences when peopleconfess. This is not particularly unusual.

However,suspects in Japan can be detained, without charge, for up to 23 dayswhile an investigation is still taking place. They can also bedetained repeatedly.This means that, with no evidence, someone can spend months indetention in Japan. So long as they’re briefly released andre-arrested after 23 days.

Thiscombination of features means there’s little to encourage police toactually investigate a crime. Torture and coercion end up beingencouraged by this kind of environment, whether that is the intentbehind the system or not.

Asanother example of how legal structures can result in abusivesituations let’s take a look at Singapore’s labour laws fordomestic service. (I’m picking this rather than Saudi, where I grewup, because Singapore is actually a less extreme example for thiskind of abusive structure).

Jobcontracts for maids in Singapore do not require them to be given daysoff. Technically there is the option for them to get 1-4 days off amonth but this is optional. There are no standard rights to overtimepay or limits on working hours. Until recently there was no minimumwage.

Toits credit Singapore has made a lot of progress tackling physicalabuse of maids. But they’ve done little to tackle the underlyinglegal structures that allow that abuse.

Neitherof these examples are recent changes to the law, they’reillustrations of an abusive status quo. A lot of people in both thesecountries support the system simply because it’s the way thingshave always been. Political parties might argue in favour of keepingthese systems by portraying changes to the detention system asundermining the police force or by portraying maids as doing the sameamount of work as everyone else yet asking for ‘extra’privileges.

Peoplewho support these policies don’t necessarily see themselves assupporting torture. They don’t necessarily mention torture orabuse. They may find the implication that they’re supporting abusehighly offensive.

Ithink that leaves the kind of rhetoric politicians can use toencourage and condone torture.

Someof this is rather obvious. The kind of broadcasts made in Rwanda inthe lead up to the genocide are not subtle about encouraging andcondoning violence.

Andsome of it, unfortunately, has broader appeal. For instance in thewake of some horrific, well publicised cases of rape and sexual abusein India some politicians said they believed men accused of rapeshould be tortured.

Inthe wake of well publicised crimes or a terrorist attack it’s notunusual for politicians to try and garner support by advocating a‘tougher’ stance on crime. Now obviously not allof these  suggestions support torture, either overtly or subtly. ButI’ve observed that when these conversations are happening on alarge scale across the political spectrum there is usually someonemaking the case ‘for’ torture.

Politiciansalso sometimes-

Inflametensions in a way that can lead to both attacks and torture incustody. This can be by dehumanising certain groups but it’s notalways so direct.

Oneof the examples that’s currently coming to mind is the uh- lobby tobuild a Hindu temple on the site of a historical mosque that wasdemolished. There was a mosque on the site for a considerable lengthof time and both Muslims and Hindus claim the site as sacred. Quite afew Indian politicians have taken sides in an attempt to gain votesfrom these religious communities. And the way some of them have goneabout this has certainly added to tensions between the communities.

Moreregularly politicians downplay the effects of torture or argueagainst the validity of particularly cases before they’ve gonethrough the courts. My impression is that this works in much the sameway as it does for accusations of sexual abuse.

Thelast thing I feel like I should mention is individual politicians’attitudes to the rule of law and things like the human rights act. Myobservation of politics in the UK since arriving has been thatpoliticians who routinely and regularly state opposition to humanrights are more likely to vote for policies which support torture. Isuspect the same holds true for individuals who feel that the lawshould only apply to certain kinds of people, or should only apply incertain circumstances.

Thatisn’t the same as saying the law is unjust or should be changed.Instead it’s the idea that the law should be selectivelyand unfairlyapplied that’s suspect.

PersonallyI believe that these factors seem to be more predictive of supportfor torture then broad political party. Though there have certainlybeen cases where political parties have selectively promoted peoplewho support torture and sideline or get rid of anti-tortureactivists.

Politicalparties and individual politicians influence our view of torture in anumber of different ways. Some are certainly intentional. Others arenot necessarily intentional.

Unlessyou’re writing a politically extreme group that is mostly made upof clear torture apologists- I’d caution against suggesting thattorture apologia is the sole realm of one particular party. Tortureapologists can be found in most political groups. As can people whoare firmly against torture. The proportions can change quite a bit.Parties can become worse or better through the concerted action (orsometimes inaction) of their members.

EssentiallyI would advise focusing on what politicians say and do over theirbroad political ‘side’ when you’re talking about torture.

Ihope that helps. :)

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Disclaimer

[the-truth-behind-redacted]

Dome’s Way Home

Dear Locket, Entry 5

While it's not exactly the most thrilling for me, it's now blatantly clear to me that there is more than the Sp-Tem(s) exist in this place. I also have reason to suspect that they are sentient on some level. Of course, the word I could be looking for is sapient but I have no way to check even if it is. The flashes of explosions break the field of vision and the calls of many different things echo above. It's very clear to me this is a war front and not some happenstance battle of two giant beasts. What worries me is that I'm slowly moving forward to that locations though it's angled off from my path.

However, the main fear I have about this is that war is an organized institution, or however you would describe it, and it requires some form of societal structure. I'm not saying it has to be advanced or even something like ours but a group with a unified reason to fight against another is near textbook war. This should go without saying that I am by no means at this point an expert of how things work here so for all I know this is a territory battle between two apex preditor groups that just because of the very alien way of these beings has caused me to confuse it for war. Hell, what the fuck do I know?

Way before I reached my current position where the battle is as clear as it is now, I decided to do a few other tests. The first one was just for documentation, however embarrassing it may have been, of testing sexual functions. I covered in either my first or second entry that many psychical functions don't affect me. This being the need for sleep, lack of fatigue, food and water, and the need for restrooms. Also, besides the auto weapon, no physical strain has been happening to me. This left one obvious bodily function that I needed to test while inside this undefined place.

To make a very uncomfortable story short, the answer is yes. I did feel an increase in body temperature during the progress as well as self-lubrication. Climax also happened with the excretion of climaxal fluid. Thought this was a humiliating process an interesting thing to note after is that I did feel a form of physical fatigue after climax. This, however, has made it clear that my bodily functions are still working, they just seem to be in a form of suspended animation until some very exact stimulus activates them. Why sexual stimulation is one of them, I don't know but it's very strange to me. That is to say, slightly more strange than literally everything else that's been going on.

Now on to the real reason why I'm writing this entry, I have found some semblance of a civilization in this deranged world. I call it a semblance because all that's left seems to be shattered domes that I can only guess served as some sort of shelter. This is built in the center of a mass of intersecting paths which only seems to suggest that these paths weren't built. They just seem to have been here beforehand. That would explain why these paths just stretch on endlessly without any seeming purpose or reason of existence.

There's something unspeakably horrific about this. It all seems so humanoid. Of course, it's not like any human structure I've seen but once more drawing back from old history, there was a group of people known as Esca-to. They were a group of nomadic people who lived in frigid temperature. I'm not quite sure how one would live in the cold without technology but they survived there for hundreds of thousands of years, supposedly. Then again, there wasn't a climate on Gee-Gerotous that could be considered cold. It is pretty temperate all over.

Anyways, the Esca-tos lived in the upper Northern Hemisphere of the planet Earth where it was mostly fridged. There was a lot of ice and snow that covered everything. Well, because of the climate in these areas, there weren't as many basic building resources. So instead of wood or clay, they used compactable snow. These igloos basic structure featured a dome of compacted snow with a relatively small crawl space for a person to get in.

Now, this information is the only common beliefe from what we have. Ancient historians disagree about much of this, especially the condition to why Igloos were the common form of housing, if they were even the common form of housing, if the Esca-tos were even the pioneers of this form of housing, and much more. Hell, there isn't even an agreement if the word Igloo was even used to refer to these housings. This is just the current working theory. It's hard to be 100% about anything if you don't have an active site to investigate, which brings me to this ruin (though I don't think snow would preserve well over thousands of years).

The site was massive, and I'm still quite impressed with how many different paths intersected in this one area to create as much space as it has. Many of the domes have caved in over time. In total there are 13 large domes and it's hard to tell how many smaller ones existed. It seems that before whatever was here simply abandoned this site, many of the smaller destroyed domes were piled together. Of the small domes that still exist there are about 15, only slightly more than the big ones. I guess the ones that weren't destroyed when they left are now the ones that caved over time.

It's important to mention that the terms small and big are absolutely relative terms to each other. I'm a decently sized woman, 5'8 (173cm), and the "crawl spaces" open up to well over my body size. If I was to estimate the size of the entire platform this was made on is about 5.5km*6km. The size kept within each of the large domes are larger than what most usual household sizes are from my world. Each large dome could house many families with enough space to segregate each family with walls to allow privacy. However, looking at some of the basic structures found in the domes that haven't completely collapsed suggest that they were used to only house one being.

The most intact large dome had only the entrance collapsed and some of the very center of the ceiling which fell into the housing. It took quite a while to move much of the mysterious crystal substance which seemed to compose everything in this world. Upon entering the first thing I saw was a bed structure. For the first time ever it was something that wasn't purple! Drape over a rectangular base was a golden "fur." Touching it wasn't comfortable at all. The fibers were like needles and I did puncture the tip of one of my fingers. If I die from an infection because of this, I'm going to be pissed. Well dead but I'm going to be pissed while I die that is if suffering doesn't consume me which it most likely will.

Carefully pulling it off saw what was underneath. The case was hollowed out and there was some kind of comforter. It was seamed together with a hardy pelt. It did bend and flow like a pillow but it wasn't quite as soft. I made a knife as a tool from my weapon, which only took a bit of focus, and cut it open. I pulled out what looked to like scales. Their color was a glistening velvet, green, and sea blue. They were surprisingly malleable. Each segment was lined and seamed together.  Honestly, it looks now a bit more like a sofa than a bed but it really doesn't share a similar look. Maybe if I flipped it but it's just a crystal flat surface. I don't understand its design.

I glanced around the room and much of the furniture was very much overside for me. Many of the chairs were like the oversized bar stools that go up to your waist. These were quite a bit larger, going up to my chest. I lifted myself up onto one and looked at the desk. There was an assortment of little nick-nacks. An object I recognized was an object to represents the physical property for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Known to us as the Casacal's Formation, named after the physicist from the group that uplifted our civilization to our current technological level, it has a set of objects evenly held together and lined up, in which one pulls one side of the formation letting it go and collide with a part that is resting which will cause the other end to launch out, pull back, and hit the resting part of the formation causing this to happen until one stops it or friction drags to a stop. Here, its called "Newton's cradle."

Another object was some weird singularity. Contained in a black tinted glass container, there is a swirling mass of energy that expands, contracts, and then condenses again in a flash of light before separating into two other masses of energy colliding and begin the cycle again. On the base on which the glass sphere containing the singularity it's labeled as "Matter Apperation Separation Cycle." It certainly doesn't seem to be scientific like Casacal's Formation as it didn't seem to be any kind of natural source causing the separation and recombination of the energy contained inside. There is also a warning on it saying to be careful when handling. I can only assume because the energy could cause massive damage if broken. I decided to put this in my bag in case I need a makeshift grenade.

There were three other objects on the desk. Two of the items seemed to be a computer. At least that what I think it is. Another object is a complicated assortment of in grove details, crystals that aren't purple (I'm sure God doesn't even know where the fuck those came from), and a broken set of what appears to be wires. Looking at what I would assume to be the computer tower, there's a massive empty section inside plus a bunch of other things that look like this world's tech. There's another object that looks like what I would think are fans. They are weird inserts with tubes running into them that have slits that air could pass through.

I don't know for sure but it all seems to be intact. All that appears to be damaged is what I would guess to be an internal power source. Near the possible internal power source and a possible computer tower is what could possibly be a monitor. It is really fucking big and very flat and has some kind of thin film screened over what reflects back as, what else, purple. I can see myself in its reflection and boy have I seen better days. This isn't important!

This old thing (I assume it's old) has really sparked my interest. Hopefully, somewhere around here there are instructions about this thing or at least manufacturing notes. Actually, wouldn't manufacturing notes be rarer than basic instructions of the product? Oh god, I'm beginning to treat this journal like it's a person that can answer my questions. I'm losing it. FUCK, focus you, dumb bitch. Alright, beyond the rest weird furniture that is around this place there doesn't seem to be anything else of interest. There are still quite a few other locations for me to check out. For now, I'll cut this and do another entry on the rest I find in the other caved in domes. I'll also check the crystal piles as well.

[fakesurprise]

Debriefing and Destressing

The prequel stories aren’t really post-cyberpunk; cybernetics exist and are used, but definitely inferiors to Other Things. Basically, cybernetics is now so cheap the rich refuse to use it. 

My boss has an office. No one else bothered with such things: you just reportrf over the Edos Array and conference that way. But Alder had an actual an actual room with chairs and a table he insists on sitting behind. I’d heard of him before he was assigned my handler, so I never bothered to protest. It’s a waste of time even by government standards, but there were far worse ways to waste time.

I entered to discover that he has altered things since my last visit; there was a replica fireplace against a wall with two comfy chairs beside it and a small side table between them. The table contained a bottle of alcohol and two glasses, both of which erre poured.

“Stevens. Please join me.”

I walked over and sat down. My system were too efficient for alcohol to do anything to me, and I barely taste it, but I had a sip anyway as the chair groaned a little. Even without the cumbersome battle suite I wore earlier, I had far too many implants to be light. “Sir. You wanted my report in person?”

“You did survive meeting Lady Tower. That is our official designation for her; she has enough aliases and use-names in the Array and Network proper that we just made up our own name over her preference for locations high above the cities of Edos. We know she uses a medchair and has some older cybernetics, the latter at odds with the kind of repairs and aid she has offered to others. There isn’t another private contractor on record in our nation who can successfully reactivate any soldier who has gone civilian. So, yes, in person.”

Alder is older, but he’d seemed to be about seventy for at least thirty years. I had no idea how old he actually was; I suspected far younger than many thought, and that the penchant for antiquities like a desk and office was just to throw people off their game. But I had no proof, and thankfully no need to look for it.

I sat my drink down. “August Zim is dead, which we suspected. Lady said others have survived, though not the extent of what she was able to recover for them. She did claim it would be almost impossible to do the same for me, which fits with the record of not lying about what she can do. She had a small lab in a tower in the north-delta sector. I marked the location in the briefing I sent earlier, though I imagine she’s long gone. She accepted the deal to travel to Elmith and let us know the outcome of her activities to date, but only as it relates to reactivation.”

“Curious. We did not expect it to be so easy.”

“It wasn’t. The battlesuit was destroyed, and I only survived because I tortured a boy.”

“That you left out of the report,” he said dryly.

“The boy was young, with an electromesh of military-grade quality both he and Lady Tower could use effectively. A shunt in his stomach for food, and difficulty breathing both pointing to damage from gasses. Also an artificial voicebox that was almost good enough to fool a decent asi. He also sold his eyes to her, and they were used as cameras. I am uncertain if that was another arrangement, but she did wish to preserve his life and refuses to leave Edos until she has finished making his voice work successfully.”

“The latter is unexpected.”

I nodded. “We knew she kept victims or veterans of the wars at her homes as servants and weapons, but not that she actually cared if they died. I am uncertain if she did or simply wanted the contract finished as a matter of professional pride.”

“Someone, ah, gifted with an electromesh would benefit more from having a stomach and other parts regrown than a shunt and artificial voicebox.”

“I thought so as well, so I looked into the issue. The mesh would interfere with growing new organs. Connecting them into it would be very expensive, and ensuring they could survive the mesh would mean testing that would drive the cost up to levels even the military would hesitate at paying out. The lack of a voice drastically limits interaction with an assistant, personal or otherwise, and the Array and technology in general. There are artificial voiceboxes and voice modulators that can work with an assistant, but this one also has to survive a mesh and controlling the mesh requires a very good assistant, hence the problem.”

“That is a complicated outlier, and one i imagine just selling your eyes does not pay for.” “I suspect she has taken it on as a challenge. I plan to return later today and see what is left of the Tower. If the boy has been left behind, he can at least explain some things.”

“And the Lady?”

“Did use a medchair, but had perfectly viable cybernetic legs, and an arm she pretended had latency issues it did not. I can only assume it is for matters of practicality, and helps attract people like the boy.”

“Ah. So that hey believe they are helping her, and she uses outlier cases to experiment on?”

I nodded. “It does seem likely, sir.” I had another sip of the drink because Alder was waiting for me to.

“And you felt there was no reason to terminate the target”

“Not in this case, no. I used a civilian battle suit, which was – limiting. I retain most of the enhanciles I had during the war; it reminded me of not having them. The Lady is hardly unique in what she offers, or the desperate veterans who want what they feel are their bodies back. To be rendered slower, with less senses, less awareness, less strength: to go from grace to a clunky body so expensive to maintain. It is a hard transition with so much of what was meant for war disabled.

“And even if they are activated somewhat, weapons run out and bodies require repairs. Ironically even more once those systems are active again. Over twenty enforcers were lost taking down  Li-owen a month ago, which led to this investigation. But if Li-owen had been left to just show off and be clever and not forced into battle with government forces –.” I shrugged. “A week. Two at tops before things broke that needed repairs that could not be afforded.”

“Which was what led to to the attack by Li-owen on the hospital and the resultant deaths, Stevens.”

“I am not saying Li-owen was in the right at all. Far from it. Some veterans cope just fine with civilian life and limits. Others do not, and some system must be in place for them.”

“Your mandate is purely investigative. But continue.”

“Let them retain enough to not feel – limited. And limit them to occupations that suit those skills. People would pay decent credit for cage fights, Anders.”

Anders took a slow sip of his drink. “There are many illegal ones, but making them legal would – lose that outlet for people.”

“Something like that might work. I don’t know. Do you need anything else?” “No.”

I nodded and left, heading two levels below to a gym. It was small, not quite military-quality. But the targets were solid and fast, and I spent a good half hour killing fake enemies and pushing myself. Reminding myself that I wasn’t limited, getting rid of how even my eyes had been less in the battle suit by shooting targets for a good five minutes.

I didn’t break anything, which should appeal to the psychbot assigned to me.

I put my weapons away, heading to a locker for a simple outfit and then back out into the city to check out what had become of the Tower.

Not needing to sleep had uses, but unfortunately I was exempt from overtime pay. Not that the pay mattered in this. We do what we must, and only after do we deal with it with.

I wasn’t intending to deal with anything I didn’t have to. The past wasn’t anything I was keen to embrace again. But that didn’t keep it in the past.

And the war cast shadows that nothing I did might ever erase.