#but remaining that way and having it be to the furthest extremes ultimately becomes more of a flaw than a charm

[witchingrey]

late thoughts about my favorite pink princess. warning, it is gently critical analysis of euphemia, since she’s one of my favorites, but also painfully lacking in screen time + development .

honestly, while i want to say euphie / euphy garners softening feelings by nature, c.c. i think would not coddle her like cornelia if in some really odd universe her plans coincided with her half-brother. which...we all know how that went. the princess is an angel but her flaw is in a sense...exactly that. her naivety / impulsiveness , and while this would be more okay if she wasn’t in a position of power? she is in a position of power. so c.c. naturally would be very blunt with her which really..could go either way. 

because life isn’t so ‘simple’ and frankly her going back to her good days with lelouch and nunnally is already ‘not possible’ due to lelouch’s choices since deciding their contract , the barbarism of the royal family manipulating / abandoning two orphaned children, and the power struggle for emperor / empress among its heirs. sadly, i don’t want to say euphy / euphie isn’t meant to be in this show...but in a sense she isn’t, because her outlook / state of being can’t survive, and while she’s capable of growth we were  robbed of? i feel honestly more like i’m watching a child than i am a teenage girl . more under the cut. again, gently critical. there isn’t a character in this franchise that isn’t someone i have critical thoughts about because i love this compiliation / franchise and when you love something you analyze it  like crazy.

she’s designated to be this way, and i wish so much more was done with her, since it seems like another ‘fridge the girl’ story but . . . her story is also a harsh example of someone who really needed to acquaintance herself far more ( and she tried! ) with what she set out to do because beginning the work of SAZ isn’t something you do in a few months, much less announce at a school. she should have continued her studies, she should have lived more years, she should have witnessed things more clearly - because i am far from hating euphemia in any capacity, she’s someone i adore, but i’ve watched her do the same impulsive actions over and over and realize that a lot of things she brings on herself, and this isn’t pitting c.c. vs euphy . i’m saying c.c. would be completely open to pointing this entire point out to her without fear.

there is nothing wrong with being innocent, pure, naive and but the writers ultimately paint euphy into a tragedy that cannot be undone instead of showing what i wish was more a rise and build of people all around her giving her solid criticism instead of coddling (cornelia) , omitting (darlton) , manipulation (schneizel). i won’t say anything about suzaku because i do believe while he genuinely loved her, and she truly loved him, that’s a realm that really hits the tragedy home because i think one of the best written things about her is her trying to understand japan through suzaku / their expeditions but not necessarily enough to make her a suitable viceroy, much less a sub-viceroy if we all actually followed the britannian system in the show.

instead euphy remains a solid, tragic ‘what if ‘ and ‘could have been’, never fully allowed to grow , see error, or be free of endless coddling and omitting of truths. combining all of this, her own shortcomings, the stage upon which everything is set, and lelouch’s entire ambition itself, and you ultimately lead to a very tragic, very nasty, almost inevitable end. basically she deserved better, yes, but also being the way she is did not help her and shows if its too far on one spectrum it can be potentially harmful and a set up for inevitable tragedy / destruction. 

[kinogane]

Essence of Combat, Part 2: Heat Action

(incidental Yakuza spoilers below)

(previously)

The second aspect of Yakuza action combat that stands out are Heat Actions. You build Heat, press the Heavy Attack button when you see the prompt, and

definitely commit not murder.

Yup.

They’ll be fine, folks.

Heat Actions are consistently the visual highlight of Yakuza action combat, with the cinematography and choreography focused in for a few seconds on your protagonist inflicting some unspeakable pain on some daft sap who thought that picking a fight was a good idea. The cartoonish hyperviolence of some Heat Actions are consistently cathartic, and watching an enormous chunk of enemy health vanish doesn’t hurt, either. And the series knows they’re highlights, as well. Not only do some games make performing Heat Actions a completion metric, there’s an entire Revelation mechanic in 3, 4, and 5 devoted to seeing wild situations and adapting them into new, creative Heat Actions you can use to definitely not permanently debilitate your foes.

In short, Heat Actions are a big deal. A big enough deal that it wouldn’t quite be a Yakuza game without them, and indeed, the first thing I was curious about when I learned that Like a Dragon would switch to turn-based combat was “How are they gonna do Heat Actions?”

The answer is Like a Dragon’s very own version of Heat Actions, Kiwami Actions.

And they're quite the successor.

A few hours into the game, Ichiban comes across a baseball bat stuck in the concrete, and upon pulling it out like a sword of legend, his overactive imagination takes center stage and starts coloring just about every conflict from that point on. Enemies transform into fanciful archetypes and caricatures, and the Kiwami Actions you start gradually getting access to are...

Well, just look at some of them.

Certainly, you can’t fault RGG Studio for seeing an opportunity to go unabashedly over the top and taking it. Like a Dragon is, after all, the game that took the aforementioned Yakuza eccentricities and pushed them to their furthest yet.

So really, this isn’t much more than the natural continuation of the trademark Yakuza bombast, applied toward Heat Actions with Ichiban’s particularly grandiose imagination. There really isn’t anything like them in Yakuza games past.

So why am I ultimately rather ambivalent toward Kiwami Actions?

Mechanically, Kiwami Actions take on a very different role in combat flow than Heat Actions, as a logical consequence of the combat system switch. For starters, Heat Actions tend to be spontaneous in nature. After building up Heat, you have a brief window to identify that a certain Heat Action is possible and then execute. Depending on the Heat Action, these windows can be quite short, so they can create on-the-fly decision making. I just knocked a whole group of idiots down with a throw and they’re going to get back up soon. Do I go for a Heat Action? Does their remaining health justify using that Heat? Or should I instead simply stomp for some quick damage and look for a weapon nearby?

Once you perform a Heat Action, your Heat will probably drain to the point where you can’t perform another one. Additionally, many Yakuza games offer benefits to retaining Heat while in combat and/or provide other ways to expend Heat for benefits like healing or better quickstepping, which means that there are situations where saving your Heat is a better call.

Another important wrinkle is that most games punish performing the same Heat Action by lowering the damage of subsequent repeats, which means that in longer fights against bosses, you have a strong incentive to look for and set up situations that let you hit a wide array of Heat Moves to drain the boss’s health quicker. So at the highest level, the core of Yakuza action combat is about alternating building and spending Heat in ways that will benefit you in a fight the most.

Kiwami Actions, meanwhile, are 1. uniformly almost always accessible when it’s your turn, 2. simply gated behind higher-than-average MP costs, and 3. do not have deteriorating repeated damage. Once you reach lategame, it does become feasible (and outright optimal) to spam Kiwami Actions (or one Kiwami Action) over and over again to deal as much damage per turn against enemies of higher caliber.

These are all trappings of turn-based combat and JRPGs especially, so they’re very much expected, but as replacements to Heat Actions, it’s a bit of a letdown? It’s just not possible in Like a Dragon to replicate the scramble of figuring out how to hit as many different Heat Actions as possible while trying to avoid getting hit. Instead, you just... pick it in a skill menu and it happens. Again, I recognize that’s just how it is with this kind of combat. I don’t think they should try to replicate that scramble, especially given how I feel about some of the positional battle mechanics in Like a Dragon, and I fully accept that I’m just not going to get that in future turn-based Yakuza games. But it’s an omission I felt during the entirety of my time with Like a Dragon.

Furthermore, on a more aesthetic level, Kiwami Actions weirdly lack the oomph of Heat Actions. Sure, they’re more bombastic and showy, but I find that the flair is often more detrimental than not.

For starters, every single Kiwami Action transports the attacker and the target to an alternate dimension where the attack plays out, then switches back onto the active battlefield. This is a practical necessity of not being able to guarantee that all battles take place in arenas where all Kiwami Actions can be depicted. In fact, if you pay close attention to Heat Actions in previous Yakuza games, they do the exact same thing, only instead of an entirely alternate dimension, the environment and actors are rearranged a bit as needed.

This pragmatic reality, alongside the simple fact that the increased flair and grandiosity means that the average Kiwami Action is considerably longer than the average Heat Action, means that Kiwami Actions are bigger interruptions of flow than Heat Actions. It’s a bit difficult for Kiwami Actions to have comparable impact when they’re very clearly situated away from battle and must have a longer build-up, climax, and follow-through, as opposed to Heat Actions which more easily appear to happen in the moment and are relatively quick peaks of action.

Also, if you look at the Kiwami Actions as a whole, they’re also sort of... all over the place and inconsistent in terms of showiness?

Like, take a look at Adachi’s moveset. The Kiwami Action he learns for reaching Detective Rank 28, Essence of Body Stacking, involves Adachi hitting two enemies on top of each other, then hitting them both down at once. It’s downright mundane. It could pass for a weapon Heat Action.

Meanwhile, the Kiwami Action he learns at Level 45, Essence of Hell’s Wheel, involves, uh,

You should really see it for yourself, if you haven’t.

If this was just one instance, it’d be a weird curiosity. Hell, you could even write this off as a higher level means a more outlandish Kiwami Action. That would be fine, but that’s just... not true? Contrast the above two with Han, whose Hitman Rank 28 Kiwami Action, Essence of Trick Shots, involves some Gun Kata-ass choreography,

while his Level 50 Kiwami Action, Essence of Assassin Dive, is...

a bunch of kicks.

What’s more, just about every Tag Team Kiwami Action is very low-key. In fact, besides Nanba’s and Zhao’s Tag Team Kiwami Actions, all of them could pass for Tag Team Heat Actions, which is completely fine and not a problem, were it not for these category of Kiwami Actions being a weird blind spot of mundanity in comparison to colossal pigeon swarms and spontaneous concerts. (They involve two people! Two people, both potentially able to do some wild shit! Am I to believe that Ichiban is just unable to come up with something suitably imaginitive?)

This isn’t to suggest that Heat Actions don’t have this spread, either. For every Heat Action where Kiryu or Saejima pick a dude up, jump five feet in the air, and drive the schmuck’s poor head straight into the concrete, there’s another where they just... kick a dude really hard. But I don’t have this problem with Heat Actions, so why the double standard?

Certainly, the mundane Heat Actions usually being faster helps a lot. It also helps when after you simply punch a dude on the ground he looks like, well,

yikes.

But two reasons in particularly really stand out to me. The first is that the gap between the most fantastic and most mundane Heat Actions isn’t all that large. Again, grabbing someone, leaping into the air, planting the top of their cranium right into the ground, and not killing them is very fantastical, but it’s just cartoonish and superhuman enough to be within the bounds of what you would expect of a Yakuza protagonist, so it’s not all that weird to see them do something as simple as slam someone against a wall headfirst. With Kiwami Actions, meanwhile, the gap between using your bat like nunchaku and spinning like an hypercharged Beyblade is considerably larger. The disparity becomes a lot stranger to think about.

The second is that even the more mundane Heat Actions can invoke a visceral reaction that the more mundane Kiwami Actions aren’t capable of. I’ve seen multiple people react to the Essence of Pliers Heat Actions, and the sheer discomfort they feel, every time, is extremely funny to me, every time.

Besides maybe Han’s Tag Team: Terrorizing Trample, none of the more simplistic Kiwami Actions come even remotely close to anything like Essence of Pliers.

And at the end of the day... I don’t think they even try to, or maybe even should.

I recognize that I’ve just spent a ludicrous number of words explaining in excruciating detail why I prefer Heat Actions over Kiwami Actions. And yes, absolutely, it’s ridiculous to compare seven games worth of Heat Actions to one game’s worth of Kiwami Actions. And yes, the tl;dr is that I prefer the moment-to-moment of the action combat over the moment-to-moment of the turn-based combat. It’s really that simple. Therefore, I prefer Heat Actions because they complement the action combat very well, more than I think the Kiwami Actions complement the turn-based combat. They’re just fundamentally different, and that’s... the point. It’s totally fine.

Believe it or not, I honestly didn’t spend almost any time wishing that Like a Dragon had action combat. Having achieved 100% completion for Like a Dragon, I’ve seen just about everything its turn-based combat has to offer, and I like it quite a bit. The stats are fun to raise, the weapons are fun to upgrade, and the skills are fun to use. Having to Perfect Guard attacks I’ve seen thrown my way for the whole game to have a chance at surviving in the True Final Millennium Tower is a satisfying postgame test of mastery. And for as much as I might seem down on them, yeah, the Kiwami Actions are fun to watch. You can pull out a human-sized grater and just go to town shredding some putz’s face, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that isn’t good stuff.

So why did I bother writing all of this, besides out of sheer boredom?

Well, I did say I didn’t spend almost any time wishing for action combat.

(continued)

[nyadversary]

asking since your harry potter post was really interesting and made me wonder - are there any magic systems you really like or think are well-constructed and consistent? what are the traits of a good magic system?

oh i definitely don’t feel qualified to make any broad statements about what makes a magic system Good, it depends so heavily on what kind of story you’re trying to tell. i do want to say more about why i think the magic system in HP is ultimately bad though, and i have at least one example of a system i like to compare it with. under cut

very very early on in the HP series — i’m talking about the first few chapters of book 1 — we get the impression that magical ability does symbolize something? like think about how the series opens. the first chapter of the first book follows vernon dursley, a man who lives an extremely mundane life, likes it that way, and is highly perturbed by anything unusual happening or by anyone who seems out of the ordinary. he’s, what, CEO of a drill company or something? some comically boring but well-paying job. petunia is a housewife who passes the time spying on the neighbors. their infant son is already being spoiled and treated more like a prized possession than a human being. and these people hate anything they think is weird, which of course includes anything to do with magic. the dursleys know for a fact magic is real and it pisses them off and they hate it. 

when harry is left at their doorstep, mcgonagall protests and says the dursleys could not possibly have less in common with magical people like them. either she or hagrid says something to the effect that the dursleys are the biggest muggles around, which stuck with me because it implies that magical ability lies on a spectrum and the dursleys, who are outright opposed to anything the slightest bit unusual, are the furthest from magical anybody can be. this implies all sorts of things about what magic could represent for the series going forward — creativity, rejection of social norms, etc. — and, since these people are harry’s only living blood relatives but he winds up finding community for the first time once meeting other witches and wizards, it appears to be setting up a found family theme. which all sounds perfectly good, and people will still cite this as being a theme of the books. the main problem with that is it isn’t the intended theme going forward at all. 

JKR’s weird obsession with blood lineage honestly needs to be unpacked in a whole other post and i don’t think i’m the guy to do it but... obviously as the series goes on, the importance of blood family gets underlined again and again. it turns out harry is being protected by some sort of sacred maternal blood magic (which is never explained) and this is why he has to live with the dursleys, people he hates and has nothing in common with. the fact that they’re his blood relatives trumps anything else. magical ability generally is passed down within families, and in the later books much time is spent going over various magical lineages (voldemort’s family, dumbledore’s family, sirius’ family, the malfoy family, the hogwarts founders and their descendants, etc...). any notions of magic symbolizing creativity is undermined by the lack of actual creativity in how the magic is presented going forward (like i said in the other post, it winds up serving mainly utilitarian functions in the story) and as for rejecting the status quo, the series embraces the status quo. the happy ending the characters work 7 books to achieve just has everything “returning to normal” — voldemort is killed and the remaining death eaters dealt with, the ministry gets a new PM, hogwarts gets a new headmaster, and things continue on as they were before. issues of systemic injustice are left unaddressed, the subplots about magical beings fighting for full personhood status (centaurs, merpeople, house elves, etc) are left unresolved, slytherin house is allowed to continue on as an institution and presumably many wizards are still just as bigoted towards muggle-borns as they always were, and — oh yeah — the idea that muggles are innately inferior somehow? never explained or addressed. the takeway is just that if you can’t do magic, you suck. it’s so disappointing. all the pieces are there for a way better story (hey guys i think there might be some systemic problems with your magic school and your magic government do you wanna try fixing that maybe?) but JKR was never gonna write that story because it’s one she doesn’t believe in.

to summarize how magic works in harry potter just so i can really make it clear how boring it is:

magic ability is innate and the vast majority of people lack it. with relatively few exceptions, the ability runs in families — it’s rare for someone without magical ancestry to have the ability and it’s also rare for someone with magical ancestry to not have the ability

with only a few exceptions, all wizards are able to learn all spells. some wizards are stated to be unusually powerful but how much of this is due to raw magical potential and how much comes down to other factors like education, general intelligence and ability/willingness to learn, desire to cause harm in the case of the unforgivables, etc is unclear. some magical abilities, like being able to speak parseltongue or being a metamorphmagus (or whatever the fuck shapeshifters are called in this series) or being a seer, are innate and can’t be learned by most wizards. like magic itself, whether or not you have any extra ability seems to be genetic (these are all traits we know run in families)

in order to perform magic, devices like wands, cauldrons, etc are used as instruments or vessels to direct the user’s innate powers. there is no summoning, channeling, or ritual use involved and spells typically only go wrong if the wizard in question is inexperienced or something is wrong with their wand. with very few exceptions (the main one i can think of is divination, which is handled very ambiguously and most of what trelawney teaches is implied to be complete crap), magic works in very predictable and straightforward ways

so it all boils down to “you’re either a wizard or you aren’t, and you almost certainly aren’t unless you come from a magic family, but if you are — good news! you have basically the same abilities as any other wizard. don’t worry there’s nothing even vaguely pagan involved.”

which, like. how utterly dull. there are so many other ways one can approach these issues and nearly all of them that i can think of / have seen done are more interesting than this:

you could have a magic system where magical ability is much more specialized. instead of all magic users being all capable of more or less the same stuff, let’s say person A, B, and C are all magic users but each has a unique magical ability (say A can fly, B can talk to animals, C can become invisible) and, while they might be able to develop their individual talents and become stronger, they can’t learn each other’s skills. charlie bone, which is a crap series overall but which i do think has a more interesting magic system, falls into this category, as does a lot of superhero stuff although it’s generally not called “magic” in those stories.

another, similar, approach would be to have more specialized branches of magic that characters train under — say pyromancy, necromancy, etc. — and so, while it might be possible for a water mage to learn a fire spell or two, characters have much more individualized skillsets. RPG magic tends to be this, obviously. harry potter kind of vaguely gestures in the direction of this trope in that the professors obviously specialize in their particular subjects, but it’s not as if snape doesn’t know charms or whatever — it doesn’t amount to much of anything in practice as all the adult characters are capable of performing a diverse range of spells.

how does one wind up with the ability to do magic in the first place? is it innate, and, if so, is it random or does it run in families? is it associated with any other traits? are there drawbacks to being a magic user? can non-magical people acquire the ability to do magic through some other means, and, if so, does this represent an irreversible change? are magic users really “human” or are they something more? are non-magic users lesser? is there any loss of humanity associated with magical ability? do magic users channel their own innate power or are they channeling something else — if so, is it a godlike entity, demonic, or does it defy moral classification? is there “good” magic and “bad” magic, and, if so, is the delineation clear? if these are different branches of magic, are they wholly distinct in how they work or is there overlap? etc, etc, etc.

ultimately i don’t think anyone should be worried about finding the most unique combination of these tropes, because they’ve literally all been done 10 billion times — if i started off listing popular examples of how these tropes are handled in other media pandemic will have ended before i’m done. what’s important is how writers choose to handle these questions when telling their story. like, what does magic mean to the characters? what does their use of magic say about them? what does magic symbolize? etc... these are opportunities for the story to have Themes and Meaning and impart something to its audience! tbh i think it really says something that the magic in harry potter is so ultimately unimportant to the story that people didn’t bother asking the usual questions about what magic itself / the magic system might symbolize... if you look at what rowling might actually be trying to say with any of that, well, it’s not good.

i guess to end off with an example i like. in the bartimaeus trilogy, which is an extremely good YA series and i highly recommend, magic ability isn’t innate at all. magic in this universe is all done via summoning “demons” (energy beings from another plane of existence basically) and binding them to one’s will, which as you might expect is very dangerous if you fuck it up and summoning is on such extreme levels of academic bullshit that you basically have to study your entire life to do it safely (learning dead languages, being able to draw elaborate pentacles with perfect accuracy, etc etc). in practice, this means magic is something only the ruling class does / can afford to do. anyone in any significant position of power is a wizard, while everyone else — the “commoners” — is a second-class citizen under the thumb of what are essentially superpowered politicians. while the fact that magic exists isn’t a secret, the majority of commoners have no idea how it actually works, that it’s really just summoning and anyone can learn it. they’re being encouraged to think of wizards as innately superior/gifted and to defer to them as their betters. yknow, Or Else. there’s much more i could say about this but it’d wind up being its own post and i’d probably have to just break down the entire plot of the trilogy, but i think from what i’ve said you get a sense of the themes / commentary here. 

this has run long but point being, magic systems Can be used to say something about the story and the characters and to make some sort of thematic point or provide social commentary perhaps, and i think it’s cool when they do. harry potter tries its best to avoid having the magic mean anything and when you do try and analyze what it means, you just get a story about how some people are just way better and cooler than others because of. uh. their blood. so rather than further unpacking that suitcase i say you could just throw it away and, as they say, read another book

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 389

CHANGE OR CHOICE: IS THE UNIVERSE AN ACCIDENT: Part 3

The most ubiquitous examples of orderliness in the universe are the stars. They represent an extreme departure from thermodynamic equilibrium because they burn brightly in a cold, dark space. The source of starlight is the nuclear furnace at the core of the star, where the chief nuclear reaction is the fusion of hydrogen to helium. This is a downhill process, leading to nuclei of greater stability, and the cost paid for achieving it is the redistribution of nuclear energy into the surrounding space in the form of heat and light. This particular orderliness, and with it most familiar examples of terrestrial organization, leads to the question: Is the present structure of the universe-which is made mainly of hydrogen and not helium or heavier elements-just luck, a coincidence? Because, if the universe were made of, say, iron (the most stable element) there would be no stars like the sun.

Also, the structure of our world depends vitally not only on the availability of free hydrogen, but also on the reasonably smooth distribution of the primeval matter. If the big bang had only coughed out black holes-the ultimate triumph of gravity-in which everything is completely obliterated and disappears, no life would have been possible.

Can all these peculiar ‘coincidences’ be understood in terms of some self-evolutionary mechanism?

In its standard form, the big bang theory assumes that all parts of the universe began expanding simultaneously. Observations confirmed this assumption and showed that the expansion is remarkably uniform in all directions. This would seem to imply a collaboration between widely separated regions of the cosmos to expand at the same rate everywhere. Such highly organized behaviour leads us to ask how all the different parts of the universe could synchronize the beginning of their expansion?

Where does the energy that makes the universe expand come from? What could be a permanent, decidedly nonzero source of energy in the universe, with cosmic consequences? Could it be vacuum-as the source of everything yet itself nothing? This is one of the hottest topics in contemporary physics and lies at the heart of perhaps the most important new concept in cosmology of the past decade. If it is correct, could the creation of being out of nothingness occur without the mediation of a Creator?

There are many such peculiar ‘coincidences’ in the universe. Is it just our luck that they have worked out that way, or is there a deeper explanation? One understanding would be that the world is the way it is because it is the creation of a Creator who wills it to be capable of fruitful process: His command, when He desires a thing, is to say to it ‘Be!’, and it is (Ya Sin, 36.82). Without an Organizer, chaos can never be transformed into cosmos. This explanation is not a temporary sop to satisfy our curiosity about phenomena for which we cannot yet work out a satisfactory physical explanation; rather, it is a step guiding us towards a better understanding of the real world.

That does not mean that these mysteries constitute a barrier beyond which science cannot pass. As in the past, we may reasonably expect that, in the future, deeper understanding will be achieved and a more profound pattern discerned at the basis of physical reality, in a new, perhaps new kind, of explanatory theory. It may be some version of supergravity or it may be the novel theory of ‘superstrings’. Or some other theory that we have not yet thought of.

However, we should bear in mind that both our growing knowledge about the universe, and the need, alongside it, to revise it continually, is clear evidence for the inconclusiveness of science and the limitation of its methods.

In addition, the finititude of man’s existence (in this very small part of a vast universe) and the limitations of his senses mean that all our efforts must be considered ‘relative.’ The results of pure and experimental sciences are a limited portion of reality as man can grasp it from his location in the universe and within the very limited time allotted to him, and not the truth itself. There is of course, a great difference between being aware of things and knowing their actual truth. The former is limited to sensible events only, while the latter lies beyond the capacity of our senses.

No inquiry into the nature of creation or any part of it can be closed and concluded. The patterns of God in creation are infinite: there will always be more of them to discover. As we strive to do so, understand more and more about nature, the scientist’s sense of wonder will not diminish but become sharper, more narrowly focused on the mysteries that still remain. The worth of science lies in its commitment to understanding the Divine handiwork. The comprehensibility of the reality around us is among the greatest of God’s favours to us. Einstein remarked this: ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’

The Qur’an contains many scientifically accurate statements, some of them still relevant to cosmology; it does not contain any statements which are in conflict with the findings of man’s scientific research nor open to criticism from modern science. Many of its verses allude to, and urge, reflection upon the reality around us as a form of worship, as a way to draw nearer to the Creator. I shall conclude by citing (in translation) a verse which draws our attention to the fact that, in a general sense, the future will be the age of knowledge and information, and that as a natural consequence of this, it will be an age of faith and belief:

Soon We shall show them Our signs on the furthest horizons, and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is truth. Is it not enough that your Lord witnesses all things? (Fussilat, 41.53)

[autumnblogs]

Day 18: Engineering our own misfortune

https://homestuck.com/story/2939

It never occurred to me until now that being betrayed by Jack Noir, the first person to accept him for who he is in a sense, is probably a signifcant part of the reason why Karkat is so angry. It’s probably ironic that the Blood Player’s relationships all have a tendency to disintegrate. Poor guy.

All but one of Karkat’s coplayers will either die, betray him, abandon him, or break up with him before the adventure is over.

More after the break. CW: This one has some suicide mentions in it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2950

WV and the other Carapacians may have some instinctive level of awareness of the players’ classes and aspects - while their legend is ensconced in Carapacian Lore, WV instantly senses the narrative presence of the Thief of Light.

https://homestuck.com/story/2960

Now here is something interesting. I just picked up on it, even though it has actually been present all throughout - when the Narrative addresses WV, it addresses him with information he almost certainly could not know - in a call and response fashion! While he’s jumping from one thought to another in terms of John’s different correspondents, the way that he phrases his dialogue suggests that he is aware of what the Narrative is addressing him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2962

And by all accounts, what he is viewing here is not the literal material events as they unfold, he’s literally looking at the same panels we are.

https://homestuck.com/story/2974

Vriska’s gloating here has always given me chills. It’s in moments like these that she really shines as not just a bully but an authentic diabolical mastermind who is, at least at this point in the story, utterly indifferent to the lives of other people.

https://homestuck.com/story/2975

Vriska’s external locus of control excuses her of feeling guilty about creating Bec Noir. While she is 100% responsible for it, that doesn’t mean, in her mind, that she should suffer any consequences for it (although she’s perfectly happy to take the credit for creating him, it seems.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2992

I’ve always thought that the Dream Bubbles were an extremely cool plot contrivance - semantically linking memories together with dreams and death is a really cool bit of linking.

https://homestuck.com/story/3008

Just as Jade has had effectively no parent to help her find her way in life, she will now have to suffer a sprite who cannot give her advice either. She remains alone.

https://homestuck.com/story/3010

Bec, to a greater degree than perhaps even the Seers, is directly cognizant of interruptions by Command Prompts.

https://homestuck.com/story/3017

I’m starting to be able to actually pick up the themes of the whole Exile plotline.

It seems, in general, to be a parable on power and authority, with each of the Exiles representing one kind or another. You’ve got WV who aspires to be first among equals, democratically elected, a community leader and organizer.

You’ve got the White Queen, who fits classical tropes related to the Good Monarch, a symbolic authority.

You’ve got the Peregrine Mendicant, whose take on governmental duty is more that of a functionary - her self-concept is as someone who does what is needed.

And then you’ve got the Aimless Renegade, who, as a Mad Max Type wasteland cop, could be read as either a playful parody of eighties and nineties copaganda, or as a criticism of copaganda, or both - government as the State, an enforcer of constructed order.

Of all of them, it’s clear that WV and PM’s takes on power are the most useful. The White King and Queen are quickly slaughtered once Jack arrives, because without their magical mcguffins, they remain little more than walking talking symbols.

AR is an interesting case though, because his defining character moment is that he hesitates to follow his orders, and while it could be argued that everything that ensues is his fault for not being stone cold enough to do what needs to be done, I’d argue that his hesitation is admirable - Jack escapes to live another day, and the Mayor survives. The Mayor’s infectious compassion ultimately saves his own life through the AR’s refusal to let him die by destroying the command stations in Cascade, because AR is not willing to trade lives.

https://homestuck.com/story/3040

I’ve never been entirely clear on whether the Dark Gods should be considered evil or simply incomprehensible, morally uncategorizable - in any case, the unique nature of the Kids’ session seems to preclude an ordinary relationship with them. By all accounts they also seem perfectly happy to help Rose create the Green Sun as well, sowing the seeds that will grow into Lord English, their own murderer.

Whatever they’re up to is extremely unclear, and they mostly seem to be a wildcard. I’ll have to see if any of my Homestuck chums have thoughts about the Horrorterrors. With the exception of the Dream Bubbles and their ability to facilitate interaction between the living and the Dead, talking to the Horrorterrors seems to be at best an exercise in facilitating inevitable misfortune - they seem to be all but completely useless.

I suppose learning how to navigate the furthest ring comes in handy exactly once, since it enables the kids to fly to the Alpha’s universe.

https://homestuck.com/story/3043

Rose’s pessimistic dissatisfaction manifests in two ways during this conversation - the first is her contemplation of self-destruction. Along with her suicide mission, one of the very first things she mentions about Doc Scratch is that he wants to die - which clearly fascinates her. The other thing is that, suspicious of the version of truth that Skaia presents, and lacking an anchor, she is very easily swayed by characters who offer her an alternative truth.

https://homestuck.com/story/3045

It has just occurred to me that while Rose doesn’t do anything directly to harm her co-players the way that Vriska does, the main actual thing that they have in common, that I was having a hard time putting my finger on, is actually another parallel between the two of them and Aradia - by allowing themselves to be manipulated by forces of evil beyond human comprehension - Doc Scratch in particular - Rose and Vriska both make manifest all sorts of misfortune. In Aradia’s case, it’s her continuous manipulation by the voices of the dead.

Both of them create nearly all of their own problems, and while they’re at it, create immense amounts of suffering from other people who happen to be in the vicinity. And, according to the rules of the Alpha Timeline, both of them therefore give their assent to their misfortune. The Alpha Timeline is, of course, the same as the Glub Glub trap - if you refuse to participate, you are destroyed, but participation is horrible.

https://homestuck.com/story/3055

Couple things.

The first and most obvious is;

Monkey see, Monkey do.

We’re starting to see the fallout of Vriska’s attempts to acculturate Tavros - she’s tried to force a square peg into a round hole, and has had no luck. Tavros doesn’t fit her vision of an ideal troll, and he never will; that’s not the kind of person that he is.

The use of the word hero is what’s important here. Notice especially the way that he draws a line from physical fitness and personal worth - the ability to do important things that you want to do has become Tavros’ idea of how to self-actualize. He has internalized Vriska’s toxic ideas.

The other thing is that while Grandpa may not have literally committed suicide, but he is clearly emotionally checked out of life - playing Indiana Jones when he’s away from home, and interacting with fantasy women at his tea party, instead of engaging with his real life granddaughter.

Suicide’s a touchy subject, one which Homestuck touches on. As I’ve already said, I’m not going to touch on the Epilogues or HS^2, both of which also touch on the subject. It’s not a central theme, I don’t think, although either killing themselves or waiting around to die recur multiple times as possibilities in the minds of different characters, particularly the Lalondes and Striders. I’ll have more to say about each individual instance, but in both the insincere threat of suicide Rose uses in her early strife, and here in Act 5, the act of self-destruction is not motivated by despair, but by spite - for Rose, self-destruction would be an act to spite someone else who wants her to exist.

Grandpa Harley’s complete emotional absence from the life of his loved ones might be called a bit of emotional suicide. Checked out of personal reality completely to pursue a life of fantasy (and to facilitate Sburb), Grandpa Harley may as well have been dead from Jade’s perspective, even before he died.

https://homestuck.com/story/3056

The link between being a Hero Coolguy and Romantic (Reproductive) Success is drawn very neatly by Tavros, but because the premise is false, the conclusion is also false.

https://homestuck.com/story/3059

Vriska immediately calls attention to the way Tavros is parroting her behavior because of her influence - without all of the chest-beating and saber-rattling that Vriska does, the skillfully executed showmanship of being aloof and confident, there’s not that much difference between what Tavros tried to pull just now, and what Vriska has always done - even repeating her romantic faux-pas.

https://homestuck.com/story/3078

And we’ll pause here, before I get to another walkaround, which I will do tomorrow.

Not a lot that inspired me to talk in the 150 or so pages I got today. Lots of action in Act 5, but less emotional meat to dig into.

For now, it’s Cam signing off, alive but not alone.

[anangelicday-mrwolf]

Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)

(previous chapter)

Chapter 47 – Frankenstein’s Ordeal

Frankenstein sighed, his entire form completely drained of energy, at last back to the one place he had been literally dying to return to.

The only thing he could pull off at the moment was leaning against the nearest table.

He could not remember the last time his fatigue has had so much weight upon him.

He has never been fond of drinking, and hangover has been the furthest experience for him ever since he became a modified human.

But now he could feel what an undergrad just days away from commencement would feel like until the date marked on calendar.

And he knew even if he refills his stomach with tonic, he will not be freed from his exhaustion.

He could personally and objectively see that the current amount and dosage of the tonic far surpass their original values.

The tonic being chemically crafty enough to be classified as a drug, his body was growing immune to it at a nightmarish rate.

And withdrawal and immunity are the most fundamental factors in diagnosing addiction.

As for mental withdrawal symptoms, Frankenstein could definitely check on the ‘yes’ box, for the tonic was the only thing he could think of on his way back.

Which was only one of several ways for him to discern how serious his condition was.

Which did not change the fact that the only choice he can make is to once again down the entire bowl of tonic.

Feeling exasperation seething from his every cell, Frankenstein wobbled towards the table at which he brews his tonic.

He could soon find the tonic, presenting him with both joy and bitterness, as well as two wolfsbane plants, now impeccably mummified under the lights. He failed to safekeep them before bolting out of the isle.

Despite the fact that they lost their life and shine mesmerizing enough to poke his nose with fragrance upon sight, the wolfsbanes still appeased his eyes with glamorous pink.

As glamorous and pink as her eyes.

Frankenstein scrunched his forehead, horrified by his own thoughts.

‘What are you saying, Frankenstein? Glamorous? Like her eyes?’

Nonsense.

‘Pull yourself together.’

That’s right.

Glamorous like Lunark’s eyes? Yeah, right.

The petals are all dry. They’re nothing like her eyes.

Her eyes are much starrier and much more beauti......

Bam!!!

Frankenstein shut down his brain process by pounding the table.

Now it was growing harder for him to keep the reins in his hand, attached to his heart and head, both of them waiting for opportunities whenever possible to roll away from his reasons and logics.

He rubbed his face with his hand as if he were trying to peel off his skin, his mind rewinding to what happened just before his departure from the werewolf realm.

*****

“Do you have a moment?”

“No, of course not.”

Frankenstein did not hesitate to fire his answer towards Muzaka who waved at him.

Muzaka complained about how Frankenstein was “going at it again,” which brought about quite an entertainment for the answerer. However, that was not the sole reason why Frankenstein worded his response as such.

Because whenever Muzaka requested a private one-on-one conversation, chances were only too good for the werewolf lord to fling at his face something extremely annoying and painful but unignorable.

“I’m not trying to dump another quest on you this time, so why don’t you give it a try?”

“Since you framed your words with ‘give-it-a-try,’ I’d say there’s no doubt it’s at least something I won’t be happy with.”

“Damn, this is exactly why I hate talking to smart guys. Whatever. I need a word with you.”

Muzaka checked his surroundings, his face no longer powdered with his usual grin, which made Frankenstein hold his tongue.

“It’s about Lunark.”

Which was made null by Muzaka’s following words.

“Why would you discuss with me about Lunark?”

“Because it’s you. I feel horrible and remorseful that I must talk to you about her behind her back, but... It turned out Lunark has feelings for you.”

Muzaka added just before Frankenstein was about to file a complaint, thereby ruthlessly flipping his senses upside down, which plummeted downward below the ground to ultimately plunge into invisible nether depth that colored his entire being with surreal, dreamy feelings with color coordinates labeled as “ecstasy.”

Feeling how his body is speared by ecstasy like rain washing over land suffering from years of drought, Frankenstein stood stupefied, and Muzaka crooked his bushy eyebrows in expression of surprise.

“You didn’t know? Didn’t think such a sharp guy like you wouldn’t have noticed it. Or are you those types of guys who tend to be oblivious when it comes to girls?”

He was not oblivious.

Lunark was too conspicuous with her feelings on several basis for him to remain oblivious.

Nevertheless, getting testament from someone else felt so new.

Frankenstein could only stay petrified with sensation he is not used to, and Muzaka could continue with the lead of the conversation, determined not to leave his listener stony.

“And that has become a problem for her recently.”

Frankenstein’s face, as smooth and blank as that of a porcelain doll, was sparked by unseeable flame.

It was not that he did not see this coming from Muzaka’s mouth, from the point he mentioned that Lunark “likes him” likes him.

He had already foreseen and lectured himself that there is no good for Lunark to love him.

Still, he was much more than unpleasant to hear such words from Muzaka, which was a nuisance and astonishment for him.

And the only thing he could do was to keep his lips sealed.

“Although I’m about to die from guilt to say this to you, let’s be frank and analytical here. You don’t think that striking up a relationship with Lunark at a time like this would bring any good, do you?”

Once again, Muzaka’s statement was nothing short of Frankenstein’s stance.

So the blonde man could not fathom just why his displeasure would grow thicker.

“Hmm, how should I put this...? Oh. You know that Lunark has been vetoing body modification, relying only on her natural strength, right?”

Frankenstein responded with a nod.

This time he was truly puzzled why Muzaka would bring up the reason why Lunark has been rejecting body modification, to none other than him, his history good enough to win him a title of the inception, the ancestor, and the guardian deity of human body modification.

“That’s who she was. Even before I got to sit in my throne for initial time, my kind has never been astray from the pathway towards power. And among children of my clan, Lunark always stood out from her peers. That’s why I couldn’t help but take note of her.”

Lunark as a child?

I’m sure she stood out, both in terms of competence and personality. After all, werewolves just love to pick a fight.

Frankenstein barely managed to retrack his mind back to its place, before a wave of curiosity lured him away.

“Even after she came of age, along with Kentas she was a block piece incompatible with the rest of our clan. She later told me that she and he were the only ones clean of body modification until Maduke’s death. Her identity as a werewolf and a warrior did not allow her to nurture her power with anything other than her personal work, she claimed. And it was partially because she did not want to put herself in equal to the human scum she so scorned.”

Muzaka stopped short to take a breath at the end of a not-so-short speech, and within a given second Frankenstein’s head whirred madly.

Though Muzaka did not mention anything related, Lunark told him during his past visit to awaken the gray-haired werewolf that she had a rough sense on what the wolfkind’s experiments were based on, which was why she denied any familiarization with body modification.

Their conversation back then did not take long, for Frankenstein was almost solely concerned with waking up Muzaka; nonetheless, a couple exchange was enough to show him how Lunark was awfully devoted to her kind.

How she had unwavering pride in her power, which was made oh-so-tangible by her answer to a question asking what she would do if she needs greater power in order to protect her people.

I’ll just have to get stronger. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. Or how much I must destroy myself. I’ll get stronger with my pure power. I will outshine myself and fly higher. And I will. I can gladly give up myself for the sake of my people.

It was an odd occasion for him, as he first touched on body modification and used himself as specimen for human welfare.

Now that he thought about it, perhaps that is when his eyes began to defy the automatic recalibration to their places once they are fixed on Lunark.

He remembered how he actually had to struggle to retrieve his eyes from her.

And once again he had to endeavor to recollect the flow of his thoughts from Lunark.

“And the girl developed her pristine passion for power into will and responsibility as a warrior. The fact that she served as Union elder cannot be excused, of course, but I can guarantee she is very committed to my kind. Anybody would be able to guarantee, werewolf or not.”

Frankenstein nodded in agreement, still clueless about the reason why Muzaka is sermonizing him about Lunark’s responsibility as a warrior.

“Now with Crombel a goner... Wait, no. Even before Crombel hit the road to the other world, Lunark has been carrying out her every word, action, and willpower with our kind as their heart. But her footsteps lately began to stray from such excellence.”

Muzaka went ahead to inform Frankenstein about the unknown cause behind Lunark’s sudden rampage (for which Frankenstein was one of the only two souls who knew so well why) that took place after he left, along with the fact that Lunark now starts whenever his name is brought up and gets lost in thoughts more often during mission, testified by the young werewolf warriors.

His mind thinning as he heard Muzaka, Frankenstein got to hear what he had been anticipating.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this to either of you, but I would like you to please not give Lunark any more hope. Play cold to her if you need to. She must not lose her sense and responsibility as a warrior because of her personal feelings. And certainly not during times like this. Don’t you agree?”

Frankenstein held his voice as he stared.

“Man, I had never thought I’d get to ask you a favor even more shameless than our secret deal. I owe you one again. I’ll do you a favor later on, as long as it’s something in my power.”

Frankenstein’s reply at the moment was very limited.

No, there was but a single reply he could opt for.

“...Very well.”

Frankenstein could not reassure Muzaka, but he ultimately ignored the tugs from his heart to dispense what Muzaka was seeking to hear.

*****

‘What took you back there, Frankenstein?’

He scolded himself, recalling how he could make a reply just before Muzaka retorted why he was not responsive.

The reality is that there is no reason at all for him to reciprocate Lunark’s feelings, based on a variety points of view.

He has so much more to discover until he lands on the hint to the secret behind Raizel’s resurrection; there is no room he could afford for romance.

And it is only logical for Lunark to abort her feelings if they hinder her with her duties.

Most importantly, he did not even want to imagine himself performing a bridge between Lunark and the cursed creation lurking within him.

That was when Frankenstein viciously gritted his teeth so hard it was a wonder they were still intact.

At the same time, he felt how his heart was heaving as if it were trying to shatter his ribs.

“...Shut up.”

He even had to mumble to himself in order to ignore the ache in his heart, much more biting than usual.

Now that his mind was redirected to the Dark Spear, he was reminded of how he did not chug the tonic yet.

With no reason to wait, he raised his shivering hands towards the flask, poised in waiting for his grip.

(next chapter)

Frankie noooo! Don’t drink it!!!!!

And now begins the highlight of the highlight chapters of this fic. It’s always a challenge to plot and compose battle scenes, but I shall do my best for the grande finale of my work! Wish me luck, and please stay tuned!

[theduskthrone]

Character Info: Kjalvor Hlin

…the Empire advanced into Nagxia. Although the realm was divided amongst several clans that were unable to muster a united resistance, imperial forces were at a disadvantage, as the local resistance took advantage of the dense jungle climes to frustrate the invaders’ movements and stage ambushes. It took nearly three whole years for Garlemald to subjugate the whole of Nagxia, ultimately by relying upon small, highly trained mobile units scouring the jungles until the last belligerents were brought to heel…

         – Encyclopedia Eorzea II

B I O

A faithful Rava of Golmore, Kjalvor was a huntress and tanner in her birth village of Hlin, deep within the jungle. She, like the others in her village, was a strict adherent of the Green Word. Though at the time viera were apostatizing from other, larger villages at alarming rates, those in Hlin still obeyed the Word with total vigilance– none entered the wood, and none left it. Though her profession dictated that she live on the furthest outskirts of the village, Kjalvor flourished there, whole with her people’s ancestral connection to the jungle.

Then the Garleans came. They had seen the airships in the distance, above the boughs, and they prepared to defend the wood as they always had– but the mens battalions that guarded the borders of the jungle came back with horrible casualties and tales of metal soldiers, and before long entire villages had accepted the call to arms to defend their homes, Kjalvor and the women of Hlin among them. The Garleans, though, had a seemingly endless supply of soldiers and machines, and after nearly three grueling years of conflict, the viera line was overcome and the forest was lost.

Though the Garleans had penetrated the sacred boundaries of the jungle, they seemed uninterested in its contents, preferring to move quickly through the jungle. Kjalvor and the beleaguered Rava forces followed them as far as the eastern border, but no further; they watched as the army they had fought for the last years faded away into some other conflict the Nagxian horizon. But, as they kept their vigil in defense against an army, the haggard Rava failed to notice the small, elite Garlean units returning to the jungle until it was too late. In retaliation for the Rava’s fierce resistance, the Garleans returned with a mission of genocide– eliminate every viera that dared try to defend her home, which by the holy Word was all of them.

Hlin, the tiny village deep within the wood that had never had trespassers reach their lands, fell easily, and by the time Kjalvor was released from the border and returned to her home, there was nothing– and no one– left.

The invasion was thirty years ago, now, and the long-lived Rava have been slow to recover from their incredible casualties. Hlin is but one of the villages devastated by the Garlean retaliation, and though strikes are now much less frequent than they had been, Garlean strike units still enter the forest to cull the Rava and prevent resistance.

Alone in what was once her village’s territory, Kjalvor has endured with the weight of her losses on her shoulders. She is the only one left to remember her village, her mother, her wife. In her solitude, she has come to rely even more heavily upon the Green Word and the connection to the wood it imparts– she has become keenly aware of the flow of energy through the jungle, the constant life and death and growth and decay, all creatures reflections of the single ancient soul that is the Wood– and she finds fulfillment, though not peace, in being that part of the wood that roots out disease and destroys the invader.

B A S I C S

Name: Kjalvor Hlin Age: 163 Nameday: 8th sun of the 2nd Umbral Species: Rava Viera Gender: Female, she/her/hers Orientation: Lesbian Profession: Ecologist-historian-soldier-witch

P H Y S I C A L   A S P E C T S

Hair: Dark brown, worn short and loose Eyes: Deep rose Skin: Dark brown, with the underside of her nose and her eyelids slightly pink Tattoos/scars: A gunblade scar from both the blade and the bullet at her waist, a bed of scar tissue where her shield meets her arm, various lesser scars

F A M I L Y

Parents:

Sefa - mother, deceased

Egill - father, deceased

Partner:

Ginnlaug - wife, deceased

S K I L L S

Abilities:

Kjalvor spent most of her life as a hunter and tanner, bringing down prey, preparing its hide, and cooperating with her village to use the rest of the animal. Not only does she have crafting knowledge, she has a superior understanding of animal anatomy and physiology.

A devoted keeper of the Green Word, Kjalvor is very much in tune with the faithful Rava’s connection to the wood, bordering on clairvoyance. She knows when someone enters her territory, and she knows if they’re part of the wood or an invader.

Kjalvor’s combat prowess is significant. She hunts primarily with the bow or with magic, but she is also formidable with a martial sword and shield.

A solitary jungle-dweller, Kjalvor has impeccable survival skills, with particular expertise in tracking and in natural remedies.

Having chosen to remain in her home territory rather than rejoin her people in one of the surviving villages, Kjalvor’s people skills have atrophied.

Hobbies:

Most of Kjalvor’s time is spent as a solitary ward of the jungle, and her most common pastime is nature-watching. She’s spent time watching most all of the species within their territory, learning the intricate ways in which they interact with each other and her environment. She has become extremely knowledgeable in jungle ecology. She is also fully responsible for providing her own food, clothing, and shelter.

Kjalvor’s calling, however, is as the last sentinel of her territory. She will remorselessly cut down any who enter without the wood’s blessing– Garlean or exile viera alike. She has honed her combat skills to allow her to ambush the Garlean’s typical small-group patrols, and has some limited expertise in destroying magitech; she doesn’t try to understand or examine the machines, only to know how to eliminate their threat.

Though hostile to any without connection to the wood, she is friendly and cooperative with native-born Rava who haven’t abandoned the wood. She isn’t often sought out, as she has little to offer the villages, but she is more than willing to provide what assistance she can to her kin, be it with medical, ecological, or combat issues.

As the last of her village, Kjalvor is responsible for seeing it be reclaimed by the wood. Though Rava villages are made with as little disruption to the wood as possible, the creation of a village or den unavoidably affects its immediate environment. Just as the Word directs the living to offer their dead back to the circle of life, Kjalvor is letting the plants and animals reclaim what were once viera’s homes and dens in the center of the village, and has dramatically reduced the size of her own home and tannery.

T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: Unwavering faith Worst Negative: Survivor’s guilt, shoot first ask questions never

L I K E S

Colors: White like mourning, yellow like eggshells, brown like soil Smells: Tannins, wet soil, sweat, rot, rich earth, rain Textures: Tree bark, rawhide and leather, rough stone, feathers

H A B I T S

Smokes: Little to none Drinks: As necessary Drugs: Medicinal

O O C   I N F O

Data Center: Crystal Server: Mateus Main Class: PLD Character Type: Alt

[romantichopelessly]

The Seven Chakras and Sanders Sides

(AKA I have a Theory and decided to share it against all of my instincts, so buckle up kiddos)

So, last week I was rewatching the second Cartoon Therapy episode, “What AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER Can Teach Us About Self Worth.” Theres a part in the video (47:33-48:02, if you would like to watch the segment) where Picani and Kai talk about embracing all parts of themselves and reference the seven chakras from ATLA while doing so. Now, when I was rewatching last week, I had to pause because I noticed a pattern with these seven chakras and how they sounded suspiciously like the Sanders Sides.

So, here I am to provide details as to how each one of the chakras, and what each chakra is blocked by could describe each of the five known sides and give us a bit of insight as to what the remaining unrevealed sides could be.

Before I get into which chakras align with which side, I'm going to clarify a few things that this theory sort of relies on. The groundwork before we can theorize.

1) There is no such thing as “dark” and “light” sides: We know from canon that the name “Dark Sides” is something that Roman made up. In “Can Lying Be Good?” Roman actually says so, saying “I made that name up, pretty cool, right?” Now while it could be said that the sides that we do not yet know about do have darker functions, as suggested by Virgil’s blatant fear/distrust of Deceit’s ‘friends’, overall it seems as if the distinction between the dark and light sides is arbitrary at best. As Deceit says in “Selfishness vs. Selflessness” he too is just ‘looking out for [Thomas]’. Each of the sides is a little bit gilded, with “good” and “bad” characteristics. They can all be gray characters at times. Like Patton said in “Accepting Anxiety Part 2″, Thomas listening too much to any one of them could be a bad thing.

2) Virgil was once what Roman would have considered a “dark side”: Now there are plenty better, more in depth analyses on this theory from others, so I won’t get too deep into the indicators of this (Virgil not rising up, how he was first perceived by the others, etc.) but it is obvious that Virgil did have to slowly gain his place among Patton, Roman and Logan, as directly seen in the “Accepting Anxiety” arc.

3) There are at least seven sides in total: Okay, I’m sure lots of people have picked up on this, but I’m going to explain my reasoning anyway. Firstly, there are many theories that each “dark side” is the direct counterpart of one of our other sides. Commonly, Deceit is seen as Patton’s “dark side”, so there must be “dark sides” for all of the other sides, right? Except, if we continue with the idea that the line between “dark” and “light” sides is arbitrary as best, that idea cannot really hold up. So, how do we know how many unrevealed sides there are? Well, we know for a fact that there has to be more than one. In “Accepting Anxiety Part 2″ Roman comments that Virgil is “nothing compared to the others” suggesting that there is more than one other unrevealed side at that point. However, since that was before Deceit was revealed, it could have been that Roman was referring to Deceit and one other side. But, then again, after Deceit was revealed in “Can Lying Be Good?” Thomas asks if there are any other sides that he does not yet know about, and Roman again says that there are, the “dark sides”. Emphasis on the plural nature of the misnomer. In “Selfishness vs. Selflessness” Virgil comments again that Thomas should never let Deceit or any of his “friends” to stick around again. This makes two times that it is suggested that there is more than one unknown side remaining to be revealed, meaning that at the very least there are seven sides total, which just so happens to line up perfectly with the number of chakras. (Also the number of colors in the rainbow, but that's not what this is about right now)

Now that we have the clarifications out of the way, lets break down each of these seven chakras and how each one of them (and what they are inhibited by) represents one of the sides.

Insight/Illusion and Logan

Logan taking the role of Thomas’s insight was a pretty obvious choice. Logic is insight into hard facts and direct choices of action. Logan is the character that often provides the “explanatory exposition” into any episode’s given conflict. He offers charts, facts, and lists--reasoning--to anything that he wishes to tell the other sides or Thomas.

However, Logan is severely hindered by his own illusions. I don’t mean illusions as in lies, like Deceit represents, but falsehoods. Logan is always the one to point out the other sides’ delusions, which is why ‘falsehood’ has become sort of a catchphrase for him. He’s quick to see through and pick apart illusions, whether it’s Deceit in Patton’s clothing or Patton telling himself that he is only Thomas’s happy feelings. But I think many of us have noticed that he is not so good at doing this when it comes to himself. Logan consistently denies having feelings, despite every piece of evidence to the contrary. Thomas (not character Thomas) even confirmed that Logan does actually have feelings, he just won’t admit it.

“Losing My Motivation”, the episode in which Logan’s name is revealed, revolves entirely around Logan and by extension, Thomas, fooling themselves into believing that productivity can be achieved at the very last minute. Logan himself is so thoroughly against the idea of procrastination that he can’t even see that he himself is at the root of the issue. Thomas says himself, “So many times I finish a project at four in the morning, my eyes tired, my brain exhausted, and I’m so proud of myself for doing so I develop this faulty logic that I can tackle all of my projects like that.” Thomas creates this illusion around his system of doing things that allows Logan to go on believing that he can’t possibly be the problem.

Truth/Lies and Deceit

This connection is pretty obvious. Deceit is lies. That is his function within Thomas.

(Now, I feel like I should explain my thoughts as to why Deceit is named after what blocks the chakra that he represents rather than the chakra itself. I think that the “dark sides” are named this way for one of two reasons. Either they exemplify the trait of what blocks the chakra more, or they are equal parts chakra and inhibitor as each of the other side, it just takes a bit longer to see their “light side”. Until they get accepted. But more on that later, with Virgil.)

The trickier part of this parallel is seeing how Deceit could in any way represent truth. Many elements of the Sanders Sides episodes suggest that Patton or Logan would better represent truth, but here’s the thing--there are different kinds of truth. Patton represents universal truths. The ultimate, completely boiled down, this is the raw, golden truth. The Moral Truth, if you will. Logan represents factual truths. Truths that have evidence to back them up. Empirical truths. Things that could be disproven if new evidence were to come up, but now, through judgement, experimentation and data, are considered true. Deceit is Thomas’s truth.

In “Selfishness vs. Selflessness” Deceit spends a lot of time trying to make his voice heard in the courtroom. A place that both Thomas and Patton consider to be “where the truth comes to hang out”. Deceit laughs at this because no, The Truth (i.e. Patton’s version of truth) is not what courts are based on. Courts and juries do not always rule based on the truest form of what occurred, rather, judges and juries make decisions based on what they perceive about a case, taking into account the motivations of all parties present. Similarly, Deceit makes it clear that he is not trying to vilify Thomas, he just knows his motivations and what he truly wants. He directly says, “The point is, Thomas is an unconscious egoist, and this dilemma is actually between something that serves him verses something else that serves him. Between looking feeling like a good friend and a dream come true. If Thomas wanted to be seen as a good friend more than he wanted the role of a lifetime, then I’m all for that, but I just don’t buy it.” He knows what Thomas really wants, deep down, even if, eventually, that isn’t what happens.

Love/Grief and Patton

Patton fitting with the love chakra was another obvious fit. He’s Thomas’s heart. Emotions. “He has a lot of love to give.” As Thomas said in “Fitting In.”

As for Patton being grief, this is also rather easy to see. Patton is not only Thomas’s good emotions, but his more tumultuous ones as well. This can easily be seen in both parts of the “Moving On” episodes, as well as in his part of the song in “Learning New Things About Ourselves”. Patton is directly affected by Thomas losing people close to him, and while he sometimes has trouble dealing with the sadder emotions like grief, he has to because he is the center of them. Patton is quite possibly the side that has come the furthest in embracing what could be seen as the two sides of himself and growing from it.

Willpower/Shame and Roman

When it came to Roman, I probably had the hardest time determining which chakra best represented him. I almost went with pleasure, but ultimately, I feel like willpower is the best parallel too Roman.

Roman is easily the most willful of the sides. He is Thomas’s passion, he’s a very emotional character, and he is extremely driven. He makes no secrets of the things he wants--from his own Crofter’s flavor to the role in Psycho Godfather Wars. Though his will has sort of weakened over time, Roman does always fight for what he wants. At the beginning of the series, that was often for Virgil to go away, but as the series has progressed, and more and more of the things that Roman wants become unattainable, we can see his willpower waver. When “Accepting Anxiety” takes place, we see Roman begin to question what he is putting his princely willpower behind. He notices his faults and begins to falter. Then, in the immediately following episodes, “Fitting In” and the “Moving On” episodes, Roman continues to question his decisions. Putting Virgil in Slytherin, trying to call Thomas’s ex, and then in the “12 Days of Christmas” episode, his creations are belittled, which is followed by him being used by Deceit in “Can Lying Be Good?” This is amplified by his later interactions with Logan in “Why Do We Get Out of Bed in the Morning?” and “Crofter’s: The Musical”. He is always the first one to apologize, despite both of them being shown as equally hardheaded throughout the series. I’m sure that there are plenty better, more thought out analyses on Roman’s changing character throughout the series, but essentially it boils down to Roman’s willpower dwindling piece by piece. As he becomes more and more shameful.

Roman has always exhibited a bit of Thomas’s shame, as shown in “My Negative Thinking” when he was out of the conversation because Thomas messed up an audition, or in “Accepting Anxiety Part 1″ when he is visibly upset by the state of Thomas’s hair on camera. However, Roman’s shameful side is best shown in “Selfishness vs. Selflessness.” Roman is downright ashamed to be associated with Deceit, even though he would rather go to the callback than the wedding. Every time one of the other sides suggests that Roman is siding with Deceit, Roman gets defensive. He sputters and stutters his way through excuses, denying it right up until Deceit directly calls him out for lying. He’s so ashamed of being possibly seen as selfish, or as the bad guy, that he goes as far as to tell Thomas to go to the wedding in the end.

Survival/Fear and Virgil

This is where it gets interesting. Virgil is Thomas’s Anxiety. His fears and worries. As mentioned in the Deceit explanation, the “dark sides” (which, again, is totally arbitrary) are named after the element that blocks their chakra. This name doesn't really mean much, though, because although anxiety and fear are seen as the negative traits, we all know that Virgil encompasses more and has grown from being seen as a “dark side” by Roman, Patton and Logan. In a better light, Virgil is Thomas’s fight or flight survival.

In “Accepting Anxiety” many of the upsides to Virgil as a side are discussed. The point that immediately comes to mind that links Virgil with survival instincts is the bit when Logan throws a laptop at Thomas’s head. Without Virgil, Thomas does not even react to it until it is too late. Without Virgil, Thomas is “Unalert and without his natural defensive reflexes.”

It isn’t until the positive points of his character that align with the survival chakra are pointed out that Virgil is accepted.

Pleasure/Guilt

Here is where we get to unrevealed sides. Since the unrevealed sides are considered “dark sides”, at least by Roman, we can deduce that under this theory they would be named after what blocks the chakra that they represent. Therefore, I believe that the next side revealed will have something to do with Guilt.

(Ok so I know I read a post somewhere where someone suggested Guilt as the next side, but for the life of me I cannot find it, so if you know the post or it was your post, send me a link and I’ll link it here.)

There are many instances throughout the series that Thomas experiences guilt. Not that the character of Thomas is a bad one, or really has concrete reasons to experience this guilt, but he does feel a lot, and sometimes that manifests in guilt. During the second “Moving On” episode, Patton says, “I feel guilty for still feeling this way after so long.” Thomas spends a lot of his time feeling guilty for his feelings, rather than using the nostalgic time in Patton’s room to revisit the pleasure of his memories with his ex, which explains why he would be more likely to have a side centered around the guilt aspect rather than pleasure.

The most overwhelming pieces of evidence for Guilt being a future side comes from “Selfishness vs. Selflessness”. This entire episode centers around, like Deceit said, two things that serve Thomas. Or, more simply, two things that give Thomas pleasure. Looking like a good friend or attending the callback. Since the video, a lot of posts have been circulating detailing why Thomas should have ended up going to the callback instead of the wedding, and although I do believe that a better conclusion could have been reached, I think that a lot of these posts leave out one important thing that is only discussed at the very end of the episode, between Patton and Thomas. Patton describes the reason why Thomas would ultimately feel better going to the wedding as his empathy, but it obviously is not just that, or Thomas would have never truly considered lying to his friends. Sure, he imagines himself in their place, but he could have spoken to them about the callback and arranged another solution. Instead, Thomas’s entire dilemma hinges on his guilt. Thomas would have felt guilty (probably far more than is healthy) if he had missed the wedding, even if he had told the truth to his friends beforehand. So much so that Virgil even sides with Deceit and declares Thomas guilty. The pleasure of going to the callback and possibly getting the role of a lifetime was not even enough to assuage the crushing guilt of going back on a promise and missing his friends’ big day.

Cosmic Energy/Earthly Attachments

For this last chakra, I admit that I do not have a concrete idea. The idea of “Earthly Attachments” is rather vague in ways that it could be applied to a new side. Greed? Gluttony? I can’t see Thomas having an entire side dedicated to either of those, but we’ll just have to wait for new episodes and evidence to appear...

I can't summerize this well enough to write a TLDR, but I do have some final closing statements. The Seven Chakras and the elements that block them have far too many parallels with the sides for me to see this as a coincidence. Heck, both Patton and Virgil’s arcs center around the elements that they encompass that have to do with what blocks the specific chakra I have connected them with. So, maybe Roman’s arc is coming, centering around his growing shame. Maybe Logan’s is next, diving deeper into the illusions he’s letting himself fall for. Or maybe our next side, one defined by Thomas’s Guilt, will be revealed.

Tags of people who expressed interest: @fanders-unite @lazyscouts y'all are great hope this wasn't a disappointment

[danganxastrologyimagines]

“ DR2 kids react to going out on a mission with their s/o that involves hilarious over the top disguises”

Hajime Hinata:

You noticed how sad he looked. You knew he wasn’t his usual self, but he insisted that he was doing just fine.

Being the lover you are, you didn’t believe him for a second, and you made up a mission where you would work with Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi to do a chase scene.

Basically, you would be the person that’s trying to chase down Kazuichi, who had a swimming cap on hiding his hair. Fuyuhiko would join in, managing to persuade Hajime to come out with you. He would say that he was on the other side to Kazuichi, cornering him effectively.

Hajime does come out with you to chase down Kazuichi, and Hajime hears you say all of these over-the-top statements.

“Stop right there, criminal scum!”

Where has he heard that?

He looks over, and he only just then realises that you’ve disguised yourself as a guard, and he’s slightly annoyed by this discovery.

He turns the corner to see Kazuichi, and he tackles down the boy before he could continue with the plan.

He realises that Fuyuhiko was there as well, and Fuyuhiko couldn’t hold back his laughter at how determined Hajime looked.

Hajime had a talk to you about what was putting him on edge.

Chiaki Nanami:

Chiaki wanted to go out on a date, but you knew that she didn’t pick the place herself.

You tried to get her to pick the place, but she insisted that anything is fine as long as it was with you.

So, you decided maybe it might be a cute idea to do lazer tag.

You played a sergeant. It would be a change of pace which could be interesting.

You noticed that she looked really happy when you took her in, insisting that the games were on you.

When she nodded off  at times, you woke her up by exaggerating all of your movements while going “Soldier down! Soldier down! Send in back-up!”

It was a really fun date!

Nagito Komaeda:

He’s originally agreed because he knew that he may be needed for some major bait, or at least some good luck to strike during the mission.

Then he notices the apprearance his s/o is going for, and he can’t help but smirk playfully as he crosses his arms.

I mean, you said you were going to go disguised as a detective to blend in but you came out in the most detective-esque outfit, equipped with a magnifying glass and an equally as obvious fake mustashe. 

He thought that maaybe you were just doing this to look weird but gain friends during the mission, but then you started coming out with all these comical lines that made you look more suspicious as a detective.

Making innuendos, over-emphasising every time you thought about something.

Sonia Nevermind:

You were going to a meeting with her as her partner, and you didn’t know how the other people would like you. You heard of how poncy they were, and you didn’t want to do anything outlandish for them.

So, you dress up in a proper suit, bowtie and everything, and you even added a monacle because you thought that would help.

During the meeting, you would act almost like a butler to Sonia. You grabbed a hand towel and draped this over your lower arm, walking like you had a stick up your arse.

Sonia couldn’t help but love this, but she knew how worried you were.

You even spoke differently. It was a good accent, don’t get Sonia wrong. It’s just that she knew that you weren’t doing this because you wanted to do it.

Kazuichi Souda:

You wanted to cheer Kazuichi up after an interaction with Miu that led him to believe that you were more interested in her than you were than him. Miu knew you weren’t interested in her, and she remained friendly even after you explained to her that your heart was with Kazuichi.

You went to talk to him, but he would run away before you could grab his hand to hold him back.

So, you had to go undercover. 

You disguise yourself as a judge for his mechanical talent, and he doesn’t recognise you.

Once you entered the room, Kazuichi felt nervous, and it wasn’t because you were with the judges. It was because of how stereotypical you looked for a judge. 

You stood out like a sore thumb, but thanks to Miu’s help you didn’t look like you.

You also introduced yourself with a name that was, to an extent, similar to yours. He noticed the initals of your name matching up, and he had a few worries.

You approached him, looking extremely serious. 

“We need to talk.” You put out to him. The other people there already put him in as worthy of his talent that year - you just had to ask them to go in with you to look like they had more to say.

You leave the room with Kazuichi, and you sit him down in the seat that’s furthest from the door.

“So,” Kazuichi said. “what can I do to prove myself to you?”

You didn’t say anything.

You pressed a button, deflating your disguise.

“I should be asking that question, sir.” You put out, still in character.

Kazuichi grunted, getting up to leave.

“Dude, let the bitch talk!” Miu (who was hiding in the room), placed a hand on his shoulder.

You have a talk as a group, and you leave the room reunited as a trio.

Akane Owari: (shoutout to Mod Kirumi for giving inspiration for this one!)

Akane was looking forward to going out on a date with you to a restaurant, but when she was told that your boss had called you wanting you to do extra hours for your day shift, she became sort of sad that you couldn’t spend the day with her.

You arrived at work, and you started to work.You feel someone applying pressure onto your shoulders, and you turned around to see your boss there.

It turns out that someone else was supposed to do more hours. Your boss only realised this once she checked your hours, only to find out you did a lot of hours - more so than what your contract stated for a week.

She lets you go, giving you pay for the hours you worked that day, and you wanted to surprise Akane by inviting her out to eat disguised as one of her good friends - Nekomaru.

You knew that they were both together for the day, and you decided to send him a text, asking if you could switch with him (while being disguised as him) to surprise Akane after explaining your situation.

He agrees to do so, and he leaves once he gets the notification that you were outside of the restaurant they were in. A couple of minutes later, you took his place.

You couldn’t quite nail his voice, though.

Akane’s face wrinkles up, sniffing something.

“Did you take s/o’s deodorant? You smell like them, coach!” Akane queried, placing her chin on her hand.

You pulled off the wig you had on, and she couldn’t help but start crying.

“You made it!” She embraced you in a hug, tears still coming out.

You laughed, pulling her in closer. You paid for the meal, and you made sure that she had a good day with you.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu:

Normally, he would shoot down this shit as soon as you started.

But today he noticed that you looked particularly focused, and he wanted to find out what was going on.

You never tell him, just pressing a finger to your lips before running away giggling.

He tilts his head in confusion, before turning to get to a meeting with other Yakuza leaders.

--

He arrives, and he spotted you.

Oh my god.

You seem to have taken advice from Kokichi as what you should wear, and you chose to embody him as well.

You wouldn’t stop cracking jokes during serious situations, and Fuyuhiko was growing increasingly worried for you. The looks the other clan leaders gave looked neutral, but they were trying to hide something.

He’s internally sceaming, but he really freaks out when one of the leaders wraps their arm around yours.

“Oh my god, you’re hilarious!”

Everyone bursted out laughing. 

Fuyuhiko was so confused by this development. How did you not get hurt when you were pulling this during an interview?

Fuyuhiko then thinks about the looks the clan leaders had, and he realised they knew who you were, and you must have somehow negotiated with them to piss him off.

He has a very stern chat with you.

Mikan Tsumiki:

You were beginning to get annoyed by how Mikan would take anything bad from patients, fellow nurses, doctors, receptionists - you name it!

She insisted on you not worrying about it, how it’s okay for them to treat her in the way she is treated.

So, you take an indirect approach to sort out the situation.

You pretended to be a health inspector. More specifically, they would be a hand-hygienist.

You entered the ward she worked in, going after everyone in the ward that wouldn’t wash their hands when they needed to. 

You would approach the person by obnoxiously gasping, causing everyone else in the room to turn around to see what happened. You would drag the person over to the nearest hand sanitiser dispenser, tutting at them as you did so.

You knew your Mikan never failed to wash her hands efficiently, so you didn’t need to worry about that.

Teruteru Hanumura:

You decided to convince him to let you become a server for his diner. 

He agreed. It doesn’t take him much convincing, and he’s not as sexual as you thought he would be about the whole thing. Sure, there was one implied comment but it was extremely tame for him.

You decided to be as tv stereotypical of a server as possible, and you have never had so much fun with it.

Every other server decided to do the antics you did, and you made so many friends and positive memories.

He enjoyed seeing how happy everyone was around you, and he even played along when serving up the plates for you to take off.

Peko Pekoyama: (in this one, the s/o is the ultimate escape artist!)

It was the day that she had to show her proof of improvement as the ultimate swordswoman, but the people looking at her portfolio didn’t see an improvement so they had to think quickly.

They knew about your relationship, and they decide to reach out to you. They knew you could escape any situation possible, and you sometimes watched Peko when she was doing her exercises to maintain her talent.

After a meeting, you had a scenario to live up to. You were supposed to be a new student, going by the ultimate of mafioso. You had a proper disguise and all!

You were in her room, waiting for her to return. She was never tested on something that was in the comfort of her own room.

When she spotted you, she dashed towards you, unsheathing her sword.

Your reflexes kicked in, and you attempt to escape. She knew about the tricks you tried to pull, and you knew about the tricks she tried to pull.

It lasted a really long time, and Peko was beginning to tire herself out. You had some marks on your forearms, but they weren’t deep enough to cause permanent scarring. 

Peko had to think of new ideas, and she improvised.

She swiped up the way, getting your face.

Your hat falls off, and her expression changed from one of determination to one of surprise.

“s-s/o!” She cried out, reaching for your face. “Why did you do this?”

You placed a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it before leaving. You had a bad feeling that this would affect Peko’s trust with you, but you were also glad that she was able to stay in hopes peak when you reported back to the institution.

Nekomaru Nidai:

Some of the people Nekomaru was coaching became significantly more lazy and stubborn after some of his overly optimistic comments, and you would see the glint of anger or sadness in his eyes. 

You couldn’t tell the difference.

You did an under-cover mission as a new student to Nekomaru, and he introduced you with all of the positivity he had in his mind.

You strolled over to your peers in the most obnixious manner, patting them on the back.

“Good thing I’m not with boring, lazy people!” You bellowed out.

Some of the people got really offended by that you said this, and they decided to try to gang up on you.

Oh hell no!

You flipped all of them over, much to Nekomaru’s (lowkey) approval.

He couldn’t help but smile at how effortless your flipping looked, and it also got the students to put in more energy again.

Ibuki Mioda:

You noticed how sad Ibuki appeared when she came back to your home one day. She insisted that she was doing fine, but there was something about her character that definitely didn’t seem like her.

You investigated yourself for a week, and you saw all of the messages people would directly give her. She didn’t care about the internet’s comment because of the fact that they were, really, faceless.

But in person, when reporters would make fun of Ibuki for not meeting society’s standards of singing, that’s what got to her. The reporters managed to jab at her insecurities, and it showed in her facial expression momentarily once she turned away from the cameras.

So, you decide to disguise yourself as a reporter yourself.

You would look like one of those bloggers on youtube, but your personality would almost match up to the reporters.

Almost.

You didn’t jab at her insecurities, you embraced her different personality and how she would manage to keep a strong personality through all of the comments.

When the sea of reporters came out, she didn’t originally recognise you.

Her eyes looked worried when you reached out for her, walking towards her.

“Miss Mioda! Miss Mioda!” You started screeching, taking a video of yourself with her as you started. “How does it feel to be the best of the best?”

Ibuki noticed your voice, and she brightens up.

“Ibuki thinks that this feels great!” She didn’t know exactly what to say, but she wanted to talk to her fans about being different through your video. “Being different is cool!” She giggled out, pinching your cheeks.

Byakuya Twogami:

You made it a competition. He accepted the challenge.

So now, you’re pretending to be him as he’s pretending to be you.

He’s struggling to get some parts of your character because of his love towards you. You managed to get him flutered when he tried to imitate you.

You made it worse by managing to get his interpretation of Byakuya perfectly. You acted like you had a job to do, you acted really serious etc.

He’s refusing to accept that you bet him, but you keep doing it every single time.

Mahiru Kozumi:

There were times that Mahiru would scrap pictures because they didn’t have the zing she thought they did.

You decided to dress up as an artist, one that looked like they were extremely serious.

You entered her room when she was there with the pictures she threw in the bin out of disappointment.

“Doll, where did you get these?” You started in your accent. “These are revolutionary!”

You then listed everything you loved about the pictures, more enthusiastic with every line you projected into the room.

“Honey, you’re evolutionary!” You finished, pulling Mahiru into a ressuring side-hug.

Gundham Tanaka:

Honestly, he’ll love it if he’s involved. 

He enjoys being able to play along with an over-the-top character as long as it fits his own ideals though, so you have to be slightly more strategic with him.

So, you land up doing a mission involving animals. You guys volunteered at the local vet to work for the day, and you decided to bring a personality Gundham didn’t quite expect.

You came as his admirer. What I mean by this is that you almost acted as his second-up, and you spoke like you were part of an organisation when you were chatting with other staff.

Gundham copes with this by playing up his character more, but internally he’s still so...surprised?

Like what was that? Why that character? 

aLSO WHY ARE YOU WEARING AN OUTFIT THAT MADE YOU LOOK LIKE YOU JUST LIKED FLUFFY THINGS?

Hiyoko Saonji:

You got real tired of how overly strict her parents became. 

It got to the point where they didn’t allow Hiyoko to go on dates anymore because she was supposedly not doing as well as she should be doing.

So, you decide to disguise yourself as a judge. 

You almost looked like an extremely strict business man, it honestly worried Hiyoko when she entered the stage front and saw you there.

She relaxes after she realises that it’s you, happy that you wouldn’t leave her because of her parents being dicks about the relationship.

As she’s dancing, you feel the eyes of her parents boring into the back of your head. You knew they didn’t know you were still dating Hiyoko, and you honestly thought that they were thinking it was you.

They didnt.

When you gave raving critiques, pointing out everything that was perfect, Hiyoko noticed how...dissappointed? surprised? What was that emotion? Regret?

You stand up to give her the award, and when you turned, the parents saw your face but thought nothing of it. 

You were glad that they were showing a new expression, one that didn’t literally say “we are so angry at you for not doing well.”

[arcanalogue]

So an odd thing happened to me several times now and i do not believe in coincidences. When i have asked the cards a question, i had a certain card in my mind that could answer it. I haven’t thought about, but it was more like an intuitive answer: it just popped out in my mind. When i have picked the card, the exact same card i have thought about came out! What can it mean??

The Querent goes on to write: “I even asked the cards one time what card could describe them the best and The Hermit came in my mind and when i picked the card it was The Hermit… it’s odd, my significator card is 8 Strength and they chose to be 9 The Hermit… Anyway this thing happened to basic spreads too. Many times… Thank you so for your time and knowledge!“

[I keep forgetting there’s a character limit on inbox questions. If you need more space to ask your question, email me at arcanalogue@gmail.com, I’ll make sure the whole thing gets posted!]

Hi Querent! Congrats on discovering your very own Spooky Tarot Mystery! I’m glad to hear you are vibing with your deck to this extent. 

First and foremost, what it means is that your practice has evolved. When we’re first setting out, we encounter all kinds of readings and card-drawings that seem strangely loaded, and we rarely have an inkling of what they mean – or can be certain they mean anything at all. 

As one’s practice advances, their relationship with the cards becomes more like… well, any relationship, really! There is a kind of dance to it, in which you’re reaching out into the unknown in order to have these conversations, and sometimes you can feel something reaching back. 

But what is it? And can we trust it? Is it safe? Is it real, or are we like Narcissus, being seduced by our own reflection?

Questions like these are why I tend to describe the source as divined wisdom as “the unknown,” instead of attributing it to a specific entity or deity. People are welcome to draw their own conclusions, but as a teacher I think this is the most responsible answer, as well as the most honest. 

I’ll never forget my own first Spooky Tarot Mystery, though I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say I did the same thing you did: I reached out to a tarot teacher/practitioner whose opinion I trusted and asked whether they thought it meant anything significant. 

The answer I got was a bit more gruff, along the lines of “Don’t be silly, that’s preposterous!” At the time I found the vehemence of that response sort of hilariously inappropriate, but I have to admit that it broke the spell of mystery that had been winding me in its tentacles, and allowed me to laugh at myself.

And that brings me to the other part of my answer: past a certain level of attainment in the Spooky Arts, you have to continually include these kinds checks and balances. You need to be able to remain sensitive enough to vibe with the spooky and numinous, but you also have to be able to stand outside that experience and appreciate how absurd and potentially meaningless it is to anyone but us.

This is how we maintain our tether to the human world, planting our flag at the crossroads of intersecting realities, keeping ourselves accessible to others walking the same path. As readers, I think this it’s extremely important to protect this faculty of our wisdom. 

It’s not just for others – the secrets you uncover as a mystical explorer give you all the tools and incentive you need to crawl MILES up your own ass, perhaps never to return. With alarming speed, everything you read, see, feel, or think begins to seem like THE ULTIMATE TRUTH manifesting before you, pointing toward an ultimate reality, a purity of practice, as well as one true understanding of the universe. 

I can’t tell you how many magicians, artists, witches, and religious types I’ve watched this happen to. Some of them drift back down to earth eventually, especially in the face of hardships resulting from these delusions, which can be indistinguishable from (or aggravated by) mental illness. Others need their attainments be real SO BADLY that they just never come back down, and they end up surrounding themselves with the kind of folks who’ll buy into them unquestioningly, usually in exchange for mutual support in their own preposterous delusions. 

I try to stay clear of judgment in such cases. This is just one kind of path humans tread, one kind of story, but it’s not the one for me, and I’d prefer not to encourage these tendencies in others. 

There may come a time in your life when you can dwell with the numinous 24/7, when that umbilicus anchoring you to Earth finally snaps and falls away on its own. As a teacher, I don’t think anything good can come from hastening that process, and it’s problematic that we end up aggrandizing those whose awareness sets them the furthest apart from earthly consensual reality, who can no longer meaningfully connect with others. 

Because you have to be able to connect with someone in order to serve them, otherwise you just end up expecting everyone to serve you.  

This is why holy people occupy the top and the bottom of that spectrum I created a while back that helps gauge the usefulness of uncanny advice. Everyone wants to find the fastest, most authentic, most direct path to this level of attainment, to harness these powers (or at least appear to) as early in life as possible. Their reasons may be completely altruistic: they want to alleviate suffering, help others find peace, cure themselves of dysfunction, face death with no fears. Or perhaps they feel like an outsider in this world, and are looking for a sense of peace and acceptance in the vast unknown.

Well, the unknown isn’t an inherently dangerous place, but nor is it inherently safe. So when you’re exploring the back-alleys of your own consciousness, or cultivating practices that help you peek behind the veil that hangs between worlds, you have to build in the kinds of protections and fail-safes that keep you from falling further down the rabbit-hole than you’re altogether ready for. 

Along the way, we are thrown nuggets that really do serve a purpose for others, as well as ourselves. The fact that The Hermit came up in a question asking the deck about its own nature is fascinating to me, Querent. I’m glad that spark of wisdom managed to leap all the way over to me, by way of your question. 

There’s a fascinating precedent for asking the oracle questions about itself. Carl Jung once famously performed an I Ching reading asking the oracle to reveal itself to him in a similar way, and the reply was really interesting  – it’s included in the edition of the I Ching that he wrote an introduction for). 

The Hermit embodies the very idea of lifelong spiritual practice, in a way that underscores the importance of sharing wisdom, leaving markers for other aspirants to follow – “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

That quote from the Book of Matthew kicks off the chapter about The Hermit in a book called Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism. The author (who published the book anonymously) has this to say about our lantern-swinging hero:  

“For it is the venerable and mysterious Hermit who was master of the most intimate and most cherished dreams of my youth, as moreover he is the master of dreams for all youth in every country, who are enamoured by the call to seek the narrow gate and the hard way to the Divine.”

Everything the Hermit symbolizes, we work toward in our relationship with the cards. We pursue the unknown, and wherever we find ourselves, we put up a lantern that lets others know how far we made it. Thus, even the most dedicated Hermit never becomes absorbed enough in his own Spooky Mysteries to become truly solipsistic. Nor does he mistake his tiny light for that of The Sun. He is simply one data point – one Hermit out of many, all of whom set out on their own journeys, reaching vastly different conclusions. 

Ultimately, your mind is the only tool you have to work with, Querent. By engaging with the unknown, you sharpen it. Whatever you do with that keen edge remains entirely up to you – no one else can help you tend it… or protect you from it. 

Meanwhile, whatever sparks may be struck in the process of that sharpening, I hope you’ll keep sharing them with querents of your own, and with the rest of us. 

Thanks for your question!

Have a tarot reading request or tarot-related question for Arcanalogue? Ask here. Tips accepted (but not required) via Venmo, @arcanalogue. Or support my Patreon? I’d love that.

[littlebitwriter]

My TOY STORY 4: The Toy Story film Pixar would never make!

My Toy Story 4 isn’t for the kids. I’m taking it to a different place. It’s the Logan of the Toy Story franchise. The tone is true to the original trilogy but more adult. It’s like Logan meets Sausage Party meets Cabin in The Woods. It’d be a Toy Story film that would be a comedy horror film or black comedy. Going to places you would never think Toy Story or any Pixar film would go.

The bio of my Toy Story 4 is ‘Toy Story 4 is an upcoming American 3D computer-animated ‘black comedy’ film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the fourth installment in Pixar's Toy Story series, and the sequel to Toy Story 3 (2010). It is the first Pixar film to receive an R-rating. In my mind it would be the highest-grossing R-rated animated film probably of all time.

It is the finale to the franchise. If a kid who was around seven in 1995 watched and loved the first Toy Story then grew up falling in love with film and genre fiction that kid would be around thirty now. This is a film for the kids that grew up with the first two Toy Story films and cried their eyes out during the third but doing a completely different type of movie that ultimately shows why you shouldn’t have continued the franchise.

Since Pixar is just a extremely collaborative company they’d need like a writer’s room for Toy Story 4 with Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us), Drew Goddard (Cabin in The Woods, Bad Times At The El Royale), Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3), Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) and of course Pixar masters John Lassetter and Andrew Stanton. Even though it is my idea I wouldn’t ever put myself in the writer’s room for a film of such anticipation of Toy Story 4. I think this is a group of writers alongside the Pixar genius of John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton that could 100% do this film justice.

I may not be super in-depth and very vague about the film but I hope it makes sense. It probably is really bad. I’m sorry, I’m young and dumb.

The idea in terms of story is quite a bit like what the team behind Toy Story 4 is actually going to be doing. This would be a Toy Story film with a feel that’s the mix of Little Miss Sunshine and Logan with a lot of dark satirical ideas about society, a lot of plot twist and story turns, that you would never expect. It would be the craziest, darkest, and scariest Pixar film yet but also one that could go toe to toe with many arthouse indie pictures for a ‘Best Picture’ nomination at the Oscars.

The film is set ten years after Toy Story 3 and the toys are at a dumpster. At the beginning of the film you don’t know how the toys got there but they are all completely torn up and nearly destroyed, this dumpster is almost treated like a post-apocalyptic wasteland/underworld for toys. There’s the toys at the dumpster and then on the quest to find this treasure that could save everything. It’s them going across the world on this road trip and there’s this villainous character called ‘The Mad Toy Doctor’ who knows of a toy’s sentience and knows of them as living beings trying to go after this treasure as well. Throughout the film a lot happens but by the end the toys of course win but there’s a heartfelt emotional ending. That ends with a Sopranos-esque ‘Cut to Black’ with instead of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ it’s You Gotta Friend in Me.

Each character individually is going through their own thing going on, Many of the other toys are still around Woody, Buzz, Bo-Peep, Jessie, Slinky, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Rex, Barbie, the little one eyed green aliens, and all of Bonnie’s toys from Toy Story 3 are dead and their remains are seen across this dumpster, throughout the film not at all really acknowledged.

WOODY: The film opens with Woody giving a voice over narration in the film and setting the tone for the movie. Particularly with an f-bomb. Then later you get a look at Woody’s eye and you can see it has fallen off and he makes use of an eye patch looking almost like John Wayne from 1969’s True Grit. Woody feels as if he’s failed all of the toys his friends. Throughout the film he’s on this quest of redemption and for a treasure he and the toys are looking for. Woody is viewing himself as the hero this western spaghetti western cowboy who will do the hard things to save the day. Buzz reminds him that he’s just a toy. Woody doesn’t know how to handle everything and dealing with the fact that to Andy and to Bonnie he thought of himself as more than a toy almost like a father figure of some kind weirdly enough. So Woody would have an arc throughout the film and in the end make a sacrifice to save his friends alongside Buzz.

BUZZ LIGHTYEAR: Buzz Lightyear has become completely unconfident and has become the furthest opposite of everything he thought he was in the first Toy Story film. Where he thought he was a space ranger instead he’s going through this existential crisis. Eventually he and Buzz make the ultimate sacrifice.

Jesse: She is dealing with the death of Bullseye and she is in a relationship with Buzz Lightyear. She is very depressed throughout the film.

Barbie: Dealing with the death of Ken and in a secret relationship with Mister Potato Head.

Mister Potato Head: Cheats on his wife and has an affair with Barbie and feels guilty ever since Mrs. Potato Head’s passing and commits suicide.

Bo-Peep: Bo-Peep has still never come back but there’s this dark twist that the Mad Toy Doctor is using Bo-Peep as a way to get to the toys. She was tortured and killed by the Mad Toy Doctor.

Rex: Rex is personally my favorite character in Toy Story, there is a scene where I kill him off and it’s really sad.

Slinky: He gets broken and tortured by the Mad Toy Doctor.

The Mad Toy Doctor: The villainous character. He calls himself a ‘doctor’ and creates new villainous toys that he sets out to kill the Toy Story gang. The villain is almost like Sid from the first Toy Story and Donny from Ted. However he is an old, old man He sets out to make the toy sentience to the public but by the end of the film is sent to a mental institution. The voice actor of this character in my mind would be Tim Curry. He would be the scariest villain in any animated film. He’d be the guy if all the pixar movies were connected that Carl Fredrickson from UP would punch in the face. The toys he creates are his own Buzz Lightyear, a G.I. Joe/Snake Eyes eseque toy named Jon, a Transformers looking toy who goes by the name of Morpher. He’s like the Superman villain Toyman almost. He is also in love with this old lady who is his wife who is really a baby doll he aged up.

Yeah it would be a yucky, freaky but hopefully funny Toy Story movie. There’s no humor in this post that I wrote but there 100% would be a lot of humor and heart in the film. It would be a true Toy Story film deconstructing all the classic tropes. However the film would be a lot better than what I have written here particularly with the writers I would love to see behind it. It’s a film that I would want from the franchise and could potentially be a real game changer for Pixar. Making not just a good kids movie but a legitimately good movie.

This may be terrible idea but I thought people would be interested :) I hope everyone has a lovely day! It’s just my weird dream Toy Story fanfiction. Very underdeveloped. Hopefully you enjoyed it.

LittleBitWriter

1/27/19

[dipulb3]

January 6 fallout: Congress stalls on probe

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/january-6-fallout-congress-stalls-on-probe/

January 6 fallout: Congress stalls on probe

In a meeting earlier this month to discuss the task force’s recommendations, McCarthy blasted Honoré in front of his team, rebuking them for meeting via Zoom when Pelosi had an in-person meeting and accusing the task force of working to deliver on Pelosi’s wishes. McCarthy also read aloud some of Honoré’s past tweets, which were critical of Republicans. Honoré said he wrote the tweets before he knew he would get the key security assignment, according to sources familiar with the matter.

“He called him out in front of everyone,” said one House Republican, who asked not to be named to discuss the private exchange between McCarthy and Blodgett.

The clashes underline a breakdown in bipartisan cooperation and what sources describe as a poisonous atmosphere in the House over how to secure the Capitol and respond to the failures of the January 6 insurrection. Talks about forming an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate the riot have stalled, and Democratic sources tell Appradab that they are preparing for the issue to drag out — potentially for months — until they get bipartisan support, which will be needed in order for legislation to create the investigatory body to be cleared by the Senate and become law.

Things have gotten so bad, even passing a bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Capitol Police became mired in partisan fighting.

Republicans are deeply skeptical over Pelosi’s plans to push ahead with a sweeping probe and are wary it will focus heavily on former President Donald Trump and his role in inciting the attack. Instead, they have insisted the investigation look into an array of incidents beyond the January 6 riot, including the violence that occurred during protests of police brutality last year, a request Democrats view as a smokescreen designed to avoid scrutiny of the actions of Trump and several of GOP colleagues who egged on the pro-Trump crowd on the day of the deadly attack.

Democrats say their House GOP colleagues have no grounds to complain after a majority of them voted to overturn the electoral results of two states — even after the rioters stormed the Capitol to stop congressional certification of Joe Biden’s win, leaving death and destruction in their wake.

After an initial flurry of hearings on the attack, the next steps for the congressional investigations into the January 6 failures appear to be murkier. Multiple House committees are conducting a joint probe into the attack, which remains ongoing and appears wide in scope. A congressional aide said more briefings on the attack and domestic terrorism are in the works and the committees continue to receive documents.

The Senate Homeland Security committee investigation appears to be the furthest along in either chamber, as aides say the panel intends to move forward with a months-long look focused on the delayed National Guard response and intelligence sharing breakdowns leading up to the insurrection.

‘I wouldn’t be interested’

Pelosi this week has reiterated her desire for an outside commission to examine the January 6 attack, saying that the commission should “get to the truth of how the January 6 assault happened” and that it should be bipartisan.

“It is essential that we proceed in a bipartisan way in order to have a respected outcome,” Pelosi wrote.

When Pelosi initially unveiled her plans for a commission last month, Democrats were optimistic it would quickly get adopted. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he hoped the House would vote on the commission this month, a scenario that seems all but impossible now with discussions at a standstill.

But there are still lingering disputes over the partisan makeup of the commission and what it should investigate — including the role Trump played — that threaten to stymie any kind of bipartisan agreement.

On Tuesday, McCarthy told reporters that House leaders are stalled on negotiations over how to formulate the independent commission.

“Based on what she offered and what she’s said before, I wouldn’t be interested” McCarthy said.

Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, said Pelosi’s proposal suggested she was “not serious about it.”

“And if she was, she would be negotiating whether or not to have a partisan bent on it, or one that even the 9/11 Commission chair and vice chair said, this commission should be a very bipartisan one like that,’ Davis told Appradab. “You can’t call what she proposed a 9/11-style commission. It’s not even close.”

But Democrats say it’s Republicans who are playing games over the matter to avoid a full accounting of the role that Trump — and some of their members — played in spreading lies about the election results.

Several hurdles with commission

The issues with creating the commission are twofold: the partisan makeup of the commission membership and what it should investigate.

Pelosi’s draft proposal would include seven Democratic appointees to four GOP members, with House and Senate leaders each selecting two members and the White House appointing two and the chair. McCarthy reiterated Tuesday that he would not settle for anything less than an even split.

But the bigger hang-up is the scope of what the commission would investigate and whether it should examine Trump’s role leading up to the attack, as well as the rise in domestic extremism among the groups that took part in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6.

Pelosi told Appradab Wednesday that the dispute over the commission’s membership was “incidental,” suggesting she’s open to a more equitable balance between the two parties.

“The problem is the scope — are we going to seek the truth?” she said.

Republicans have countered by arguing that the commission should also investigate the violence and rioting that occurred last year surrounding protests of police brutality.

At his press conference Thursday, McCarthy again criticized Honoré and said that the commission must have equal membership and not begin with any established findings.

“If you start with the premise that you only want it one-sided, you understand what the outcome is going to be,” McCarthy said.

Last month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed Pelosi’s proposed commission draft, accusing her of setting up a “cherry-picked” investigation that would investigate domestic extremism beyond January 6 but not violence surrounding protests of police brutality.

“We could do something narrow that looks at the Capitol or we could potentially do something broader to analyze the full scope of political violence here in our country,” McConnell said. “We cannot land at some artificial politicized halfway point.”

McConnell’s opposition is significant, because Senate Republicans could have veto power over legislation to create the commission if they filibustered it.

Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, who co-introduced legislation on what a commission to investigate January 6 would look like, told Appradab on Wednesday that she has spoken with Pelosi about the need for the commission to be bipartisan.

“I have been pushing for, as far as those talks, for it to be bipartisan” Sherrill said. “Because I think it’s critically important if we’re doing this, that the American people have faith in the results from it and I think the only way for this to be seen as a trustworthy enterprise by much of the population is if it is a fully bipartisan commission.”

Still, a lengthy delay before creating a commission to examine January 6 would not be out of precedent with the 9/11 Commission. While Democrats have urged the quick creation of an independent commission to work alongside the various ongoing congressional investigations, the 9/11 Commission was not enacted until more than a year after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

There was resistance inside the George W. Bush White House and in Congress to create the commission, which was ultimately signed into law in November 2002 amid a push from families of the victims for an independent, full accounting of the terrorist attacks.

Bipartisan anger toward extended Capitol security

There is one area where bipartisan agreement has emerged: The security situation at the Capitol needs to change.

Lawmakers in both parties have expressed frustration over the continued security situation at the Capitol, issuing bipartisan statements criticizing an extension of the National Guard deployment and the razor-wire fencing enclosing the Capitol complex when there wasn’t a clear threat to still to the Capitol.

Lawmakers say the lack of information from Capitol Police about the rationale behind its decision to keep up fencing and extend the Guard deployment has added to the frustration surrounding the response to the January 6 attacks.

Last week, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, met with Honoré, Capitol Police and security officials. A committee aide said at the meeting, “No one could or would provide clear intelligence necessitating the extension of the National Guard.”

Later that week, Rogers and House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat, issued a joint statement calling for the drawdown of National Guard troops, the first bipartisan call for change to the planned extension.

This week, the acting House Sergeant at Arms announced a change, telling lawmakers some fencing would begin coming down and the National Guard presence would be reduced in the coming weeks.

Appradab’s Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.

[wsmith215]

Family separation returns under cover of the coronavirus

Jose walks with his children, who were recently released from a government shelter where they had been held for more than two months. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Dad lives about 10 miles from the White House, stringing together gardening jobs, not letting the kids touch him when he gets home for fear of contagion.

Mom lives in a makeshift refugee camp on the border in Matamoros, Mexico, one of the world’s most dangerous cities, rationing soap.

Three of the children — ages 10, 14, and 16 — just joined their father, Jose, after winning release from a government shelter where they had been held for more than two months. Now, they have deportation orders hanging over their heads.

U.S. officials are fighting in court to take the three children and deport them to El Salvador — to no one. The only way to avoid being separated from their parents, officials say, would be for their mother in Mexico to give up, too. Government lawyers said they’d put her on a plane with the kids if she agreed to return to El Salvador and never again try to join her husband in the U.S.

This is the new family separation, two years after taking kids from their parents at the border blew up into a crisis for the Trump administration. Citing the coronavirus to seal the border to an unprecedented extent, the administration is engaged in a pressure campaign against immigrant parents to get them to give up either their kids or their legal claims to protection in the U.S.

Scores of migrant families across the country are being targeted, according to court documents and more than 20 officials, judges, lawyers and migrants. Many spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing their legal cases.

The fates of many of them may hinge on Jose’s family’s case, which has become a test of the administration’s latest policies to bar migrant kids and families, said Claudia Cubas, the litigation director for the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, and Jose’s lawyer.

With Jose’s family’s case the furthest along in the courts, “this is either going to make it or break it for people,” she said.

Administration officials deny that they are deliberately trying to separate families.

Story continues

“Consistent with President Trump’s June 20, 2018, executive order, it is the policy of the administration to maintain family unity,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement.

The statement came after ICE officials this month presented the roughly 180 parents in its custody with the choice of separating from their children or remaining indefinitely detained with them, according to government filings in court and legal service providers. Several hundred more unaccompanied children have been united with a sponsor in the U.S., like Jose’s children, but remain at risk. ICE declined to say how many have final removal orders.

Advocates argue that unaccompanied minors are entitled to receive immigration hearings under U.S. law. Government attorneys maintain that many of the children had a hearing under the administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy after they first arrived at the border and still face deportation, even if that has the effect of dividing them from their parents. The Remain in Mexico policy requires people seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico throughout their court hearings.

“There has been due process afforded to those minor children,” one administration lawyer said in a May hearing for Jose’s family, citing the previous proceedings.

Bridget Cambria, a lawyer with the Aldea People’s Justice Center in Pennsylvania, represents detained parents who testified that ICE officials pressured them to separate from their children, rejected the claim that the government’s actions constitute due process.

“Whatever you want to call it,” said Cambria. “It’s asking mothers and fathers to give up their kids.”

Attorney Claudia Cubas talks to Jose and his children in April, shortly after they were released from a government shelter. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Jose’s three daughters — ages 16, 14, and 11 — are about as tall as he is. The 10-year-old boy doesn’t leave his father’s side.

In less than a year, the two oldest girls and their little brother have gone from safe-houses in El Salvador to a tent on the Rio Grande to a government shelter, and now to a home in a Washington suburb with a green lawn, a bicycle and a driveway.

Jose mostly speaks for them. He still doesn’t feel safe, even in the U.S.: MS-13, the gang in El Salvador that told his wife they’d kill the kids if she didn’t tell where he was, has offshoots in Maryland.

“There’s still this sadness in them,” Jose said of his children. “The biggest change that I’ve seen is that now that we’re here, it’s like they can breathe again.”

In El Salvador, Jose was a street preacher. The gangs ordered him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He met his wife, who also proselytized, at their evangelical church. MS-13 had killed her first husband, the two eldest girls’ biological father, in 2006.

Jose fled first, thinking the threats to the family would lessen if he were gone. He crossed the border with his youngest daughter in Laredo, Texas, just short of one year ago. The decision to come separately — they couldn’t afford to bring everyone at one time — has splintered the family in the U.S. immigration system.

Jose told U.S. officials at the border that he was afraid of persecution in El Salvador and was allowed to go to Maryland, where he has a brother and close friend.

By the time Jose’s wife and the three other kids arrived at the border about three months later, the Trump administration had imposed its Remain in Mexico policy across the entire southern border, dramatically changing the rules. Officials turned the four back to Matamoros.

In January, an immigration judge in Texas denied their asylum claims. Jose’s wife believed the judge said she could not appeal without a lawyer.

In roughly four months in Matamoros, the kids had “suffered physical and sexual assault; endured illness, extreme temperatures, and malnutrition,” according to a legal filing. Ten days after the judge ruled, Jose and his wife decided she should take the children to the bridge and send them across the border on their own.

Many parents have chosen to take that chance rather than risk keeping their children in the refugee camps along the border. Of some 65,000 migrants subject to Remain in Mexico, at least 1,114 have been kidnapped, raped or assaulted in Mexico, including children, according to Human Rights First. Of asylum seekers subject to the policy, fewer than 1% have ultimately been granted relief.

On Jan. 17, the three children turned themselves in to U.S. officials at the port of entry between Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas, and were designated as unaccompanied minors, affording them special protections under the law, including a hearing before an immigration judge.

As soon as officials located Jose, he applied for custody. But the reunification stalled when the government discovered the kids had prior removal orders dating from the ruling against them and their mother in January.

Cubas and the children’s legal team sued for their release in March. The case has moved through the immigration system and federal court.

For already traumatized children, Cubas said, “it’s been an emotional roller coaster.”

In the little boy’s legal declaration — in El Salvador, the family moved so much to hide from the gangs that he never learned to read and can hardly write — he says he doesn’t really remember what happened after they crossed into the U.S. “because I’m little.”

“I miss my mom I don’t know what is happening to her,” he said. “I don’t want to return to Mexico because it is a bad place and in El Salvador the gangs are after us.”

Jose’s wife, seen in April, is stuck in a makeshift refugee camp on the border in Matamoros, Mexico. She faces dim prospects for reuniting with her family. (Javier Escalante / Los Angeles Times)

Their mother now lives alone in a blue-tarp tent in Matamoros.

“It’s just me left here,” she said in an interview last month.

The camp, which exploded in size with Remain in Mexico, has no cleaning materials or private bathrooms. Many people bathe in the muddy Rio Grande, where her three kids once saw a dead body floating. Sickness is rampant.

Public health advocates and experts have warned that a coronavirus outbreak in the migrant camps along the border would be devastating.

The mother is not so worried for her kids anymore, now that they’re in Maryland with Jose. She says she talks to them every day.

The legal battle over the children has left Jose trying to play the part of both parents amid a pandemic. He takes as many precautions as he can.

“I have to provide for them,” he said, “but then I’m exposing myself.”

He’s even more worried for his wife in Mexico. So long as they’re apart, he said, “I have this gap in my heart.”

A young migrant named Stephanie, 10, near the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

On May 8, lawyers for the government submitted a proposal for Jose’s family:

If the children agreed to “their expeditious and immediate repatriation to El Salvador” and withdrew their suits against the government, and if their mother presented herself at the border, ICE would deport them together to El Salvador, “thus, ensuring that Plaintiffs remain in the care of a parent.”

But, they warned in a footnote, should Jose’s wife try to pursue her immigration case, they could send the kids to El Salvador alone.

“To be removed with her children, Plaintiffs’ mother would have to immediately elect an expeditious reunification and joint repatriation with her children,” they wrote, “and choose to forego further action.”

They are far from the only family to be presented with such a choice; a very similar case involving two sisters, 8 and 11, unfolded recently in Texas.

The girls crossed the border by themselves after their father was mugged in Matamoros, where they’d been required to stay under the administration’s policy after seeking asylum last September. Their mother, who entered the U.S. on an existing tourist visa and is also applying for asylum, is in Houston. Thirty minutes before the girls were due to be reunited with her, ICE moved to deport them to El Salvador.

After lawyers filed suit, the girls were released to their mother. ICE has agreed not to deport them until a decision by the immigration appeals court — but they still have removal orders.

“This is another form of family separation, and it’s quite in your face,” said Elizabeth Sanchez Kennedy, immigration legal services Director at YMCA International Services, who represents them.

At a hearing in early May in Jose’s family’s case, federal district Judge Randolph D. Moss said he was “troubled” by the government’s effort to “orphan” the children.

“The plaintiffs here are very young,” Moss said.

“You’re taking a nine-year-old child, removing that child from the parent and sending that child to a place in which the child has no guardian.”

With the judge questioning the constitutionality of separating Jose’s family, ICE said it would hold off on deporting the children until November or a decision by the immigration appeals court. That allows Jose time to pursue his separate asylum claim.

Getting a hearing, however, is no easy feat, with already backlogged immigration courts thrown into further chaos by the coronavirus. Already, Jose has been waiting close to a year for the Baltimore immigration court to schedule one.

Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, noted that the administration repeatedly has pushed back Remain in Mexico hearings while insisting that unaccompanied children continue to attend court during the pandemic.

“It’s clearly more driven by law enforcement priorities than health considerations,” Tabaddor said.

Meanwhile, ICE’s stay is at the agency’s discretion; Jose’s kids still face removal orders. If he ultimately wins asylum, he likely could include his children, and potentially their mother.

In Matamoros, she said she will never allow her children to return to El Salvador.

“My wish is to be with my children there in America one day,” she said. “But if it is my turn to return, I have already lived my life. They are just beginning to live.”

Times staff writer Patrick McDonnell and special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez contributed from Matamoros and Mexico City.

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[tf2humbug]

My TF2 Comic Series

This is a rough idea as to how I'd plan out a new on-going TF2 series if I were given the chance, based on what I know of established plot and my major assumptions about what some of the final developments are likely to be. When (if?) part 7 of the current TF2 comics storyline gets released, a lot of this may get rendered moot. I'm just spit-balling, anyway. It's fun! So! Here we go. Picking back up in the spring of 1974. Everything is different yet also pretty much exactly the same. Demo gets saddled with Merasmus, first as a roommate, then as a magical mentor. Merasmus knows he must eventually train a successor to carry his arcane knowledge into the future, and while this guy may be drunk half the time, he actually has a lot of potential. And besides, he did Merasmus a solid when he took him in. So Demo embarks on a wondrous-yet-annoying quest to unlock his magical potential and claim his alchemical heritage. Merasmus and Mrs. DeGroot get along like they've been friends their whole lives, of course. Demo's home life becomes a wacky supernatural sitcom starring himself, Merasmus, his mum, and his three familiars Eyelander, Bombnomicon, and Mini Monoculous. (Those three have their own weird dynamic. None of them actually like each other very much.) And hey, magic powers!!!! Zhanna and Soldier have the biggest, stupidest, most elaborate Hawaiian wedding ever because it's the furthest thing from that frozen Siberian hellscape she could imagine. (Soldier grumbles a bit that it's barely even America, but finally relents.) Literally everyone is invited, including any and all NPCs, old enemies, the ghost of Tom Jones, a clan of raccoons, and close family of the mercs. We get to meet Soldier's weirdly normal family and catch up with Zhanna's family. Soldier turns into a drama-bomb groomzilla while Zhanna is just overwhelmed with happiness. She falls into a coma from the mental shock and is roused out of it when magical intervention annoys her into returning to reality. Once married, they immediately begin furiously attempting to conceive a child. Like, more than they were before. Heavy himself is adjusting to his new family situation and being a little overbearing (unintentionally.) His mother is happy to be taken care of, so he moves her to America and builds her a beautiful cottage not too far from where he lives. It has all the amenities, including a high-powered laser mounted on the roof. Zhanna is starting her own family, and he's secretly giddy at the idea of being an uncle. Yana and Bronislava are both off on their own world-trotting adventures, but they don't write him as often as he would like. He's collecting the selfies they mail him from all the exotic locations they visit into a photo album, which he likes to flip through and feel that big brother combination of pride and worry. Medic has to deal with his past, such as his parents. He's finally gotten around to going through the box of keepsakes and documents left to him by his mother, where he makes some interesting discoveries, and his elderly father comes sniffing around, presumably to take advantage of his estranged son's advances in rejuvenatory medicine. Meanwhile, occasional bids from Mephisto, Perdition Representative and current minority shareholder of his souls, to tempt him into trading for more favors are casually swatted away. (I mean, until he actually wants something he can't accomplish himself.) Medic really shouldn't underestimate a sufficiently pissed-off devil, though. They have ways. Throughout every story, hints are occasionally dropped that Pyro is an alien. Some are subtle, some... less so. Someone important apparently takes notice when Pyro begins to be followed around by 70s-era X-Files style FBI agents. Balloonicorn delights in terrorizing them, but Pyro is looking forward to making real good friends! Ultimately, nothing is ever revealed one way or another about Pyro's nature, so everyone just ends up kind of confused. Saxton Hale has stepped down as the big boss of Mann Co (handed over to Miss Pauling, who will sometimes call for advice) but remains an investor. He and Mags are now a power couple, but he's going through a mid-life crisis in which he's seeking out and wrestling the most legendary, dangerous monsters in the world, which is getting dangerous even for him. Mags has her own complicated feelings about the rekindled relationship, including the baggage from her past marriages, brief as they were. Eventually Saxton must face the fact that the most challenging foe he must wrestle into submission is... HIS DUTY TO MANKIND (and Mags.) They return to Australia to help rebuild after the loss of all the world's Australium and oppose Charles Darling's growing post-apocalyptic Thunderdome-esque zoo-based empire. Sniper has manned a disastrous submarine expedition to the sunken ruins of New Zealand (because he built it himself and refused to ask for help) and barely survived. He reluctantly asks his fellow mercs and Miss Pauling for help in a second expedition, recovering artifacts of his lost heritage in return for sharing it with Mann Co. He also gets roped into Mad Max-esque adventures with Saxton Hale and Mags. And of course, his birth parents are still at-large, which he doesn't know how to deal with AT ALL. Miss Pauling is juggling several explosives at once. First, she's just getting the hang of being Mann Co. boss (including having people do things FOR HER, her assistants Bidwell and Reddy), dealing with the terrorist cult Rise & Shine that's out to ruin the company, hiring new staff (Driver to help with the cult situation and a new merc liaison to fill her old role, Chicken Girl), forging her vision for the future of Mann Co., and deciding how to deal with the company's inconvenient ward Olivia Mann. She has her fair share of frazzled moments and sudden urges to dump all her responsibilities and run far, far away, but she never does. That's not who she is. Oh, and she gets a girlfriend, so that's nice. The new liaison Chicken Girl (as everyone insists on calling her after Scout recognizes her) doesn't actually remember Scout and finds him very aggravating, but not enough to quit her new super-legit job, which she's actually very good at, once she gets the hang of it. She just wishes they'd stop calling her Chicken Girl. Just "Chick" isn't an acceptable substitute. Engie is increasingly called on by Miss Pauling to consult on developing exciting new tech for Mann Co, which is especially important in a world without Australium to fuel effortless scientific discovery. The McMANN is his first such success, and he's so excited and proud! He collaborated with Driver, the new blood, on its final design, but it was 95% his project. (He's pretty sure that goes without saying.) Engie spends a lot of his time quietly tinkering away at ideas to make the McMANN even better, but he cooking up some other stuff that he knows Miss Pauling will be interested in. Even though some of it's a little... weird. Scout, Spy, and Scout's ma are awkwardly trying to form a conventional family unit. This is extremely complicated because Scout is still convinced his father is Tom Jones and there are all those older brothers to deal with. The most successful moments happen when Scout's ma tricks the two of them into spending time with her for a nice outing like a picnic at an outdoor concert, a baseball game, a demolition derby, etc. (Of course, there are shenanigans.) We also learn about the history behind Scout's parentage. The Mann brothers are all still hanging around as increasingly irrelevant ghosts, doing silly ghost stuff. Since they're triplets, none of them can move on unless they all do, and it's a constant source of arguments. Redmond & Blutarch just want to pull spooky pranks on people, but Gray takes as much time as he can to try to influence and even possess his daughter Olivia, which she eventually starts fighting. I would include Driver in this new set-up, as previously mentioned. As the new recruit, she'd be the one to ask questions about stuff the audience might want answers to, which is a useful function in fiction where a bunch of crazy shit happens all the time. She'd have her own little character arcs, too, but I've gone on enough about all that. And do keep an eye on that weird new cult that has it out for Mann Co. Rise & Shine? Yeah, I've mentioned them a few times. To the public, they seem so cute and harmless, with their chubby smiling mascot of a guru, talk show coverage, novelty songs, and funny comic book series. But we know better.

[noisylibrary]

This year we decided to list our favourite albums in a new format. Pictured above is the collection of our top 100 albums placed near similar sounding albums. 

Below is our top 10 favourite albums of 2018, in no particular order!

You Won’t Get What You Want - Daughters 

Uncompromisingly noisy and abrasive, Daughters have proved that, as amazing as their last album was (2010s self-titled release), they were only scratching the surface when it came to the aggression, horror, and abrasiveness. You Won’t Get What You Want has the energy of a thrash or black metal album, but the rhythm and repetition of a Swans record. It’s noise rock pushed to it’s furthest extremities. What separates Daughters here though from other loud rock bands is easily their versatility. When this album gets loud, it gets ear shattering: songs like “The Flammable Man”, standing at just two minutes, is one of the busiest and most overwhelming rock songs of the year. “The Reason They Hate Me” is similar in that regard, but offers a more direct and straight forward song structure.

Even in their quiet moments, Daughters still manages to be as terrifying. “City Song” is atmospheric and chalk-full of tension, with frontman Alexis Marshall speaking his esoteric lyrics at a near whisper quiet volume, back by harsh shots of noise and a thick wall of sound. “Less Sex” and “Daughter” are similar in their hazy approach, but still manage to remain on par in terms of substance, whether it be in the mental health references in the former, or the intense, scoring harmonies at the tail end of the latter.

While the previously mentioned tracks are all fantastic and make for a powerful and diverse listen on their own, Daughters without a doubt saves the heaviest and most mind-melting moments for the last two songs on the record. The first of which, titled “Ocean Song”, takes lyrical cues from an album like Spiderland, telling the story of a man who, upon returning to his home, is struck with an overwhelming sense of terror (“He explodes through the backyard like a shot from a gun, clearing the fence in one leap”). It’s one of the most intense moments on the record, and it is only escalated by the unrelenting piles of guitars and crashing drums. However, it’s on “Guest House”, the albums final moments, that the true horror of this album comes to its ultimate climax. Over and over, walls of sour guitars and drums crash down on top of one another. Marshall’s vocals are more tortured and broken down than they have ever been, as his cries of “Let me in” go completely unanswered. The song is only four and a half minutes, but not a second is wasted, as it is packed with dread and fear that will shake the strongest of souls to their core.

For sure, there are albums in 2018 that might reflect on the current times better than that of “You Won’t Get What You Want”. Will this album still be as relevant as an album like “Wide Awake” or be as well remembered as “Kids See Ghosts” ten or twenty years down the road? It’s hard to say. Regardless of what you think of the album, though, it wreaks of universal dread; its lyrics may be tough to pin down and won’t be as relatable as most albums from the past year, but its sound is unmatched in terms of its experimentation and its emotional trauma. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but if you can see through the many, MANY, noisy guitars and instruments, then you may just find yourself enjoying the existential sadness of this record.

Die Lit - Playboi Carti

Playboi Carti is no lyrical miracle. One listen to his viral hit (and banger) Magnolia from 2017 and his general subject matter and sound are apparent. Unfortunately, his debut mixtape didn’t exactly live up to the expectations of that song. Thankfully though, Die Lit was released earlier this year and allowed Carti to prove himself as a more than worthy name in hip-hop. Die Lit is loaded with dusty trap bangers, minimal and simple but hypnotic instrumentation. The beats are woozy and drugged out, but are filled with psychedelic sounds and samples. Playboi doesn’t venture too far out of his comfort zone, but does demonstrate that his style is more versatile than it was on his debut mixtape and on Magnolia. “R.I.P” is probably trap’s banger of the year, with its aggressive lyrics and Carti's cutting energy. “Shoota” with Lil Uzi Vert is actually sort of epic in the way its pianos and strings escalate with Carti and Vert singing over top of it. This album even has a few topical tracks, like “Mileage”, which is as close to a love song as you’re going to get on this record. If you haven’t been pleased with Carti up until this point, I implore you to give Die Lit a shot. Again, Carti is not this generations Tupac, and his lyrics are easy to criticize for being simple and just plain dumb, but his rapping combined with the whacked out, zany beats on this album create an album that is utterly intoxicating.

Snares like a Haircut - No Age

With the amount of influences on this record, this record should sound like a sad attempt at reinventing the sounds of 80s and 90s indie and post-punk. But it’s just the opposite - No Age combines these influences to make a rock album that tributes its roots while also crafting something strange and idiosyncratic. The vocals are passionate, the riffs are tight, especially on the opening track, and the production is solid from front to back. The band combines Sonic Youth-like indie and psychedelic passages to create something an album that is both accessible but also experimental. The title track, for example, is a spacey, electronic instrumental centre-piece that really shouldn’t work as well as it does. No Age effectively encompasses so many different styles and ultimately succeeded in making one of the best rock albums of the year, hands down.

2012-2017 - Against All Logic

House Music doesn’t really have a lot of sway in terms of influence and popularity in 2018. Sure, the mainstream is crowded with bass-heavy EDM music, and it has been for much of the 2010s, but much like hip-hop, it’s all been saturated to a point in which the current trends and sounds bleed between songs seamlessly to the point where nothing new is being brought to the genre. There comes a time in every genre’s existence that the sounds that were popular decades prior start to creep their way back into the music. In the underground Dance Music scene, this reinvention has undoubtedly been led by producer Nicolas Jaar. His 2011 album Space is Only Noise was hazy and ambient, but featured driving base drums that kept the music groovy. Similarly, in 2013, his collaboration with Dave Harrington under the name Darkside improved on these sounds in a major way, adding some rock elements to the otherwise dark and patient dance beats.

Now, in 2018, under a new alias “Against All Logic”, Jaar out of nowhere drops what is easily one of the grooviest and most infectious dance albums of the past decade. It wreaks of the late 90s and early 2000s house music from the likes of Daft Punk, but the samples and textures that Jaar plays with all add up to an eerily atmospheric and dense listen. But even on the surface, these songs are catchy and funky and will get you moving from the first song to the last. “This Old House is All I Have” is the perfect opener, especially in its title reference the roots of the album's music. From there on, it’s a wild concoction of sample-heavy house; Jaar’s attention to detail in the sounds of this album is evident in each and every one of these songs. It may not be first on our list, but it’s about as close to perfect as a dance music album can sound in the current landscape of music.

Some Rap Songs - Earl Sweatshirt

At 25 minutes and only 15 tracks, Earl Sweatshirt makes a statement before you even hit play on the first track, that this is not going to be a typical release from the former Odd Future member. Then once you do hit play, it becomes even more apparent that Some Rap Songs is not even close to your average rap album in 2018, especially from a name as recognizable as Earl’s. His generally monotone voice and nonchalant style are still here, but it’s the instrumentals and lyrical subject matter that separates this album from not only Earl’s own discography but from every other rap album in 2018. The experimental beats are hard to grasp, cluttered and grimy as if the spirit of Madlib lives within every single one of them. Listen to the piano samples on “Loosie” and “The Mint”, both of which are choppy and grainy, the former being one of the most lumbering on the entire project.

As amazing and unique as the beats are, though, it’s still Earl who steals the show. His sense of humour is still present, but for the most part, these songs deal with Earl’s struggling mental health and personal issues. One of the most compelling and personal moments on this record doesn’t even feature Earl’s rapping, but instead features his mother and late father, intertwined in speech and poetry on the song “Playing Possum”. For such a short album, Earl packs so much emotion into these songs, and admirably so, as this album manages to be so heart-wrenchingly sad but also bittersweet at the same time. It’s not exactly going to brighten your day, but it’s an album whose introspectiveness allows a window into Earl’s current psyche, making for an incredibly compelling character portrait, all in less than half an hour.

- Braeden

Veteran - JPEGMAFIA

The fifth full-length project from Baltimore’s JPEGMAFIA - a single rapper/producer, yes, not a mafia - is strikingly gritty, witty and definitely not shitty. Veteran sounds like a collection of angered thoughts and an ultimate release of energy in an America that JPEGMAFIA isn’t all that impressed with. Targeting white supremacists, the alt-right and Morrissey of The Smiths, “Peggy” uses an array of grinding electric beats, niche O.D.B. samples and a self-produced collection of noises that beautifully compliment the abrasive narrative that is conveyed violently and melodically on this 48-minute rollercoaster. JPEGMAFIA has always been unapologetically targeting specific individuals with his music, songs like Libtard Anthem, Whole Foods and Curb-Stomp may shock younger viewers, caution! The humour in “Peggy’s” delivery and content is felt in songs like Macauley Culkin, My Thoughts on Neogaf Dying and Panic Emoji, reminding us that he is never taking himself seriously enough to appeal to the pseudo-woke rap population, while thoroughly embracing the old and the new’s of hip-hop in a fantastic compilation of songs.

Wide Awake - Parquet Courts

Parquet Courts are a New York-based, art-punk band with a consistently energetic take on everyday subjects and notions of feeling unsure about oneself. On their sixth studio album, Wide Awake!, the sound is an evolved yet familiar one from the group, while the narrative content has both grown and narrowed its scope on a collection of pressing topics for the modern American. Describing the new social divide that the western world is building for itself and comparing it to Total Football, Normalization and Tenderness, Andrew Savage takes the lead on the album’s vocals, in lieu of the past records’ alternating co-lead vocals with Andrew Brown. Where this facet of Parquet Courts’ exchange in dialogue has become a memorable trait in the rest of their discography, Wide Awake acts as one extended plea for change and a sense of revelation in songs like Before the Water Gets Too High, Death Will Bring Change and Extinction. Despite the pessimism in the lyrical content and song titles themselves, Wide Awake maintains an aura of hope, prosperity, and fuel for a fire that invites acts of revolution from the people.  

Kids See Ghosts - KIDS SEE GHOSTS

The long-awaited collaboration between Kid Cudi and Kanye West was well worth the wait, making use of the best of the duo’s musical styles in a modern and unprecedented way. With Kanye’s regular production team behind the scenes, this piece of Kanye’s six-album puzzle of 2018 was intricately built to flow from a range of different emotions that were either felt exclusively or shared by the two established hip-hop powerhouses. Following a string of experimental and sonically challenging albums in the preceding half-decade, both Kanye and Cudi managed to compile an uninterrupted stream of triumphant motifs and dance-inducing ballads that resonate with the ever-changing landscape of hip-hop music and its newly divided culture. The exchange between some of West’s strongest and most vulnerable lyrics are chilling in synchronous harmony with Cudi’s swaying hums on songs like Reborn and the eponymous Kids See Ghosts. Memorable to say the least, KIDS SEE GHOSTS shows no pause in the strides of some of the past decade’s most thorough musicians.

Year of The Snitch - Death Grips

If you didn’t like Death Grips in the past, your opinion may not change at all. If you like Death Grips, you’ll love their sixth studio album, Year Of The Snitch. Packed with a full-size punch of industrial hip-hop breaks and hard-rock-influenced live instrument progressions, this album is nothing short of a masterpiece in its personality, raw-ness and dedication to a new and refreshing sound. Following a spree of idiosyncratically absurd promotions through their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts, the opening track “Death Grips is Online” breaks the fourth wall between their mysterious roll-outs and the cult-ish fanbase that marvels at every breath they take on the internet. The Sacramento trio announced that they would be working with Andrew Adamson (Director of Shrek), Justin Chancellor (Bassist for TOOL) and Lucas Abela (an artist that cuts his lips with glass) on the album with little bits of promo scattered on their social media accounts including a spoof of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia's” opening credits to announce the album name. Chancellor’s bass lines complement and enhance the driving rhythms created by producer Andy Morin and Drummer Zach Hill while Adamson’s spoken vocal recording creates an added mystery to his creative input on the album. Whenever the album builds itself on a riff or motif, it grows to a climax and abruptly tosses listeners back and forth with confusing and abrasive transitions, further developing this overall sense of disgust and crude emotions. This theme is sprinkled most predominantly on songs like The Fear, Shitshow and Black Paint, where a feeling of discomfort is a lasting impression for the unprepared listener. Even where an opportunity existed to have two songs flow seamlessly together, Dilemma is followed by Little Richard instead of The Fear, which sums up the album to a t. In sequence, this album tells a story that is both captivating and mysterious in a challenging and jarring manner.

Your Dog - Rose Droll

Rose Droll’s debut full length made its way into my musical scope out of nowhere, and I could not be happier to have stumbled upon it. Multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Ellen Bert ventures deep within what feels like one drained state of mind following a period of trauma in mentally abusive relationship in an earnest, gripping and thoughtful way. Comparing herself to the dog of her former partner, a Fat Duck and -not- a Happy Kitten, the San Francisco native paints a powerful image of the emotional discomfort that can be felt from an imbalance in energy from one partner to the other with mournfully catchy riffs and melodies, bouncing between a driving DIY indie sound to a singer-songwriter ballad matching the sentiment of each song and resulting in a harmonious and meticulously structured thought. The spoken lyrics in songs like Hush and Boy Bruise beg listeners to follow along and decipher, and within them is a rewarding, exciting and captivating message every stanza of the album.

-Calum

[avoresmith]

LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW GOOD SHIN SEKAI YORI IS

FUCK FRIENDS, YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE

I LOVE SHIN SEKAI YORI

I will try to tell you about Shin Sekai Yori without spoilers so if you want to go watch it yourself (it's on Crunchyroll! and probably other legal streaming sites!) you can do so without spoilers. I do think with as little spoiling as possible is the best way to approach this show.

But also I want to talk about all of the spoilers because it has one of the best meta narrative arcs of anything ever for me, and I think is ultimately a fantastic example of perspective and why I think the idea of the 'unreliable narrator' is kind of silly but rather that all characters should have their own biases and stories need to be regularly considered in the perspective of all characters.

SO HAY FIRST OF ALL, WATCH THIS COOL AMV, IT DOESN'T HAVE SPOILERS BUT IT LOOKS GREAT AND IT SHOWS A LOT OF THE NEATO ART:

(IF YOU LIKE IT, GO TO THE YT CHANNEL AND LEAVE A COMMENT)

So obviously Shin Sekai Yori gets pretty fucked up, but it starts off quite idyllic.

SSY is the slow, careful, and detailed deconstruction of a fantastical utopia. A series that doesn't so much rip it apart at the seams but just stretches it far enough that you can take a look at the stitching, then lets it settle back into place.

I really like this, but it's brutal in a way that a lot of deconstructions of this nature aren't, but I guess that is getting into spoiler territory.

SSY is told in chunks following the life Saki as she grows up to become a leader, so first and foremost I like it because it's the sort of story often allowed men but distinctly given to a young 'ordinary' girl here. The first part of the story is told with her and her friends in elementary school, and it follows them as they go into their teen years and find their places in society.

Obviously the whole POINT of a utopia in a narrative like this is that it isn't perfect, and I think the story does a great job at how it introduces the flaws of the world. Because you start following the kids AS kids, you get a child's perspective on their reality. A lot of complex issues seem simple, a lot of alarming things are overlooked while other things are fixated on because kids haven't yet been as indoctrinated as adults and you still see their moments of disbelief and alarm at the sort of shit that will eventually become part of their world.

The world itself is not one of technological perfection but a sort of homey naturalistic type. It's a universe where everyone has psychic powers, and the community is small and tight knit enough that you can know all of your neighbors, grow up with the same group of kids your whole life, and never have to fear violence or danger. Humanity has more or less overcome having a discernable caste system, there is no obvious poverty, no outcasts. Children learn about their world with a careless sort of freedom and are taught fables about times in human history where everyone didn't do their best to look out for each other. It's taught and understood that you don't indulge petty emotions and in a time of trial, you sacrifice yourself for others.

It is, by all appearance, a good world where everyone can be happy.

And it's fairly believable, even.

The story itself is about how this world was created, why the choices that were made were made, and the past and present costs of creating such an idyllic world. We learn about it all alongside the protagonist as she grows up and discovers more about the intrinsic flaws in the systems that has governed her life and determined the fates of people she cares about.

And that's really the absolute furthest I can go without spoilers. SO IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT AND WANT TO DO SO. GO FUCKING DO SO.

Now time to discuss spoilers. UNDER THE CUT:

So here is the thing, the thing I fucking love about SSY.

It never fixes the world.

Saki learns every facet of what is wrong with their system and doesn't become a revolutionary.

Which is what I mean about how it's a deconstruction that doesn't deconstruct in the sense that it takes it apart, it just shows you how it was put together and then with brutal honesty admits that we all like it better when the beautiful fantasy is in place.

"We" being the privileged ones who benefit from the construction.

One of the things I love is the careful design of the entire world and how everything kind of slots up against each other to form fantasy construction that I find quite believable and extremely interesting. Let me see if I can remember them all.

All humans have psychic powers which make them incredibly strong, nothing can challenge them but another human.

But because the strength in psychic abilities can vary so widely, it's possible for one psychic with too great a power to rule in a terrible dictatorship, to stop this, humans found a way to actually make themselves allergic to killing each other.

So if one human kills another, or rather, PERCEIVES they have done so, they will feel so much miserable empathy they will themselves die. It's called the death of shame.

This works pretty well except for the rare but possible outliers: what if for some reason a human can't feel empathy? What if a human doesn’t develop psychic powers and thus isn’t bound by the rules around them? They would be able to kill indiscriminately and more over, other humans wouldn't be able to protect themselves with lethal measures.

So you need to make sure only children who fit within certain parameters make it to adulthood.

For the good of protecting society, then, it makes sense that children are not considered individuals possessing their own rights until they are eighteen. This means not only can you kill them, but you can freely fuck with their memories without it going against your society's established morality. You're protecting the world from potential destruction, after all, but it means anyone who makes it into adulthood can be trusted with phenomenal cosmic power. How ELSE do you raise a species of super powered beings?

Then there's the monster rats, sentient creatures created by humans to serve humans. Because why have phenomenal cosmic power if you have to use it to do all of the boring day to day chores?

The best way to get rid of the class divide is, of course, to create another species to handle the work of the lower class for you.

Just tell them you're a god.

And if some of them don't want to work for you, it's religious warfare when you order the ones who do believe you're god to wipe out the others.

But what happens when monster rats start reading about human history? Start learning from your texts? Discover you are not gods just beings with a different, more advantageous skill set, with a longer history to have learned from?

And what happens when they get ahold of a human child and raise it thinking it's a monster rat?

SSY ends with Saki, our courageous, tactical, considerate, tenacious protagonist having a conversation with the tortured and deformed body of Squeara, a monster rats she'd met as a child and seen grown into a terrifying revolutionary who justifiably hated humanity for forced enslavement of his entire species.

She knows. 

She knows more about their society and its inherent flaws, who it hurts, and why all of those choices were made than probably anyone else alive. She knows the monster rats personally as well, and has seen that they are smart, capable, that they have feelings, fears, flaws. That they are no less than humans.

She knows they were created by introducing mole rat DNA to the last of humanity that never developed psychic powers.

She said herself that for the number of monster rats they had killed, they should have died the death of shame thousands of times.

Yet, while Squeara's tortured and still living remains rest in a jar, on display in a memorial as penance for his crimes against humanity, she she wistfully reminisces over the first time they met.

Then she mercifully kills him.

Because she can understand monster rats, she can know their origins, she can see who they are people, she can pity them. But she can't see them as human. And the death of shame isn't about reality, it's about perception.

And in fact, not seeing them as human is an essential component of her status above them, not just as a member of the privileged caste, but as a future ageless leader of their people.

And the show ends on a hopeful note. She wants to build a better world for her child. She believes that humanity can change. From her personality we know she will seek out the truth, and try to make good choices that balance both morality and the future of her people. And she pities the monster rats, she wants to take care of them, I don't for one second doubt that she wants them to have a better life in the future as well.

But she isn't willing to tear down society as it stands to achieve it, she isn't even really willing to be particularly disruptive. She wants to make the slow and subtle changes necessary to improve the world that they have, not rip up anything by its roots nor shame the people born into this world for the advantages it has offered them.

And you understand her, because you saw her learn every piece of information up until this point. Maybe you want to believe it’s not what you would do, but you can understand why it’s what she does.

It's not the story we usually get, or at least not the story I grew up on.

When you grow up in a utopia only to discover it is built on a network of lies and hypocrisies that cause some group to suffer so that the privileged can maintain their comfort, the next step is anger, resentment, betrayal, revolution. Within a generation one society is crumpled and the hope is that a better one will be built in it's place.

SSY shows that story from a different perspective, one that is I think less naively kind and optimistic about the likelihood of privileged people, if given all of the knowledge, power, and opportunity, to upturn their own lives, sacrifice their comforts, their position, in favor of doing 'what is right'.

It is in fact, brutally honest about the likelihood of such a person even really grasping 'what is right', of them even truly being able to empathize with people who live in such a different world from them that they fully recognize their humanity and connect with their deaths in the same way they would with someone they 'recognize'.

Saki is a good girl, a good friend, she's smart, thoughtful, empathic. You'd probably vote for her to be president. I know I would.

But she isn't going to upset the establishment. She's going to gently guide it toward a better path in marginal increments, and she will more or less sleep soundly with the understanding that change takes time, secure in the belief that life isn't inherently fair, but everyone is doing their best to bring about the best possible future.

It is, to me, an amazing character piece, and an amazing world building piece.

And I think it does something interesting that a lot of shows don't.

It gives you all of the pieces, but it doesn't tell you what to take away from it.

I think you could easily criticize the tone of the narrative and say it wants you to not be critical of Saki, to be proud of her, to think she is amazing, that she did everything she could, that she's a hero because she's the protagonist.

But it doesn't give you the pieces to that story, that's just what you get if you take 'protagonist' and the way she gets a happy ending and a hopes for a good future.

The pieces it gives you unilaterally are that monster rats are the same as humans, but that from the human perception they are grotesque, inexcusable, unrelatable.

Humans shudder in horror at monster rats for lobotomizing their queens to use them for breeding but humans murder and alter the memories of their children to weed out anyone not neurotypical or who doesn’t develop psychic powers.

In a scene that gives me chills, Squeara screams that he is human to a room full of humans who mock him and condemn him to a fate of eternal suffering, a fate that can only be bestowed by a god.

And then Saki, the merciful god, puts him out of his misery and in doing so proves that she never saw him as being human, right until the end.

She will do 'her best' to help the monster rats, to keep a promise she made. But she will always do it as someone who stands above them, can't be hurt by them, and may not ever see them as equals.

And I fucking love it.